Alex had driven the car all the way to the garage to avoid prying neighbors from seeing what he had lieing on the backseat. He closed the garage door before helping Michelle up and walked her to the kitchen.

"Can you sit?"

"Yeah, I'm feeling better already." Michelle said lying to calm Alex down. She still felt weak and dizzy.

Alex went through the kitchen cupboards in search for bandages. He cleaned Michelle's wounds and tied them carefully.

"Um.. I can show you the bathroom if you want to, you know, freshen up?"

"Ok, thanks." Michelle tried to stand up, she knew she needed to get up and going, there was something serious going on. She was still trying to realize what had happened. She needed to contact CTU. God, she needed to call Tony.

Alex led her through the master bedroom. He noticed her clothes were covered in dried blood: "If you need to change you can borrow my wife's clothes."

Kim walked inside CTU with Chase. He'd been awfully quiet in the car. She'd asked about it but he'd just said he was tired. He had been working a lot more lately, Kim reminded herself. "I should be more understanding", she thought. She felt there was something on his mind, but she'd let him tell her when he was ready. She didn't want to push him.

"Hi Jack, what's up?" Chase greeted Jack. Kim noticed his voice sounded slightly nervous.

"Hi daddy, we thought you went home already?" Kim smiled trying not sound too overprotecting. Ever since Jack's heart problems, she had taken her father's well-being very seriously.

"Yeah, well I did. But obviously I didn't stay there too long." Jack looked tired but tried to cheer up for Kim. "Anyway, I'm still waiting for a word from the field ops, and also, Tony and Michelle aren't here yet, so you might want to have a cup of coffee to wake you up. I don't feel like explaining the situation a dozen of times, so..."

"Yeah, ok. We'll do just that, won't we Chase." Kim looked at Chase, who forced a smile on his face. "You want anything, dad?"

"No, I'm fine, just had a cup a minute ago."

Jack watched Kim and Chase to head for the coffee room.

Michelle looked at her reflection from the bathroom mirror. She was a mess, but she guessed that was completely understandable. Her arm still hurt but she tried not to think about it. The past events were still on her mind and she tried to rationalize them. "Was the attack targeted at me or at Tony or at both of us?" she kept thinking. "There had to be someone watching, I had hardly went inside when the house exploded. If Tony hadn't been such an ass all night, if she hadn't stormed out of the office, if the stupid neighbors hadn't meddled with their business and sent that letter, if she hadn't got a ride from Lilah and instead decided to wait for Tony, then..." Michelle paused. "Lilah?" She didn't really know her, but when she started to think about it, it all made sense. She realized something else too, if Lilah was involved, she couldn't work alone, could she? Those explosives were definetely planted by a professional, they were so accurate and it was made sure that no one would survive the blast.

"Are you okay in there?" Alex knocked on the door and waited for an answer.

"I'm fine, thanks." Michelle gave a brief look on the small wound on her forehead. It had stopped bleeding. She opened the door. "Um.. I found these from the closet and I thought..."

"Sure, Margie wouldn't mind."

Michelle had found a pair of trousers and a sweater from Alex's wife's wardrobe. They weren't her size and she felt she would've needed a belt, but she could manage. At least she could get rid of the sweaty, dirty and bloody clothes she'd been wearing.

"Alex, may I use the phone, please?"

"Yeah, sure it's this way."

"I could get you some snack if you want." Kim tried. Chase was sitting over his coffee cup not saying a thing. He had to make a phone call, he had to think this over. But he didn't want to rush. "This could be nothing", he thought. "How could've he found out. There was no way he could know. But this is Jack we're talking about." He reminded himself.

"Chase?"

"What?!" Chase snapped.

Kim startled: "Nothing, forget it."

Chase wanted to apologize, he did care for her and didn't want to hurt her feelings. But he had made his choice and he was going to stick with it.

"Tony!" Jack rushed from the field ops with a bunch of papers in his lap. "Glad to see you here this quickly. I'll just go and get Kim and Chase, we'll meet at the conference room 2. This has just turned into priority one mission."

Tony was standing in the doorway. He nodded but Jack had already turned his back on him and was speeding towards the coffee room. Tony walked the stairs up to his office, opened the door and switched the lights on. He took off his coat and threw it towards his chair. Ofcourse it missed the chair and fell on the floor. He didn't want to pick it up. He would need to walk behind the desk to do that. They had tried to keep their relationship and marriage to themselves. Although through the matching wedding rings they had told the world they loved each other, but they still preferred to steal a kiss from each other in the quietness of closed doors. They wanted to have something that was completely theirs, not CTU's. That was probably the reason why Tony only had one picture on his desk. It wasn't even a wedding picture. It was Michelle and him on their honeymoon. He had wrapped his arm around her and they were smiling to the camera. The week had been amazing. The sun had shone every day. They had shut their cell phones off and forgotten about work. She looked dazzling. But Tony didn't want to see the photo, not now.

He walked down the stairs and headed to the conference room. He closed the door behind him, Jack, Chase and Kim were sitting already behind the table.

"We can start now?" Jack asked while going through the papers. "As you might already know, we had some problems with the satellite imagery earlier tonight. I sent two agents to check the location and some time ago we lost contact with them. We sent a team there and unfortunately the field ops just informed me that agent Calvin and agent Brown have been found dead. The area has been searched thoroughly and it seems somebody left there with a hurry. Now, we're investigating..."

"Dad, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but aren't we gonna wait for Michelle?" Kim asked. Chase straightened up in his chair and avoided looking at Tony's direction. "I mean, this sounds really bad, I'm not sure if I can cope here alone. Didn't you say she was coming too?"

Jack lifted his head from the papers and seemed to just realize that Tony had come alone. "I did. Is she not coming, Tony?"

There was so much that Tony wanted to say, so much emotions he hadn't dealt with, but he was unable to find the words. "No... um.. I don't.. I don't think she's coming."

Jack looked at his friend and could see the grief behind his eyes, although he had done a lot of work trying to cover it. But Jack had been there himself, he knew.

"What do you mean she's not coming. I thought this was everyone's top priority at the moment?" Kim asked looking at Tony and then at her father.

"Tony...?" Jack stood up leaving the papers on the table. "What has happened?" He put his hand on Tony's shoulder. "Tony?"

Tony tried to avoid Jack's eyes. Finally he just sighed deeply. Their eyes met. "Jack... Michelle is... She's gone, Jack." He said in a desperate voice.

Jack knew before Tony even opened his mouth. It was all over Tony's face.

"What do you mean 'gone'?" Kim blurted out just before she realized she should have kept her mouth shut.

Tony looked at her. "Kim, she's gone, she's dead, she blew up with our house, she burned alive, she's permanently resigned this job, what more do you want me to say?!"

Kim blinked her eyes. Tony had never shouted at her like that before. She also couldn't really understand what he was saying.

"Michelle's dead...?" Her voice was shaking. Chase sat quietly on his seat keeping his eyes glued to the table.

"Why didn't you tell me Tony? I'm sorry." Jack tried to comfort him but he knew there wasn't much to say. "Tell me what happened."

"I don't know. I just... "Tony took a moment to collect his thoughts. "I just went home and there were police men and firefighters and all those people staring and she's gone, Jack! She's gone. They said she went inside and a second later the house blew up. There was nothing left, Jack, I saw it. Nothing. It was all destroyed! I don't know. If only I had just left in time, you know. If I hadn't hurt her feelings, she wouldn't have left in such a hurry... It's just... I don't know anymore, I just..."

Tony looked as if he was about to break down. "Excuse me." He said and exitted the room.

"Tony!" Jack shouted after him, but the door had already closed.

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Author's Note: I haven't really seen the season 3 yet (we're still struggling to get through season 2 here) so I have used my artistic freedom with Chase and also with Chloe (but I killed her, so problem solved there!) and also, I don't know what's our lovely Kim like when she's all grown up and working with daddy, but I figured she can't have changed that much from season 2, so I imagine she's still a bit childish and naive (and sometimes lacks common sense, forgive me from saying, but God! She was just locked down in a private bomb shelter with a freakin' forest-weirdo and right after that she gets involved in a hostage-situation and... Well, I think you get it?)