Just the start of something that keeps niggling at me—I still hold out hope for a Season 10…

'Madam? Excuse me Madam?' She felt a hand shake her shoulder and she awoke startled to find an air hostess faking a smile at her. 'I'm sorry for waking you Madam, but we are about to start our descent, please can you fasten your seatbelt'. Chloe gave her a glare sufficient enough to wipe the smile off her face. 'Sure' she replied grumpily, muttering under her breath about her seatbelt being the least of her worries. She sighed quietly; it was time to come to terms with coming home.

LAX was as busy as she remembered, and hated. The queue to get through Customs was ridiculous, and once she reached the booth and used her own passport she was starting to get a little nervous. Technically, the pardon meant she was free to come home with no trouble, but she didn't trust the computer system with her life; after all she didn't build it. The TSA guy gave her a fake cheery smile as she approached and handed the document over, before the retinal and fingerprint scans. She held her breath as he swiped her onto the system and watched as his eyes narrowed and he looked over at her sharply, before closing the passport and giving it back to her. 'Welcome Home, Ma'am'. She was dismissed and strolled a little lighter into the baggage claim; glad no-one had made any changes to the system whilst she had been in the air.

After grabbing her pathetic excuse for a suitcase, holding few remnants of her life in London she went out to the taxi rank, not in the mood to find a car hire company where her own name wasn't on a black list. It wasn't entirely her fault that the cars she had to hire over the past 20 years ended up being damaged, but she didn't have enough fake documentation on her to procure a new one at the moment. She was going to have to hit her emergency supplies in the next couple of days, and buy a new car whilst she was at it, but a taxi would do for now.

'Good afternoon Ma'am, can I take your luggage?' Urgh. The eager taxi driver was invading her personal space and she hated people handling her stuff. 'I guess' She replied wryly, since he had already opened the trunk and launched it in. She clutched her laptop bag close to her chest, determined he wouldn't get that as well. 'Where ya wanna go Ma'am? He asked as they both climbed in. 'Woodland Hills, please.' she replied, the only place she could possibly think of going at the moment. 'Alright, hey what do ya think of this Presidential situation, crazy isn't it? He said waving to the in-car TV screen. She glanced at the screen to see the breaking news headlines that had been running for 24 hours now. 'President Heller resigns as daughter Audrey is killed; VP Kanin acting as POTUS; Congress in Emergency Session'. 'Yeah it's pretty crazy' she replied, again muttering so only she could hear 'If only you knew the half of it'. She resigned herself to making small talk for the next hour, trying to distract herself from the conversation ahead of her.

They pulled up in front of a large house on a quiet street just over 40 minutes later, the front lawn littered with kids toys. As she walked up the drive she looked around her somewhat wistfully, the grief lingering as it always did. They never had a proper house when Prescott was growing up, moving from apartment to apartment as she and Morris moved around the big cities for work. She lived with the regret every day that she had worked so much that she couldn't keep him safe. Adrian's words about his death being an accident had been swimming around her head almost constantly in the past few days, but she wasn't ready to believe it, not just yet. She looked up at the front door just in time to see it open and a familiar worried face confront her. 'Its Dad isn't it? I saw the news; I've been waiting for someone, something to turn up'.