1Chapter 2: News?

Audrey was worried, she hadn't heard from Jack in a while. She knew he was busy - and knew that she should be too - but she wanted to hear his voice again. Just hours ago she had thought he was dead, was reminded of that horrible day when he "died". CTU didn't seem so horrible anymore now that Jack had not died here.

She was waiting for Jack to send her and Chloe some information that he said he had. When her phone rang, she expected it to be him.

"Jack?" she answered her phone, slightly panicked - a far cry from her usual calm, collected 'Raines'.

"Um, no. Is this Ms. Raines, the D.O.D. liaison?"

"Yes. Sorry, I was expecting another call. What is this concerning?"

"I was told to contact you when Mr. Almeida regained consciousness."

"And he has? What does he remember?"

"He's asking for his wife."

Audrey sighed, "I'll be right down." She did not know how she was going to face Tony. She told Chloe where she was going, and hurried down to the infirmary. Chloe had, quite uncharacteristically volunteered to accompany her, but Audrey had shrugged it off, knowing Tony would not want to deal with Chloe's "personality disorder", no matter how good her intentions were.

Tony looked up, surprised, when Audrey walked in. She seemed, happy? He thought she would hate being in CTU now. Unless...

Tony pushed all those thoughts from his mind. Focusing on one. Only one. The only one that mattered to him. Michelle.

"Michelle?" Now Tony asked her, the look in his eyes resigned, as if he already knew that she had bad news for him.

But Audrey was, smiling? This did not make any sense. How could she be in this kind of a mood? He knew how crazy this day must be, even though he had only been awake for a few minutes. He had worked at CTU enough to know that the only time this part of the building was this quiet was when other parts, namely the bullpen, were insane.

She came right up to his bed, and muttered, barely moving her lips, "We're still worried about there being a mole in here."

"So what else is new?" Tony asked, with a wry look on his face.

Audrey half smiled, and said even more softly, "Michelle is alive. That's what we know. Her injuries were too severe to be treated here, so we checked her into a hospital under a different name."

Tony sighed, but tried to hide it. He didn't want the mole to figure out that Michelle was alive, simply because he was showing such relief upon hearing the news. Suddenly, he panicked again.

"And Katie?" he blurted out. "Did someone go pick her up?"

Audrey was stunned. Who was Katie? She asked "Katie? Who's Katie?"

Tony fought back a grin. "Our daughter, she's nine months old. She's at the babysitters. Michelle and I were supposed to have a huge meeting this morning. I was on the phone to cancel it when the car blew up." With that last statement, his eyes dimmed.