Broken Memories

Summary: Tony and Michelle have to push aside their bubbling hatred and work together to fix one of the biggest messes they have ever had. But what if there's more than meets the eye? Please review, this is my first 24 fan fiction, let alone the first T/M fic.

Chapter 1 – Twist!

Michelle's POV:

My eyes kept wandering towards him, I don't know why, but I just couldn't help myself.

I knew that he was doing the same, and I'm sure he knew I was doing it too. I wasn't quite sure what to think of him any more. I didn't know whether to kiss him or kick him. In their own way, both seemed quite appealing.

But I couldn't let him get to me; I knew I needed to stay focused…

"Michelle!" Chloe called, bringing me crashing down to reality, "These access codes don't match."

I pulled myself together and walked over to his computer, while doing so, catching one more glance of Tony, just to check what he was doing, I thought to myself. He had turned himself back to the computer and continued working, so I thought I should too.

I reached Chloe's station and looked at her monitor's screen.

After looking it over I replied firmly with, "that's cause you're on the wrong format, Chloe, this is simple stuff, you shouldn't have to get my attention for this."

Without giving her any time to speak I continued, "Chloe, in case you haven't noticed, there's a nuclear missile missing that can kill potentially millions, and the fate of this disaster is in our hands. You should be better than this. In fact, you are better than that, pull yourself together Chloe!"

She interrupted me with saying, "Listen, Michelle, that's because Edgar has the formality codes, and without them, it's hard to do things on task. And instead of sending them over, he's just screwing around with reports and files that aren't top priority."

"No, you listen to me, Chloe!" I interrupted softly, but firmly, "I know I called you here, but I can very easily get you out of here if you don't get what needs to be done, accomplished!"

After realizing how I sounded, I cooled myself down; these two are going to drive me crazy!

"Look, Chloe, any other day, I'd be on your side; you know that. But you have to put aside your personal problems for today, I'll talk to Edgar."

Without waiting for a response, I left her station and scanned the room for Edgar. He was at Tony's station, discussing something with him.

I walked up to him, and without waiting for Tony to finish what he was saying, I jumped right in

"Edgar, Chloe tells me that you're holding back this hour's formality codes, is that right?" I said.

"I need them to do my reports, is that a problem?" he replied.

"Yes it is, Chloe needs those codes, and not having them is affecting her work."

"But she doesn't need them," Edgar pouted like a baby, "if she were really as good as everybody says she is, then she should be able to do her work without them. And updating each code for her system would only take time off of my hands, time we don't have! So I think it's Chloe you should be yelling at and…"

That's when I had enough.

"Edgar, quite frankly, I've had enough of your damn complaints! Either you and Chloe settle what is keeping you two from working, or you can join Miss Gavin in the CTU parking lot, without a job! Smart money would be on the first one, so let me suggest that you update those formality codes and give them to Chloe…, now!"

Jesus Christ! Doesn't he know when to stop!

Tony was simply standing back and watching this scenario without saying a word the whole time, I almost forgot he was there.

I watched Edgar solemnly walk up to Chloe and give her the codes, as the two of them were discussing the needed changes for the next hourly.

I turned my attention to Tony, who was still standing there, for this being his station, and searched my mind for what I was going to ask him.

I wasn't quite sure if the expression on his face was astonishment, or annoyance, but either one, it still made him look attractive…

Ugh! Michelle! What are you doing! There's a nuclear missile missing, and here you are, supposed to be taking care of it, but instead, you're trying to flirt with your ex-husband! Just remember, that's just a mask he's hiding behind! Just remember all of the horrible memories, of when he was a drunk moron! He hasn't changed, Michelle! Just remember that!

Oh great, now I'm just standing here without saying anything, and Tony is probably looking at me like I was crazy!

Tony, though, didn't seem to note my presence, but during the months I was married to him after his release, I had gotten used to that …

"Tony, are you finished with those hourlies?" I asked, even though I knew he was.

"Yeah, they're right here," he replied handing me a manila folder with papers in them.

"Thanks," I said to him, but his attention seemed to be on his screen. I walked away and back up to my office, preparing for the upcoming briefing in a matter of minutes.

I almost felt hurt, that his attention was somewhere else besides me. But that's the way you wanted it Michelle, remember? It was just that when I first took my job at CTU, I would give anything for Tony to feel the same way about me as I did about him. But now, after convincing myself that I wasn't in love with him, it hurt to know that he felt the same way about me as I did about him. Oh well, I'll get over him, in fact, I already have… I was completely over him… completely…

Tony's POV

I hadn't seen Michelle for a while now, and I wonder where she could be. But she'd probably be at the briefing, which actually was about now.

I walked into the conference room, where Michelle was having a heated discussion with Bill Buchanan, and was trying to hide her anger and astonishment.

"But Bill, he's dead, I saw him die with my very own eyes! How could it possibly be!" she fumed.

"I don't know, but all I know are the facts, and what I told you were the facts, quite frankly, I can't put it together myself." Bill replied.

Interested in what was going on, I jumped into the conversation and asked impatiently, "What's going on? Who's dead?"

Michelle sighed and said, "I'll explain it after the briefing."

After we were informed with miniscule updates on the missile situation during the briefing and everybody left, I stood up, waiting for Michelle to give me the explanation she owed me.

Michelle let out another sigh, and started, "As you know, there's a missing nuclear missile stolen by international terrorists, and I have been stressing that finding it is a number one priority. Well, that may have to change." She paused for a second, waiting for my reaction, at least I think.

My eyes remained focused on Michelle though, waiting for her to continue, because she had me quite confused.

She took a deep breath and continued, "You see, three hours ago our second priority would be, as you know, to find an insider. The terrorists were able to retrieve the missile because they had the pages from nuclear football, but we weren't able to explain to disappearance of the launch codes; without them, Marwan wouldn't be able to launch the missile. Our first explanation was an insider was able to steal the launch codes and give them to Marwan. Three hours ago, a man named Patrick Seen was caught hacking into classified information, and after searching his computer, we were able to discover that he had contact with Marwan, and he confessed on record that he was the mole. But while being taken to Division, the car he was in suffered a traffic accident, resulting in the death of two agents and Seen himself. There were no survivors. The traffic accident was reported by nearby civilians, but the car had mysteriously disappeared, leaving the three bodies on the street. The case wasn't given much thought, since we had the whole nuclear missile issue on our hands, but I decided to look into it, which explains my absence during the past hour.

But I have come across a loose end. None of Seen's accounts say that he actually accessed the launch codes."

"So you're saying that this guy didn't access them, and that there's another mole behind all of this?" I asked piecing it together.

"Not necessarily," she replied. "That's exactly what I thought, so I looked into where the codes had been taken, if they had been accessed and by whom."

"So what did you find?"

"The codes haven't been accessed since about a month ago, that being for the monthly updates."

"So you're saying that they haven't been accessed at all?" I asked, now more confused than ever.

"I had Jack and a specialist look into it, and it's true, codes haven't been touched!"

I was about to ask when the last time besides the monthly updates the codes had been accessed, but something crossed my mind. "You have Jack, a specialist, and Bill in on this and I'm just finding out about it…?" I said, arms crossed.

I could see slight signs of panic run through Michelle's face as she replied, "I didn't want to run a matter of this importance through you until I had all the facts."

She was acting like I was a ranking officer or something, uh, in case you haven't noticed, you're MY boss. Maybe she still has a little bit of respect for me, or perhaps she's too used to working for me from the years before.

"I see," I responded, "and when was the last time the codes were accessed besides the monthly checks?" I decided I'd chew her out later, since this case was taking my interest.

"Once, about four and a half years ago, when we were on the verge of war with the Middle East because of…"

"I know why," I cut her off, and after a pause I added, "I remember that day quite well." I don't know what possessed me to add that last part, but it did leave the room with some unwanted tension. It was that day of the nuclear bomb; the day we realized our true feelings for each other; the day she went up against me to help Jack; but most importantly, the day of our first kiss. And it was true; I remember that day quite well.

That last comment hit Michelle off-guard, and for a split second, there was an awkward silence where the both of us looked into each other's eyes.

I wasn't quite sure what emotions she was feeling, it was hard to tell. Even though it seemed like forever, it was only a split second.

After that split second Michelle's face hardened and she brushed it off saying, "then you'd know that the only reason that they were accessed was to prep it for any possible use."

"So what are we saying here?" I asked. "That the codes were never accessed and that the terrorists can't launch the missile? This should be good news, but I have a feeling that it isn't."

"Afraid not," Michelle replied, and right then, Jack entered the room.

"Michelle, did you catch Tony up on the situation?" he asked.

"I'm in the middle of that right now, Jack." She replied.

She started to continue, "What we're afraid of is that the capture of the missile may have been a carefully elaborated plan to draw our attention somewhere else, and that there may be another threat on its way."

"I see," I replied, "and do we have any leads on what that new threat may be?"

Jack answered this time, "Well that's the problem, Tony. We looked into Seen's cell phone, and we were able to see what calls he had made, and one of them gives us the answer to your question." He paused for a second and continued, "You see, Seen was just a patsy, he was just an undedicated government worker who got paid a whole lot of money to take the blame for accessing these codes. It turns out that Seen wasn't even classified enough to access the launch codes. He was promised that the agents escorting him would be killed and he'd escape, but he wasn't aware of the fact that Marwan would have him killed to keep him quiet. What Marwan wasn't aware of is that the cell phone wasn't supposed to be analyzed until it had arrived at Division. But instead, they took a look at it from Seen's agency, and sent it with the agents for further analization. But since the car had disappeared, so did everything in it, including the cell phone."

Michelle picked up from there, "If they hadn't suffered the accident, they would have been at Division at about one hour from now. We would have figured out the contents of the cell phone and realized that there is another terrorist threat about and hour and a half from now. We're assuming that's what Marwan is relying on, that we don't find out about this alternate plan until about 1:15 A.M. (A/N: The times aren't completely accurate and don't really correlate with the episodes, so stick with me here!) We have to assume that by then it'll be too late, and that the plan would have been initiated by then. The phone call we found on Seen's cell was the ticket to stopping this plan since the conversation explains everything that is going to go down."

"Well?" I interrupted, "What is it, then? Why aren't we working on it?" I knew something was wrong.

"Because we aren't quite sure how credible the phone call is," Jack replied.

"How come?"

Michelle answered this time, "because the man who was supposedly on the other end is already dead."

"Who is he?" I asked the million dollar question.

Michelle took a deep breath and let out, "Stephan Saunders."

So, what do you think? I know, a little farfetched, but I'll explain everything in the next chapter. PLEASE, PLEASE review! I appreciate it!