"Tony, I can't talk right now, I'm about to go into a meeting with my boss. I'll call you when I get out." Michelle waited for a response, but instead was rewarded with Tony hanging up on her. It was the seventh time this week that he'd called her at work, and it was only Wednesday! She knew he was bored, but she was getting incredibly irritated with him constantly checking up on her at work. And if that wasn't bad enough, the minute she got home, he would follow her round like a puppy, giving her no time to herself until she left for work the following morning. It was taking all her self-control to not yell at him to leave her alone.

Michelle replaced the receiver and rested her head in her hands. She didn't know what to do. Tony needed to get out of the house a bit, but the one time she had broached the subject of him getting a job he had fallen silent, then changed the subject abruptly. She didn't want to push him, but this constant attention was infuriating!

Michelle grabbed a file from her desk, then stood up and made her way towards the conference room yawning. She had been unable to complete her report last night, what with Tony's sulking at first when she told him she had to work, and then his constant questions over whether she wanted anything to drink or eat every five minutes when she had finally sat down to write it. In the end she had given up, and spent the evening watching a baseball match on TV with Tony, which had meant that she had had to come into work over an hour early this morning to complete the damned report.

She knocked on the glass door, and was summoned inside by her boss. The room was full of people, most of whom were above Michelle at Division, or from CTU.

"Michelle, glad you could join us," the Director of Division drawled. Michelle hurriedly took her seat, cursing Tony for making her late. "Can I see the report?" he asked, as if talking to seven year-old child.

Michelle pushed the report towards him, biting her tongue to keep silent. 'Focus on the promotion' she repeated to herself inside her head, knowing that if she made any kind of sarcastic comment, she would have no chance of securing the position.

"Michelle, this is the wrong report."

Michelle looked up, startled. "What?"

He held it up, and Michelle blushed. Everyone in the room was staring at her; this was certainly not making a good impression. "It's on my desk" she muttered, before standing up quickly, and half-running out of the conference room.

Tony lay sprawled across the sofa, beer in one hand, TV remote in the other. He flicked through all the channels slowly, occasionally stopping for a few seconds if something looked remotely interesting. He was bored, and fed up with Michelle working long hours in the day, then often in the evenings.

He glanced down at his watch; Michelle was due home shortly. He stood up, and carried several beer bottles, along with a pile of crisp packets and sweet wrappers into the kitchen. He'd just thrown them into the bin as he heard Michelle's keys in the door.

She shut the door forcefully, and made her way into the kitchen.

"Hi" Tony grunted, still not impressed with the way she had refused to talk to him on the phone earlier. "How was work? No…wait, you can't answer that, because it would risk national security, right?"

"Tony, I don't need your sarcastic comments right now. I've had an awful day, not helped by your phone call." Michelle retorted angrily. Then, not wanting to get into a full-blown argument, she added, "Look, Tony, I appreciate you wanting to call and see how I am, but I've got a lot of work on at the moment, and your phone call distracted me."

Tony's face darkened, and he scowled at Michelle. "So I can't call you at work, you work all evening, what about our relationship? Because it sounds to me like you don't care about seeing me; work's more important is it?" he half-shouted.

Michelle took a deep breath to calm herself down, and replied calmly. "Tony, I do want to see you; I love you. But I can't stop working. It's really busy at the moment, and my boss won't tolerate any more mistakes, so I can't afford to be distracted while I'm there. I know we aren't seeing a lot of each other right now, but I promise; it will get better."

She looked at him hopefully, wishing that he would calm down. It was obvious that he'd been drinking, but he wasn't completely drunk, and she hoped he would be sober enough to stop arguing, and to see that there was nothing she could do about work.

"What about that night last week when you went out with that friend of yours? That wasn't work! You went to see her, when you could have spent the evening with me!" Tony exclaimed, pointing accusingly at her.

"That was the first night that I've seen any of my friends since you got home!" Michelle replied, her voice shaking as she tried to control her temper. "My friends really helped me out while you were away; I can't just ignore them now that you're back!"

"Sounds to me like you wish I was still in prison!" Tony yelled. He pushed past her, and headed towards the door.

"Don't be ridiculous!" Michelle cried. "For God's sake Tony, I can't just drop everything now that you're home! Listen to yourself! Do you really expect me to stop working, and stop seeing all my friends so that I can spend more time with you?"

"Friends. Yeah that's what I'd call it. I forgot to tell you, some bloke called while you were working in Seattle. Is he just a friend?"

Michelle couldn't believe it. How could he suggest that she was seeing someone else? She had never, NEVER, been with anyone else since she first started dating Tony, not even when he was in prison for over six months! How could he think that she would do that to him?

"I've never been with anyone since we got together" she told him coldly. "Don't you trust me?"

Tony turned to look at her, his face contorted with anger. "Whatever," he snarled, before wrenching open the door, and storming out of the house.