A/N: Thank you so much to everyone for your reviews. I appreciate knowing that you liked my Michelle and thought she was in-character. I absolutely adore her, and for that reason I'm always nervous about writing her. Anway, I hope that subsequent chapters live up to the first few. This is starting to get where it gets less action-y and more romance-y. I'd love feedback.

Michelle was aware of every set of eyes on the floor following her as she entered CTU, feeling weaker and dizzier than she'd have preferred to admit. Held steady by a medic whom she had tried unsuccessfully to shake off before going in, with her hair soaked in blood and dried blood still all over her arm, she knew was a rough sight to see.

Tony, who had been leaning over a computer across the room, looked up and spotted her. He felt his heart catch in his throat. Blood, there was so much blood. He'd known she was in bad shape, but seeing her was different. He had to go to her.

Michelle finally succeeded in shedding the medic and approached Chloe, looking at the screen over her shoulder. "What have we got on this?"

"We've identified all five targets. Bomb squads are en route and-"

"Michelle! Sweetheart… Oh my god." Tony had made his way across the floor and reached for her, sliding his hand behind her back.

"We'll pick this up in a minute, Chloe." Michelle turned towards Tony, the man she'd been so afraid she was never going to see again. She struggled to keep the tears from flowing, knowing that if she started crying she wouldn't be able to stop. Gulping air to keep her composure, Michelle let her bleeding face drop into Tony's strong shoulder.

Tony drew Michelle's almost imperceptibly trembling body towards his own, never wanting to let her go. Into his shoulder, he heard her whimper, "Tony," and he melted.

"Sweetheart, it's okay. You're going to be okay," he soothed, reassuring himself more than Michelle. His Michelle. God, he needed her so much. He was startled to feel her suddenly tense and pull away.

"We can't do this now, Tony," she breathed, "Later."

"You need medical, baby." Tony cradled Michelle's face in his hands, terrified by how deathly white it was where it wasn't smeared with blood.

"I know that. But right now, we have a bomb threat to stop within the next two hours and a suspect to interrogate. I think he's holding something back- I think there's something else going on besides the bombs. I need to be the one to interrogate Linden- I've already started with him and I have an idea of how to deal with him. I'll go down to the clinic while you prep for interrogation. Okay?"

"No, not okay! Are you out of your mind, Michelle? You're in no condition to-"

Michelle caught the hands that were raised in anger and drew them around her waist, silencing him. "Tony. You need me to do this interrogation and you know it."

"She's right, Tony," Jack put in as he crossed the floor. It was that simple: yes, Michelle was hurt, badly, but she was still functioning fine. They needed her and she knew it, and Tony could not get in the way of that.

"Tony. Let me do my job."

"Fine."

"You're really not in any condition to be doing anything right now." The doctor was getting completely fed up. Insisting that she had to finish something, Michelle had refused to let them deal with the mess on their arm, and was steadfastly refusing to stop work

"Well, I am." Michelle repeated, as she twisted an elastic around her hair, the blood rinsed out now that seventeen stitches neatly closed the deep gash along her hairline. Still, she had trouble getting the elastic secure, because it hurt too much to move her right arm high enough to pull back her hair. Ignoring the pain, Michelle continued.

"I have an interrogation to run and I am going to run it. When this is over, you can do whatever you need to, but not before. That's all there is to discuss."

"Ms. Dessler," the doctor conceded as she bandaged the wounded arm, cleaned and, for the moment, no longer bleeding, "If anything goes wrong, you get down here right away. And I want you back here the second you're done with whatever you have to do."

"Thank you, Doctor." Michelle winced in pain at the sudden movement of swinging herself off the bed, but then hastily exited the clinic. As she left, she was already reviewing the file Kim had brought down to her.

Michelle sauntered into the interrogation room, her face and manner betraying none of the wrenching pain tomreting her body. Linden stared up at her.

"So," Michelle slid to a sitting position on the table in front of him. "Let's get started."

Michelle had been right. Something else was going on- a shooting at one of the parks. Everything she'd gotten from Linden in her interrogation matched up with the intel they already had; he was telling the truth.

She stumbled out of the interrogation room, having exhausted all information she could get out of Linden pertaining to that day. Now that all of the bombs had been stopped, Jack and Chase and their teams were headed to the site of the planned shooting.

And though she was beyond exhausted and her whole body was throbbing in pain, Michelle was still needed to help run tactical. Once she made it to her workstation, moving slower than usual, she collapsed into her chair and sighed heavily.

It hurt. It hurt badly. Everything hurt. Her head, her face, most of all her arm. And while she wasn't going to admit it, she'd never really recovered from the lightheadedness from when she'd first been hit on the head. But as long as the pain wasn't infringing on her effectiveness to the operation, she felt that she had to keep working.

As Michelle typed an access code into her keyboard, she was startled to see a drop of blood hit a key. Turning her head in confusion, Michelle saw the rivulet of red liquid trickling down from the bandage on her arm.

She should go get the arm rewrapped; Michelle knew she couldn't loose that much more blood before it started affecting her work. With an exasperated sigh, she got up to head down to the clinic. Passing Chloe, Michelle murmured, "I need to go downstairs and get this bleeding stopped. I'll be back in a couple minutes."

"Yeah, whatever. I'll cover for you. I mean, the way you are right now I don't even think-"

"Chloe," Michelle interrupted shortly. Then she softened her tone as she realized how harsh she sounded. Chloe tried, God knew, and it wasn't her fault if she could never manage to convey anything other than critical bluntness. "Look, I appreciate your concern, but I need to do my job right now."

"Fine," Chloe huffed, and turned back towards Michelle's computer screen as the sound of Michelle's heels clicked off towards the clinic.

A few minutes later, Tony approached her, sounding urgent. "Where's Michelle?"

"She went down to the clinic," Chloe answered, clearly surprised Michelle hadn't told him.

"Why? What's wrong?" demanded Tony, his heart beating faster.

"Gosh, I don't know Tony. Gunshot wound, stab wounds, concussion. Take your pick." Chloe rolled her eyes as Tony sighed and went towards the clinic.

As Tony pulled open the door to the clinic, he heard Michelle insisting, "Just stop the bleeding and deal with it later; I have to get back to work. I'm fine."

"You're not fine!" Tony shouted. And then his voice grew gentler as he reached Michelle. "We've got it under control upstairs. We're handling tactical. Please baby, just let them do what they need to do. Please, sweetheart."

Michelle sighed. "Fine. But if you need anything upstairs, let me know. Actually, from down here, I could probably-"

"Michelle." Tony looked at her pointedly, and she laughed a little. She was being, probably, a little too stubborn. Maybe she should work on that.

"All right! Fine. You win."

"I don't win, sweetheart. You're the one who's hurt." Tony laid his hand over hers tenderly, protectively.

"Tony, go upstairs. If I'm not there, you need to be. Go upstairs... and Tony?"

"Yeah?"

"You let me know what's going on, okay?"

"Of course, baby."

"Your arm's going to be fine, Ms Dessler. I'm going to want you back in here in a couple of days, and in the meantime, you'll need to-"

"Look, can we do this in a couple of hours?" Michelle interjected, "There's a lot that still needs to be dealt with today." Her arm taken care of, Michelle was impatient to be back on the floor. If she was working, she could fend of the haunting thoughts of what had happened in the field.

And she felt incompetent for having gotten injured as badly as she had. Right then, Michelle needed to feel needed; to know that she was doing something; to be capable and efficient. Simply, she needed to work.

"I'll be back down with my husband once this situation has been tied up. It's going to be a little bit." Without another word, Michelle slid down, and made for the doorway, slowing her usually brisk pace in an effort to counteract the dizziness that had still barely ebbed. Her head hurt like hell.

Tony, who was running point, looked over to see Michelle return to the floor and talk to Chloe, apparently being briefed on their current situation. He was about to go over and order her back down to the clinic, but then he stopped himself. He'd played the protective role enough today; he needed to start treating Michelle like any other agent; needed to respect her to do her job. Although that didn't mean he had to like it.