Choices
By Amos Whirly
Disclaimer: ***SpoilerAlert*** If you haven't seen the episode from last Monday (May 3) and you don't want spoilers, don't read this. I don't own anyone in 24. I wish I did because then I could be called a freakin' genius. But I don't.
Author's Note: This popped up in my head while I was watching the episode last night, just a trail of thoughts that Jack might have had. How Dana died was so similar to how Nina died. I love how Season 8 is tying together so many plot points symbolically. Anyway, I'm still learning this universe so please forgive any inconsistencies.
Running.
Running.
He was always running, always shooting, always killing; it never ended. Would it ever end?
He spotted the lavender shirt darting across traffic, long blonde hair streaming out behind her like a flag. He dodged the yellow cabs, eyes not leaving that lavender shirt as she ran into the partially constructed building across the street.
Where was Cole? What had she done? What had Cole allowed her to do? He'd known better. He'd known better than to let the kid out of his sight. Dana Walsh was a snake, capable of anything. She would do anything to survive.
It didn't matter anymore. It never really had. He'd known it would come down to this. It always did, especially with people like her.
Her shots arched over his head as he entered the building, and he dove for the slab, inching his way forward, staying low, staying invisible, staying quiet.
Why did it always come down to this? It couldn't have just been for the money. He'd seen people do worse for less, he supposed; but why him? Why did it always have to be him who put traitors down?
Because you're the only one who will. The answer was cold and unwavering and certain.
It always came down to the same thing. Beyond what was good for the country or good for an administration or good for a career or good for the people. It was right, and it was wrong. Good; evil. Nothing in between. Why was he the only one who could tell the difference? Was it just him? Or had the world really lost its mind?
He shed his leather jacket at the foot of the stairs and tossed it upward.
Dana was scared. She was nervous. She was making mistakes. She pumped the jacket full of the last rounds she had. And unless she'd thought to pick up another weapon, she had nothing left now.
He was up the stairs in a flash. He could see her, trying to find a way to get out of the corner she'd painted herself into. The coward. Deal-cutters like her were always cowards.
"Don't you move!"
Frozen, she stood with her arms held out. Fear in her eyes, she did as he commanded. Gave him the evidence he needed. She claimed Cole was fine—that she wouldn't—couldn't—harm him.
She spoke. She kept talking. He tuned most of it out.
To him, her eyes were darkening and so was her hair until it wasn't Dana Walsh before him, tall and curvy and blonde—but Nina Myers, petite and pencil-thin. But the words were the same. They were just the same—cut from the same cloth, Dana Walsh and Nina Myers. The same black soul that didn't give a damn about anyone else, that would sacrifice the world for a couple bucks, that would kill the innocent without mercy and never regret it.
Dana. Nina.
Nina. Dana.
No difference at all, at least not in any way that mattered.
Live or die? He knew what CTU would say. He knew what the president would say, although her judgment seemed to be wavering more than usual as of late. He knew what the cops, the FBI, the CIA, and whoever else wanted to weigh in would say. Mercy. Let her live. It's just a disk. It's just a video. It's not worth killing her over. Let her run away to screw someone over another day. It's what they said about Nina. It's what they said about Nina twice—after she killed Teri and then again after the nuclear threat, and what did she do? Turned around and sold her soul for biological weapons. People like Nina never stopped. The only way to stop Nina was to kill her, and that's what he had done.
They were the same.
He had killed Nina Myers, and he hadn't blinked. He'd put three bullets in her without hesitation.
Even Kim had thought it was revenge. If he'd wanted revenge, he could have killed her years earlier. It simply became clear that killing her was the only way to prevent her from hurting innocents.
Nina. Dana. The same.
"Tell me what I can do."
The constant murmur of instinct and perceptions rumbling in his ears cut out. Almost like he was deafened, those words circling his mind like a vulture on the hunt.
Tell me what I can do.
Six words that turned the cool readiness of pursuit into a raging inferno of black fury so great it took all his control to keep from strangling her. In an instant, he had ten different ways to kill her slowly. Construction sites were handy for things like that. She deserved nothing less. Tell me what I can do.
All he could do was stare at her in stunned, silent shock. What could she do? The country was under attack, had been attacked. They were poised on the edge of a devastating world war all due to what this snake of a woman had done.
What could she do? She'd done enough already.
In the space of an incredulous blink, he was back in his apartment, dragging Renee out of the line of fire as more sniper's bullets rained around them.
He was in the taxi, supporting her ever weakening body, trying to ignore the amount of blood spilling out of her and telling her over and over that she would be all right and that he wouldn't leave her and that they'd have a happy ending somehow.
He was in the hospital staring at her body, face oddly peaceful in death.
Death.
Renee was dead. And whether Dana Walsh had known about it or not, she was involved. She was responsible.
What could she do?
"Nothing."
That she would even ask—that she would try to reconcile her actions in the face of everything he had lost—stole any other response from him. He could still feel the cold flesh of Renee's brow on his lips, her precious light forever extinguished.
What could she do?
She could live and live to kill more innocents—just like Nina. She could live and turn Cole inside out with the yearning that he'd put a bullet in her brain sooner. She could live.
Or—
She could die. She could die and save Cole the pain she would undoubtedly bring him while she was still breathing. That's what she could do.
Those were her choices.
He chose for her.
"Nothing."
He held her gaze when he pulled the trigger. Her eyes looked stunned—startled—shocked that he'd actually done it. He'd killed her after all. That was what he did best; maybe she had forgotten. It always came down to it in the end.
A second shot and it was done.
No more deals. No more lies. No more. Nothing.
It wasn't revenge. It was justice. Now he just had to track down the ones responsible for pulling the snake's strings.
Cole wouldn't understand. He was too young. He hadn't lived enough—maybe hadn't died enough was more appropriate. But someday he'd understand.
"You didn't think it would end like this, did you?"
He remembered Nina's words as she'd held that weapon on him after securing an advanced pardon for his murder. Even then, she'd known killing him was the only way she'd make it.
Yes, he had.
Because that's the way it always ended. It always had. It probably always would as long as he was alive.
He slipped into the crowds on the sidewalk, blending in and avoiding the intersections he knew CTU was watching.
Someone had to choose.
Life was choice.
And if no one else would choose to do what was right, he would. Because that's who he was. That's who he had always been.