Chapter 4

The Next Day -

CTU wasn't particularly busy that morning. The crew working the 2nd shift managed to stop Saiid, and he was being held in a federal holding cell. Allie was told to work on backing up software and changing access codes, so it would be harder for people to break in. Division liked to get this done as often as possible, and the last time it was done was over a month ago.

Tony walked into his office that morning and closed the door. He began clicking on his keyboard, and sending emails. His phone rang twice, it was an outside call, and he stopped typing to answer it.

"CTU Almeida." Tony said into the phone.

"Tony, this is Michelle, I'm going to be late this morning, traffic is horrible." Michelle said sounding tired.

"Yeah, where are you?" Tony asked, he was very skeptical.

"I'm about 30 minutes away, I'm on Jefferson Ave. The line for this light has to be a mile long." She said. Tony nodded his head. He looked down at Allie for a minute, and she was still busily working on changing the codes.

"Yeah, can you hang on a second?" Tony asked. He didn't wait for her to answer, instead he just put her on hold, and dialed Allie's extension.

"Adams." She said never taking her eyes off the screen.

"Hey, I need you to set up a trace for me very fast. I have Michelle on my line and I think she's lying to me." He said. Allie looked up at him in his office. He was also looking down at her. He had a very serious look on his face.

"Sure, it should only take a few seconds." She said.

"Great, and after that I also need you to pull up the traffic monitor on Jefferson St." He said.

"Ok, I'll send that to your screen." She said and hung up. Tony released the hold button and began talking to Michelle again.

"Hey, sorry, business you know." He said.

"That's fine. Was there something you wanted to say to me?" She asked..

"Yeah. See, ever since we've been apart, I've had this empty hole in my heart." He said. Michelle gave a big sigh.

"Tony, we've been through this. I just don't see how a future together will work." She said.

"Yeah, so you say, but I haven't had a drink in over 4 months, and all my values have come back to me, I'm the same person I was before I went to prison." He said. She could hear pleading on his voice.

"Can we please talk about this later, you're working, and this isn't in your job description." Michelle said. "I'll be in as soon as I can." She finished and hung up. Tony heard the click and slowly hung up the phone. He took a deep breath in and looked down at Allie who was finishing up the trace. He picked up his phone again.

"Adams."

"Get it?" He asked sounding somewhat depressed.

"Yeah, she's not on Jefferson, look at the traffic feed, there isn't much at all, it's moving steadily. I got an address though. The call came from 3274 Washington Blvd. Want me to pull up deeds?" She asked. Tony hesitated before answering.

"No. Thanks anyway." He said and hung up the phone. Tony was up in his office for the next half hour not bothering anyone. It looked like he was just sitting there thinking, or spacing out. Allie looked up there every once in a while, to see if he had changed at all, but every time she looked, it was the same. Allie finally decided to go up and make sure he was alright. In all the time she's been at CTU LA, she had never seen Tony do this. She got up from her station, and walked up the stairs cautiously. When she got to the top, the door was open, but she knocked anyway.

"Tony?" She said while knocking softly. His head jerked to the side. Whatever he was doing she pulled him away from it.

"Yeah, what's up?" He asked spinning his chair to face her. She looked at him for a minute before responding.

"Are you alright?" She asked. "I mean, you've been up here, secluded and staring into space for a half an hour. Did anything bad happen on the phone?" She finished.

"No, don't worry, I'm fine." Tony said getting up. "Hey, thanks for getting that trace together so quickly." He added.

"No problem. Is there anything else I can do, can I get you a cup of coffee?" She asked. Tony smiled at her, his eyes seemed to be bigger now that he was all there.

"Yeah, coffee would be great. Thanks." He said. Allie nodded and walked out of the office. She went down to the coffee pot in the lounge, and poured Tony a big cup of java. She brought with her 3 cream cups, 3 sugar packets and a stirrer. She left the room, and as she was walking back, she saw Michelle had arrived. She was already getting to work. Her hair looked slightly disheveled, like she did it fast. She ignored it and walked up to tony's office and put the coffee on his desk.

"Thanks, I appreciate it." He said.

"Don't worry about it." Allie said. She smiled and walked out. As she walked out he picked up his phone.

"Dessler."

"Can I see you up here for a minute?" He said hanging up the phone. Michelle just looked up in his office and saw that he was pouring cream into his coffee. She got up from her station and went to go see him. She walked in and Tony looked up immediately.

"Since when do you use cream in your coffee." She asked.

"Listen. - " He started but was cut off.

"Tony, I know you want to talk, but this is neither the time nor the place." She said staring at him intently.

"Well, I am glad to hear your sentiments, but actually I just wanted to give you the new codes that were changed this morning." He said looking at her sideways. He reached for a folder and handed them to Michelle. She took them and held them to her chest. She hesitated a minute and looked at the ground before speaking again.

"So, did you have fun last night?" She said lifting her head to give him a dirty look.

"Excuse me?" He said not understanding what she meant. Michelle rolled her eyes.

"Never mind. Thanks for the codes." She said walking out. Hours passed with everyone working on their assignments with no hiccups or errors. Allie got up to go to the bathroom. While she was washing her hands, Michelle came into the bathroom. Allie smiled at her and started to dry her hands. Michelle came and stood next to her.

"So, went out with Tony last night." She said folding her arms by her chest. She was leaning against the sink and she looked pissed.

"What?" Allie asked looking back at Michelle, wondering how she knew. Did Tony tell her?

"I saw you two leaving Jesse's last night. I was in traffic, and I saw enough to know what's going on." She said.

"Ok, you got me, what's going on?" Allie said not liking the way this conversation was going.

"Don't play stupid with me."

"Listen Michelle, all we did was go out for a cup of coffee, it was no big deal." Allie said.

"I thought you didn't drink coffee?" Michelle said slyly. She thought she had got Allie there. Allie turned her head slightly to the side, trying to see Michelle's anterior motivesfor this confrontation.

"I had tea." Allie said trying to read her.

"Just stay away from him, alright." Michelle said. Allie was slightly taken aback by her statement.

"Michelle, there's no reason to be jealous."

"Jealous, do you really think I'm jealous?" She asked astonished that Allie would bring that up.

"Yeah, I do. You can't handle the fact that Tony went out with another girl. Whether you want to believe it was innocent or not that's your problem." Allie said trying to walk away. Michelle blocked her way, she looked furious.

"Leave him alone. He's none of your business." Michelle said staring hard at Allie.

"Well, I'm sorry to tell you this Michelle, but you and Tony arn't married anymore, so he's none of your either." Allie said grabbing the door handle and walked out leaving Michelle standing there awestruck. Allie walked straight up to Tony's office and closed the door. He was on the phone and he realized that she needed to talk right then.

"I'm going to have to call you back." He said hanging up the phone. "What's going on? Everything alright?" He asked.

"Something just happened to me in the bathroom." Allie said.

"What?"

"Michelle." She said. "Pull up the tapes from the ladies room. Start at 10 minutes ago." Allie said standing over Tony's shoulder as he pulled up the footage. "Alright, there, see I went in. Then I came out and was washing my hands and any second - there, Michelle walked in." Allie said. They watched the footage in silence for a second.

"Why did she block you from getting out?" Tony asked. Allie sighed.

"Because I said something that may have aggravated her a bit." She said.

"What happened?" Tony asked. Allie told him everything that was said, and Tony just sighed. "Thanks for letting me know. I'll talk to her." He finished.

"No, don't, that will only make it worse, just let me handle it. I just thought you should know, because it was about you." Allie said. She left Tony's office and went back to her station. Her phone rang. She looked up at Tony's office to see if it was him calling her, but it wasn't. She answered on the third ring.

"Adams."

"I knew you'd go running to him." Michelle said glaring at Allie from her station.

"Actually, he was showing me some new temps. If you don't believe me, why don't you ask him." Allie said hanging up the phone. This was so stressful. A moment later Tony's phone rang.

"Almeida."

"Were you just showing Allie some new temps?" Michelle asked. Tony paused before answering. He remembered that Allie said she wanted to handle this herself.

"Yeah, I was. Why?"

"Don't you think I should see them too?" Michelle asked. Tony began clicking away to bring up some report.

"Fine, come up." He said hanging up his phone. Michelle walked past Allie's station to get to Tony's office, and ignored her the whole way.