A/N: Thank you amacma for the reviews - glad you're enjoying it!

Jack drove as fast as he could while Michelle despondently stared ahead at the road in the passenger seat. He had sandwiched his cell phone between his ear and shoulder.

"This is Walker."

"Agent Walker, I'm going to send you a location for you to direct a field team to."

Her eyes widened. "Bauer? Where the hell have you-"

"I don't have time to explain." He replied firmly. "We have reason to believe that Tony Almeida is alive and being held hostage for information."

She stuttered, trying to gauge whether or not to believe him.

"This is no ruse, Agent Walker. I'm sending you the location."

Jack prayed she would listen to his request. The FBI was much closer to the location Chloe had sent him than they were. Whatever hope they had of getting to Tony in time was riding on the FBI.

He felt oddly taken back to the day Michelle had called him so early in the morning, asking him, with such trepidation, to drive her to the prison. He remembered feeling dread wash over him, not entirely knowing what had happened but already reacting as though it were something deeply terrible. He remembered her sitting stoically in the car, much the way she was now, not saying a word, not showing any emotion on her face, the tension and fear palpable. She had kept her cool until they'd told her the truth in plain English.

As Jack thought about it, he realised the situation now wasn't very different. Something was going on with Tony. They weren't completely sure what. But from what Chloe had said, he was barely holding on. It had been eight years, Jack realised, eight years since Tony's alleged murder. If they'd been torturing him for information, Tony would have fought back for as long as he could have before finally giving in. Jack could only imagine the dreadful things they were doing to him. He was sure Michelle was thinking of them too. But Jack was also sure they were both accounting for the possibility that Tony was already dead. That, perhaps, Chloe accessing the file might have somehow alerted Wilson's people and given them ample time to finish Tony off so he would never be able to say a word.

Regardless of the circumstances, Tony was out there, and they needed to get to him.

When they eventually arrived at the dilapidated house, Jack was relieved to see tactical vans and hear gunshots. It seemed Agent Walker had listened to him. Hostiles were being dragged out in cuffs, and an ambulance was parked beside them. There was no sign of Tony or any other hostages, for that matter. It seemed Wilson had just wanted him. Michelle made a break for the door, and Jack quickly grabbed her bicep.

"No!" She shook out of his grip. "I'm not letting you hold me back this time." Even in that glimpse of eye contact before she bolted off, Jack could see so much adrenaline consuming her.

Renee moved towards him, asking for more details. She was flustered by the looks of it, surprised that he'd been telling the truth but still suspicious of him and Michelle after their escape. He began to explain as they walked into the place themselves. The FBI hadn't searched the entire house yet. They had mainly focused on disarming and arresting the influx of enemies on the main floor.

Michelle felt her heart thunder in her chest as she ran past agents who were clearing out of the house. They looked at her as though she were deranged but seemed to know better than to engage in any aggression with her. Michelle found a small wing, empty as though not yet investigated, and her eyes fell to a flight of stairs leading down to a basement. Running down the stairs, she immediately gagged at the stench of blood and vomit. Around the room were various knives, clubs, needles, and some sort of electroshock device. She saw a sole figure, half sat up against a wall, motionless.

"Tony?…"

She paced towards the figure. Somehow she already knew his identity, somehow her gut sensed who she was looking at.

As she neared, the smell grew stronger. There was blood and dirt all over his clothes and skin, but she mainly noticed the large stab wound on his abdomen. His hair had grown out wildly, sticking to the grime on his face. There was disfigurement in his hands as though the small bones there had been broken. Bruises covered his sickly pale skin, deep purple as though recent. To her worry, his eyes were shut.

"Oh my God." Michelle breathed, not sure how to rouse him. Seeing how limp he was, she felt he might shatter if she touched him. It was as though they'd taken the time to beat and break every inch of him. Which was all the more reason for her to make sure he knew it was over now. Desperately, she squeezed his shoulders, repeating his name. He was still warm. He was still alive. But she wasn't sure how much longer he could last. His eyes opened slightly, and he seemed to react to her presence with a jolt. Opening his mouth, Tony tried to speak but found himself violently coughing up blood.

"I need help!" She screamed at the top of her lungs. "Somebody help him!"

Renee had still been convinced that Michelle was playing another angle and had tried desperately to follow her tracks. As she settled upon the small room, the cry for help rang clear. After thundering down the stairs, with Jack not far behind, she found herself looking at Michelle Dessler. At least, she had to tell herself that. Because the distressed woman covered in blood, crouched on the floor, trying to support her dying husband, was certainly not the woman the FBI had interrogated twelve hours ago. She met her tearful gaze.

"Please." She mouthed.

Without taking her eyes off either of them, Renee called for the paramedics in her comm before walking over to where they were. She couldn't tell where he was bleeding from. It seemed to be one giant mess. Michelle was mainly trying to staunch any blood flow from his abdomen and muttering agitated nonsense under her breath. A stretcher was wheeled down the stairs and they were quick to put an oxygen mask over his face. Michelle followed them very closely behind. Although the orders had been to apprehend her, neither Renee nor any other agent that she passed dared to tear her away from him. Even the paramedics seemed to understand this, not denying her request to come into the back of the ambulance, very warily telling her to move back so they could work on him. Upon being told that, she promptly moved aside, dissociatively watching him, searching for some sign of life.

Jack and Renee sped to the hospital behind the ambulance, taking a few FBI agents with them. Tony would need to be heavily guarded. They couldn't be sure how many of Wilson's people were out there. Michelle would too in case she decided to storm into the FBI and butcher the people in custody already. But somehow, they had the feeling she wouldn't want to leave Tony, even for the reason that had kept her going all these years.

When they arrived, Jack watched Michelle practically run with the paramedics as they raced Tony to the OR. They had to stop her at some point, saying they were entering a sterile zone and that she couldn't be there. The doors shut loudly, and she was left standing there, running a hand over her face into her hair before cupping her mouth to stifle a cry. Jack couldn't tell where Wilson's blood stopped and Tony's began on her clothes, a sight so jarring compared with the worry on her face. For the first time since he'd reunited with her, he finally felt like he was looking at Michelle again. The same Michelle that had called him early one morning asking very worriedly to be driven to the Los Angeles federal prison.

He walked towards where she was and she turned to face him. Whatever sense of numbing calmness she'd had before dissipated in an instant as she threw her arms around him. Jack caught her before her knees gave out. Michelle sobbed raggedly in his arms, grabbing fistfuls of his shirt, breathing shakily only to break down in another wave of tears. He held her tighter, not wanting to say anything. She didn't need words of reassurance right now, not when there was still so much uncertainty, it would just be pitying. Jack was sure she was still trying to figure out logically how this all happened. She just needed someone to absorb her shock, to absorb her pain, to absorb the hurricane of information that had just been thrown at her.

From a distance, Renee looked on at the two of them and came to accept that whatever she'd thought of Michelle beforehand, whatever her initial conception had been of her, had simply been but a scratch on the surface.