"He wants revenge for what happened to his brother," Michelle said unsteadily, nodding at the picture on the computer screen. "What happened to him was my fault."
"What are you talking about?" Tony's bewilderment was bordering on frustration now.
"It's... complicated. I can't--"
"Michelle, tell me what's going on!"
"I can't!" she said, louder than she had intended. "Not right away, I... I need to work out how I should tell you this first, okay?"
Tony stared at her in a way he hadn't done since the day of the nuclear bomb when she was helping Jack against his orders. She looked back, willing him to not make her feel worse.
"Alright," he said finally, turning back to the screen so quickly she couldn't see his eyes to tell what he was thinking. "I'll print this stuff out and you can tell me in the car."
-- --
"Well?" said Tony fifteen minutes later, pulling the car door shut and looking at her expectantly.
"Okay," said Michelle nervously, still not quite sure exactly how much to tell him. She cleared her throat, then made herself sit up straight and play confident. "It was when I worked at Division, before Carrie came, when Nina was my boss."
She saw Tony's expression harden the way it always did at the mention of Nina's name, and told herself she was only imagining that it had grown harder than usual.
"She took me on a mission to infiltrate some arms dealers with known connections to terrorists so we could get ahold of information they had on a large cell based just outside LA. Their leader was Jim Tanaka, the man in the photograph, who it seems was Tom Rees' brother."
Tony furrowed his brows. "That doesn't make any sense. Why would she take you? You're barely trained for undercover work, and you can't have been working at Division for more than a couple of months by then!"
Michelle shrugged. "Nina thought I would be able to hack into the computer system better than anyone else available. And she thought my Japanese heritage might help ingratiate us with Tanaka, who was half-Japanese. I'm guessing he and Rees don't have the same father."
"Okay, fine," Tony said, though he clearly did not think it was 'fine'. "What happened?"
"Everything went wrong." Michelle sighed. "One of Tanaka's men caught me copying files off the computer. They tied Nina and me up and locked us in Tanaka's office while they decided what to do with us. Nina managed to untie me and I set light to a bunch of paperwork using a cigarette butt that was still burning. The fire grew out of control -- we barely made it out the window before the whole building was alight. Tanaka and most of his men burned to death." She shook her head. "We heard them screaming but we just ran, trying to keep the information I'd managed to save safe... and then it turned out that Nina had taken a blank disc from the desk instead of the one I'd saved the files to. The whole mission was a disaster. So Nina was demoted and sent to CTU... and now Rees is out of prison and wants to get back at me." Michelle blinked, suddenly feeling tears in her eyes. "How did he even find out about me anyway?"
Tony slowly shook his head. "I don't know. How come you never told me any of this?"
"Technically it's still classified... Also, I don't really like to mention Nina more than I have to." Michelle laughed nervously, which Tony thankfully responded to by grinning.
"Well, I'm glad to know why we're being hunted down and shot at," he said.
"Your involvement in Rees' arrest must just be a coincidence," Michelle said, starting to calm down a little now despite the topic of discussion.
"I guess so, yeah..."
There was a moment of slightly uncomfortable silence as they both stared into space before Tony asked, "Do you want to go out for dinner?"
"What?" Michelle asked confusedly.
"I just realized how hungry I am for some real food, and I doubt we'd be attacked in a restaurant, so why not?"
"Tony, it's three PM."
"So?" There was a hopeful, puppy dog look in his eyes now.
Michelle laughed. "Okay," she said. "You're on."
-- --
Two hours later they had checked into yet another hotel, hoping it might at least have slightly better security than the cheap motel they had been at before. They prettied themselves up and found a Chinese restaurant nearby, which was surprisingly busy for the time of day.
They were shown to a table near the window, which had an unimpressive view of the gray street outside. Then there was an unusually awkward silence as they perused their menus.
Such silences had been plaguing them since their conversation in the car earlier, and had mostly been filled only by mundane talk concerning things such as which hotel they should go to or what lipstick Michelle should wear. She had a feeling that Tony knew he had only been given a very abbreviated version of her story, and that he was trying to decide whether he wanted to press her for more details or not.
On the whole she would prefer it if he didn't.
"You decided what you're having?" Tony asked, looking at her over his menu.
"Yes," Michelle said, despite the fact that she had only read the first two items on the menu before her mind had wandered. She would choose something later; right now she didn't want to prolong the silence any longer. "You?" She left the menu open on the table so that she could glance at it surreptitiously.
"Yeah."
What have you chosen? she wanted to ask, but somehow the penetrating way he was looking at her made the words stick in her throat.
They regarded each other while at the same trying to look like they weren't.
"Is there anything else like this you haven't told me about?" Tony said.
Michelle forced a smile. "Tony, there are all kinds of things I haven't told you. For instance, that fire is how I got the scar on my foot."
"You told me that was a cooking accident!" said Tony in a familiar faux-indignant voice that made Michelle relax a little -- he was playing with her.
She grinned. "Incidentally, I'm also secretly a master chef."
"Now that I don't believe, Mrs. I-Like-My-Pasta-Mushy-And-Burned-To-The-Pan."
"Trust me, that's the only way to serve it. All the best chefs in Europe say so."
"Oh yeah, such as who?"
"Uh... Chef François... de la Bleu?"
Neither of them could contain their laughter any longer; they both guffawed hysterically just as the waiter came to take their order. Fortunately this gave Michelle a window to quickly choose something from the menu -- Tony made his order first as he managed to get his laughter under control before she did.
"I'm just gonna go to the bathroom before the food arrives," said Tony when the waiter had left.
"Sure."
Tony got up and kissed her quickly on the lips before he left, something which made Michelle feel immeasurably better. Things were okay between them.
She watched the cars go by outside while she waited.
When their drinks arrived before Tony she sighed mentally. He was taking a long time.
When the food came and he still wasn't back, she began to feel frightened.
She argued with herself, trying to convince herself that she was stupid and that going looking for him was even stupider, but she failed. Grabbing her purse, she went to the men's room to investigate.
Pushing the door open, she saw that both the stalls were empty and there was no one at the urinals. There was no one there, period.
Trying to stop her heart from beating too fast, Michelle tried the ladies room. Maybe he had gone in there in mistake... but no, the only person there was a large woman touching up her make-up in the mirror.
Terrified, Michelle looked in the kitchen as well, then scanned the other tables in the restaurant, but there was no sign of him.
Tony was gone.