AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is the second book in a multi-chapter series that will span all three seasons.

This book will detail the week after day one (or the first season) and the week before day two (or the second season). The first half, which will deal with the aftermath of day one, will be told through the perspective of Tony Almeida, Sherry Palmer, Ryan Chappelle and Jack Bauer. The second half, which will lead up to day two, will be told through the perspective of Kim Bauer, David Palmer, Nina Myers and George Mason.

I will be basing my stories off facts given in the show and in the book, "Findings at CTU" by Marc Cerasini. These stories will be based in canon for the most part aside from some things I add to fill out the characters' backgrounds.

Biased, though I may be, but I feel the story is more coherent and more cohesive if all perspective pieces are read.

Finally, I want to give a big thanks to my beta, Catch22Girl for being such a huge help to me.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own these characters or "24".
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Wednesday

March 6, 2002

Los Angeles, California

Slowly, Tony leaned back into the leather upholstery of the cab. His entire body felt like it was made out of lead. The effects of having been awake for over forty hours had hit him as soon as he entered the taxi and every movement now was an effort. He had wanted to take his car home but Mason had pointed out that Tony was in no position to drive, he could barely see straight.

Tony looked down at the keys he still had in his hand. He remembered Saturday night coming home from his date with Nina. They had come back to his apartment and she had kissed his neck and giggled as he fumbled with his keys. She had been lying to him -- to all of them -- the whole time.

How much of it was a lie? He had wondered that when they first discovered the truth about Jamey. Here was a woman he worked with every day, he was friends with her and she had been selling them out. She was better friends with Jack than she was with him and she had helped destroy his life. Richard Walsh, a man she called her mentor, was dead because of her and the people she had helped. Tony had been the one to tell her and he wondered later if Jamey had really cared or if it had been an act.

Did Nina ever care? Was it all an act? In those first few moments Tony had wanted to believe that Nina was innocent. Even though his own gut instinct was telling him differently. He couldn't believe that Nina was a traitor, that she had been lying every time she opened her mouth. He wasn't ready to accept that everything he had known about her was a lie.

When Mason asked him where Nina was Tony said he didn't know and asked why. The District Director just walked off and started yelling at the security guards so Tony had followed him into the parking garage. There they found Jack holding Nina by the neck, a gun pointed at her head. It was surreal. Tony didn't think that Jack would kill her yet he was still terrified for Nina. He honestly didn't know what to expect anymore. Tony just stood silently praying as Mason tried to talk Jack down.

While Mason was putting Nina in custody he found Jack's daughter Kim wandering the floor. She asked him where her parents were and Tony told her to wait in one of the offices and he would go find them. Before he could leave to do that a group of medics rushed down the hall. He remembered then that Teri had gone down that hall looking for Nina.

He could still hear Kim's crying.

It was a chilling sound to hear someone cry that way. It was like their soul was being torn from them. Tony had heard cries like that only once before. He had been in the service at the time, stationed in Saudi Arabia. A truck bomb had detonated near the base killing dozens of people -- soldiers and civilians alike. He remembered one Saudi woman, covered in blood, holding her young son's body in her lap and crying that primal sound. Over and over she had wailed "Eelah? Eelah?"

He looked out the window at the as the orange glow of the streetlights passed by the cab. "I don't know why." Tony whispered to himself.

He wanted to know why she had done it, why would she betray her country? Nina had said she worked for someone else, someone other than the Drazens. If she wasn't motivated by revenge, he thought, than why? He wanted to understand, to make sense of what had happened.

He tried thinking back to conversations they had, thinking of signs he might have missed. Aside from Nina having few close personal relationships -- a trait not uncommon in his line of work -- he couldn't think of anything that he should have noticed. He remembered talking to her about current events, politics, even the upcoming presidential election. She was very knowledgeable about the subjects even if not particularly passionate. Yet, Nina lacked the bland disinterest one would expect from a political terrorist.

Jamey had sold out her country for three hundred thousand dollars. Did Nina have a price as well?

He remembered comforting Nina when she seemed worried that she wasn't doing enough to help Jack's wife and daughter. He felt anger push through the tired, foggy haze of his mind as he recalled how worried she had seemed and how he had bought her act so completely.

He had been so easy to fool. Tony had worried over her, protected her and worst he had believed her. Not once had he questioned her. Earlier, when they had found Jamey dead he knew Nina had left down that same hall not ten minutes before but he didn't think anything of it. Later he saw her disappear, right when the shit was hitting the fan, and he still hadn't even wondered where she was going. Tony had spent a good portion of the day questioning Jack but not Nina. Never her.

He was such a fool. He could have stopped her. He could have gone after Nina, followed her down the corridor, asked her what she was doing. Tony had been by her side for almost the entire day, he should have paid more attention to what she was doing. He could have done something more. So many people had died today and if he had just done something differently, anything, he could have stopped her. Tony closed his eyes, feeling more tired now than before.

He just needed to get home and sleep, not to think about this. The same thought still resonated in his mind -- she betrayed me. She betrayed everyone.