A Beautiful Mess
Rating: PG
Pairing: Tony/Michelle
Spoilers: Season Two Episode 23, and everything up to that.
Feedback: Makes my day
Disclaimer: If it was in the show, it's not mine.
Archive: At my site The Band Gazebo (helsinkibaby.ahkay.net) Anywhere else please ask first.
Summary: Everything is a mess
Author's Note: For the LiveJournal FirstLines1000 Challenge #16
Everything
is a mess. They are trying to save the world, stop it from quite literally
being blown to bits, have been doing that all day, and it’s ended with them
here, in a holding room in CTU, which, for two people like Tony and Michelle,
who have dedicated their lives to their careers, is not such a good thing.
This has
been one of those days that each would cheerfully love to write off, to go back
in time and erase completely, starting with the bombing of CTU in which so many
of their colleagues, their friends, lost their lives, people like Paula, who
Tony hand-picked to work here, whose fears Michelle tried to assuage in the
ladies’ room, in a conversation that seemed like it took place a hundred years
ago.
They
thought that nothing could be worse than that, but that was before they learned
that Mason had been exposed to a lethal amount of radiation, Mason, who Tony
butted heads with on a daily basis, but who recommended him as his successor.
Mason, who never had many dealings with Michelle, but told her to find something that made her happy and go after it, no matter the
cost. He’s dead now too, like Paula and the others, sacrificing what little
time remained to him to save countless lives, but they’ve had no time to
grieve, no time to mourn, instead, they’ve been trying to track down who was
responsible for bringing an nuclear bomb into the country, a task at which they
seem to be failing spectacularly.
She paces
from wall to wall, and Michelle can’t help but think that if her professional
life is going to hell in a handbasket, then so is her
personal life. Things appeared to be looking up, what with seizing the chance
to tell Tony how she felt about him, all the more so when he told her that he
felt the same way about her. The bottom fell out of her plans though when
Carrie Turner showed up at CTU, and the very sight of her made Michelle’s blood
boil, made her want to scratch the other woman’s eyes out. Things only got
worse when Carrie began to throw her weight around, unwilling to accept
Michelle as her boss, and when Michelle refused to tell Tony about their
history, any progress they’d made was seriously dented.
Then the
bomb exploded and news got out and Danny began calling, and Carrie grew even more bitchy, and Michelle found herself with no choice but
to come clean to Tony. Danny picked that time to come to CTU to see her, threw
a fit when he saw Carrie, tried to strangle her, not that Michelle can blame
her brother. But that was the time when things got on top of her, when she had
to escape, to get away, and that was when Tony
followed her.
She’d never
wanted him to see her like that, a mess, falling apart, but he did his best to
catch her, and she held onto him, kissed him, and when she apologised, he
kissed her right back.
Which is when a miraculously recovered Carrie saw them.
She doesn’t
know what’s going to happen between them, doesn’t know if their relationship
can go forward, if they might have just ruined it for themselves, doesn’t know
what Carrie might tell Chapelle. Whatever it is though, he’ll be inclined to
believe, what with Tony drugging him and knocking him out, and Michelle herself
being dragged from a van at near-gunpoint, their efforts to help Jack well and
truly rumbled.
He stands
at the table, and she paces the floor, and both know how much trouble they are
in. Both know what could happen to them, that they
could conceivably be prosecuted for treason, and when she breaks the silence,
asking him what he thinks they’ll be charged with, he’s honest with her, tells
her as much. But when he tells her that, he immediately tells her that he’ll
protect her, that he’ll tell them that she was just
following his orders.
He would do
that, for her.
But she won’t
let him, and she tells him so, tells him that she did what she thought was
right, and that she won’t let him lie for her.
She’s very
aware of where they are, of the camera to their back, recording their every
move, knows she has to be careful about what she does, what she says. So
slowly, unobtrusively, her hand moves across to his, her skin covering his, and
she stares straight ahead, holding her breath.
She doesn’t
let it out until his hand moves, equally unobtrusively, his fingers closing
around hers and staying there.
No more
words are exchanged, nor do any need to be. They’re in a hell of a lot of
trouble, with no real clue of how to get out of it, and they are in a holding
room at CTU, but they are together, and they are holding hands.
Life may be
messy, but things could be worse.