A/N: Yes, another finale post-ep. I've read a ton of these and all of them are so very good, I wanted to jump on the bandwagon. My ending however, is not one I've seen before. I had such "fun" writing this and I haven't been this excited about a story in a very long time. I played around with the narration this time, finally choosing the one that had been speaking the story in my head the entire time. Names at the beginning of the chapter will let you know whose mind we're invading. So here's a week's worth of work for you, in story form. Enjoy!
Alexis
My feet are quick as they pound against the asphalt, carrying me closer and closer to the inferno. The smoke is charging through my respiratory system but what's choking me is not the air, but the fact that I've just recognized what's going on. I knew something was wrong but I didn't expect this, not in a million years could I have guessed the sight I would be met with.
Kate is standing in the middle of the road, still. The flames are just beyond her and it isn't until I'm a few feet behind her that it all clicks. That's not just any car.
"Dad!"
Part of my mind is shouting at me to not go further, that this is dangerous, that I'll never be able to save him. The other half urges me on, tells me to hurry, tells me that I have to save him because no one else will.
"Daddy!"
My screams must have broken Kate out of her shock because in an instant her arms are around me and she's pulling me back, away from the fire.
"No, no, I have to get him," I spit out, aware of how silly it seems. "Let me go!"
She pulls harder and I try to surge forward, but she's so much stronger than I am. I try to pull her arms away but she keeps catching me, muttering softly in my ear, her voice thick with tears.
"Don't look, baby, don't look, you don't want to remember that."
"Let me go!" I repeat, all the fight leaking out of me. It's too much, it feels so unreal. He wasn't supposed to go this way. This is not happening.
"He wasn't in the car," Kate is whispering, over and over as she tries again to move me away. "He wasn't in the car. He wasn't. It doesn't go that way. The story can't end like that."
I'm not sure if her rambling is borne of despair or if she is already beginning to riddle out the mystery of what happened.
One more scream for him escapes my lips and I fight with everything left in me to get away. She holds on tighter, I almost fear she'll crush me with the power of it, and suddenly there's some kind of popping noise and the entire car explodes.
We both hit the ground hard, skidding at least a few inches from the force of it. I hit my head but manage to remain cogent enough to realize what has just happened. If he was in that car, if he had any hope at all, it's gone now. My dad is gone.
I'm staring up at the sky, mouth gaping open, the finality beating as steady as a metronome against my heart. Slowly I'm aware of Kate next to me, stirring a little and sitting up before looking me over. One of us is bleeding though I can't make my nervous system speak to my brain to tell me how hurt I actually am. It's as if my body has suddenly frozen, the mind inside struggling to exist without its partner.
"Alexis, say something."
My mouth opens but nothing comes out and I see the panic I feel reflected back in her face. I don't know what else to do, so I lay there, staring up at the smoke in the sky, wondering how fast the afterlife happens, if I could look hard enough and watch my dad looking back down at me.
The thought makes me nauseated and I want desperately to be sick, but again, my body stays still. This can't be real. He's not gone, there's still a miracle to be had, a mystery to solve. We'll see him again. We have to. There's too much left for him to do.
"He wasn't in the car," I manage to squeak out, grabbing for Kate's hand. She looks surprised as her eyes fall to mine and I gulp in the air, though it's filled with smoke.
"What?"
"You're right. He can't be in the car. He's not here."
"He's not here," she repeats, as if confirming the idea to the universe. It's like dad told me once, that if two people really believe in something, then even the impossible is possible.
After a moment we struggle to our feet and I figure we must have only been down for a bit, because the firefighters who have been called to the scene are just now rushing over to us.
"I'm fine, I'm fine," I keep saying, looking over my shoulder to where what used to be the car is still flaming, a crumpled pile of metal. An EMT is checking my vital signs, asking about blurry vision or headache, but I basically wave him off. I'm fine, it's dad they should be worried about.
We stay for over an hour, until the fire is put out. I want to stay longer but Kate won't allow it, and I know that she's afraid of what they'll pull from the car. As an investigator she needs to see it, but as herself, she needs to get out of there, needs to get me out of there. Later I'll think about what that means, that she pulls me away though her inclination was to stay, but at the moment all I can do is let her lead me back to the car.
Gram looks pale as she circles the car, unsure of what to do or say, or even the entirety of what's happened. I heard her before, screaming for some answers, demanding to know if dad was in the car, but now she's just silent, walking in a circle. My mind flips back to how it happened, how Kate had run out of the room with the order for us to stay there. How I had followed right after her, shaking Lanie off, pushing Ryan when he tried to stop me at the door… did I actually push Esposito down in my haste to get away?
Kate's car had peeled out of the driveway before Gram and I could tumble into another, yelling for the driver to go.
I'm not aware of the conversation Kate is having with Ryan and Esposito, but she's gesturing wildly and yelling. If they didn't look so sorrowful, I would think they were actually scared of her. I watch from the car as Esposito grabs her arms and pulls her close. I couldn't begin to guess what he says, but she nods against him and slowly, so slowly, I almost can't tell, turns back towards me and Gram.
"We have to leave," she says finally, hand shaking as she reaches for the door handle. "The boys will… they can… we have to go."
There's no discussion as the three of us sink into the backseat together and Gram tells the driver to head home. It all passes by in a blur, a horrible whiz of colors and sunset and all I want is for everything to go black, dark, quiet.
The house comes into view, this citadel beckoning us in where it's warm and safe. It's then that the tears begin, starting deep within my chest and bursting forth before I can stop them. I can't be here without dad. This isn't home without him. I want to leap from the car and run back to the site of the accident, to the last place where he was. I want to sit in the road alone, close my eyes and try to feel his spirit, the same way Pi always said he could communicate with his grandfather. I want to try it, I need to try it, but I'm so afraid I'll be disappointed.
The car stops and we get out carefully. I'm finding, now that my body is communicating with me again, that I'm in a great deal of pain and walking is excruciating. Kate is trying to hold me up but she seems to be just as injured as I am. It isn't until Jim comes out of the house and helps us that we make it inside.
Gram begins to wander; I'm not sure why she's doing that or what she's feeling or thinking but my head is so very full that I can't dwell on it too much. I manage to sink into the couch and Kate comes down with me, turning sideways and checking over the cuts on my face, her dress crinkling beneath her. She peeks over her shoulder, but Jim is already headed into the bathroom for the first aid kit, as if he anticipated what she was going to say. Her brow is furrowed with concern as she lightly touches what I imagine is a rather large scrape on my forehead. I want to shake her hands away and tell her I'm fine, ask her what we do now, how we find dad, but I know she has to do this first. Asses the damage, then make a plan.
Jim returns with the kit and she busies herself by poking through it, finding what she needs before she pulls me a little closer.
"I'm sorry sweetie, but this will sting."
I close my eyes and breathe through it, letting her take care of me because heaven knows we both need that right now. She stays quiet and I chance a look at her, finding her face set in determination, whether for the moment to fix me up, or for the long haul to bring him home, I'm not sure. I don't think it matters.
"You're bleeding," I say finally, seeing the scrape on her shoulder, the torn and stained lace that will never be repaired. She glances down at it and nods, then looks me over once more.
"Anything else hurt?"
I don't know why it's that gentle question that sends me into another round of tears and I try to answer her despite the sobs that keep coming up. She pulls me to her, gentle this time, and runs her hand over my hair. I can tell that she doesn't know what to do for me, but I'm unable to breathe normally, much less tell her that this is all I need.
"I'm not going to give up," she says after a moment. "I promise you Alexis, I won't give up."
"What do we do?"
"We don't stop. We never stop looking, we never stop trying. Not until the answers are good enough."
"I'm scared, Kate."
"Me too."
"What if we're wrong?"
"We can't be."
She says it with such resolve that I can't continue to question her. Dad trusts her and now so must I.
We continue to sit there for a while and I want to try and absorb some of her pain but I know it's more than I could ever hold. She's barely had time to breathe in the last few weeks, so many things in her life have been almost agonizingly tumultuous. I don't know how she's even breathing right now.
At some point Esposito and Ryan return to the house, their faces somber as they sit down on the coffee table.
"What?" Kate asks after a moment, her voice raising in panic. I close my eyes and burrow closer to her thinking hard about anything else, not wanting to hear them. I don't want to know yet, I want to have some time to take in all that's already happened. I can't do this.
"It wasn't him!" she cries after a moment, her free hand balling into a fist and slamming against the couch.
"Kate-"
"NO! You listen to me. There may have been a body in that car but it was NOT him!"
I squirm at the thought. I don't think dad is gone, but that means someone else is. I feel sick and I pull away from Kate, running for the bathroom. She's close behind me, catching up just in time to hold my hair back and as my body staggers forward there's a little piece of me that is entirely embarrassed to be losing it like this in front of her.
"Kate, where do you think he is?" I ask, sinking against the bathmat.
"I don't know, sweetie. I don't know."
"Do you think someone took him? Like they took me? Do you think they're using him to get to…"
"No. I think it's something else."
I wrack my brain trying to come up with the name, the one dad doesn't know I know, the one he's muttered in his desk-chair nightmares.
"Jerry Tyson?"
She gasps softly and looks down at me, her brow furrowing. For a moment I think she's mad that I know, but then the expression clears to one of surprise and fright.
"How much do you know?"
"Not a lot. Do you think it's possible?"
She's quiet and I move slightly, rubbing at my eyes before staring her down, willing her to answer.
"It's the first thing I thought of when that call came in. I have no evidence but it's the thing that makes the most sense."
"Did you say anything to anyone?"
"Sweetie, Ryan and Espo… they believe it was him in the car. They want to investigate this, but they're convinced they're looking at a homicide, not a kidnapping."
"Why?"
"Because that's what the evidence says. Right now, you and I are the only ones that think he's alive."
I feel nauseated again but I manage not to get sick, instead standing up and turning on the sink to rinse my mouth.
"Then we need to get started," I say, wiping the water off my face. "We can't sit here and cry like this if he's alive, that's just silly. Let's go."
Her jaw drops a little and she stares at me as I dry my hands on the hanging towel.
"Alexis… Captain Gates, she doesn't want me on the case."
"WHAT?!"
I'm about ready to hunt this woman down and make her change her mind when Kate reaches up for my hand, giving it a squeeze.
"Sweetie, she's not doing this because she doesn't want to find him. She's doing it because she's afraid I'll get myself killed. She's running the case and as much as I hate this, I trust her."
"Meanwhile you'll do what you do best and work it under the radar?"
"Well… yeah."
"I'm helping you."
"Wait sweetheart, this could get-"
"Dangerous? Really Kate? You can't say that to me, you can't tell me that I can't look for my dad when I know you would lay down your life to find him. Too dangerous? I'm sorry but I love him too."
"I know," she agrees, standing up. "And I would never ask you not to be involved. But if we do this, you have to trust me. If I say run, you run and you don't look back. If I tell you to stay put, you stay. I am not losing you too, do you understand me?"
"Yes. I promise."