Thanks for all the reviews. Here's a little more…hopefully one more update coming before tonight's episode ruins the story. Enjoy and please review!

Renee comes back into the holding room. "Someone from the Philadelphia branch is going to pick Kim up now…hopefully she should be here within the hour," she tells Tony.

"Alright," Tony nods.

"How do you want to handle this?" Renee asks him. "Should we tell Jack she's coming or wait until she gets here?"

Tony sighs. "Nah, we have to tell him beforehand…he's not going to be happy that I went behind his back, to say the least," Tony says with a chuckle, bracing himself for Jack to go off on him and probably shove him up against the wall when he finds out.

"Probably not," Renee agrees. "But you did the right thing."

"Yeah," Tony scoffs, knowing she is right but not looking forward to dealing with Jack. "Look, as tempting as it is to let Kim's visit be a surprise, I don't think that's the right move here. I'd rather him take his anger out on me before he gets here. Besides, I told Kim I would tell Jack in advance and let her know if he actually doesn't want to see her, which I highly doubt despite what he says. But I want to hold off for a little while, in case she changes her mind," he continues.

"You really think she would change her mind?" Renee asks incredulously.

"I don't know…she agreed to be tested for stem cell compatibility without any hesitation, but I had to convince her to come to DC…she's as nervous about seeing Jack again as he is."

"Alright, I'll give it 15 minutes and then tell Jack you want to talk to him. In the meantime, I'll see if Larry wants me to start the debrief," Renee says.

15 minutes later, Jack enters the holding room.

"Hey…are you alright?" Jack greets Tony, noticing that he looks a little beat up from his time inside the Starkwood compound.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Tony says with a shrug. "How are you holding up?"

"Okay for right now," Jack says in a tone that tells Tony that he's struggling to accept having to be sidelined by his illness and hasn't yet come to terms with the fact that he's really dying.

"Any update on the Starkwood situation?" Tony asks, mostly to prolongue the inevitable.

"Not yet. We're all on standby until we hear from the White House," Jack says.

Tony notices Jack starting to shake. "Whoa, Jack, you alright?" he asks anxiously.

"Yeah, just give me a sec," Jack says anxiously as he reaches into his coat pocket for the kit Dr. Macer gave him.

"You want some help with that?" Tony asks, worried that Jack can't inject the needle properly while his arm is shaking. But of course, Jack being Jack, he shakes his head and won't give Tony the needle. So Tony grabs the arm Jack is about to inject and holds it steady while he injects the medicine Dr. Macer gave him. After a minute the shaking stops and Jack starts breathing normally again.

"Thanks," he says softly, not wanting to admit he needed help.

"Yeah," Tony says casually, trying for Jack's sake not to make a big deal of what just happened.

"You're probably wondering why I didn't listen to you back at the port," Jack says.

Tony shakes his head. "No. I understood why you did what you did. I just wish…" he hesitates, trying to figure out how to say it.

"You just wish what?" Jack asks.

"I just wish we'd switched jobs after that," Tony spits out. "I wish I'd been the one to capture the truck and you'd been the one to go to Starkwood."

"Why?" Jack asks curiously.

"Well, for one thing, you probably would have figured out that Seaton was lying."

"Not necessarily," Jack says. "It sounds like he was pretty convincing."

"Yeah, well, in hindsight I feel like an idiot for not figuring it out. But mostly I just wish I'd been the one to capture the truck and deal with the leaky canister…you had a chance when this day was over of being able to get your life back, and you've still got a daughter even if you haven't spoken to her in a while. I don't really have any family left, and I'm probably going to spend the rest of my life in jail anyway."

"You don't know that, Tony," Jack says firmly. "I discussed it with Agent Walker. She said the Attorney General has been briefed on the situation today and he knows that you were working undercover to help recover the CIP device and capture Dubaku. Everyone here knows about what you did to help tonight, and the president knows too. I'm not saying there won't be consequences for the things you did before, but with everything you've done today I'm confident you'll be able to work something out. I'm sorry I may not be around to testify for you, but after today there are plenty of people who can vouch for you. You just need to cooperate with them…you probably have a lot of information you can use to bargain with, but you need to resist the temptation to protect anyone you worked with or dealt with. I know some of them might have been your friends, but you have to know that if the tables were turned they'd turn on you to save their own skin in an instant."

Tony chuckles, amazed that Jack can find time to try to help him and lecture him even as he dealt with the symptoms of a weaponized virus. "Listen, Jack, I appreciate your concern, but I don't want you to waste any more of the time you have left worrying about me, alright?" he says, feeling guiltier than ever about how much he wanted to hurt Jack after Michelle was killed.

"And what should I be spending my time doing?" Jack challenges, his voice sounding wary all of a sudden.

Tony gives him a look that says "come on, Jack. Do I really need to spell this out for you?"

"Agent Walker told you about the experimental treatment, didn't she?" Jack asks warily.

"Yeah," Tony nods.

"And then she told me you wanted to talk with me so the two of you could double-team me about this?" he asks probingly, his voice showing his annoyance.

"Not exactly, Jack," Tony says hesitantly.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I didn't ask to speak to you so that I could bug you to call Kim," Tony says.

"Good, because I'm not going to," Jack says forcefully.

Tony takes a deep breath, hesitating before deciding it's time to spit it out. "You don't need to, because I already called her myself," he blurts out, bracing himself for Jack's reaction.

To be continued…