Author's note: This is my first fanfic, so please be understanding :) I haven't really decided what's gonna happen here, so comments and suggestions are more than welcome!

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Michelle sat at her desk and sighed. She'd been working all day long and was seriously getting tired. She realized that she'd only had a cup of decaf at noon and a sandwich Kim had brought her from the cafe next to CTU, and that was.. Hours ago, she thought to herself and let her eyes wonder around the office in search for Tony. He was standing on the upper level and giving instructions to a young girl, who seemed to be very much confused. Tony gave a brief look towards Michelle's workstation and their eyes met. He smiled, but then jerked his head towards the girl as she started talking. She was pointing at papers and looking worried, yet enthusiastic. Michelle guessed she had just started working at CTU and smiled as she remember her first days at the office, that would soon be a lot more than just an office. Judging by the hours they spent there every day, every week, it was more like home. At first it felt intimidating to allow work to have such a control over your life, but you'd get used to it. This was no ordinary job, where you'd come in at 8 a.m and leave at 4 p.m, go home and forget everything and start living your home-centered life. Sometimes it was hard, she admitted that, especially when she and Tony had just gotten married. There was a lot of fighting and silent treatement over the fact that they never saw each other outside the office. But it takes a lot of understanding and trust and they both aknowledged the demands of the job pretty soon. This was something that had to be done. It was important and they'd just make the best of what they had.

"Busy?" Jack asked teasingly getting Michelle startled.

"Oh.. Hi, Jack. What? No, not really." She laughed after realizing she had just been slacking for a while whereas everyone else were doing they're tasks so that they'd get home some time tonight.

"It's a quiet night for me, nice change though!" she continued. "I was actually just trying to get Tony's attention so we could head home in a minute."

"Yeah.. I think he was instructing that kid from IT?"

Michelle looked over to the upper-level and tried to find them but she could see neither Tony nor that new girl.

"Yeah.. Um... I guess. They were there just a minute ago..." She looked back to Jack: "You're heading home some time soon?"

"Yeah.. Look, if you're tired I can give you a ride if Tony is busy."

"Thanks, but I'll think I'll wait for him, there's not much to do tonight so I seriously hope he's ready to go soon."

"Ok." Jack turned to leave.

"Jack?"

"Yeah?"

"If you see him, tell him, I'm waiting for him and... tell him to hurry, ok? I'm starving and I just want to go to bed!"

Jack laughed: "Don't we all? I'll tell him if I see him."

Michelle tried to find Tony from the upper level, but she couldn't see him anywhere. His office was empty too. Her feet were killing her and she was too tired to get up and find him herself. Suddenly the phone rang.

"Dessler" Michelle answered.

"Hey Michelle, it's Kim. You haven't seen Chase by any chance?"

"Funny thing you'd mention it, I've being dying to find Tony for a minute here, so we could go home."

"Oh, I was thinking the same thing here. So you haven't seen him?"

"No, I haven't. Jack was here though. He was gettinget ready to leave."

"Oh, ok. Well, I just have to find him myself. Maybe he was heading to IT?"

"Maybe, I'd check the coffee-room as well, it has been our Mecca for the past couple of days!"

Kim laughed and Michelle got a bit cheered up. They hung up.

Tony was leaning over a computer screen. A young blonde girl was sitting in front of it and pointing at some satellite photos with a small pen. There were some frames missing from the images. It was probably nothing but it was also something that had to be checked. Tony didn't want Chapelle on his back or anything, so he'd play by the rules on this.

"Jack! Can you come here for a minute?"

Jack, who was walking by to get his coat and car keys from his office looked annoyed, but came anyway.

"Look, I'm just about to leave, can't this wait?"

"I'd like to see this done tonight, it's probably nothing, but what do you think about these?" Tony asked explaining the whole situation.

"You're right, it's probably nothing.. I'll have few guys check the area."

"Yeah.. Ok"

"Look, Michelle was looking for you." Jack said as he headed towards his office to make some phone calls.

Tony walked the stairs down to the lower-level where Michelle's workstation was at. She was resting her head between her arms and he felt guilty for having her wait there for him. She lifted her head up and looked at Tony and smiled. He could see how exhausted she was. "I'm sorry sweetheart, you're ready to go?"

"Yeah. A quiet night for me. I did that analysis on the database Jack asked me to and it seems to be running just fine. I don't know what Chloe was complaining about?"

"Can't blame you, she's been extraordinary bitchy lately." Tony smiled after taking a quick look to ensure that Chloe wasn't anywhere close.

"Don't worry, she left a few minutes ago." Michelle smiled knowing what her husband was thinking.

The new shift was getting settled as they slowly started flooding towards the workstations one by one.

The phone rang and Michelle grapped it: "Dessler".

Tony noticed how weary her voice sounded but was still amazed how he himself wasn't that tired at all. He had had a few, and by that he meant a dozen cups of coffee in the coffee-room with Chase. They were talking about sports. "It's the Cubs-mug" he thought and smiled.

"It's for you, Tony." Michelle said in a very neutral tone. Tony took the phone.

Michelle knew what this was all about. Again, he would have to stay at CTU for some stupid reason while she'd go home and sleep alone. He'd come just before the sunrise and sleep all morning, while she'd sit in the kitchen eating breakfast, alone, and then they'd start to get ready for work. The only time they ever spent time together was in the car while heading for work. They didn't even have lunch or dinner together. They'd just pick chinese or something to go and eat it wherever they had time. She had eaten her lunch with Kim more often now as Tony seemed to be in a hurry all the time. She'd thought it would have changed when Jack got back and took the lead, but no, it hasn't.

"Oh.. Ok, I'll be there in a minute." Tony put the phone down, Michelle had already packed her things.

"I'm so sorry Mich..."

"Don't! Tony, just.. Don't!" Michelle stood up. "I'll ask Jack to give me a ride. Again."

She emphasized the word 'again' so that Tony would notice the clue, although it was obvious to him. She started walking away from him in a quick pace.

"Michelle, stop! Look at me." Much to Tony's surprise she turned around, sighed and looked straight to his eyes. She was quiet for a moment, just enough for Tony to see how he had hurt her feelings, again.

"I see you in the morning. Good night."

Tony felt guilt ridden. He hated himself for doing this to her. He'd thought they were over this thing, but obviously they weren't. He knew he worked too much, but, especially during these last months he had had difficulties spending enough time with Michelle. It's not that he didn't want to, Oh God, how he missed her. She was the only thing lighting up his day in this cold and stony place. He just looked from his office, where he had an excellent view over the lower-deck, towards Michelle's workstation, where she would be sitting typing or talking on the phone, tucking her curly hair behind her ear... But then something comes up. Something that no one else can do. There's always something.

It was so much easier for Jack. He didn't have a... "Family..." Tony thought and felt horrible for even thinking about it. Sure there was Kim, but she lived on her own and there was no one who'd be waiting for him when he came home. It wasn't the same when Jack worked the whole night through, Tony admitted it. He decided to pick up the pace and get home as soon as possible. He'd make this up for her.

Michelle walked down the corridors. She couldn't express her feeligns right now, she felt like smashing things or throwing something at someone. God, she was angry. She walked down to the parking hall.

"Please, Jack, be still here." She tried to look for Jack with no luck.

"Going home?"

Michelle turned around to see who she was speaking to. "Oh, Lilah, you almost scared me. I was just looking for Jack, it seems that Tony's gonna work all night, so I was looking for a ride."

"Men.." Lilah smiled. "I can give you a ride, I was just heading home myself."

Michelle didn't know what to say. She didn't really know Lilah, they usually just exchanged few words in the coffee-room, that's it, she was actually amazed that she'd remembered her name. Lilah... Something.. The last name had slipped her mind. Michelle look quickly for Jack, but as she didn't want to take a cab she decided to go with Lilah. She wasn't really a fan of getting into strangers' cars, but Lilah wasn't really a stranger.

She wasn't sure what to talk about with Lilah, as they were driving. The small-talk never came easy to her and she was still feeling a bit angry and frustrated to analyse men or work or both. Though she didn't really feel Lilah was into gossiping or chit-chatting, she somehow looked like a more serious type of a person. Nothing like Kim, for instance, Michelle smiled. Kim was always up for a little chat.

"You can drop me off here." Michelle pointed to a beautiful house, which had been painted light blue last spring. It was a really nice neighborhood: extremely neat lawns and white picked fences. They had to hire one of the neighborhood kids to mow their lawn once in a while to keep their neighbors happy.

"So we'll see at work tomorrow?" Lilah asked.

"Yeah, Good night and thanks for the ride, you're a life saver!" Michelle smiled.

"Don't mention it!" Lilah said.

She drove away and Michelle started to walk towards the house. It was dark but she could see the flowers needed some watering some time soon or they'd end up dead.

"Maybe I should get some plastic ones.." she thought as she checked the mailbox and carried the envelopes whilst going through her purse to find the keys. She opened the door and kicked off her shoes. What a relief! She left her keys and the purse on the table as she started to go through the mail.

"Phone bill, it's gonna be massive.." She mumbled as she went through the envelopes. One was plain white and it didn't have a stamp on it, so someone had to have brought it to the mail-box personally. "Mr. And Mrs. Almeida" said the envelope. No one had taken any notice on the fact that Michelle hadn't changed her lastname. It was still Dessler, but it didn't really bother her to be called Mrs. Almeida.

She ripped the envelope open. It was a letter. Michelle stared at it in a shock.

"What the hell are they thinking?!" She said aloud. She couldn't believe it. It was a petition from the people of their street. It had at least twenty names written on it demanding Tony and Michelle to cut down the old oak tree from their backyard. Apparently it was shading the other neighbors' backyards and there was also a risk that it would fall down causing damage to other people's property. Wasn't it enough that they'd hired someone to mow their lawn?!

This was just what she needed. Michelle thought the tree was beautiful, though she hadn't had much time to sit under it. In fact she had had hardly any time to sit around their backyard planting flowers, watering them and taking care of them like the other wifes did. She didn't have time for this! She was hardly ever home for God's sake!

She walked to the back door throwing the jacket and some extra clothing she was wearing onto the sofa. She didn't switch the lights on – she didn't want to disturb the neighbors anymore than she had to. They had a strict policy on keeping the backyard and porch-lights off after 10 pm. If one wanted to have a party one should ask others permission first: no music, nothing after 10 pm. Preferably not after 9 pm, to be honest. Otherwise it was a lovely place to live. A lovely place to raise children. If they'd have enough time to have children. Michelle sighed bitterly.

She tried to find a pair of slippers but as she couldn't find a single pair, she stepped on the wet grass barefoot. The ground was a bit cold which almost made her turn around to get that jacket. She still had that letter on her hand as she walked to the oak tree. Sure it was old, but did it need to go down, she wondered. She walked round the tree letting her hand feel the tree's bark.

The night was quiet, maybe too quiet. It was a bit chilly too and Michelle found herself shivering. She was about to turn around and walk back inside as a bright white light blinded her. Next a heat wave struck her down throwing rubble towards her. Something hard slit her right arm. The sound of the blast came to her next as the two-storey house blew up in pieces.