The woman on the other side of the room, stood behind the enormous bed with crossed arms, is looking out the window.
"They're watching us," she says. She turns, frowns. "Kiss me."
The heat from the ever-expanding fire grows stronger.
"Wha..."?
"Kiss me." The woman strides purposefully across the room. "Now!"
Lips meet lips.
The flames roar.
Michelle awoke to the loud beeping of an alarm clock.
She squinted, blinked fiercely, trying to purge the dream from her mind.
Tony was stirring beside her. She reached out for him.
"Hey," he murmured, smiling and pulling her closer.
"Hey." She returned the smile and closed her eyes again, burying herself in the warm cream of the hotel pillows and the welcoming heat from Tony's body.
"Listen, honey..." Tony shifted and brushed a strand of hair from her forehead. "I really don't think you should come in today."
Michelle sighed inwardly. "Tony..."
She knew he felt responsible for her injury, even though the two of them might well have been dead by now if he hadn't asked her to take his gun when they were being chased yesterday.
Then again, maybe not, if what Murdock had said was anything to go by.
Michelle pushed that thought away and opened her eyes to see Tony's concerned face looking back at her.
They had made love last night, and he had accidentally jostled her wounded shoulder, causing her to cry out at the sudden pain. She had practically had to cajole him out of stopping. She knew she still hadn't convinced him that her injury wasn't his fault, nor that it wasn't that serious.
"I'm fine," she said firmly.
"Michelle, you were shot."
"The bullet barely touched me. I'm not being stubborn, Tony. I'm okay. They would've tried to keep me in the hospital if I wasn't."
Tony was about to respond, but was interrupted by the ringing of his cellphone. He rolled over to retrieve it from the nightstand and rearranged a couple of pillows so he could sit up more comfortably. "Almeida," he answered.
Michelle propped herself up as well, waiting patiently as he spoke.
"Okay, great. Thanks Jack." Tony hung up and looked at her. "They've found an address for Rees."
"Right." Michelle nodded and disentangled her legs from the sheets. "Now I'm definitely coming."
Tony's resigned expression admitted his defeat.
-- --
"Okay, we're going in," Jack's voice said from the speakerphone.
He had already had his team assembled and ready to go by the time Tony and Michelle had arrived. He must have come into work early in order to have something new for them when they got there, and had hit the jackpot. The address he had found was a modest house in a non-descript suburb, which Rees apparently shared with a woman named Sarah Greenwood, whose criminal record contained nothing more serious than a speeding fine and a couple of parking tickets.
"First floor is clear," said Chase.
Michelle glanced at Tony. He was rubbing his chin, obviously as anxious as she was that Jack's team would find something of value. If they didn't, Michelle had thought a few minutes ago to her rising apprehension, they had nothing left to go on. The driver of the car she had shot yesterday had been unable to be identified, and Murdock was still refusing to cooperate. I was also entirely possible, she realized, that they had the wrong man; that Tom Rees was completely innocent. After all, what evidence did they have for his involvement other than the word of a convicted criminal and the fact that Tony had played a part in his arrest; something which had happened several years ago. It was true that Rees had only recently been released from prison, but then why didn't he seem to be after any of the other people who had helped to put him there?
"Second floor's cl--" said Chase, only to be interrupted by Jack:
"Wait."
Michelle heard some low murmurings and then silence.
Then: "It's a bomb! Out! Everybody out!"
She felt her hand fly instinctively to her mouth as she listened.
Moments later, the sound of a loud explosion came from the speaker.
"Jack!" Michelle saw that Tony was gripping the table exceptionally hard. "What's going on?"
A couple of tension-filled seconds ticked by before they once again heard Jack's voice. "One of the rooms was boobytrapped. Nobody's injured. Whatever was in there is gone, though."
Michelle breathed a sigh of relief.
Ten seconds later Ryan Chappelle marched in.
-- --
Michelle looked up at Tony's office for at least the twentieth time since Chappelle's arrival. The soundproofed walls meant that she couldn't hear what was going on, but the body language of both Tony and Chappelle told her that it was getting pretty heated.
She only hoped it didn't get out of hand. She wasn't sure if she could deal with Tony being fired for insubordination on top of everything else.
Her eyes widened when she saw Tony shake his head, grab his briefcase and Cubs mug and sling his jacket over an arm, and exit his office angrily.
She gaped as she watched him come down the stairs, with eyes narrowed and a scowl on his face that she saw only on the rarest of occasions.
She looked back up at the office. Chappelle was making himself comfortable in Tony's chair, reaching for the computer with an expression of extreme annoyance.
Well. At least that probably meant Tony hadn't been fired. Michelle had a feeling that Chappelle would be looking a lot more smug, were that the case.
Tony stopped in front of her station. "Get your stuff, we're leaving," he said shortly.
"Why?" Michelle asked, not budging.
Tony huffed and glanced over his shoulder at the office. "Chappelle's not happy with us using CTU staff and facilities for personal use. We're suspended from duty until this mess is resolved."
"What?"
How were they supposed to resolve it without the help of CTU? LAPD were doing all they could, but there was a lot of classified, possibly crucial information that they would have great trouble accessing. Besides, everybody who had been helping them had been doing so voluntarily, in their own time.
Michelle shook her head. "He can't do this. I'm going to talk to him." She stood up.
Tony grabbed her wrist before she could start walking. "Honey, it won't help." He sighed. "It might've been okay without the bomb just now, but the way Chappelle sees it is that we put agents' lives at risk for our own personal agenda. When you put it that way, it does look kinda bad."
"But... but what--" Michelle suddenly found herself unable to form a coherent thought. "But how can we..."
"Hey..." Tony pulled her closer, putting a hand on her cheek. "We're gonna figure this out."
"How?" she asked, dismayed at how desperate she sounded.
"That I don't know yet," Tony admitted. "But we'll find a way."
Michelle only hoped he was right.