So I was always kinda bummed that we never saw Tony and Michelle deal with their little fight in Season 3… so I set out to write it, and I must say, AU is really starting to grow on me! lol
They had barely spoken since she got back from the hotel. She had stepped inside CTU to find him giving instructions to Adam, but he had stopped when he spotted her walking in, and his eyes locked with hers for one breathtaking moment before he looked away, as if not being able to face what could have happened.
After that he seemed to have found excuses not to have to talk to her, because Kim had come to her a suspicious amount of times with instructions from him. She hadn't said anything about it, knowing it was neither the time nor the place.
But ever since they walked through the front door of their house ten minutes ago, he had been constantly eyeing her, as if wanting to say something or maybe waiting for her to make the first move.
"You want something to eat?" he finally broke the silence.
He inclined her head in his direction, not quite being able to meet his eyes. "No, I'm okay. I think I'm just going to take a shower and go to bed."
He nodded, but when she passed him to head up the stairs, he reflexively held her back by her elbow.
"Michelle…"
"Tony, please, can we talk about it tomorrow?" she almost pleaded, "We're both tired, we're probably just gonna make it worse than already is."
He held her gaze for minute before nodding and releasing her.
She took a quick shower, washed her hair and brushed her teeth, and was in bed trying to sleep by the time she heard his footsteps cross the room towards the bathroom. As she heard him turn on the shower, she briefly wondered when things had become such a mess.
She wasn't mad at him exactly, at least not anymore. She didn't think he was either. It scared her a little that things had gone so far, resulting in them not even being capable of a normal conversation hours after the fight had supposedly ended. Arguing was not something either of them was very good at; at the office it almost never happened because it was just embarrassing, and outside the office it happened even less because they were always so glad to spend some free time together that they just didn't have the heart to. So when they did fight, neither of them knew how to handle it, or how to resolve it. Most of the time it just ended with a desperate apology, more because they couldn't bear the distance anymore than because they really were sorry.
When she felt him slipping into the bed, she briefly considered faking sleep but then quickly shoved that thought aside, knowing he wouldn't buy it anyway. So when he peered over at her, she slowly opened her eyes.
"Night," he said softly.
She managed a small, tight-lipped smile. "Night."
He reached over and turned off his bed lamp, and she didn't know why she was suddenly disappointed that he was leaving it at that.
She closed her eyes again and waited for her exhaustion to gently guide her into oblivion. But despite her physical need to rest, her mind simply would not grant her body the sleep it craved. Instead, it remembered today and fretted.
The wound in his neck worried her more than she let on, and even now with him lying next to her, she still had to fight the urge to lean over and look at it. She remembered the terror that had gripped her upon hearing that he had been shot. It had been like a nightmare suddenly becoming reality. Being Jack Bauer's most trusted colleague meant that he went into the field more than was expected of a non-Fields Ops agent, but up until today he had always escaped with only a couple of scratches at the most. It had become an automatism to her, forcing herself to think that he would always survive out there by himself. And today, one bullet had abruptly burst her naïve bubble of letting herself believe only what she wanted to believe.
And then, mere minutes after confirming that he was alright, he revealed to her that something else was terribly wrong. She had seen it in his face long before he told CTU and the president the truth – that he knew she wouldn't like whatever it was that he was holding back.
But it was still a shock that she hadn't seen coming at all. She had desperately looked back on the past month and tried to find clues that would enable this to all make sense, only to find none. Yes, he had been called into the office a few more times than she had, and yes, he'd been a little quieter than usual – but how was she supposed to know that this was the cause of his secrets and not of the many other challenges he had to deal with on a monthly basis?
And when she's asked him if he was okay, he'd always smiled and assured her he was fine, and when she prodded, he'd literally kissed away all her worries. He had a sort of power over her that led her to believe every word he said. Maybe that was why his lies had stung her so badly.
She felt him roll over in the bed and knew he wasn't sleeping either. She'd seen her own fear reflected in his eyes when she'd told him she was heading up the team that was going to the hotel. She'd sensed the desire she knew was in him to forbid her to do that kind of thing. She'd wished she knew how to make things right again between them before she left, just in case she wouldn't be able to ever come back. But that, between the fact that they were standing in the middle of the CTU bullpen where everyone could see them and the closed off expression on his face, was just impossible.
But she didn't want to think about all this now. She prayed for her mind to let it go, allow her to get some goddamn sleep. She turned so she was lying on her back and took a few slow, deep breaths, willing her body to relax. After a few moments, she opened her eyes a little and looked at his form lying next to her.
It was hard to sleep when there was not a single part of their bodies touching. It wasn't as if they always slept in an embrace so tight that she could hardly move, but there was always a part of his body that was connected to hers while they were dozing off. Their feet entwined, or her hands pushed up against his chest, or his palm on her thigh. She never would have imagined it would bother her so when she stayed on her half and he stayed on his.
She hated fighting with him, despised it, resented it. It always made her feel so lost, even as she told herself she was being ridiculous. She hated the lack of communication, the knowledge that, as wonderful as they were together when things were good, that's how helpless they became when something got between them. She knew they both had a tendency to keep things inside, but this wasn't really a problem unless they weren't getting along.
She was startled when his voice came softly out of the dark. "Can't sleep?"
She turned her head towards him, saying quietly, "No."
He sighed and rolled over to turn his bed lamp back on. Then he slowly shifted to face her. "What happened today, Michelle?"
She hesitated a moment before answering. "I don't know. We got... personal."
Well, that was an understatement. They'd gotten personal for all of CTU to see.
They were both quiet for a moment, lost in their own thoughts. Finally, Michelle sat up against the headboard. Tony pushed himself up on his elbows and looked up at her questioningly.
"What is it?" he asked softly, seeing the torn expression on her face.
She pinched her lips together and lowered her eyes before deciding to come clean. "Tony, maybe you should… Maybe you should go ahead and take that position in Langley." When he sighed, defeated, she quickly continued, "I mean, I know you said you didn't want it if he didn't have a job for me but… You know how we always said we'd continue working together as long as our personal life didn't get in the way? Well, I think we're getting to that point now."
She could tell that he didn't like the thought of going to work while she stayed home. He knew she had a restless nature; he knew she could never be completely happy when she felt she wasn't making a difference in the world.
He sighed again and raised his hand to gently run his thumb down her upper arm. "You do realize that if I did that, we'd hardly ever see each other?"
She couldn't argue with that. She often marvelled at how happy she was that they saw each other at work because their time off together was so ridiculously scarce. So even if she stayed home after the move to Virginia instead of setting off in search of a job like she really wanted to, she knew she would be seeing a lot less of him than she did now.
When she didn't answer, he asked her incredulously, "Do you really think we need to take such drastic measures? Not working together anymore? It was just a fight, Michelle, it's not like we've never fought before."
She looked at him and shook her head slowly. "Not like this."
He lowered his eyes and scratched the side of his face. "Yeah… uh, listen, I'm sorry about that…"
"I'm sorry, too."
"No, look…" He took a deep breath and forced himself to meet her eyes. "I know I was pretty hard on you in there. But I… I hope you know how much I…"
She lightly touched his arm. "I know, Tony, you don't have to-"
"What if the virus had spread out all over that hotel while you were inside?" he interrupted her with a slight raise of his voice, and she saw a hint of troubled emotion cross his face. "What if Gael hadn't been able to stop it in time? My God, Michelle, you probably would have died with me being a jackass to you."
"You don't know that," she tried to tell him, "I might have been immune-"
"Yeah, but what are the chances of that? And I… I don't know what to say except I love you and… I pray that you never once doubted that."
"Oh, honey…" She reached out and smoothed back a stray curl from his forehead. "Of course I never doubted that."
He watched her intently for a moment before reaching for her and squeezing her tightly against him, just savoring the fact that they were both here in their bed at home, and that the worst seemed to be behind them. He pressed his lips to the side of her face and closed his eyes as he lingered like this for a minute, gently swaying her from side to side.
After a while, she pulled back to look at him.
"What?" he asked quietly, seeing a flicker of apprehension on her face.
She took a deep breath and said quickly, as if afraid she would lose her nerve if she waited, "Tony, I want to talk about the secret operation."
He suppressed the urge to groan. He knew he had hurt her with that, and that it had been the anger with himself that had, ironically, caused him to start snapping at her in the first place. Their had been something akin to guilt in her eyes, guilt that she hadn't realized her husband was keeping secrets, and this just tore at him.
"Look, Michelle, I don't want you beating yourself up about that, alright? It's not your fault, it's mine. I should have never let Jack make me-"
"Do you think I could have pulled it off?" she interrupted him, like he hadn't even spoken, "Lied to you for a whole month without you suspecting anything?"
His first reaction was to say no, not in a million years. But when he thought about it, he realized that he hadn't thought he could do it successfully either. It had caused him so much trouble – forcing away the look in his eyes that he knew she read instantly, fighting the guilt her mere touch brought (knowing she would sense it), simply not allowing himself to think about it too much because she would cue into the fact that he was not being himself.
He hated the thought that she might be capable of all this as well, and he might not suspect because of the implicit trust and honesty that their marriage had been built upon.
"I don't know," he said finally.
She looked at him for a moment before answering quietly, "Me neither."
"Does it matter?" he asked gently, wishing he knew the magic words to enable her to get past it.
She gave him a small, rueful smile. "No, I guess not."
He smiled back at her, though he knew she wasn't quite over it yet. He held her gaze for a minute before deciding he couldn't take in anymore and reaching for her hand.
"Honey, will you just let it go? Please?"
She watched him intently, struggling with his begging until suddenly she said, "Under one condition…"
He was relieved. "What's that?"
"That we go back to the hospital tomorrow and get your wound checked out. Without," she went on, ignoring his proud grumblings, "protest. Deal?"
He didn't have to think about it too long. "Deal."
She seemed satisfied, though he knew she would need a few more days to sort out her feelings about his secrets before she could really move on.
"So what are we gonna do about the Langley thing?" she asked him a moment later, her eyes darting carefully across his face, the hesitance returning.
He looked back at her, wondering how to explain that he didn't really care either way, as long as she was happy. "Baby, I will do whatever you think is best for us. Okay?"
She bit her lip, not liking the prospect that he was burdening her with what was supposed to be their decision, but then she just said, "We'll figure out something tomorrow."
He nodded. "Alright."
"So, you wanna try to get some sleep now?" she asked him as she ran a hand over his forehead, having a strong feeling that she'd be asleep in no time now if given the opportunity.
"Yeah, um…" She frowned at his hesitation, not being able to imagine what was still bothering him. "Michelle, I'm sorry about Nina. I know you had to hear some things…"
"No, Tony, it's fine."
"I never loved her, you know that. I never…"
She saw the subtle look of dispair in his eyes, willing her to understand. She thought back a moment, fighting the urge to cringe as she remembered the personal pain in his voice when he had asked Nina what she got out of being a mass-murderer. Michelle knew that the woman's betrayal had hurt him more because he had trusted her than because he had loved her.
She nodded. "I know."
He checked her features for confirmation, which she gave easily.
"Now can we please get some sleep?" she pleaded.
He chuckled and bent down to press his lips gently against hers. She slipped her arms around his neck, letting her fingers crawl through his hair until he drew away and eased himself onto his back, pulling her with him.
"Night," she mumbled, already half asleep as she wrapped an arm across him, so grateful for his warm touch and not being able to imagine a day this gruelling ending without it.
He brushed a light kiss against her forehead. "Night, sweetheart."