He's the best thing that ever happened to her, and she won't even try to deny that. Just because it ended in tears doesn't take away all the happy moments they'd had together before it all went wrong. And sure, they'd had their differences, they'dquarreled sometimes, but as she looks back now, all those meaningless arguments seem to be blurred, making it hard for her to remember them clearly. She knows one thing, though, and that was that in those first three years, they never once went to bed mad at each other. As she looks at him now- flustered, unshaven, hurting- she knows he doesn't give himself much credit for how wonderful he was before prison changed him. He'd done so many little things for her over the years that made her day every time, causing her to wonder what she had ever done right in her life to deserve him.

One occasion always comes to mind, although she doesn't know why that one in particular. She had been sleeping with socks on her feet ever since she was a child; they were always cold and no amount of rubbing them together had ever helped warm them in the least. When she started dating Tony, he wouldn't hear of her sleeping with her socks on, telling her, "I wanna feel your skin, not your socks."

When she protested that she couldn't sleep with her feet cold, he had promised her that he would always let her warm up her cold feet against his warm ones before going to sleep. Reluctantly, she had agreed, but he had remained true to his promise; every night he clasped her feet between his and rubbed them until they were warm, enabling to her to easily fall asleep. About a year after they had started dating, he'd had to go on a business trip with Jack for a couple of days, and when she'd pushed the covers aside on the first evening that he was gone, she'd found a pair of thick, woollen socks on her pillow, a note with his familiar handwriting on it.

To keep your feet warm while I'm away.

I love you.

Tony

She fights to urge to squeeze her eyes shut at the memory. She knows where those socks are. They're in that big, carton box that is safely stored away, out of her sight; along with about a million pictures, her wedding ring, one of his Cubs mugs, and her favourite shirt of his, the one she had buttoned around her pillow every single night while he was in prison, hoping that his smell would prod her unconsciousness, so that at least in her dreams she could pretend that the world was a happy place, and that she wouldn't have to spend the next God knows how many years without him.

She hasn't looked through the box since she left him, and still has no desire to, knowing that it would be by far too painful. She's even been on the verge of throwing its contents away several times, but always changed her mind at the last minute, instinctively knowing that, one day if it ever stopped hurting so much, she would want to remember him and their life together.

She cringes at how cruel she was to him earlier today, how she had remained angry in her stubbornness, bringing his drinking into it, while he was obviously past the anger but not at all past the pain. When she had become like this- cold, resentful and defensive- she doesn't know, all she knows is that it hurts less when she doesn't let herself feel anything but the anger she had let take over after she left, allowing it to drown all the hurt, guilt, regret. She'd had the perfect right to leave after the way he treated her. How dare he push her away when she'd done everything humanly possible to make him feel happy, loved, needed?

It was an anger that had stayed with her throughout the months without him; she is ashamed to admit it, but it kept her going. It was either that or live with a constant, gut-wrentching grief that gnawed away at her until she was sure she wouldn't make it another day. Because when, for just a little while, she let her guard down, the unspeakable pain of his absence hit her like a punch in the stomach, causing her to quickly, almost like a blessing, make the anger come back.

But now, just like the first time she ever laid eyes on him, she realizes that he has shattered all her fierce attempts at independence, broken down the walls she had spent so many months building around herself in protection. She is so afraid of getting hurt again; of discovering that leaving him, which was supposed to be such a relief, left her with a pain so physical that at times it had been hard to breathe. And on top of that, there was living with the knowledge that he hadn't come for her after she left, not once, and that thought had made things, if possible, even worse.

But how long had she actually managed to stay mad at him? An hour? It's so pathetic she almost laughs, how she had managed to convince herself that he couldn't affect her anymore, that she was now completely out of his reach. At first, she had been angrier than she even would have thought at the site of him being here- sober and obviously doing his job well, completely ruining all her justifications of having divorced him- but all he had had to do was give her that look, his eyes full of pain and wanting and regret, and she felt herself already giving in to him, asking him to stay, wanting him to stay. After all, didn't she owe him at least that? A chance to rebuild his career? If it hadn't been for her he would be at the CIA in Langley now, for Christ's sake.

She knows she isn't close to being able to deal with the thought of him living with someone else, and doesn't even try. He's told her that he doesn't love this girl, and she believes him, but that doesn't make the idea of it magically easier to take. She imagines this woman comforting him after she had left, and feels her blood run cold. It should have been me, she realizes, I should have been the one to hold him when he was in pain. But he wouldn't let me. Why did he let her?

She had barely gone out since the divorce; everything she did reminded of her Tony as it was, and she didn't need various dates with all equally hopeless men to make it all even worse. She had been a little troubled by Bill's obvious interest in her, not quite knowing how to turn him down without making him feel bad, which would undoubtedly make her feel bad. So every time he asked her to go for a drink or get a bite to eat, she came up with a flimsy excuse: she was tired, she had a headache, she'd promised her brother she'd go see him… And eventually, he seemed to have gotten the point and stopped asking, making her feel guilty and relieved at the same time. But she knew she had done the right thing. If she ever felt the desire to start over with someone else, she wanted to do it right, and not with images of her ex-husband still flashing through her mind at the mere sight of another man.

She is hurt and disappointed that he would even think that she could have slept with someone else while he was still in prison. Of course, things had been difficult between them even then, and she couldn't deny that the thought of not being able to touch him for at least twenty years nearly drove her up the wall, but she never thought he would believe that she would give up on him so quickly, that easily. Hadn't he seen the shape she was in? Hadn't he seen that she missed him so much that she needed to wrap his goddamn shirt around her pillow in order to be able to sleep at night? Or had he just forgotten?

She thinks back, with slight amusement despite herself, to their first date, a few days after the day of the bomb. She had been so nervous and she could tell that he was too, but he had taken complete control of the situation, immediately making her feel at ease. She knew already then that she was in love with him, and felt her heart flutter every time he even smiled at her.

She also remembers her nervousness at bringing him home to meet her family, Danny in particular. He had never liked any of her boyfriends, and had had a tendency to drive them away ever since high school. But Tony had seemed to know this without her having to tell him, and hadn't been too possessive of her when Danny was around, especially not in the physical sense. Instead, he had kept himself busy with the kids, and had managed to win over a then five-year-old Elissa and eight-year-old Matthew in a matter of minutes. And seeing his kids' obvious adoration for her new boyfriend had slowly caused Danny to accept him too, although still a little hesitantly at first. Tony hadn't pushed it; he had just waited patiently for Danny to become comfortable with the whole idea, which he had, eventually.

She spends a lot of time with Danny at the moment; she is grateful for his company and the kids can even coax an occasional laugh from her. They miss Tony, though, and especially Elissa, who turned ten last week, can't seem to grasp why he's never around anymore. She hasn't seen him since he was arrested; he hadn't wanted to see anyone after he was released, especially not any children. She suspects he was afraid of scarring them away. But Elissa hasn't forgotten about him, and asks for him almost every time she sees her, ignoring the looks both Danny and an almost thirteen-year-old Matthew are shooting her.

Once, a few months ago, she had been alone in the house with her niece while Danny was driving Matthew to baseball practise, and Elissa had suddenly said, "Matthew says Uncle Tony was in jail for a while, but that he's out now. But that's not true, right, Aunt Michelle? Jail's only for bad people, right?"

What the hell was she supposed to say to that? What could she possibly tell the child that wasn't a lie and wasn't hurtful? So she had just explained that sometimes people have to make impossible choices that lead to impossible sacrifices, but she could tell by the look on the little girl's face that she didn't understand what that had to do with anything, and felt herself starting to get upset. Elissa looked a little taken aback at this, and had quickly said she was going upstairs to finish her homework. Michelle had willingly let her go.

She is brought back to present by footsteps coming to up the office that is hers now, but had once been his. She looks up to see it is him and he offers her a hesitant smile before entering. He tells her something about his people having found lead that had turned out to be a dead end, so that they were not making much progress in finding the missile. She sighs and nods, and he tells her not to worry, that they'll find it. And she doesn't know why she feels better, although she realizes that he had always had something in him that made her believe that even the worst things would turn out okay. He lingers for a moment, as if not wanting to leave her behind while she's obviously in distress, but she asks him to talk to Jack and find out what he thinks is the best way to handle the situation. He looks at her intently for a moment, then nods and heads back downstairs.

She is aware that he sees a side of her that no one else does, that no one else ever could. He's seen her naked, seen her cry, seen her sleep. He knows how she likes the temperature for her daily shower; he knows how much she can take before finally breaking down. He's always had an incomprehensible gift for seeing straight through her, and she realizes that this hasn't changed, as much as other things have.

She remembers one morning, only a couple of months before his arrest, they had once again gotten up at a ridiculously early hour to go save the world from the evil. He had been making them breakfast while she sat at the kitchen table after having decked it, reading the paper and sipping her coffee. She was so absorbed in an article that she hadn't even been consciously aware of being chilly, and had only realized that she was shivering just a tiny bit when she felt a sweater being slipped around her shoulders. She smiled at him, welcoming the warmth, and then asked him with slight amusement but also with general wondering, how he had known she was cold. He had given her a funny look, and said simply, "Because I know you."

She tries not think of how desperately different this man was from the one who had come home to her after five months of prison. She had watched him slowly change before her eyes while he was in there, and none of her attempts to keep him close seemed to make the slightest bit of difference. He was touchy, distant. He didn't seem happy to see her when she visited. He had a troubled look in his eyes that she had never seen before, and it frightened her.

The relief when he was pardoned was so great that she had sunken to her knees when Jack told her over the phone. He was coming home, he would be himself again, it could be just like before. But after he was returned to her, things got worse instead of better, and so fast. He drank more and more. He couldn't hold on to a job if his life depended on it. He had unfamiliar scars on his body that he wouldn't talk about, was haunted by nightmares he refused to even acknowledge. He spent his days watching numerous Spanish programmes on TV that she couldn't understand, and she couldn't help silently accusing him of doing this on purpose so she would keep her distance. He spent most nights as far away from her as he possibly could, often not reappearing until days had passed and she was frantic.

And then there was the anger, the bitterness, the mood swings. Her asking him, begging him, to get some help for his drinking; his retorts to "just back off, goddammit!". Her promises that the next job interview would be better when he refused to go on another one; his scornful, humorless laugh that she still believed he could ever lead a normal life with 'treason' written on his resumé. He was giving up, succumbing to alcohol and laziness, and she simply could not watch him do it. She would have sold her soul to the devil to make him want to live again, but nothing she did seemed to make anything even a little bit better, driving her to a point where she simply could not take it anymore. He had so many gifts, so many talents; she couldn't watch him waste them all away knowing that it was because of her that he had become like this. She loved him too much for that.

Loving him had always come naturally to her- it was never something she had to try or doubt or even think about; it was just there, like a second nature. And it still is. No matter who he is or what he has become or even how much pain he has caused her, she knows she will always love him. She's long stopped trying to deny that, and now she realizes for the first time that she doesn't even want to anymore.

She watches him from her office upstairs, like he had undoubtedly watched her while they were married and their roles had been reversed. It's so strange to see him here again; focused, supportive and doing his job just as well as he used to. She senses the change in him, and although reason tells her that she has to way of really knowing, her instincts insist they he is finally past the trauma that had caused him to so mercilessly push her away. And her heart clenches at this, as much as she is happy for him, because this isn't just a Tony she loves- which she knows by now is not enough, it should be, but it isn't- but it is also a Tony she can live with.

She tells herself to stop thinking that. She divorced him, and she can't expect him to want her back just when his life was finally looking upwards, not when she'd abandoned him when things had been so ugly. She knows she should just be grateful for what she once had, and let him try to move on with his life.

And she thinks maybe she could have learned to live with all that- as much as it would hurt in the beginning- if it wasn't for that look is his eyes when he looks at her, that look that totally betrays his indifferent manner. She realizes that, as well he knows her, she knows him just as well, knows him well enough to sense the yearning in him, even though she had at first been too stubborn to let herself realize it. She isn't sure anymore if she ever doubted whether he still loved her during those horrible first months after his release- dealing with him had made her feel so frustrated and so helpless that she honestly doesn't remember having much room left for doubt- but now she knows for sure that he does, and always had.

But will this day, that- between Tony, Jack and Chloe- oddly reminds her of the past, be able to snap him out of the vicious circle that he had gotten himself into? Will he be able to open up to her, ask her what she knows he wants and has wanted all along, but was unable to express? Or will he pull away again, proving once and for all that he was damaged beyond any ability of hers to help him? She wants him either way; but she needs for him to confirm that he can be the man that he used to be, so that maybe, one day, she will be able to finally forgive herself for all the bad things that have happened to him.