Okay, here's part three. I know it's been forever, and I hope people are still reading this. The good news is, Tony will be in the next part, and I have that almost all written, so you shouldn't have to wait too long for it. But I thought it made sense to show Jack talking to the president first, to explain how he was able to offer Tony a deal. So I hope you like this part...reviews are very much appreciated and keep me writing.

A couple weeks later, Jack is in a hotel in Washington recovering from the surgery. "Let me see if he's awake," he hears Kim say. Kim knocks on the door.

"I'm up, come on in," he calls.

Kim enters the room, followed by two Secret Service agents. "Dad, the president's on her way to see you...these agents just need to do a sweep of the room first," she explains. Jack nods. "Go ahead," he tells the agents.

A few minutes later, another agent escorts President Taylor into the room.

"Jack, how are you doing?" she asks warmly.

"I'm doing alright, thank you for coming by," he answers.

Taylor sighs. "I wanted to visit you in the hospital, but with everything that's been going on it's been impossible."

"I understand, ma'am," Jack reassures her.

"This must be your daughter," she says, acknowledging Kim.

"Yes, ma'am. This is my daughter Kim and my granddaughter Teri."

Taylor extends her hand to Kim and smiles at Teri. "She's adorable. How old is she?"

"About fourteen months," Kim answers.

"Congratulations," the president says. "I'm so glad she got the chance to meet her grandfather."

"Me too," Kim says with a smile.

Just then, Teri starts to cry.

"Ugh...it's past her bedtime...I better go put her down," Kim says, knowing her father probably wants to discuss information with the president that she isn't privy to.

"Well, it's very nice to meet you," Taylor says with a smile.

"You too, Madam President. It's an honor," Kim says. She takes Teri into the adjoining suite, leaving Jack alone with the president.

"So how are you feeling?" she asks him.

"Okay for the most part," he answers. "Hopefully I'll be mobile and out of this damn bed soon."

"Well, you take it easy. Don't push yourself," she urges.

"I won't," Jack says with a chuckle, amused at the president's tendency to act like his mother. "Ma'am, I'm so sorry about your daughter," he says softly. "I can't even imagine how difficult it must be."

Taylor sighs, clearly anguished. "I just wish I felt confident that I was doing the right thing," she laments.

"I can't answer that, ma'am," Jack says softly. "All I know is, losing someone you care about changes people. The resulting anger, the need for revenge or justice or whatever you want to call it can make people do things...things you never thought they were capable of."

"You're not just talking about my daughter, are you, Jack?" the president asks with a raised eyebrow.

"No ma'am," Jack admits, his own anguish apparent in his voice.

President Taylor sighs sympathetically. "I'm sorry about your friend, Jack," she says softly. "I know how difficult it must be to see what's happened to him."

"Yeah," Jack says softly. "Madam President, can I ask what the status is of the investigation?"

"Well, it seems your friend Renee Walker decided to take a page from your playbook when dealing with Alan Wilson," the president tells Jack.

"Ma'am, she was doing what she believed was right," Jack says forcefully.

"I understand that, but she still broke the law," Taylor says equally forcefully. "But regardless of how the FBI decides to deal with her, and I am leaving it to their discretion, the bottom line is, none of the information she obtained is going to be admissible in court. And unfortunately, it seems that Wilson and his comrades covered their tracks pretty well. Without any evidence, there's only so long we can even keep this bastard in custody."

"Madam President, with all due respect, you cannot let him go free. If you do, he will disappear into the shadows and you will never get another crack at him."

"I understand that, Jack, but we don't have any other options."

"That may not be true, ma'am," Jack says.

"I am not going to hold him indefinitely against the law, Jack," she insists. "I promised when I was elected that I would put an end to such abuses."

"I understand, ma'am," Jack agrees. "But there may be another way to convict Wilson."

"How?" she asks.

"Before Tony was taken into custody, he told me that he had enlisted Bill Buchanan and Chloe O'Brien to help track Wilson and his group and gather evidence to turn them in after he was done with Wilson. I talked to Chloe, and she said Tony never told her about Wilson or who he was working with, but he asked her at one point how to hack in and tap a cell phone without being detected. She gave him instructions and she's pretty sure that he was recording calls made by Wilson's assistant. She was the intermediary for the group, and if Tony managed to tap her cell then the recordings he made are probably enough evidence to convict not only Wilson but other members of the group as well."

"Jack, if you're right, why hasn't Mr. Almeida come forward with his evidence and tried to leverage it for a deal? He knows he's going to be facing the death penalty otherwise. The FBI sent someone to talk to him and I told them to convey that I was willing to guarantee that he'd be spared the death penalty if he was able to help us convict Wilson, but he refused to talk. Maybe he was just trying to position for a better deal, but I didn't get that sense from what the FBI told me."

"He's angry," Jack explains to the president. "He's angry, and he's demoralized. Not to mention the fact that he's lost faith in the government to administer justice fairly. To be perfectly honest, I think the death penalty probably sounds like a relief to him."

The president sighs sympathetically. "So what are you suggesting?"

"Let me talk to him, after I'm more mobile."

"You think you can convince him to cooperate?"

"Maybe. But I think you need to offer him more than life in prison."

"Jack, with everything he did, I can't possibly offer him a free pass."

"I know," Jack agrees. "And I don't want you to, believe me. But it doesn't have to be either or. You can offer him a reduced sentence in exchange for cooperation."

Taylor sighs. "Even if I were willing to do that, and I'm not saying that I am, do you think it would make a difference? You just said the death penalty sounded like a relief for him."

"I don't know, ma'am," Jack says honestly. "But I think it's worth a try. I think I can get through to him and help him see the bigger picture, but it's not going to work if he has no hope of ever seeing the world outside of a prison wall again."

Taylor shakes her head. "Jack, I understand what you're saying, but I just don't think I can do it. He killed over twenty federal agents and attempted to orchestrate a terrorist attack that would have killed thousands of civilians if you hadn't stopped him in time. How is that any different from the people he was trying to take down?"

"It's not, Madam President," Jack agrees. "But it's a question of who's a greater threat to society."

"What about the families of the people he killed?" Taylor asks. "It's not fair to them to let him go free."

"Madam President, with all due respect, Tony betrayed me, he put my daugther in danger, and he tried to use me as a human bomb to kill Alan Wilson. But in spite of everything he did, I could sleep a lot easier at night knowing he was going to get a second chance at some point than I could knowing a man like Alan Wilson was allowed to go free."

"I value your opinion greatly, Jack, but I want to make sure you're being objective here. It sounds to me like you've still got some degree of sympathy for your old friend in spite of everything."

Jack sighs. "I'm beyond disgusted with him, believe me," he says. "But as much as I'd rather not admit it, I know how he got to where he is. I know what it's like to lose everything, to be betrayed and to feel like you have to take matters into your own hands because there's nobody you can trust. I know what it's like to get so caught up in a mission that you don't stop to think about the consequences. I guess it scares me to think that I could have gone down the same path."

"But you didn't," Taylor says firmly. "In spite of everything you suffered, you stayed true to who you were and you continued to serve this country even when this country failed you."

"I crossed the line a few times," Jack admits. "There were times when I let my anger get the best of me. But after my wife was killed, I still had a daughter to think about. I don't want to sound like I'm making excuses for him, but Tony didn't have anybody."

"Didn't he have any other family?" Taylor asks.

Jack shakes his head. "No," he says. "He grew up in a rough neighborhood in South Central Los Angeles, and his father and brother were killed in a drive-by shooting when he was fifteen. I think survivor's guilt is one of the reasons he joined the Marines and then went to work for CTU. His mother died of breast cancer about eight years ago. All he wanted was a family of his own…and in one second, Alan Wilson took that all away from him."

Taylor sighs, finding it hard not to be sympathetic. "Listen, Jack, I'll think about what you said, but I want you to promise me that if I let you get involved, this will be it. Aside from this, I want you to focus on getting better and on being a father and a grandfather. You've done more than enough for this country already."

"Madam President, I promise, this will be the last thing I do for the government," Jack says. "I'm ready to get my life back and all I want is to spend time with my daughter and her family. But I want...I need to see this through to the end," he says earnestly.

"Alright. I'll talk to my advisors about this and see what they think. In the meantime, you take it easy and keep me posted on how you're doing, alright?"

"Yes, ma'am, I will. Thank you for coming by. It means a lot."

"Thank you for everything," she says warmly.