Here's more. Sorry for the delay. Reviews are always appreciated, and they keep me writing. I bolded the lines that were part of the fill-in-the-blanks at the end of the last chapter, and the missing words are underlined, for anyone who was trying to guess them. And there are more fill-in-the-blanks for next chapter at the end, so enjoy. Also, I noticed that the producers have changed Freddie Prinze Jr.'s character name from Cole Davis to Cole Ortiz, so I updated my fic to reflect that. So the Agent Davis I had in this story is now Agent Ortiz, but it's the same person.

"Jack, are you out of your mind?" Renee asks with disbelief.

"Probably," Jack admits. "But I still think it's the best plan we've got."

"Putting aside all the people he killed and the thousands he tried to kill, he lied to you, he tried to kill you, he kidnapped your daughter, for heaven's sake."

Jack looks Renee square in the eye. "I know what he did," Jack says firmly, almost hostilely.

"How could you ever think of trusting him again?"

Jack sighs. "I don't trust him," he answers. "Not like I did before, at least. But we have to look at the situation objectively. We know that Tony was working alone to get to Wilson. Chloe crossed his name and all the aliases he used with everyone we know might have been involved in today's attacks and they came up clean. We know that the only communication he's had with the outside world has been with me and a few of your agents who questioned him about Wilson's group."

"Actually, the warden checked and he had two other visitors. One was the wife of one of the agents he killed. She asked to speak to him and he agreed...she came all the way from Texas and he backed out," she says with disgust.

Jack sighs, disappointed but understanding that Tony wasn't ready. "Who was the other visitor?" he asks.

"An Imam named Gohar...isn't he the Imam who helped us find the two brothers?"

"Yeah," Jack nods.

"Any idea what he was doing here?"

Jack nods. "I asked him to come speak to Tony...he helped me put some things in perspective and I thought maybe he could help Tony."

"I see," Renee acknowledges. She understands why Jack still cares about Tony and wants to try to help him but it's still hard to swallow.

"What about the rest of the records?" Jack asks. "Has he talked to anyone besides me by phone or had any other contact with the outside world?"

"Nothing interesting in the phone logs…it looks like you're the only one he's talked to over the phone. He sent one e-mail to a Danny Dessler…"

"Michelle's brother," Jack finishes.

"Yeah. He was the one who went through their house after it looked like they had both been killed, so Tony asked him to send him his wedding ring and a couple photographs. That's the only package he's received since he's been here. His disciplinary record was clean except for one recent incident."

"What happened?"

"He gave the correctional officer a little bit of a hard time when he was told he had to leave the TV room and go back to his cell, and then another officer caught him using a radio in his cell after lights out. The warden was pretty sure he just wanted to finish watching or listening to a baseball game."

"When did this happen?" Jack asks.

"About a week ago…" Renee checks her notes. "October 15, last Tuesday."

"The night the Cubs won the pennant," Jack realizes.

"Yeah, I think so."

"Did the warden say anything about his emotional state?" he asks.

"Not too much…Tony hasn't been here that long. They kept him at the holdover facility in DC for a while after he accepted the agreement and received his sentence so the FBI could question him."

"Yeah, I know," Jack says.

"The warden said Tony mostly keeps to himself and doesn't talk to the other inmates much. Until the incident last week he hadn't caused any problems. He did say that Tony's been talking to the priest who comes here as a volunteer to counsel inmates," she notes.

"Good," Jack says softly, seeming heartened by this news.

Renee sighs. "You really think he's changed, don't you?" she asks Jack.

"Yes, I do," Jack responds. "Not overnight, but he's getting there. The last time I talked to him was about 6 months ago and I could tell he had some regrets then, but today was the first time he was actually able to admit that he was wrong."

Renee sighs, exasperated. "Damn it, Jack, are you really so blinded by guilt and misguided loyalty that you can't see how he's manipulating you? He said the same thing a year and a half ago, that he had done bad things that he regretted and was trying to make up for it. You know that expression 'fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me?' How can you not see that that's what's happening here?"

"The circumstances were different then," Jack insists.

"Fine. Then if he's really changed and he's so eager to help the country now, why didn't he just give us what he had collected on Wilson and his group to begin with? Why did he demand that the US Attorney cut him a deal first?"

Jack sighs, knowing Renee is not going to like the answer.

"He didn't," Jack admits.

"What?" Renee asks, bewildered.

"He didn't demand that the US Attorney cut him a deal," Jack explains reluctantly. "When the president called to see how I was doing after the surgery, she told me that they couldn't use any of the information you had obtained from Wilson to convict him or any of the others because of the way you got it and that they were going to have to release him because they didn't have enough admissible evidence to file charges. I reminded her that if they released him now he'd disappear and they'd never get another crack at him, and I told her that before Tony was taken into custody, he told me that he had been tracking Wilson and his group and had eventually planned to hand in the evidence he collected. I didn't know if he had gotten far enough to have anything useful, but I figured it was worth a try. So she gave me permission to work with the US Attorney to come up with a deal we could offer him, and then I had to convince Tony to take it."

Renee looks a little shell-shocked, and takes a moment to process before responding.

"So you're telling me that cutting him a deal was your idea," she says angrily, her voice conveying her feeling of betrayal.

"Sort of," Jack admits. "It's complicated."

"Putting aside the question of why on earth you would go out of your way to help him cut a deal after everything he did to you, why would he need convincing? Shouldn't the prospect of Wilson being released if he didn't cooperate motivate him, not to mention the fact that he almost certainly would have faced the death penalty?"

Jack sighs. "It's not that simple," he explains." After they cut Charles Logan a deal, Tony lost faith in the government's ability to administer justice fairly, and he decided he had to take matters into his own hands. For five years he had been working on his own, not trusting anybody, and it wasn't easy for him to essentially give up whatever control he had left by handing over the information he had and trusting others to use it properly. You remember how he was refusing to talk to a lawyer or the US Attorney or any of the FBI interrogators you sent? How he didn't seem to care whether he got the death penalty or not? That's because he was demoralized, and he felt like he had nothing to live for...honestly, I think the death penalty sounded like more of a relief to him than something to be afraid of. In an emotional state like that I knew I wasn't going to convince him to care about his own life or the lives he could save if he cooperated...I knew that he had become so desensitized to the consequences of what he was doing by building a wall around his emotions to protect himself from the pain of losing his family, and that the only way I could get through to him was to break through that wall by any means necessary. But I was afraid that if I pushed too hard without giving him any hope that he'd ever have a chance to change things or make amends, I was afraid...I was afraid he would try to kill himself," Jack admits, the emotion showing in his voice.

Renee becomes slightly more sympathetic but remains unconvinced.

"Jack, I know how tough this is for you, and I know that you feel like you got a second lease on life and maybe that's making you more inclined to believe in forgiveness and second chances. But don't you think...don't you agree that there are some people who are just beyond redemption?"

"Maybe," Jack says somberly. "I honestly don't know. But this isn't about giving Tony a chance to redeem himself. This is about doing everything we can to stop these terrorists before they strike again. They've already detonated a bomb in the Lincoln Tunnel and attempted to assassinate a visiting head of state. Right now, Cardiff is our best lead, and everything we know about this guy tells us that he will not break easily and that the best way to deal with him is to put someone undercover. It would be a lot easier if CTU or the FBI had someone who had put in time with him or one of his associates but they don't. Tony is the only one who can do this. Nobody understands better than me how hard this is for you, but you need to put your emotions on hold and look at this situation as if Tony's actions last year didn't affect you personally."

Renee sighs. "Fine. I admit that my anger over what he did to Larry and other people I worked with may be influencing my opinion...I'm not going to deny it. But I don't think I'm the only one."

"Meaning what?" Jack asks with exasperation.

"Meaning isn't it possible that you're letting your emotions get in the way of your judgment here too? Isn't it possible that deep down you're still in denial and want to see him do the right thing? Look, tell me I'm wrong and I'll drop it."

Jack sighs. "You're not wrong," he admits. "Maybe you're right...we both have a lot of emotions about this situation and maybe we're both being influenced by them. But Agent Ortiz doesn't have any history with Tony and he agreed that this was the right move. Now I need to know if you're with me on this. If you don't think you can do this nobody would fault you for that, but if that's the case I need you to go back to CTU and we'll have someone else coordinate the perimeter."

"No, that's alright. I can do it," she says reluctantly.

"Are you sure?" Jack asks gently.

"Yes. Yes, I'm sure," she says, not sounding altogether too sure.

Hope you enjoyed this...more will be up soon. In the meantime, here are a few more fill-in-the-blanks to keep you guessing about next chapter:

1. "If someone got in the way they didn't hesitate to ________ ________...and I was no different."

2. "Kim risked her life to ______ ______."

3. "I'm sorry you never got the chance to be a ______."

4. "You're never going to be able to make peace with yourself unless you learn to ______ with the ______."