As always, thanks for the reviews. Here's Michelle's POV of the storm. This was probably the hardest chapter to write since Michelle and Tony were together for the entire chapter. It was had to write Michelle's part without just repeating Tony's. I'm not sure if I was successful or not. Let me know when you review!

Just a couple of personals to reviewers:

Amy – thanks for reading Carnival Town and reviewing. It's nice to have someone read my old stuff and review it. That is one of my favorite stories and people tend not to read it because it is about Jack and Kate rather than Tony and Michelle. So thanks for reading it and reviewing.

Jade II – Thanks for the constructive reviews. They really help me. I love it when people just say nice things about my work, but you say nice things AND make me think about what I wrote and I appreciate it!

AlmeidaFluff – I really need to bow to the Goddess of Fluff! lol You write the best fluff out there, so when you like my stuff I'm really flattered. I do, however, take exception with your view that prison shouldn't have changed Tony. I don't care that he was only there a few months of a possible 20 years, I think Tony is a man of principals who doesn't believe that he did anything wrong by saving his wife. The fact that the government he so faithfully served has turned on him is a slap in the face that he can't forgive nor can he forget. It's not really prison that has made him bitter (although no one, including Michelle understands that) it is what the government has done to him. What I am more disturbed by in Season 4 is that Michelle has so quickly dumped him and I try and explain why she did that in this chapter.

PART III: THE STORM

Chapter 2: Michelle

I awoke to a bright flash of lightening, a loud rumble of thunder and a warm body next to mine. Of the three, it was the warm body that surprised me the most. It felt so good to have Tony so close. I wanted to be closer so I snuggled against him and he tightened his embrace. I nuzzled his chest and inhaled deeply. He smelled so good. I can't explain it. It isn't the smell of soap or cologne; it's just the way he smells. As if his skin exudes its own scent. I can't describe it either. It isn't a sweet smell or a musky smell. It's just Tony. I noticed it the first time we made love. I've never noticed it on any other man. Not that I've exactly been with an army of other men, but I wasn't a virgin when Tony and I met either. I lay still and quiet enjoying having Tony's body so near, making me forget the hellacious two years that had just past and more recently, the last awful day.

As we lay together I listened to the storm. There was something erotic about lying in Tony's arms as a storm absolutely raged around us. This probably sounds bizarre, but I found the whole atmosphere incredibly exciting. That warm feeling was back again and it was growing.

Tony ran his hand down my back and up again. Involuntarily I let out a quiet sound and did the same to him. He responded by running his hand again down my back but this time he reached under my shirt and let his had move along my bare skin. Wow! Having his hand on my skin was electrifying. I wanted him to touch more skin, all of my skin, every inch of me. I wanted him to kiss me and caress me like we had in the past. I wanted to forget that there was a world outside where terrorists wanted to kill innocent people to make God-knows-what point. I wanted the whole world to be reduced to our bed and our bodies as we reunited.

I made that same noise I had made the first time, only this time it was louder. Then I ran my hand up Tony's back and clawed him lightly with my fingernails as I moved my hand down to the small of his back. He didn't say a word but his whole body shuddered and I knew he was as excited as I was. We were lying on our sides. I lifted my top leg and rested it on his, then slowly, very slowly, I slid it up his thigh until it reached his hip. There I extended my leg and wrapped it around his body. I used it to pull his pelvis against mine. Now I knew for sure that he was excited. Based on how he was now pressing against my stomach, he was very excited. He ran his hand down my back and then followed my ribs around to the front where he first caressed my stomach briefly before reaching up to take one of my breasts in his hand and massage it. This time I groaned out loud and so did Tony.

I turned my face to his and we kissed a hard, bruising kiss. I pulled away barely able to get my breath. I couldn't stand it a minute longer. I reached down between us and put my hand inside his boxer shorts. I took him in my hand and began stroking him. He loved it! He rolled onto his back. During lightening flashes I could see his face. His eyes were closed and his mouth gaped open as if he wanted to cry out but couldn't. He began to tense up; he was about to climax. I wasn't ready for that yet. I wanted us to climax together, so I pulled away. I guess I did it a little suddenly and I could tell by the look on his face that he was stunned by my sudden move away from him. I hoped I hadn't ruined the moment and, just in case I had, I decided that it was time to turn on the sex goddess act and get the moment back.

I drew up onto my knees in what I knew was a very sexy pose. I let my hair down from the ponytail it was in and I shook it seductively around my shoulders. The lightening flashes were coming in quick succession and the thunder was almost constant. I could see Tony's face and he was watching me with rapt attention. I stripped off my camisole and threw it to the floor. Tony reached for me and tried to pull me down on top of him. He's strong, but I managed to resist and force him to move into a sitting position on the bed. Once he was sitting, I straddled his lap and wrapped my legs around him. We kissed passionately. His tongue was deep in my mouth and I sucked it. Our hands were everywhere, touching, grabbing wildly. One second his hands were on my back and the next they were in my hair, then one reached around to gently clasp a breast. Mine were at once on his face and gripping the hair on his chest, then they moved to his back and up onto his neck and through his hair. We gasped for breath between kisses.

Then thunder and lightening continued. At times the thunder was so loud that the house vibrated around us. I pulled back to get my breath and Tony took the opportunity to push me down onto the bed. He was immediately on top of me. We kissed and struggled to remove our boxer shorts, the only clothing that stood in the way of what had quite obviously become the only thing either of us could even think about at the moment. It's amazing how irrational sex can make you. Instead of rolling all over the bed and tugging at the shorts, we could have easily stopped for a half a second pulled off the shorts and been done with it. Maybe rolling around and tugging was part of the fun.

Finally done with the shorts, Tony moved his mouth from mine and started kissing my neck. He went from my neck down to my chest and started making his way down my body. He eventually kissed all the way down to the warm spot I mentioned earlier. The only difference is that the warm spot was now hot beyond belief and getting hotter with every touch of his tongue. Now it was my turn to lay back with my eyes closed and my mouth opened. I wanted to say his name to encourage him to continue or just to let him know how good it all felt but I was afraid to speak, afraid to break the spell. Even with my eyes closed I could see the flashes of lightening. The whole atmosphere was so surreal.

Now it was me who was about to climax. I swear someone plugged me into an electrical outlet and put current through my body. I tensed up, ready for a total release. In that same instant, I remembered that I wanted us to climax together tonight. Normally that didn't matter to me, but tonight it did.

I reached down and caressed Tony's face as I pulled him away from me. He seemed surprised at first. He knew how close I was and had really increased the intensity in the last few seconds. As he kissed his way back up my body, I knew he understood what I wanted. He turned us over so that I could be on top. Without a moment's hesitation, I straddled him and pushed myself down on top of him a little more forcefully than I intended. I think it surprised both of us. We both gasped and for a second neither of us moved. Boy, was I going to be sore in the morning! Once I caught my breath I was able to initiate a rhythm. It was fast and intense and only lasted seconds before we were both groaning. I think every muscle in my body was in spasm. It took forever for the tiny electrical charges to stop making every nerve ending tingle and I could relax. We finally lay still. My body on top of his, still united, still one. The storm was moving away and our breathing was returning to normal. The rain that was once pounding the roof and pelting the windows was now a gentle shower falling lightly.

I was exhausted. I felt as though every muscle had been exercised to its maximum capability. Now each muscle was rewarded for its efforts. They rested against Tony who I knew was equally exhausted. His arms rested limply on my back without the energy to rub or caress me the way he usually did after we made love. And we remained silent. The fact that neither of us had spoken the entire time was unusual. Yes, we had groaned at times but those were largely involuntary, they came from deep in our throats without our being able to control them. But neither of us spoke. We normally would at least whisper each other's name or breathlessly tell each other how good a particular touch felt or beg the other not to stop whatever act we were currently engaged in. Not tonight. Tonight we were silent and it was strangely exciting. I lay still, listening to Tony breathe and reveled in our silence.

A few hours earlier, before we went to bed, Tony and I discussed his physical relationship with Jen. I accepted that it had occurred and knew that there was nothing I could do to change that, but I didn't quite buy his line that he only "had sex" with her and didn't "make love" to her. Tony is passionate and sensitive. I couldn't imagine him just "having sex" with any woman. He would have to have a deeper commitment. Oh yes, maybe when he was in college or as a young Marine officer who was impressed with his own importance he might have had sex with some girl just for the thrill of it. But once he grew out of that phase of life, he had only had a few relationships and he took all of them very seriously. That was why Nina hurt him so badly. He loved her or he wouldn't have been physically involved with her. That was why I so doubted him when he told me that he didn't love Jen and he didn't "make love" to her. He may love me more that he loved her, but I had to believe he loved her to some degree.

After the last half hour, I had begun to doubt my own theory. The man who had just made love to me was starved for love. Maybe not starved for sex, but starved for love. I could tell it in his every reaction to my touch. I wasn't doing anything unusual when I touched him but his reactions were extreme. Surely Jen touched him in much the same way, but yet he reacted as if he hadn't been touched in a very long time. Maybe what he said was true. Jen filled a physical need for him, but not an emotional one.

I felt myself drifting off to sleep. Sleep hadn't felt this good since Tony went to prison. Even when he came home, he was so distant and locked up within himself that sleeping next to him wasn't the same as it had been. He could envelope me in his arms and there was still a wall between us. I'm not sure what caused it, but that wall had come crashing down today. Maybe we had both hit bottom. Maybe the terrorist attacks made us both see the bigger picture. I don't know what it was, but I'm so grateful that it happened. I let myself go. I let sleep overtake me. I could feel Tony carefully turning onto his side and easing me onto the bed. My head rested on the pillow just centimeters from his. I wanted to sleep like this every night for the rest of my life.

I'm not quite sure how long I slept, but the next time I woke up, the sun was shining in the window. There was no sign of the rain that ravaged the area last night. I was lying on my side with my arm around Tony and I was absolutely sweating like a pig. Well, this is attractive, I thought. As hot as I was next to him, I really didn't want to move away from him. In fact, I moved closer to him. I was amazed that another body in bed could possibly make me this warm but I guess I had forgotten what it was like.

We whispered our good mornings and my sleep numbed mind connected with my mouth and said something stupid to him like "You're hot." I meant heat hot, but of course, being a man, he thought "hot" in a sexual connotation and thanked me. I stepped right into that one! I was awake now and ready for some verbal sparring. Tony had an amazingly quick wit and I needed to be fully awake to keep up with him. He explained that the electricity was out. I was happy to learn that lack of air conditioning was why I was so hot and it had little to do with his presence in the bed.

I leaned off the bed in search of my clothes. I easily came up with my camisole, but couldn't find my shorts. Unlucky for me they fell on Tony's side of the bed and he was currently holding them hostage. I was pretty sure he would be a sucker for my whining this morning so I simply whined that it was too hot to play games. That worked. He fell for it and gave me the shorts. Can I read this man like a book or what!

The next thing I knew he was downstairs getting us some breakfast. God! This was like the good old days when we were first married. I felt like aliens had landed and taken away the Tony that came home to me from prison and replaced him with the real Tony that I loved with all my heart. I couldn't have been happier to have him home. At some point we are going to have to discuss what happened while Tony was in prison. We had both avoided the subject when he first got home.

It was strange. When he was first arrested he was upbeat despite the fact that he clearly was facing prison time. Once he was transferred to a federal facility things changed. I don't know what happened. It seemed like the first time I visited him there he was a different person. He had become quiet and sad. I wondered if he had been assaulted. Obviously being a "cop" in prison is a bad thing and other prisoners were always interested in taking down a cop. He didn't have any visible scars of a fight and I knew how strong Tony was, if someone tried to assault him, he wouldn't have gone down without a fight. He was well schooled in martial arts and could easily take care of himself against more than one person. No, if he had been assaulted, he would have had cuts and bruises and someone would have landed in the hospital ward. So, if he hadn't been assaulted, what happened? I came to the conclusion that facing 30 years in a federal penitentiary for doing something he didn't see as wrong simply broke his spirit.

The more I tried to talk to him, the more he shut me out. He even went so far as to ask me not to come and visit. He said he didn't like for me to see him this way, that it hurt too much to have me visit and then leave to go back to the real world. I continued to visit every week until CTU posted me in Seattle for a few months. It was while I was in Seattle that Jack started working on President Palmer to get a pardon for Tony. I wrote to Tony regularly and let him know what Jack was doing. His return letters seemed to have a little hope in them. I thought that getting the pardon would bring him back to life.

Jack called me at CTU Seattle to tell me that Palmer had signed the pardon. I was so excited. I took the next flight back to LA and made arrangements to bring Tony home. I would have to go back to Seattle to finish up my assignment there, but that would only take another week or two. In the meantime Tony could get settled back in at our house and start looking for a job.

I'll never forget picking him up from the prison. I was so happy and he didn't seem to care at all. It didn't seem to matter to him that he was going home. He talked on the way home about being "branded a criminal" and feeling like he had been "tainted." He was afraid that whenever he walked down the street people would stare at him and whisper that he was "the traitor that Palmer pardoned." I tried to allay his fears but it didn't work. When I left for Seattle a few days later, I was worried about him. I asked friends to check on him and keep him company. That only made things worse. Tony perceived that as my not believing he could take care of himself any more and not trusting him. That resulted in a terrible fight when I got home. Although he never laid a hand on me, I found myself actually afraid of him.

I hoped now that I was home and posted back in LA again that we would settle into a routine. It didn't happen. He resented my going to work every day but didn't want to look for a job. "What's the use," he would say. "Who's going to hire an ex-con."

He finally had a couple of job interviews neither of which went very well. After each one I noticed that he drank heavily. That was the end of the job interviews and the beginning of his drinking. I tried to get him into therapy, but he refused. Our days seemed to become a cycle of me going to work while Tony was still asleep and coming home to a man who had done nothing all day. That would inevitably be followed by an argument which led to me crying and him drinking. I would cry myself to sleep and he would pass out. I would get up in the morning and the cycle would start again. After a few months, I left. I'll admit, I didn't try very hard. Somehow after all that the previous year had dealt me, I didn't have the strength to try anymore. It was easier to leave. I filed for divorce and he didn't contest it. That was it, the end of a perfect three year relationship. Or so I thought.

This morning I listened while Tony rattled around in the kitchen for a while. As usual my kitchen was full of no food and plenty of dishes in need of washing. For someone who never cooks, I always seem to have an over abundance of dishes to wash. He eventually came upstairs with breakfast and we sat propped against the pillows eating and discussing our future. He told me about Secretary Heller's job offer and I told him about Kate's. I had to admit, the offer from Secretary Heller was intriguing. I had been posted in Washington for a summer several years ago during the anthrax attacks. I didn't have much time to see the area, but I liked it and I remember thinking that I could easily live there. If I'm not mistaken, Warner Enterprises has a facility near Baltimore. Maybe Tony could take Jack's old position and I could work at Warner.

If Tony took the job with Secretary Heller, we would have to face the fact that he would be unemployed within a couple of years. Although Heller was philosophically aligned with President Keeler, his dislike for Charles Logan was well known. Based on the reports CTU got this morning from the trauma center caring for Keeler, it was unlikely that he would live. If he did, he would not be able to complete his current term of office. Charles Logan would have to complete the term and then would probably run for election in his own right. I suspected the Heller would remain Secretary of Defense through the remainder of what would have been Keeler's term, but Larson would not keep him on if he won the next election. Thus, Tony would be out of a job in two years.

I could live with that. Tony needed to start somewhere and this was an excellent starting place. Heller knew everyone in the defense industry and it was likely that Tony could make contacts in the next two years that would lead to a job. I didn't tell Tony, but I liked the idea of going to Washington. I would talk to him about it later. As I told him, right now I wanted to just enjoy his company. I wanted to shower and dress and go get a marriage license. I was probably rushing things, but I didn't care. I had him back now and I had no plans to let go.

Next Chapter: Part IV: Epilogue: Tony