When I next open my eyes, I wake to the now all-too familiar sound of shouting. Another guard, I believe. I roll over, and open my eyes, pus peeling apart as I do. It takes me a moment to adjust, as it always does, but when I do, I realise that the guard standing at my cell and bangning on the bars is Damian, trying, evidently, to wake me up.

"What?" I say throatily, sitting up.

"You's gotta visitor, man. And I dunno who he is, but he gots friends in high places. You's better hurry. He's waiting." Damian tells me, trying to poke his head in, unsuccessfully, as he talks.

"Sure." I say, rising slowly out of bed. My joints protest the movement loudly, but as always, I ignore. I detach.

As I approach, Damian's eyebrows raise in concern. "You's alright?" he asks quietly, a change from his usually boisterously loud and animated voice.

"I'm fine." I lie. Although I trust Damian, he is still a guard, and he could still make my life worse than it already is, willingly or not. I choose instead to take control and deal with my own problems by myself.

He shrugs, clearly not believing me, but letting the subject drop anyways. I reach forward, and he cuffs my hands. The feeling has become less foreign to me. More real. The metal no longer scrapes against my skin.

I walk with him, down the hallway. More gestures and insults are directed my way, but they are fewer now, and I have grown accustomed to ignoring. The pain in my head and body is still fresh from last night, and it is vivid in my memory, but I try desperately to oppress the memories, to push them into the far recesses of my mind. I try to forget them.

"My visitor, he leave a name?" I ask Damian casually as we walk.

"Jack Bauer." he answers, "Here you's go, he's right there."

Damian directs me to a seat, about five cubicles along, again behind a glass wall. Jack is, in fact, sitting there, looking rather flustered but otherwise fine. Damian uncuffs me, and I thank him before turning to Jack and sitting down. I take the phone off of the hook, and Jack does the same. Somehow it is less painful, less awkward than it was with Michelle. Although I doubt Jack has ever experienced what I am going through currently, he has been closer, I am sure, than anyone else I know.

"Tony. Hey." he says simply, but the concern is evident in his tone and in his face. I do not address it, I and hope that he will not pry.

"Hi, Jack." I greet him.

"You don't look so great," he comments, noting my face, now worse than when I met with Michelle. Will all my visits begin this way?

"Yeah, I know. It's nothing." What a lie. "Listen, how's Kim? How are you? I haven't spoken with you since..." I trail off.

"The trial." Jack finishes my sentence for me. "Kim's fine, she's out with Chase's girl today.I'm... fine. You? Besides the obvious, I mean?"

I shrug. "I've been better." I say, not outright lying to Jack, while worrying him as little as possible.

He nods. We both search for something to say. "I'm doing everything I can to get you out, Tony. I've even gotten Palmer involved." Jacks says finally.

"Thanks." I say simply. I am too emotionally drained to do anything more elaborate. Besides, the idea of getting out seems ridiculous to me, an impossible dream.

We pause again, and this time I continue. "Look, Jack, I hate to ask this..."

He leans forward, nose inches away from the glass. "Anything, Tony."

I look down. I can not bear to look Jack in the eye while I ask this of him. I had been trying to forget this, trying to ignore it, but I could not. "Jack, it's Michelle and my, it's, well, it's our anniversary today. Could you give this to her?"

I slip a small card, made on a napkin from breakfast yesterday, through the flapped opening. It is a lame gift, but I can do nothing else while I am in here. If it was at all possible, I would have bought Michelle the fanciest, most expensive thing I could. And she knows it. Instead, all I have is a paper napkin, proclaiming;' Happy anniversary Michelle, You are the best thing that ever happened to me, We WILL get through this, I love you, I love you, I love you, -Tony.' Everything I want her to know, to convey to her, written in blue ball-point pen. Jack takes it, looking at it sadly. Finally, he slips it into his shirt pocket. "Sure, Tony. I'll make sure she gets it."

I look down again. "And could you... could you take her out for dinner or something, Jack?" Tears flood my eyes. Never have I felt so helpless. Even last night, I did not feel as bad as this. I can deal with physical pain, in my own way. It is the emotional, the psychological, that gets me. "I don't want her to be sitting at home, eating Haagen-Daaz from the tub. Not today."

"Yeah, Tony." Jack answers empathetically, "I'll do that for you." He gets up to leave, figuring, understandibly, that our conversation is finished, all that needs to be addressed has been talked about. Always buisness-like and to the point, Jack.

"And, Jack?" I look up at him as he turns to go, pleading him silently with my eyes.

"Yeah?"

"Don't tell her what I look like?" I beg, tears flowing down my face. I don't want my Michelle to think that anything is wrong, to know what is happening to me, to think that there was anything she could have done.

"Sure, Tony."