Spoilers: Up to Series 5, episode 1

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It is the day before she will die, before his life will fall apart forever.

It is the day before she will die and he is happy. He lies in bed, watching his wife as she sleeps peacefully, and thinks about how lucky he is. He thinks about how perfect his life is now, how finally all the pieces have fallen into place. His fingers draw circles on her stomach where their unborn baby grows. And he smiles.

It is the day before she will die and he thinks about their future.

It is the day before she will see him again and she thinks of him. The thoughts pass through her mind, unwelcome and unbidden and distract her temporarily from her work. It is months since she last saw him and yet he still has a power over her that she will not understand. She wonders what he is up to; whether he has been able to get on with his life without her. She cannot move on, cannot really get past him despite her attempts. And she wonders, not for the first time, whether she made the right choice; should she have fought harder? But she knows there was nothing left for her to fight for. The ring of her cell phone breaks her reverie and she looks at the name of the caller. It is not him. She answers and pushes thoughts of him to the back of her mind.

It is the day before she will see him again and still she finds that she longs to hear from him.

***

It is the day before she will leave him and, unaware of her intentions, he feels numb. He is angry at the world in the morning and then, as the number of beers increases, he becomes less aware of feeling anything. She returns home and he only feels irritation that she intrudes his life and attempts to distract him from the TV. His relaxed demeanour quickly turns to sharp words and he shrugs off the hand that is placed on his shoulder.

And as she hides in the bathroom for an indeterminate amount of time, he knows that he should not be angry with her. But it is difficult for him to separate feelings towards the country, towards those that put him in prison, and feelings towards his friends, towards his wife. Anger and alcohol become irreparably combined to push all away and he no longer cares about the feelings of others.

It is the day before she will leave him and he drinks another beer.

***

It is the day before he will be released from prison and she spends the whole day cleaning the apartment. She has seen him a couple of times in the last few months and each time she feels that he has drawn further into himself, has been less willing to talk to her. She understands his reactions but is unsure how she will cope if it continues after his release. In her head, in her fantasies, everything is perfect after he is released, everything becomes magically as it once was and they start to forge a future together that begins at the point where it all fell apart. But as the day draws nearer she knows that this is an impossibility; that it will potentially take months before they are anywhere near where they were.

It is the day before he will be released from prison and she is anxious.

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It is the day before he will be arrested for treason and he is distracted. He thinks about the operation that they have secretly planned and questions whether it is right to keep it from her. He looks over to where she reclines on the sofa, exhausted after a long day, and contemplates telling her everything. She glances over at him and smiles, and he moves towards her as though they are magnetically attracted. He thinks about telling her before he kisses her and all thoughts of work are pushed aside.

It is the day before he will be arrested for treason and he makes love to his wife.

***

It is the day before their wedding and she is called into work. She is not particularly pleased by this development but is resigned to the fact that there is no alternative. Unfortunately, it is not Chappelle's fault that terrorists have decided to plot against California on this particular day, nor can he prevent the day from snowballing into an all-night affair that threatens to go on into the next day. And as three am comes around and she is both still in work and increasingly exhausted she cannot help but feel irritated that it would have to happen on her wedding day. And as she fights against sleep at four thirty as the day finally draws to a close she hasn't even the energy to tell her husband-to-be that he shouldn't see her before their wedding, let alone draw her into a hug in the parking lot and kiss her forehead.

It is the day before their wedding and he drives her home.

***

It is the day before the bomb at CTU and he thinks of her. This has been a more frequent occurrence of late and it bothers him. He is well aware of his attraction to her, but he battles it, afraid to allow himself to feel anything for her. It is because of his past, he knows, because of Nina. But it is also because he is afraid of the future, of discovering that she doesn't like him in quite the same way, or of ruining a friendship if something did happen.

He struggles with his thoughts, pushing them aside in order to tackle some paperwork for a short time, but within minutes the unappealing work fails to fully engage his mind, and she intrudes again.

It is the day before the bomb at CTU, and he finally gives up on his work and heads home.

***

It is the day before her job interview at CTU Los Angeles and she is nervous. She has heard all about the infamous George Mason, and yet more about Tony Almeida, whom she will be working for if she is successful tomorrow. This concept alone has made more than one female envious of her, something which she finds mildly amusing.

But after her latest disastrous relationship, she couldn't care less if her potential boss was a George Clooney look-alike; she refuses to fall for any man for a good while to come, let alone a co-worker, with nothing to say about falling for the boss. She muses briefly about descriptions given about both the irascible Mason and the attractive Almeida before reading through her answers to various potential questions.

It is the day before her job interview at CTU Los Angeles and she contemplates her possible future there.

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