Casey had slept in late, she certainly didn't feel like getting up out of bed at all. After lying awake and staring at the ceiling for a little while Carol came in with a small smile on her face. She closed the door behind her before perching on the bed besides her.

"You seen Mark?"

"Not yet no. He didn't get home while late, they had to take him to the hospital for some scans before they could release him. When he did get home he slept in the spare bedroom; I just checked on him and he's still out."

"So what's going to happen this time then?" Casey's voice was slowly getting harsher. "You ignore each other for a few weeks, have another fight, he apologises over and over until eventually you kiss and make up then pretend that nothing ever happened?"

Carol didn't take the bait. "What would you prefer to happen?"

"Make him leave. Why should he stay here when all he does is ruin everything? Don't you think he's had enough chances-" she said, but Carol shushed her when she saw how worked up she was getting.

"Its not that simple."

"Oh its not that simple don't give me that crap!" She snapped as she got up from her bed and started to pace the room again, looking for a distraction.

"I know Marks in the wrong and I know that right now you hate him for what he said about me and what he said about Jack. But he was mad, and I said a lot of things to him before you even came home. He got carried away, like you often do, and ran away with his words. Only he ended up taking a beating for it, do you think that's fair?"

"Yes." She answered calmly, no emotion in her voice as she stared at her mother not willing to look away.

"You're being unfair," Carol said exasperated.

"What! 'Cos I don't want to have to listen to that asshole bad mouth my family? Yeah," she hissed sarcastically, "I guess that's real selfish of me. How dare I…"

"Stop it Casey," her mother snapped angrily. "You're so good at seeing his faults but never the good stuff are you?"

Casey remained silent now.

"Don't think I don't know where all this hate comes from. As much as you hate to admit it he has been a father to you for these past 11 years-"

Casey tried to interrupt now her face red with rage but her mother held up her hand. She wouldn't be interrupted.

"You may not like it but he has brought you up and protected you like any father would. And because of this he's responsible for every single problem you have. If he were to disappear you seem to think that everything would be perfect and your life would be grand. But it would be just the same. What happened last night was an incident which got out of hand. Its not something I will leave him for, you need to get that into your head. I'm sick of being forced to chose between the two of you, and its you who's doing the forcing."

Carol stopped and looked at Casey, hoping for some response of recognition of the truth in her words.

"Yeah whatever," she said grabbing some cloths from her wardrobe, her attention elsewhere.

"Case…" Carol muttered as her headache got sharper.

"Think what you want mom, but Mark's never gonna be my dad. Maybe your right to an extent, and at times I've felt that he could be, but I was wrong just like you're wrong. Even if I wanted us to act that way, he'd screw it up so what's the point?"

"You never give him a chance," she said sighing, this wasn't going how she had planned.

"He's wasted all of his chances. Last night he threw his last one away, I'm through with him."

Carol realised she had to take control of the situation. "Last night was a mistake," she said sternly, getting into her face. "You need to realise that, and start treating Mark as a member of this family again. Because he isn't going anywhere, and neither are you."

"Sure," she muttered unconvincingly as Carol stomped out of the room. Once she'd left she threw the bunch of clothes against the wall before slamming herself down on her bed. She ran her fingers through her hair, gripping it tightly as her anger grew, she was afraid she'd rip it out. But she wouldn't cry, no matter how upset or angry she was, she'd never give him the satisfaction of making her cry.

"Chase I'm giving you the honours of bringing me up to speed on whatever it is I missed this morning," Jack said as he passed his station. A grinning Chase followed him into his office and made himself comfortable on the couch before starting.

"Well, it turns out that Neilson was a bum tip. We'd been watching him since this started as you know, and last night some suspicious behaviour alerted us to the fact that TEIN had already bought him. To confirm this Chloe found what could be a paper trail to him through several offshore accounts. He's still wandering the streets making contact with us, he hasn't got a clue of our knowledge. We are as I assume you have already figured, going to try use him as bait, and hope he leads us to some players."

"Who's on the surveillance?"

"Morgan and Richards."

"Good."

"We also came into contact with this man," he said handing Jack a photograph of a dark skinned man, "through Neilson. He has been identified as Marcus Wilde and is a known associate of TEIN. We decided that Wilde was too big a fish to let go as we already had Neilson as its not often he's up on the RADAR, so a team went in and arrested him.

"Who made the decision to take him down?" Jack asked, sure of the answer but also sure it should have been his decision to make.

Chase shifted uncomfortably. "Nobody could contact you. But it was my idea, Baker supported it we made the move."

"Good call Chase," Jack nodded, before focusing his attention back onto the photo. "So has Mr. Wilde given us anything?"

"Nothing substantial. We raided his apartment and found a code written on a slip of paper. Our analysts are still working on it now. That's the main focus of the interrogation, to get him to give up the information it represents. Once he gives us that we'll press him on TEIN."

He paused again but as Jack asked no questions he continued.

"I'm pretty certain this guys going to break, its just a matter of time. He's arrogant and clumsy. He accidentally let something slip last night about us 'getting it soon.' Once he realised his mistake he started to boast about his knowledge of what was going to happen soon. But he's still not forthcoming on details."

"Okay. So we're monitoring Neilson, interrogating Wilde and were still hoping for something on the code you found."

"Yeah that's about it."

Jack ran a hand through his hair. "Well it's a lot better than where we were 24 hours ago, but it's still little to go on. We need this information now. How do we know for certain TEIN is inside US borders?"

"Well Wilde has been known to be high up the ladder which would suggest they're all in here together. Were also keeping a close eye on LA - if Wilde was here who's to say the others aren't camped out right under our noses? Division also sent us a file over which supports this, its already in your system."

"Okay. What we need to do is clarify where TEIN are, and what they are planning. I want priority on there location - if they are trying to get in the US we can stop them and then we don't have anything to worry about."

"Got it," Chase nodded in agreement with Jacks plan of action.

"Alright, I want you to co-ordinate with Richards and if he gets anything, even a hint of recognition on a passer-by's face I want you to bring them in. We don't have the time to wait, this has got to be done now. Assemble a team and stay on active stand by until I say otherwise."

"Sure."

Jack headed past him and Chase looked confused. "Where are you going?"

"I've got some work to do."

"You're not leading the team if we get something?"

"No Chase - you're going to take lead today."

Chase beamed as he realised this would be his first lead in the field, his glee showed on his face and Jack smiled, happy for the younger agent. It wasn't like he wasn't capable of doing so, but normally Jack liked to be there anyway, in case something went wrong.

"Where will you be?" Chase called after him.

Jack turned around and smirked slightly. "I'll be interrogating the suspect."