21.00pm, CTU Los Angeles

Alex had just dropped off Kim's belongings at her aunt Marilyn's house, and was now walking back into CTU. Taking a glance up at Mason's office, he saw that George looked even worse, and he could only guess at how long it would be before Mason could no longer remain at CTU. The building was still a mess, but now that it had been some hours since the bombing, the place took on an almost serene feel, as if the chaos of the explosions had finally settled down after crackling through the air for much of the day. Walking past an empty desk, a phone rang on top of it, and Alex decided to answer.

"CTU, Myers," Alex said, and he could hear a lot of activity in the background, including a voice he was sure was Jack's.

"Hello, my name is Kate Warner. I was wondering if I could speak to my father?," Kate replied, referring to Bob Warner, who had been held in custody at CTU for some hours.

"Sure, I'll go give him this phone," Alex answered, walking towards the holding rooms. He wondered if Kate had been inside CTU today, and if she had seen the destruction. Her voice was tired, with a slight hint of an Australian accent, as if she spoke with a Mid-Pacific accent. After asking a security guard which room Warner was in, he knocked on the door before entering. Bob was deep in thought, and only noticed Alex when he closed the door.

"Your daughter Kate wants to speak to you," Alex informed him, before passing him the phone. Deciding to wait outside to give Bob some privacy, he walked towards the door. Leaning against the wall nearby, he looked directly at the door opposite – the room that Nina was being held in – but tried to take his mind off of her, and looked up and down the corridor, but gave in and walked towards the door. Placing his hand on the handle, he realised that he didn't really know what he was even going to say to her. Taking his hand off of the handle, he turned around and walked into Warner's room to collect the phone. Inside, Warner had finished the call, and was looking down at the table. Quietly picking up the phone, Alex debated with himself whether or not to ask if Bob was OK, before Warner looked up at him.

"Are you OK, Mr Warner?," Alex asked, and in reply Bob shrugged. Alex could tell that he must have gotten some bad news from his daughter.

"My daughter Marie, she's involved in this whole plot. She's been working with these terrorists who want to destroy an entire city, and yet today she acted like my daughter, like a young woman about to get married. How? How did she manage to keep up the façade all day?," Bob asked, and Alex immediately saw the parallels. He could see himself in Bob's position, in Kate's position.

"She's your daughter, you can't blame yourself for not seeing her as anything other than your child," Alex replied. Even though he felt guilt for what Nina had done, he had managed to move on enough to know that the guilt was not because he had committed any crime, but because he felt that he should have been able to see past the familiarity of his sister.

21.10pm, O'Connor Hospital, San Jose

Miguel had fallen back asleep, and as Kim sat down next to the bed she felt like time was going far too slow. Each minute seemed like an hour, each hour seemed like a day, and she was beginning to expect dreadful news at any moment. Sighing, she gave Miguel a gentle kiss on his forehead.

"I'll be back in a few minutes, OK?," she whispered, before quietly walking out of the room and down the corridor towards the stairs. Pulling out her cell, she entered the stairwell and dialled Alex's CTU extension. The rings came slowly, and it seemed like the phone would never be answered, until she heard Alex's voice through the phone.

"Alex, it's me. I need to know something about what's going on," Kim asked, careful not to speak too loudly, and careful to look out for anyone who might be nearby.

"There's not much I can say, Kim. We're still looking for the bomb, but we have some leads and I'm sure this will be all over soon. How are you and Miguel doing?," Alex asked, eager to avoid talking about a nuke that would extinguish his life in a second if it went off.

"I'm coping I suppose, but Miguel..they had to amputate his leg, it couldn't be saved," Kim replied, her voice breaking slightly. Sighing, Alex felt sorry for Miguel, and realised that it was yet another day where innocents were getting injured as an indirect result of the threat facing CTU and Los Angeles.

"I'm sorry, Kim. Look, as soon as we stop this nuke I'll call you, OK? Is your aunt going to pick you up at the hospital soon?," Alex asked.

"Yeah, although I would rather not leave Miguel alone. I better go back to the room, I'll talk to you when you call, OK?," Kim replied.

21.15pm, Holding Room, CTU Los Angeles

Alone in the room and brushing up on her Arabic, Nina had her eyes closed, blocking out what little light there was in the room. She occasionally opened her eyes to check the clock – although CTU probably wouldn't believe her, she really didn't know when the bomb was supposed to go off, and she had never been a part of the plot, instead her role was indirect, helping create a diversion to help the terrorist cell. For her, the day had been turbulent, but eventually rewarding as it meant getting out of jail. Exile in North Africa would not last long, and she knew that her contacts would already know of the planned flight to Tunisia. Breathing in deeply, she opened her eyes and sighed. This was not the way things were meant to have gone – she was meant to still be in a high and powerful position within CTU. It had been a far more comfortable role to play than the ones she knew awaited her when she resumed her career in terrorism. She would have to start at the bottom, a powerless pawn sent to do the dirtier jobs. It wasn't that she couldn't, or wouldn't, do such jobs, but she knew it would be a long time before she would have power like she had before her arrest. She had considered plastic surgery to change her looks and allow herself to get a sleeper agent job again, but she considered it too risky. Taking another glance at the clock, she realised that she was in a much better position than she had been a mere ten hours before. As the door opened slowly, Nina couldn't help but mentally roll her eyes – she was feeling like an exhibit at the moment, with people coming in and out over the past few hours.

As George sat down opposite Nina, he was barely able to look at her, because if he did she would see that he was close to death, but it didn't matter anyway. Slowly, he lifted his head up to look at her, and he was sure he could see her look sympathetically at him, even for just a second.

"Maybe I wasn't all that truthful earlier, Nina. I..I'm dying, Nina, and it's going to happen soon," Mason spoke as he looked straight into her eyes.

"What's killing you, George?," Nina asked, and she surprised the both of them with her voice, in a far gentler tone than they had heard from her mouth in a long time.

"I've been exposed to the nuke, Nina. In a few minutes I'm going to hand over control to Tony, and I'm going to walk out of here for the last time. I wasn't going to tell you at first, and I really didn't want to come in here again, but I wanted to know, Nina, and I want you to tell me what I want to hear," Mason spoke, his voice quiet but firm. He coughed a few times, his hand tight against his mouth, and continued.

"I want to know why, Nina. Why did you turn against your friends, your country? Why did you work with terrorists and mass murderers?," he finished, and Nina realised that she needed to give him something, a little closure. After all, he was close to death, and it wouldn't be a shock to see him collapse and die right where he was, given his current state. Thinking over her answer for a few minutes, she replied.

"There are too many different reasons for me to explain, George, but I'm like a contradiction – I have a great desire to survive, and a great desire for excitement, for risks. I can't just be the patriotic, hard working federal agent that everyone thought I was, and I can't just languish in jail for the rest of my life," Nina said, and George nodded slowly. It wasn't much, but it would do. It was, after all, more truth than he had ever heard from her, and as his last few hours were ticking away, he knew that he couldn't stay there much longer. Standing up slowly, he moved away from the table and looked at Nina.

"Goodbye, Nina," he remarked, before turning around and, as he walked out of the door, he was sure he heard Nina say a quiet farewell to him.

Walking into the main bullpen, he looked around at the agents busily working to stop the plot, and a slight smile grew on his face. Sure, his life was coming to an early and disappointing end, but at least he could die knowing that there were many good agents within CTU. Approaching Tony, he knew that his time as a CTU agent was over.

"Tony, I think you're going to have to take over, I'm not feeling great. Look, here's the access codes and everything. When this is all over, can you tell everyone what a pleasure it was to work with them, and how great they've done their jobs today," George spoke, and he was sure he was about to start crying, whilst Tony looked at him with confusion.

"George, only Chappelle can promote anyone," Tony replied, but Mason shook his head.

"Just talked to him, Tony. You're the new director, congratulations. You know, what I said this morning about wanting to get out of this place – well, I don't feel like that any more," George chuckled, before turning around and walking towards the main entrance. Stopping, he turned around and looked back at Tony, who was still coming to terms with his sudden promotion.

"Goodbye, Tony. I know you'll do great, I know everyone will," George spoke, before continuing on his way out of the building for the last time in his life. As he walked away, Alex watched him sadly. Although his first impressions of George Mason had been rather negative, Mason was rather different to that original idea of himself, and now he was leaving forever and as he disappeared into the corridor that led to the underground parking lot, Alex looked at his computer monitor sadly, before looking back up at Tony, who was deep in conversation with Michelle. He was happy for Tony, and knew that Tony would do a great job, but it was certainly a baptism of fire for the newly promoted Director, and Alex wondered if Tony would continue as Director after the threat was over.

"Can I have everyone's attention for a few minutes, please?," Tony called out, and he waited as everyone become quiet and looked towards him. Taking a deep breath, he began his announcement.

"I know many of you will not have heard, but this morning George Mason was exposed to a lethal dose of plutonium, and I'm afraid that he doesn't have a lot of time left. In fact, he just left CTU for the last time. For the time being, I'm in charge here, and I want everyone to continue working hard. On a normal day we would have been mourning George, just like we would have been mourning Paula and the other agents we lost today, but today is no normal day, and we need to leave the mourning until the threat is stopped. That's all I really wanted to say, so let's get back to work and stop this nuke," Tony spoke, his voice loud and clear. He saw the faces of upset agents, and realised that he had a massive task ahead of him. As much as he wanted to mourn those who had been lost, he knew that noone could do anything other than fight the current crisis until it was all over.

As the agents returned to work, Alex wiped a single tear from his eye. He would mourn George and Paula and all of the agents who lost their lives, and it was for their sake as much as it was for the sake of the people of Los Angeles that they needed to stop the nuke.

21.35pm, O'Connor Hospital, San Jose

"Kim?," Carol spoke quietly as she walked into Miguel's room. She immediately noticed that Miguel was missing a leg and decided not to mention it.

"He's going to be OK. The doctors said he'll probably sleep for hours," Kim spoke as she stood up, before kissing Miguel gently on the cheek. Walking out of the door with her aunt, she saw the CTU agent, Eric O'Brien, sitting on a chair nearby.

"I'm leaving now, Agent O'Brien. I appreciate you staying here with me," Kim spoke, and Eric nodded.

"OK, goodnight. I'll be heading back to CTU soon," Eric replied, and as Kim and Carol walked down the corridor, Kim couldn't help but think how close it was to midnight, how close they were to seeing Los Angeles destroyed by a nuke. Trying to take the nuke out of her mind, her thoughts turned to the little girl she had been looking after.

"Where's Megan?,"Kim asked. Now that both Megan's parents were dead, Kim had no idea who would look after the girl now.

"Her mother's sister picked her up about an hour ago. Don't worry, they live well away from Los Angeles, and I made sure the woman really was who she claimed to be," Carol replied.

"As long as she's safe, I'm happy. I feel so sorry for her, I just hope she can grow into a healthy adult regardless of today's events," Kim commented.

21.40pm, CTU Los Angeles

Alex checked the time, and sighed deeply. Although he wouldn't admit to it, he was frightened of the possibility of the nuke going off, and he had tried not to think of the worse possible outcome, telling himself that even if it did go off, CTU was inside the ground zero of the blast anyway, immediately killing them without them ever knowing what hit them. Noticing a short message from Tony popping up on his screen, informing him of his promotion to third in command – something he now held far more permanently than he had done in the previous times he had been third in command, when he had the position for no more than a few hours at a time – he wondered if he would be in such a position if the events of the day, as well as the events of eighteen months ago when Nina was arrested, had never happened or had not happened in the way they had. Sending a quick but polite reply to Tony to confirm that he had received the message, followed by another glance at the time, his attention turned to Chappelle walking into CTU, before disappearing down the corridor where the holding rooms were located, presumably to visit Nina one last time before she was exiled. Whilst she had spent most of the last year and a half in jail, she had also spent some time at Division, being interrogated and even tortured in the hope that she would give them some information, but she had resisted strongly and they hadn't got even a syllable out of her. Even at her trial she said little, and what she did say was the basic dialogue expected of the defendant. Suddenly a thought popped into his head and he grabbed his phone. He was about to dial a number, and wondered if the call he was about to make was the right thing to do. Would it really help in the long term, or would it cause someone to spend their last few hours panicking? Deciding that it didn't hurt to try, he dialled her number and, when she replied, spoke in Spanish quietly.

"Erica? It's Alex," Alex began, and he took note of the time. It was almost ten, and the nuke was potentially going to go off in the next two hours, so he decided not to mention any specifics.

"Alex? Is everything OK?," Erica asked, and Alex noticed the calmness of her voice.

"Yeah, everything's OK. It's just – I think maybe you should start making your way out of the city as soon as you can. I don't want to scare you, and I don't think anything's going to happen, but something might do before midnight. Is Kyle there with you still?," Alex spoke. When he had visited earlier, Kyle had been busy playing some game on his computer, but Alex had no idea whether he actually lived with his grandmother or not.

"Yes, he's asleep, but I wouldn't worry, Alex. I've got faith that you and CTU will stop whatever might happen," Erica replied, and Alex reluctantly accepted in his mind that the determination in her voice was real, and that no amount of convincing would work.

"Alright, Erica. I'll call you in the morning, OK? Bye," Alex replied, and hung up, only to notice a not very impressed Tony stood next to him.

"Jamey's mother, right?," Tony asked, and Alex nodded. Sighing, Tony looked over at the huge monitors that covered a large amount of one wall, before looking back at Alex.

"I'll overlook this, Alex, but we can't have mass panic. I understand why you called her, and I will admit to thinking of it myself, but we're going to defeat this threat, OK?," Tony continued.

"Yeah, alright. Thanks for the overlook, Tony," Alex replied.

21.59pm, Norton Airfield, Los Angeles

Jack was stunned at the news. Shaking his head slightly, he looked up at the sky before looking back at the technician.

"Are you sure?," he asked, and the technician nodded.

"Really sure. This thing could go off any minute."

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