Chapter III
The elevator stopped and he opened his eyes, finding himself leaning against the wall as if he needed to support his body somehow to keep it from collapsing on the floor. Unaware of standing just the exact same way she had on her way down only minutes earlier.
The doors slid open and he quickly pushed himself off the wall and stepped out onto the corridor. To his right paramedics were just finishing to work on a security guard. He was dead, a shot to the chest. Tony didn't move but his mind staggered back under the realization that this was Nina's work too. And that her betrayal and what she was capable of hurt him more than this man's death. The life of an innocent didn't cause him as much pain as the woman who had taken it. Disgusted with himself he turned away, to his left, and just started walking. At the periphery of his mind he noticed people coming towards him, talking to him or passing by, staring. But he just kept walking, trying to leave everything behind, trying to run. But he couldn't. And as he was just thinking that he had never been the kinda guy to walk away from a situation, it didn't surprise him too much to suddenly find himself walking out in the car park and up to the van in which they were gonna transfer her to the FBI. The small window in the back allowed him a glimpse of her profile before he could make up his mind about whether to see her or not.
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"If you can't deal with it, Tony, then just leave. I'm not keeping you."
Her face showed anger and determination and her eyes flashing she didn't have to point to the door to make her point.
"But I don't wanna leave," he replied, his own anger fading and his voice suddenly soft again. His head was bowed as if he was signalizing surrender and his eyes almost looking up to her he just seemed tired.
It was sunday afternoon and he had showed up at her place, a little earlier than they had agreed on. She had smiled and kissed him but it had been rather fleetingly and he had sensed right away that there had been something on her mind.
"What's wrong?" he had asked, following her inte the living room where she had started to gather up some folders which were spread out on the table to put them on a neat pile. She had obviously been working.
"Nothing," she had said without looking up, "just give me five minutes."
He had stepped beind her and put his arms around her waist, burying his face in her neck. "Take your time," he had whispered softly, avidly absorbing her scent through his nostrils and lingering in the touch of his skin against hers. "Hi."
"Hi," she had returned his more intimate greeting, pausing in her cleaning actions to lean back against him with a silent sigh. "You are early."
"Couldn't wait any longer." In fact he had wanted to come even earlier but forced himself to control his longing. He had held her tight and lingered in the comfort of their closeness. "Why don't you tell me what's bothering you?'
"Nothing, I'm fine," she had replied, her voice revealing a slight trace of impatience or repulse.
"No, you are not," he had insisted, trying to make her turn around and face him. "You are all tensed, I can feel it."
He had meant to comfort her but she had withdrawn herself and turned away from him, back to the table with the folders and files. "Leave it, Tony. I'm fine." Her voice bearing a sharp undertone it had been somewhat of a warning and he had watched her in silence for a moment, considering whether to let it go or not.
"Why do you always have to be like that?" he had asked then, determined to confront her on an issue that had been irritating him for a while already.
"Like what?"
"Like this. Pretending you're fine when you are clearly not. Withdrawing yourself. Shutting me out. I can understand you have to be like that at work, but here, now, I thought we were something else."
His voice had become a little harsher and it had highly irritated him that she hadn't even bothered to look up at him while he had spoken. But finally she had turned around to him again, once more letting go of her paper work.
"And what exactly are we, Tony? What do you want us to be? Cause I'm not the damsel in distress you seem to want to take me for," she had countered just as harsh. "I can take good care of myself and I don't need you to console or comfort me all the time. I've done fine so far."
"Obviously."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
You've done just fine with Jack.
"Nothing," he had backed off a little. "So what, you think I don't know you are strong and independent and fully capable of getting along on your own? Cause I do, and it's one of the things that made me fall in love with you. But that doesn't mean you can't be weak or hurt sometimes. We all do. It makes us human. And usually it helps when you can turn to someone who cares about you. So why can't you let me be that someone? Why can't you let me in?"
She had just looked at him for a moment, trying to maintain her somewhat contemptuous expression despite the effect his words had had on her. "Maybe because I think you couldn't handle it," she had finally said with a repelling look.
"How do you know if you never try me?" he had replied and after another moment of staring and considering she had given in.
"Alright. I just got off the phone with a friend over at Division," she had told him with a sigh, taking a seat at the table side. "Apparently word is out about me and Jack there."
She had been challenging him by telling him and he had been aware of it, staring back at her, trying not to show a reaction. "Well, you couldn't seriously expect it not to," he had uttered, swallowing everything else that had come to his mind. But her somewhat satisfied expression had told him he hadn't managed to hide his thoughts from her.
"Why don't you just say it, Tony?"
"Okay," he had given in way too quickly. "You want me to say it, I'll say it. I don't understand why you did get involved with him in the first place, alright? I simply don't get it."
"You are jealous," she had stated.
"No, I'm not."
"You are jealous and you feel threatened by him and what we had in the past or maybe still have and that's why this is never gonna work."
"Maybe it would work if you..."
"If I what?" she had cut him short. "If I opened up a little bit? If I gave you specifics about the nature of our relationship? What kind of connection we had and why? If it's really and completely over?"
"Yeah."
She had eyed at him from her chair, her one arm resting on the table, her legs crossed, sitting upright but somehow still at ease. "Whatever went on between Jack and me is entirely our business and has got nothing to do with you," she had declared with a cold, chilly voice. "You told me in the beginning you could deal with it. Now, if you can't deal with it, Tony, then just leave. I'm not keeping you."
I'm not keeping you.No, she wasn't and if he walked out the door now, she surely wouldn't do anything to stop him. Neither now, nor later. And she wanted him to know. Wanted him to know that he was here on her terms. That he needed her more than she needed him. That he wanted her more than she wanted him. But he wouldn' let her play his mind. He wouldn't let her push him away.
"But I don't wanna leave," he simply stated, almost like a child asking not to be send away. And he could tell by her face this simple gesture had an effect on her, no matter how hard she tried not to show it.
"Then what do you want?" she asked and as if her words had been an invitation he took a step, closing in on the distance between them.
"I wanna stay." Another step. "And I want this to work." Almost there. "And I think it can. If I back off a little and you just let me in a little bit."
He was standing right in front of her now and she still hadn't moved other than lifted her chin slightly to look up at his face. He took it as a kind of silent approval. It was her way of saying: go on. I'm listening. Like a judge listening to the attorney's plea, reserving the right to interrupt or reject.
"We'll just take it from here," he said, lowering down and perching in front of her. He placed his arm beside hers on the table and while the fingers of their hands found each other she asked, with the slightest tone of teasing in her voice: "Here?"
"Right here," he confirmed and his face lit up when he saw her smile.
They didn't leave the apartment that afternoon but in the late evening they decided to go for a ride and take a walk at the beach. It had to pay off eventually to live near the coast even though their job kept them away from it most of the time.
They were strolling the pier , stopping at some point to lean on the balustrade and look out over the water.
"It's not that easy for me to open up, you know," Nina suddenly brought the subject up again. "There are certain things I've never shared with anyone. Things I've always kept to myself. I can't just start changing that all of a sudden."
He wanted to tell her she didn't have to. That he'd give her all the time she needed. That he'd wait. But he sensed there was more to come and didn't want to stifle her speech.
"What Jack and I had was pretty much in line with that. Not much talking. He was never interested in anything besides what he already knew or thought he knew, and I never asked him to give more than that," she explained with her eyes staring into the water, as if diving into the history of her relationship with Jack. "I guess I always knew he would go back to his family while he thought he didn't really know what he wanted. We were just both seeking comfort. Without any obligation to give anything else in return. A thing that happens easily when you work that closely and under such circumstances. We both knew what we gave us into and what the other one needed. What the job requires and the toll it's taking on you."
She blinked and turned her head as if to look at Tony but her eyes remained with the dark surface of the water just below them. "It might not look that way and I know it's hard to understand, and I can't explain it any better, but in a way I got exactly what I wanted out of this."
Finally she looked at him and he examined her face closely before he shook his head. "I bet he did." He scanned the horizon for a moment before his gaze returned to her.
"He just became aware that he rather wanted to be with his family," she said airily but Tony still wondered if she'd rather have him prefered to stay with her. But he didn't ask and was glad she didn't seem to notice the question on his mind. He didn't want to heat things up again. "I still think he's a bastard."
She smiled mildly. "I know you don't like him and don't approve of his work, and I won't ask you to," she said with a piercing look. "But never underestimate him. Whatever you think and whatever some people say: he's good at what he's doing and no one should be mistaken about that. So never underestimate him. Those who did ended up regretting it."
"Or dead," Tony interjected.
"Or dead," she affirmed quietly and her gaze wandered back to the water again, staring into a far distance.
"Hey," he said, trying to capture her attention and when she didn't respond reached out to place his fingers gently under her chin and make her turn to him again. "Hey," he repeated when their eyes locked, "and I don't want you to underestimate me. I'm not gonna let you push me away. I know a part of you wants to because you are scared I could see something you for some reason don't want me to see. But I'm not gonna go away. Cause I know there's also a part of you that likes me and that likes me to stay around," he elucidated insistent. "We'll make this work. And we'll make it something better."
She just looked into his eyes and what he saw in them made him have even more confidence in his own words.
"I have to be careful with you, Tony Almeida," she whispered, breaking into an amused smile. "Sometimes you can see right through me."
"And that's threatening you?" he asked, returning her smile.
"Sometimes," she answered after a second in which she seemed to be inspecting his face to make sure her words were true. "Not tonight."
"Good," he said and leaned in, meeting her lips half the way. Like sleepwalking.
"So you fell in love with me?" she asked teasingly when they had parted.
"Like you didn't know that." In the heat of their earlier argument he hadn't even been aware of his words. Their implications, certainly. He had known he was in love with her. But it had been the first time he had said it out loud. The first time he had told her. Not the way he had wanted her to hear it.
"But as you brought it up," he continued, "I think I wanna take that back."
"Take it back?" she smiled. "I'm not sure that's possible."
"Actually I wanna extend it," he clarified. "I think I am done with the falling." I think I'm in love with you.
The words hang unuttered in the air between them and there was no need to phrase them. He had smiled at her but her face suddenly took on a very serious expression and for a second he was insecure.
"I want you to know one thing," she said, her voice soft but vivid, her eyes piercing his. "Whatever it might look like to you or others, it is definitely over between me and Jack. But we have and will always have a special connection. On a work-related level and as far as it's required even on a personal level. It will just be a little awkward at times to figure out where to draw the line between those two. But that's it. We never had anything like this," she emphasized, "and we never will. And I wouldn't want us to." Another look so intense that he felt like his eyeballs would soon have to melt. "Cause I think I'm falling too."
He was taken aback by her sudden revelation and couldn't but just silently stare at her.
"Okay?" she asked after a moment of examining him.
"Okay," he said, still a bit perplex and she suddenly broke into a smile and teased: "I know I'm a little bit behind , but if you give me some time I will catch up."
"I can live with that," he replied, returning her smile and as his lips found hers again he felt the blood rushing to his head. In the furthest back of his mind he still wondered if she would have prefered Jack if she had stood a chance in the past and the thought of his potential rival would never really let go of him, but for the moment he managed to shut him out. She had just given him all he needed, seconds ago. What more could he ask for. He didn't need anything else.
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There she was. Restrained, sitting with her head and upper body slightly bowed, hands still cuffed behind her back, some blood from the gash on her forehead dripping down on her blouse and jacket. Her face still motionless, the same blank expression. Who was she? And where did the person go he knew so well? Was she really gone? Had she simply disappeared? Or had she never really existed in the first place? Everything just deceptions and lies? Tricks and calculation? If he closed his eyes he could still feel her kiss on his neck, the way he'd woken up yesterday morning, before these horrible 24 hours had happened, her hand softly stroking over his arm and up to his shoulder. But he couldn't close his eyes anymore. He could never see her like that again. Instead he forced himself to keep looking at her through the window, the blood on her forehead, the coldness in her eyes. As if staring at her for just long enough would help him to clear his mind off everything else, burn all the other memories. And maybe it was for that and nothing else that he turned around to one of the agents guarding the van, taking a step towards him and away from the window. Maybe he was seeking the confrontation just to be able to get the old Nina out of his head, replace her with that stranger sitting handcuffed in the car. Or maybe he needed another, a different kind of reassurance. To make sure she was really gone. To make sure there really was no way back or to undo the things that she had done. Maybe he just needed answers. But he would never know.
About to address the agent in charge and demand to talk to her for a minute, he noticed right away something was going on. He had been aware of the sound of the radio while watching Nina, but the content of the messages hadn't made its way into his conscience. Now he took it from the agent's face and the nervous activity suddenly setting in all around them that something else had happened.
"What's going on?"
"There's been two more victims, Sir."
"Two more?" he asked skeptically, dropping his jaw a little bit like he used to.
"Yes, Sir. A security guard on the corridor in sector B and a civilian in a nearby room in the same sector."
Tony swallowed, taking in that Nina had shot two more people on her way out of CTU. "A civilian?" he asked but knew the answer before he had finished the word. The only civilians inside CTU at the time, except for the advance staff, had been Kim and Teri and the latter one had just arrived, alive and well, considering what she had been through. And Teri had been fine too when he had last seen her...
His line of thought was interrupted by the hissing noise of the agent's radio as a calm and casual voice confirmed: "We just received an identification, the civilian casualty is Teri Bauer, the wife of one of the agents involved. Get your suspect out of there asap. I repeat, get the suspect out now."
Tony was sure his heart had stopped beating and something seemed to pull his lungs together, squeezing all the air out while the blood in his veins stopped to circulate. Every second he expected his heart to just burst into a thousand pieces, to shatter like china or porcelain. It wasn't getting ripped out, it would just dissolve into nothing. He turned his head around to the window one more time but she was not in his field of vision any longer.
"You heard it, Sir. We have to leave immediately. Was there anything you wanted?"
Tony met the agent's gaze and after a short moment of hesitation he just shook his head, not capable of saying anything at all. There were no words coming to his mind and nothing left to say for him and while the agent got onto the van, the engine got started and the car finally moved, Tony just stood, not taking his eyes off the van's backdoor and the little window even though he knew he wouldn't catch sight of her again. He wanted to move, to walk, to salvage himself into the corner of the ring where he knew he could collapse and surrender now that the fight was over and everything was lost. But he couldn't. Everything in him was paralyzed and dead.