Hey! Sorry it's been so long. First my harddrive died, then I just had serious writers block and I haven't been able to get past it on either of my stories. I hope this is alright. I'm not positive I'm completely happy with it. Please please reveiw and tell me what you think, as it really encourages me to keep writing. I'm really busy right now but I'll try to at least get the next chapter up sooner than last time (which isnt really saying much... looks around innocently)! This has a little bit more of the CTU stuff and isn't as fluffy as usual, but I hope people like it. Please Review. They mean a lot. Thanks for reading:)

He wanted to tell her that second. She had just walked by Adam and Chloe in the middle of a brutal argument, and having had enough, told them both to get back to work before the rest of the office throttled them with their bare hands. He had stifled a laugh and fought the urge to tell her he was in love with her right there.

Because he couldn't do that.

They didn't do that at work.

At work, at least normally at work (yesterday had been the odd exception), those words were off limits, because they reminded them clearly of the fact that they were off limits to each other during the day. It didn't matter if they had curled up in bed together the night before (which they had after getting Sam set up in the den) or if they kissed each other that very morning (which they had, as he woke up and ran a hand at the edge of her shirt, just touching bare skin and kissing her awake). It didn't matter, because at work, they were colleagues. Well, colleagues with the occasional flirty glance. By now, most in the office new that they were engaged, that they were best friends and lovers, and the seriousness they endured on a daily basis seemed a mask at finding out the true depths of their relationship. Of course, every girl in the office thought that Tony was the most gorgeous guy in the office. In fact, Michelle had endured enough lusting after him when nobody knew they were together. Tony had his share of hearing how beautiful Michelle was too. Not that he disagreed in the slightest. He thought she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, and figured that these guys were right, she was beautiful. But at least it was him she had gone home with every night.

Right now, he'd give anything to tell her. He was sitting in his office fuming, which was becoming an all to occurrence for him due to certain people not understanding the fundamental basics of staffing needed in order to successfully run a government agency, and he was snapping at everybody who dared bother him. He had blocked out his glass windows, a new feature they had added with remodeling instead of blinds, closed the door, and spoke with frustration to anyone who called him. He thought he made it perfectly clear that he didn't want to be bothered, especially in the midst of the pile of paperwork sitting on his desk.

Unfortunately downstairs, the staff was starting to notice the difference in his demeanor, and worked diligently trying to ignore his apparent annoyance.

"Michelle," said Adam, approaching her.

"What do you need Adam?" she asked, right in the middle of a capabilities search.

"Um, Tony seems a bit on edge. He's been, well, pretty much yelling at everyone who talks to him. I thought that maybe you might be better at talking to him."

Michelle looked at him for a second.

"He seems like he needs a break," he added.

Michelle stood up.

"He's been aggravated over this thing with Chappelle. I'll talk to him, thanks Adam."

He nodded and walked away.

As she walked towards the stairs she had the odd feeling that eyes were on her, that people were waiting to see how she handled it.

She knocked softly on the door, entering and closing it behind her.

"What?" said Tony in an aggravated voice, without looking up.

He glanced up and softened slightly as she closed the door.

"Sorry."
"It's fine," she said, walking over to him and perching on the side of his desk, "But you are on edge. I hear you're snapping at everyone."
She kissed him lightly before he could respond, pushing his hair behind his ear.

"Baby you have to relax. I know you're frustrated and you have the right to be, but you've gotta be able to take a break," she said, leaning her forehead against his.

"Hmm," he said, kissing her again, "Is this considered a 'break'."

She smiled against his lips.

"I think so."

He covered her lips with his, running his hand into her hair, stroking her cheek with his thumb, standing up and pulling her against him.

"Tony," beeped the intercom.

He pulled away, frustrated yet again with interruptions.
"Yes," he said.

"Are we having a conference meeting? You said ten minutes?"

"Yes, sorry. Be there in a second," he said, kissing Michelle in a brief attempt to end their break before both hurried downstairs.

The update was quick. There was an apparently random stream of car bombings, and they were trying to find a link between the different bombings. No progress seemed to have been made.

"I want you to continue scanning the police reports for anything that looks related," said Tony to Adam, "Everybody else, help with that or be working on-"

"Tony?" came the voice on the intercom, "There's a girl here. Says her name is Samantha Almeida. She looks pretty upset. I sent her in."

"Thanks," said Tony as calmly as he could, "Let's get back to work," he managed, walking swiftly out of the conference room before anyone else even got out of their chairs.

He got a brief glance of Sam walking into CTU, looking around, her tearstained face, and a light bruise on her cheek before she saw him.

"Tony," she said, starting to cry slightly and running the few yards to him, wrapping her arms around his waist and burying her face in his shirt as her body shook with sobs.

"What's up, kid?" he asked worriedly, stroking her hair and trying to get a look at her face.

For those able to see her face, it was immediately apparent that she was related to him. She was breathtakingly gorgeous, even with the swollen, red eyes, the wet face, and hint of color on her left cheek.

"I'm sorry I bothered you at work, but I didn't know where else to go," she said.

"Hey, hey, it's fine. Don't worry about that. Okay, Sam… Now can I see it?"

She looked up tentatively, aware that he would be angry, as he was her big brother after all. He turned her face slightly and looked at the bruise scowling, looking like he was restraining himself with fantastic effort from starting the search to find the person who'd made the bruise and to murder them with his bare hands.

"It doesn't look too bad, kid. Can you tell me what happened? Does it have to do with what happened last night? I thought you told that guy to piss off?"

"I did," she said, her voice cracking.

"Okay," he said soothingly, rubbing her back, "Okay. You wanna talk to Michelle?"

She nodded slightly into his shirt.

"Alright. Let me go find her."
"I'm right here," piped up Michelle.

Sam's tears started to flow harder.

"Hey," said Tony, "Hey look at me, would ya?"
She brought her eyes up to meet his.

"Whatever it is, it's gonna be fine, ok?"

She nodded.

"Take as long as you need," he said, looking at Michelle meaningfully.

She nodded.

"You alright kid?"

Sam nodded.

"Yeah, thanks."

She finally let go of him, wiping her face. Michelle grabbed her hand, mouthing a 'she'll be fine' at Tony, watching him nod, before she led her out of the bullpen and down the hall. Tony rubbed his forehead, hoping to God that he didn't find out the name of the perpetrator.

The second that they entered the holding room Sam sat down and buried her face in her hands.

"Sammy," said Michelle gently, pulling the chair over, "What happened?"

She waited patiently. Sam looked up and sighed.

"Well, what happened last night," she hesitated, "I wasn't completely… forthcoming."

"Okay," said Michelle.

"Well, it wasn't just some guy. It's… my boyfriend. Last night we were hanging out and he started getting too pushy, so I told him to back off, and when he didn't after I kept asking him to, I hit him and left. I was so angry."

"That makes sense," said Michelle.

"Then today, I went back to get what I left there. He smacked me and told me to never hit him again, and that the only reason he went out with me was because he heard I was easy. That I wasn't very hot and that he just thought he could get laid," she said, choking back a sob while Michelle listened, appalled.

"I hate being a girly girl about this stuff, but, but I thought I was in love with him. Now I know he's just an asshole. But that doesn't make it go away for some reason."

She covered her face with a hand, exasperated and annoyed that she had feelings for someone who so clearly was a jerk.

"Sam, don't be so hard on yourself. First of all, that's completely normal. I've broken up with guys before and felt devastated; just because he wasn't a nice guy doesn't make the times when he was any less amazing. There's nothing wrong with still being in love with that guy. Second, I have no idea what he is talking about. You are absolutely gorgeous and you should know that with the lists of guys practically banging down your parent's house's front door. In fact I'm surprised Tony hasn't had them all given restraining orders yet. And besides, all your friends and all the people who know you know that you're not 'easy', this guy was just an asshole trying to make you feel bad about yourself. You did nothing wrong; you have no reason to doubt yourself. And it's okay to mope over him, even though he was a jerk. One action doesn't erase feelings you've had for awhile."

Sam finally looked at her and sighed.

"Thanks. God I feel so stupid."

"You're not. You're a girl. However smart you are, you're gonna fall in love with a few jackasses. You gotta have your share of those ones so you can get the good ones."

Sam stayed silent for a minute, then looked up and gave Michelle the first smile she had shown since her arrival.

"Michelle, when are you and Tony getting married?"

"Why?" said Michelle, surprised as to why she was asking now, smiling slightly.

"Because I can't wait to have you as my sister."

Tony watched her open the door, quickly ending his phone conversation.

"Hey," he said, then without waiting for a response, "How is she?"

Michelle smiled.

"She's fine. I left her downstairs with my stash of chocolate."
"Is she, is she in any kind of trouble?" he asked with some difficulty.

"No, she's fine."

Tony nodded.

"Tony, I promise. No damage except maybe a slightly broken heart. She'll be fine. All this stuff that's happening is typical girl stuff. She's not doing anything bad."

Tony looked at her and nodded again, though with a slight smile, holding out his hand to her. She took it, and he pulled her into him slightly and kissed her softly on the lips.

"Thanks baby."

Downstairs Sam was taking a bite out of a chocolate that turned out to have a butter cream center. She chewed thoughtfully for a moment before taking another bite, demolishing the delicious truffle with pleasure. Reaching for the next, her arm brushed across the keyboard, the screen of Michelle's computer lighting up.

Sam couldn't help herself. Looking at the report on the screen, she read a series of locations and glanced at the top 'locations of car bombings in last 48 hours'. She was shocked at how many there were. Surmising by the notes she figured they were trying to connect them to each other. Quickly glancing at the locations again, her eyes narrowed.

"Hey you can't look at that," said some guy name Adam who had the desk across from Michelle.

"Just give me a second," she said, gritting her teeth and clicking up a map of LA.

"Wait-" started Adam, walking around behind her but stopping as he watched her key in the addresses and times, following her mouse as each new dot appeared on the map.

"My God," said Adam, punching some numbers on the phone, "Tony, come down here quick, we've got something."

In the meantime, Sam had pulled a piece of paper and was sketching something.

"What is it Adam?" he said in his command voice.

"You're, uh, sister," he said questioningly, "She saw this on Michelle's system and-"

He seemed at a complete loss for words.

"There's a pattern Tony. Seriously some of the smartest computer geniuses in the country and you couldn't figure that out. The bombings go as follows. They're in an expanding X pattern like this," she held up her sketch, "They strike at the bottom right, then the top left, then the bottom left, then the top right, then make the top of the X the bottom and repeat moving the points outward so that the Xs get substantially bigger each time, probably to make it look random. You're next one should hit here," she said, landing her mouse on a spot on the map.

Tony and Michelle, along with Adam and a few other employees who had gathered there had been a lead, stood speechless.

Tony was the first to find his voice.

"Jesus Sam how do you know how to do all this stuff?"

She shrugged.

"Took a class in computer sciences. I got bored with high school classes so I started taking ones at UCLA. Most of the classes pertain to this sort of thing, and other preparation for this kind of job. Besides, I finished all school requirements and I'm out of math, science, and language classes to take, so I figured I'd go to computer sciences and nuclear physics next and get ahead on college so I can graduate early."

Another baffled silence finished this statement. Tony had known that his sister was exceptionally smart. School had always been easy for her and she had excelled incredibly in all subjects, showing a particular interest and aptitude in science, math, and foreign language. Her reasoning skills were fine tuned and he was certain, however much he didn't want her to be involved and possibly hurt in a job like this, that she would be an excellent agent one day.

The classes came as a slight surprise, though. He hadn't realized that she was so good at this stuff, that she was doing what he did.

"Nuclear physics? Jesus," he said again.

"Yeah well back on point, you should probably do something. Judging on the timing it should be going down within a couple hours."

"Uh, yeah," said Tony.

"Your attention everyone," he said loudly, returning to his command voice, "We have a possible location for the next bomb. I want everyone working to finding this thing and canvassing the area before any more of them go off. Adam I want you to review and a couple level 1 analysts to look at the recovery of the last bombs. Find anything you can about them; it'll help us identify the cell responsible. Let's get to work."

He took a breath as everyone departed, happy that at least Sam was distracted enough to keep from thinking about, well thinking about whatever she was so upset about.

"Tony," she started.

"Yeah kid."

"Let me look at the recovered pieces of the bomb. I bet you I can sort it out. I know how stuff works."

"I know you do, but I can't let you do that."

"Tony just give me ten minutes. If I don't find anything, I'll stop annoying you."

Tony looked at her skeptically but gave in.

"Fine, ten minutes. Use Michelle's system, she's already using one over there. But call 2536 if you find anything, you here me?"

"Thanks."

Tony walked away, not quite sure if he was making a right choice. Everything about what he had just done was against protocol. But she had already found something that hours of examination by the best tech experts hadn't. She had a different way of looking at things, at looking at people and the world. Sometimes he wished he still had her optimism, her ability to bond with people the way that she could, so effortlessly and smoothly. So for the moment he put his trust in her, hoping that letting his seventeen year old sister into the system, wasn't one big mistake.

Enjoy and Thanks for reading! Please please review... it really encourages me to keep writing:)