A/N: You guys are so fabulously lucky that I'm posting this, but your reviews got to me. I told myself, "You must finish that chapter tonight!" And so I did ... so here is your post at 2:30 AM :-). Thanks again so much for your reviews and your input on the Michelle issue. I'll expand on my decision and so on at the end. For now, enjoy!

Edit: Had to fix a few minor typos that were seriously getting to me.

Disclaimer: Nothing that you recognize is mine, it all belongs to Fox.

Never Without You

Chapter 5 – Living Again

5:00 – 6:00 PM

5:16:12

"I want you to tell me who's still out there. I want the name of anyone who could help us find that override to stop the plants from melting down." Tony's interrogation voice had come back just as quickly as all the other things he had been so used to doing eighteen months ago.

Dina was firm though. "My husband kept all of this from me. I only helped." It frustrated Tony. He couldn't get anything from her without a little more freedom from Driscoll. Repeating the question again and again simply wasn't going to work with this woman.

"That's a bunch of crap! Now, we know you were just as involved as your husband. Listen, we're quite aware that the only reason you're helping us is because of your son. But believe me, it's not too late for us to change our minds about how we treat him." All right, he couldn't actually nullify the immunity deal, but he could threaten to do so.

Besides, Driscoll wasn't going to complain because it worked. "There are some names I heard Navi mention. They might know what you want. But I don't know how to find them." Not quite as good as what, say, Jack could have gotten with force, but it was a start.

He handed her a pen and piece of paper, deciding to let up for a little. "All right. Why don't you start by writing their names down?" He looked up through the two-way mirror, knowing Driscoll was on the other side. He wondered if he dared to ask her to give him a little more slack in terms of this interrogation.

Then again, he was fairly sure she was having her analyst, Sarah, watch him so maybe he shouldn't.

"Tony," his name came crackling over his earpiece, "ask her about a man named Habib Marwan."

Tony complied without question, something he was rather proud of. If this had been a few years ago and she was Chappelle or even George Mason … "Who is Habib Marwan?"

She looked up at him with recognition in her eyes that was quickly masked. Damn it. "I heard Navi speak of him a few times. He's an engineer. Beyond that, I don't know."

He walked around the chair desperate for more, but not daring to stretch the limits too much. This was maddening. Everything had worked so much more smoothly here eighteen months ago. He hadn't been around too long, but from what he could tell, Driscoll was slowly losing her grip on CTU.

Even with Jack addicted to heroin, having Adam and Chloe as their two top analysts, the Kim and Chase dynamic, and being married to his second in command, things had still worked out somehow.

Perhaps it was because the agents and analysts were all loyal to Jack and Tony. Here, it seemed that no one would complain too loudly if Driscoll was fired.

That sort of false loyalty had Tony worried. Where would they be if CTU was to collapse in on itself?

5:26:34

He grabbed the papers from the printer, frustrated that after dealing with that analyst for ten minutes, he had ended doing it himself. Tony was just finishing checking out the names Dina had supplied them with, but a weak and nervous analyst had made it take longer than it should have.

God, he missed his old personnel. Sure, most weren't fabulous personality-wise, but they could do their stuff and do it fast.

He handed the papers to Driscoll and looked through the two-way mirror into the interrogation room where Dina Araz sat. "All right. So far every name Dina has given us has checked out as a mid-level cell member."

"But what's interesting is that Marwan, who she claims to have never met, is connected to everyone on this list. It looks like all roads lead to him." Tony nodded, he had noticed that too.

"This must be his operation, which means she definitely knows more than she's telling us." He hoped she understood the implied meaning.

She seemed to, to an extent at least. "So what do you want to do to make her talk?"

He noticed the way she stuck him with the responsibility if something went wrong by phrasing it like that, but ignored it. It was political and annoying, but not worth bringing to attention. "I just need you to give me a little more rope." Let her make of that what she would.

She looked him over with a stare meant to intimidate, but life had made Tony immune to such glares. "Do it." She spoke softly, knowing this was one of those things that wasn't spoken about in public political settings, but had to happen in government.

Tony walked into the interrogation room, hiding his pleasure at getting more trust from Driscoll and started off his questioning. "Why don't you tell me more about Habib Marwan." He made it sound like a request, but it was an order.

"I already told you."

"No," Tony corrected, "you told me you never met him."

"I haven't." He had known she would say that.

"Danny, can you come in here please?" He said loudly. Now she looked a little more worried. That was satisfying.

The man walked in, confused. "I'm going to need all audio and video in this room disconnected." He didn't need to call the man in to tell him that, but he wanted Dina to know exactly what he was doing.

"I'm not a stupid woman." She began, "What are you trying to prove with this?"

He shook his head, looking at her intensely. "I'm not trying to prove anything." He had an idea that sounded like it was one of Jack Bauer's. Which made sense, seeing as they had worked together for so long that some of their personalities had to have rubbed off on the other. "I just don't want to have what I'm about to say be recorded."

She looked away from him and said, "I don't believe you." That made sense. He wouldn't believe himself either if he were in her position. Now, all he had to do was convince her. He looked over at the two-way mirror and knew what he had to do.

He grabbed her and dragged her over to the door, remembering for a moment something Jack had done when he was trying to get information from Nina Myers while George Mason was here. Trying to prove that he had the power to do anything to her so she wasn't quite so smug. Of course, he wasn't about to drug anyone like Jack did, but this should work.

"Open the door!" He yelled, hoping that his history of committing treason wouldn't make them refuse him. Luckily, the door opened. "Everybody out. Get out now! Everyone, Erin."

He was toeing the line, but if she really trusted Jack and Secretary Heller's judgment she would leave. She looked at him, disapproving for a minute before turning silently and leaving. He sent her a silent thank you before shoving Dina back into the interrogation room and slamming her against the wall.

"Unless you tell me the whole truth right now, that deal you made to save your son is over and he goes to prison for murder and treason!" He recognized the desperate gleam in her eyes with satisfaction.

"You can't do that," she responded with false confidence, "the president signed an agreement."

Right. Because presidential deals were completely irrevocable. She obviously hadn't ever worked in the government. The president would not hesitate to go back on an immunity agreement. So he used that. "If that deal gets in the way of protecting this country, you think the President's gonna stand behind it? He's going to tear it up, and your son goes to prison for the rest of his life. And I'll tell you a little something about prison and based on the conditions of his confinement I'll tell you right now," this part hurt a little. He knew about prison conditions too well. "– I give Behrooz about three months before he commits suicide. And by the way, I'm going to make it my personal mission to make sure you'll never hear word one about what happens to him. Ever."

She looked scared and Tony was pleased that he had finally gotten to her. Now to follow it up … he went to leave the room just as Jack had done to him twice today.

And, like it worked on him, the tactic worked on Dina. "Wait," she said, "Habib Marwan is the man our cell reported to in the United States."

"You said your cell. How many other cells reported to him?" He managed to completely mask how grateful he was that his strategy had worked.

"I don't know." This time it seemed like she was telling the truth.

"But there were other cells." He clarified.

"Yes," she said.

"How many?" He repeated. After fighting terrorism for so long, he couldn't just let a bunch of terrorist cells go.

"I told you, I don't know. The cells are not in contact with one another. Marwan thought it was safer that way." He supposed that made sense. He also assumed that they would have time to interrogate her about that later.

He focused back on the subject at hand. "What about the override? Is it in his possession right now?"

"Definitely." She said, much more sure now than she had been less than half an hour ago.

"Definitely?" He asked, "Why definitely?"

"Your programmers are trying to interfere with the meltdown sequence. Marwan is the only one capable of stopping them." At least that meant that their techies were making some difference in the terrorist's plans. Giving them more time to locate the override.

"And he's trying to do this by controlling it directly?" He asked, using some of what the analysts outside were saying while fighting the control sequence.

"Exactly."

"Where?" He demanded. Dina hesitated, and he yelled it at her, "Where!"

She winced back and answered, "Somewhere in downtown."

"The Rockland Building?" He hoped. If she said yes, it meant that Jack was on the right track, seeing as that was where he was headed on another lead and Curtis Manning was already there.

She looked stricken and hesitant, after all, she had planned this for years and was destroying it for herself but she nodded. "Yes."

Tony rushed over to the phone and dialed a number he knew incredibly well, Michelle's desk. He knew that Sarah Gavin was at her old desk and only hoped that they hadn't changed the phone numbers in the eighteen months since he was last here.

He wouldn't let himself think about all the thousand other times he had dialed this number to hear Michelle pick up with her professional, "Dessler," only to soften her tone when she heard him on the other end. He was struck by the realization that this was one of the first memory he had had of Michelle that was completely happy in quite a while.

Thankfully, they hadn't changed the numbers, and Sarah picked up. "Sarah Gavin."

"Sarah, get me Jack Bauer on the phone." He glanced back at Dina for an instant before turning his back to her and leaving the interrogation room. As he passed the guard at the door, he spoke to him, "Place her back in holding." They didn't have the time or personnel to try and get more about other terrorist cells out of her now.

"Erin, Dina just confirmed Marwan's got the override. He's at the Rockland building." They walked together out to the main arena where Tony sat back, slightly bitter, and let Erin play the role of director. It took a forceful push to get the protests that he wanted to be out there alerting everyone back down.

"Everyone, listen up! The address where Curtis is and where Jack Bauer is heading is the location of the override. I want every station to focus on this location. I want field teams ready. Rework your assault tactics on the building factoring in this new information."

Sarah called him over after Driscoll was done briefing everyone. "Tony, I've got Jack."

He took the phone from her, nodding his thanks, before he said, "Jack."

"Yeah?" Jack asked from the other side.

"We have confirmation Habib Marwan's controlling the override. He's at the address you're headed to."

"What about Curtis?" Jack's voice had the slightest hint of worry in it.

He looked down at Sarah, not knowing the answer seeing as he had spent most of his time lately interrogating Dina. She shook her head and he conveyed that to Jack. "No, we haven't been able to reach him yet."

"Have you changed the assault profiles?" Classic Jack: expecting them to be just as quick and perfect on their end as he was on his.

"We're working on it. Look, Marwan can't know we're coming, or he'll take off with the override. Also, we're running out of time. We have about 20 minutes before these plants start to melt down." Ah, Jack always operated best under pressure, and he needed some miracle work from Jack right about now.

"OK. Tell Castle to prep for a low-profile assault. Tell him I'm on my way." Good, that sounded like a dismissal. That meant that Jack wasn't going to investigate how being back at CTU was treating him.

"Copy that." He hung up and turned to pass the assignment off to Sarah. "Get me Castle."

He walked away and found himself with nothing to do. Despite how much was at stake, there really wasn't much for the backup to do. Nothing to distract him from being back at CTU.

Tony let his eyes wander, knowing it was a bad idea. Spots highlighted themselves.

Where he had been standing with Mason when Michelle had first walked into CTU to take his place while he was promoted to Nina Myers's position. He remembered distantly the way he had been forced to harden his resolve desperately to never get involved with another coworker the second he saw her.

The edge of Michelle's old desk, the one she had worked at before he became director, where he had always ended up sitting and telling her more than she should probably have known. The memory that jumped to the forefront was when they had finally given up dancing around each other and she had asked him out.

Sarah called him over saying she had Castle on the phone, interrupting the memories. In a way, he was glad. He got the feeling that he could have stood there going over every moment he and Michelle had had together in this office for days.

It was ridiculous, these constant thoughts of her. They were distracting him and with the possible meltdown of five nuclear power plants, he couldn't afford to be distracted.

Then and there, he decided to forget about Michelle Dessler for the rest of the day at least and he turned to Sarah to begin business again.

Very shortly, he would realize that that notion was doomed.

6:00:00

A/N: Okay! Sorry that that was moderately shorter than the other chapters, but not much happens in Tony's point of view in this chapter. Besides, I will definitely make it up to you shortly when I post my next chapter up, which is rather fabulous if I do say so myself. (just to prevent confusion, I try to stay a chapter ahead of myself in posting so that there will never be a huge break between chapters. So tonight I just finished chapter six) In case you don't know this season quite so well, that one happens to be the one where Michelle finally comes back!

So, I have decided on the Michelle issue that I'm not going to directly switch points of view between her and Tony. I think this will just stick to being purely Tony as it was in the beginning and if I feel the need to delve into her side of the story, I'll write a companion. Don't get me wrong, I love Michelle, but I don't want the story to get bogged down and confused by two tellings of the same story.

Send me some reviews as congratulations for staying until two to finish it for you guys, writing it while also doing my online french course which sends me popups with questions on them every ten minutes ... interesting to switch off so quickly between french and english. :-) Thanks for reading!