It was a lot to take in. Tony couldn't deny that. In fact, he wasn't even sure he could fathom it. Michelle roughed Lyons up the other day but hadn't intended to kill him. Or at least not in front of him. He didn't think she could do such a thing. Although torture and punishment scared him far more than death ever could, so he was less bothered by that than he'd initially thought. But at the same time, she wasn't the kind of person to exaggerate or be dramatic. He knew everything she had said was the honest truth. And he was sure when it finally sunk in that it would indeed scare him. Possibly more than it had the other night. He didn't want it to though. That's why he was trying to suppress every instinctive reaction and question, in fear of upsetting her more or misinterpreting something.

It was why he was sitting outside on the porch at some ungodly hour, slowly sipping a cup of coffee. The birds chirped from afar, with the wind whistling through the trees. A couple of days had passed since the morning she told him everything. But unlike before, when there had been a changed, apprehensive atmosphere between them, this time, something had lightened. There wasn't a sense of traction every time one of them went to speak. When she smiled, she did it without restraint, without the underlying feeling of guilt she had been carrying for far too long. And he was happier too. Happier knowing that they were working through something huge, and doing it well, or at least, not terribly.

A little while later, she came outside too. Michelle tightened her robe upon feeling the breeze before sitting next to him warily.

"I tried to put myself in your position. I thought about what I would do. I thought about how much we've suffered, how much we've lost, how much pain we've been in." He met her eyes. "And I don't think I would have done anything very differently."

"You don't know that."

He shrugged. "I wouldn't say that. I remember when I thought that Saunders was going to kill you…I remember thinking about everything I'd do. I told myself I'd kill him. I told myself I'd kill his daughter. I told myself I'd hunt down and kill everybody he was connected to."

"But you didn't mean it. You didn't actually put it into practice."

"While I don't know what exactly I would have done if I'd lost you that day, the point is I don't have to. I have you now. We can protect each other." Tony's arm slid around her bicep, pulling her closer towards him. "In whatever way we have to. Even if it's confronting, I'd rather be scared than be without you."

Her hand covered his.

"And more than anything…I'm tired of talking about the past. We've both been through hell. It's changed us. So I think all we need to do now is move forward. Bad things happened to us. We reacted in the only way we thought we could, but now we're here. We're together again. Just like how I don't regret what I did to save you, what made me go to prison in the first place. If I had the chance to do it all over again, I would save you, each and every time."

Her bottom lip wobbled.

"And maybe you wouldn't have." He seemed to know what she was already thinking. "If it was a choice between me and millions of innocent people, maybe you would choose the people, and I get that. That's…why you did all of this, right? To protect people, to keep them safe, because you couldn't trust the government to do it. It doesn't make either of us 'bad' or 'wrong'. It just makes us different. There's no need for either of us to feel shame or regret because at the end of the day..." He sighed. "We were put through things that no person should have to face. We never could have predicted this, and we never could have known a 'better' way of doing any of this. Okay? All we need to focus on now is starting over."

She let out a shaky breath before nodding and resting her head on his shoulder.

"It's a miracle, you know?"

Michelle tilted to look at him.

"That somehow, after everything we've been through, we're still here. You were immune to that virus. Saunders didn't kill you. The criminals you went after didn't kill you. I somehow held out for eight years of torture. Any one of those things not happening would have meant never seeing each other again. So the fact that we've survived…has to mean something."

"Look, I know you think you're processing this and believe me, I'm so grateful that you're giving me the chance. But if…if you want to leave me because of any of this…I won't stop you."

"What?"

"You have every right." Tears welled in her eyes. "This is going to hit deeper the more you think about it, and if you don't want to sleep next to someone who tortured and killed people in cold blood, you shouldn't have to."

He shook his head. "Michelle, I…that never even crossed my mind. Yes, this is something for us to work through, but I would never leave you over it. I...I've spent all these years missing you, hoping you were alive, hoping Wilson's people had lied to me, and you think I would give up just because we aren't quite the same people we were ten years ago?"

She was clearly still so taken aback by how understanding he was being. She couldn't find the words to rebut, to insist that she deserved him leaving her.

"I'm so sorry that I've kept all of this from you for so long, but I only did it because I knew you'd be all alone if I wasn't there for you while you were recovering. I…I never wanted to hide from you. I was just so scared that if I let you push me away, you wouldn't have anybody there for you the way I was." Michelle cleared her throat to harden her voice, but it made no difference. "I've thought about whether I regret doing any of what I did. And I…I don't. I regret pushing Jack and everybody else away and not letting them be there for me. But I know that if Chloe and I hadn't done what we had, w-we never would have looked into Alan Wilson and…" She wiped under her eye. "W-We might never have found you."

"You did things for the right reason." He said emphatically. "And that's what matters."

"I guess. All this time, I told myself it was for some greater cause, but…" Michelle chewed the inside of her lip. "Sometimes I still ask myself whether it was really for justice or because of you and the baby…"

He had been rubbing her shoulder with his thumb but suddenly stopped.

"Wait." Tony looked down at her. "'Baby'?"

Her eyes squeezed shut, but she stayed strong at this moment, no longer feeling like hiding from him was an option.

"I-I was pregnant when they took you from me," Michelle said in a very small voice, confirming his suspicion. "N-not very far along. Doctor Macer had told me in the hospital that day. I…I never got the chance to tell you. I didn't want to do it on the phone. I wanted to do it in person. Then…then you got arrested, and I had to wait until they let me visit you." She let out a sob of disbelief. "I-I was relieved, you know? I figured it wouldn't be so bad whether the sentence was one year, twenty years, or a lifetime because I would always have a part of you with me. B-But then you were gone, a-and I was so upset, and I…I lost it."

Tony gave her a sympathetic look, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

"I-It's my fault. It's all my fault, if I had just-"

His arms wrapped around her fiercely as she cried into his chest. "No, it's not." He kissed the top of her head. "I could never, ever, blame you for something like that. I love you, Michelle, with all of my heart, and no matter what's happened these last few years, that is something that hasn't changed. I can't even imagine how hard that was to go through alone. You keep telling me I've been strong, but so have you. To have gone through that and still had the energy to fight back, to do something about it, it's so powerful, Michelle."

"T-Thank you." She whispered. "I love you too. I love you so much."

He held her for a long time, but eventually, they moved back into their room, both seemingly wanting to continue what he started the other morning. She fell against the bed, and he peeled her robe off her. He hovered over Michelle, now trying to look at the tattoo of the bird and flowers trailing from shoulder to bicep. It surprised him more and more just how much of her skin was now inked. It had been a long time, he supposed. But he knew Michelle. He knew that there was meaning behind each and every one. The flowers on her sternum had been there for as long as he'd known her. She'd gotten the tattoo on her calf when she got her full field certification at CTU. It was the first one he'd witnessed her get.

Suddenly, he furrowed his brow, looking at the small German Shepherd on her other forearm.

"Is that the dog?"

She giggled a little. "I missed him. I had to leave him with my brother when I moved to Seattle."

He held her hand up, noticing the small ankh below her thumb. The slight smile in her expression dissipated.

"Tell me about this one…" He said softly.

"I-I got that a few days after the hotel. Because of the guy I shot." She looked away. "Seems a little stupid now. I…I wanted to get it removed, but I never had the chance."

"I think it's a reminder that no matter what you tell yourself, you're not a bad person." He brushed over it with his thumb before bringing it to his lips to kiss it. "You never would have gotten that if you were. And I'm sure if you really didn't care, you would have made time to remove it. I don't want you to keep saying stuff like this, alright?"

Michelle made a noise of assent. His mouth fell to her chest, and she sighed. She could see in his eyes just how much he loved her and how much he was trying to show her that no matter how much had changed, no matter how long it had been, the spark between them had never disappeared. He cupped her thigh, noticing the beautiful flock of black birds from mid-thigh to her hipbone. The sword tattoo on her calf was still there. It was slightly more detailed now, with an added date in Roman numerals at the bottom. It was from several years ago. She sensed him still around the area, knowing what he was likely about to ask.

"It was the day I was revived. The day I started doing things for myself."

He nodded and continued to kiss every inch of her he could see. His body had changed too. She knew he hated the scars. She'd spent every day helping him try to rub salve on them so they wouldn't be so prominent. But she hated that he felt that way about himself more. Of course, she hadn't exactly had the highest self-esteem since their reunion either, but she wanted him to feel good about himself, just as he'd made her. Pulling him up towards her, she pressed her own lips to his chest, suckling lightly at each puckered line and mark. He moaned as her arms slid up his back.

They made love tenderly, not feeling the pressures of time, just letting themselves become re-familiarised, letting themselves enjoy a moment of intimacy, letting it heal them in its own way. And through the tearful aftermath, the clinging grips and touches, the whispers of "I love you", Michelle felt for the first time since they'd reunited that having a future with Tony was no longer intangible.