Disclaimer: Don't own any 24 characters… wish I did, but oh well…
AU Season 4 Finale Tony & Michelle reunion scene fic... one shot, please review!
"I wanna get back to work. We still have to find this missile."
"No. I want you to go home."
"I'll be okay, Bill."
"It's not advice, it's an order."
I walk out of the doors of CTU for the last time, but on my own.
"We were gonna leave this. Go somewhere and start again."
Not anymore. I will leave, but I will just fall deeper into the hole I've been falling in ever since I left him. I cannot say his name. I have known for over an hour and I cannot deal with it. Maybe if I don't let myself say his name it won't be real. He will come walking out and we will leave together.
"Bill, they're gone. She blew herself up in the car. She took Tony with her. They're gone."
I replay Jack's words over and over in my head, willing them to go away; willing them to be just a fallacy. But they're not. I saw the car blow up; a recurring image in my head. If only I had followed her directions; not told Bill and done what she'd said. But I know he would have wanted me to tell Bill; help save the citizens of the country we had sworn to protect and risk his life in the process. It is what he would have wanted. Maybe if I keep telling myself this, it will help ease the pain. But then I start thinking again. Nothing will help ease the pain. Nothing helped ease the pain when I left him, but at least he was still alive. Now I don't even have that thought as comfort. He is gone and I don't know how I'll survive.
He was my only. The only one I introduced to my parents; the only one that my brother accepted. The only one that could look into my eyes and know exactly what I was feeling. The only one that loved every part of me. The only one that loved me as much as I loved him.
I start thinking of what ifs. What if he hadn't saved me… What if he never started drinking… What if I had done more to try and understand what he went through in prison… What if he hadn't pushed me away… What if I had never left… Things would be okay, not spiraling out of control.
As I exit the overhang of the door, the cool rain hits me like a ton of bricks. I look up into the starless, black abyss of a sky. It mirrors my soul. The pain that I feel. My heart was already split in two and now it has just shattered into more pieces than could ever be put back together, unless I could see him once more. Just to hold him in my arms. Kiss him, hold his hand, touch him, and make love to him once more.
The rain continues falling, and I continue standing. My brain refuses to signal my legs and feet to complete such a mundane task as walking. I feel that I will never be able to complete a mundane task again. Nothing has been mundane since I left. Every waking hour, I thought of him. What will I do now? How will I explain this to his parents; those two wonderful people that took me in and loved me as their own daughter. How did I repay them? I left their son after he went to prison for saving my life.
I know he would want me to move on. "Not right away", he would say, "but eventually." "You still have a full life ahead of you," he would say, but I do not. Not now. My life is broken, never to be repaired, and I want it that way. If I can't have him, then I don't want anything. Eat, work, and sleep. That's all it was after I left him and that's all it will continue to be. Nothing more, nothing less. I cannot and will not move on, and my body immediately complies with its inability to move from the spot I had been occupying in the rain for the last ten minutes.
I am soaked through and through. "You'll catch a cold if you stay out there like that," he would and had said to me many a time. I can't help but contort my face into something that somewhat resembles a half smile. I will always remember the times we spent together. The only memories I have of him, the only things that will help me to sustain my empty life.
"Tony…" His name escapes my lips. With this one word, this simple two syllable word, my world crashes harder around me. I feel my legs buckle and know that this time, no one will be there to catch me. I feel as though I have fallen for an eternity. That's how long I feel like I have been without him and that's how long I know I will never be with him again.
I fall to my knees and a tear cascades down my cheek, followed by another, and another, until I cannot stop. With each tear that falls, the rain above, pounding down on me, gets harder and harder. But I do not care. Nothing matters anymore. I cry. Cry for the beautiful life that was lost, cry for the beautiful people that I have hurt by leaving him and will hurt for telling them that he is gone. My emotions overtake me and I will let them control me. For this moment is the last that I will feel emotion. I had built a wall around me after I left. I swore to never fall in love again. If I couldn't make it work with him I knew I would never make it work with anyone else. I have just sworn to make that wall higher and closer. Never again do I want to feel any emotion unless it is with him.
He brought out the best in me and I know it, everyone knows it. Looking back at sweet times, I remember the person I was, the person I know I will never be again. I was so happy, so content just being in his arms. With these memories, I only cry harder. Again, I look up at the sky above. "Why?" I scream in my head. "Why take Tony? Why not me!" We were just getting our lives back on track and now it will never be the same again.
"I miss you," I say out loud. This simple confession should have been said a long time ago. Six months ago to be exact. None of this should have happened. It was my fault, all my fault. "Why didn't you let Saunders kill me!" I scream to the empty sky. Before only thought in my head it has now become part of my reality. Finally speaking those words has only made my waterfall of tears flow harder.
Lights. I see lights coming towards me. A car, a van, I cannot tell. My tears are clouding my vision and I am grateful. I stay rooted to the spot that I have been kneeling in. My knees are probably scraped from the force of my fall, and yet again, I cannot will myself to care. The vehicle keeps moving towards me. Faster, I want to scream. Just hit me and get it over with. I am dead without him anyway, so just end it. I could never take my own life. He would never forgive me, but I cannot move from my current milieu.
The vehicle stops. I hear a door slide open. It must be a van I think, remembering the shortcoming of my ability to decide if the vehicle was a car or a van. I feel, rather than see, someone moving towards me. I can't help but think that it is a member of the CTU tactical team that was there when he died, someone that will tell me that everything will be alright. But it won't. I have already admitted it to myself and now I will admit it to anyone that asks. Nothing will be alright anymore.
I feel arms around me, pulling me close to a body I only know too well. Although we had spent six months apart, I had memorized every inch of his perfect body. But this cannot be him, he's gone, I tell myself. Next, I hear a voice mumbling sweet nothings into my ear. Am I listening correctly? The voice that I have had resounding in my head for the last half a year, no the last four or so odd years. It is his voice, a voice so velvety smooth and comforting that it could only belong to him.
At this point, I feel his hand lift my chin. I open my eyes and look into his. His eyes, chocolate pools that I could get lost in for ages, eyes that I never thought I'd see again.
"Tony?" I ask, my voice not even close to a whisper, but he hears me anyway.
"Yes, baby, I'm here," is his reply. These four words and the sight of him before me magically mend the broken heart and the broken life that mere minutes ago I thought would be destroyed forever.
"I… I thought you were dead… I saw… the car… and you… and Jack said…" I couldn't string together a coherent sentence, but I knew he understood. He always understood me; one of the million reasons that I fell so hard for him.
"I know, baby. She made someone else wear my clothes."
So this is why he is here sitting in front of me, using his strong thumbs to dry my tears. But it is no use, for now they are falling harder. Not from sadness, but the pure ecstatic joy that I feel looking into his face, knowing that this is real, he is alive.
I am glad that he does not say her name. I don't even know if he knows her name, but if he does, I don't want to hear it. The woman that almost took the man of my dreams away from me. If I saw her, I don't know what I'd do. But my thoughts are quickly diverted from the bad and brought back to the good when I feel his hands on my face again.
"I'm sorry. I called, but Bill said you had left and…"
That was all he got out before I pulled his face down to mine. I did not care about the explanation right now. I knew he would give it to me later, but right now I was content being back in his arms. The kiss was… passionate does not even begin to describe it. Every horrible thought has been pushed into the far depths of my brain. I know now, with his arms around me, his lips glued to mine, his body and his soul in sync with mine, everything was going to be alright.