Summary: Day 3. The sky is falling, but that's not all that's happening, and no one gets there alone.
Spoilers: Day 3, 3:00-4:00 P.M.
Standard disclaimers apply.
Original Character Bio: Liz Rycoff, after surviving the first two days, no longer works at CTU. Instead, she took over Mason's position after he died, in order to protect CTU from another annoying bureaucratic panic, but she's not really qualified. Still, she soldiers on. Liz was close friends with Mason, but now all she really has left is Jack. The two of them started a relationship about a year after Day 2, but it's kind of going slowly. She also had a failed non-relationship of sorts with Tony between Day 1 and Day 2, and Tony now kind of looks out for Liz.
Dedication: The lovely cast I've used in this story: Kiefer Sutherland and Carlos Bernard, obviously, with additional nods to Allison Smith (Liz in my head) and Desmond Harrington (not only my latest crush, but also David).
Recommended Listening: "Late Great Planet Earth" by Plumb (quoted herein).
District Director Elisabeth Rycoff sat in her office at Division – well, it had been George Mason's office, but now it was hers, supposedly, although she still felt him there – resting the weight of her head on her knuckles, staring off into space. They had all heard by now about the Salazars' plans and the impending release of the virus, and while there was panic ensuing, there was not much more she could do but make sure the right phone calls were made, and it frustrated her. She was doing paperwork while good people were trying to save the world. No wonder why Mason had eventually tried to get away from this place.
Even as early as three years ago, she would have been one of those good people. She would have been in the trenches at CTU, at her desk, working with Michelle Dessler on whatever she could possibly do to help. Beyond that, she would have been shoulder-to-shoulder with all the people she had come to trust over her career, in every meaning of the sentence. She would have been right there, indispensible, to Mason, to Tony. She would have been right there standing by for Jack.
The concept of the man she loved – yes, she could actually say it now, after two years of being his lover but never wanting to have to put that kind of pressure on him – being out there saving the world without her there to get his back made her edgy. It also made her more than a little saddened, she reflected.
"Liz? You okay?"
She broke out of her thoughts and glanced over. "Yeah, David, I'm fine. Just brooding."
David Taylor arched an eyebrow from where he was sitting across from her, on the couch in her office, with the paperwork on his lap. He was the assistant Division had assigned to her, since Mason's assistant Rebecca had resigned following her boss's death, and no one could blame her. She liked David – he was a hard worker, with the same dry, sardonic sense of humor that Mason had possessed, ready and willing to get into a fight for the cause. One of those good people. "You miss it, don't you?" he said, twirling his pen absently between his fingers. He was ex-field ops, too, although he was a decade younger than her, having just turned 27 a month ago. He understood, although not on the level Jack understood, and she could tell him the truth.
She nodded. "It's not so much as I miss it … as I think it needs me."
He gave her a sympathetic half-smile. "That feeling never goes away."
They were interrupted by the ringing of the phone. Liz snatched it without even looking. She'd been doing that all day. As David looked on, she took the call. On the other end was Tony Almeida, asking her if he could get approval on use of a CTU chopper to pick up Kyle Singer. He wouldn't even bother her, he said, but he remembered Jack's requisition four and a half years ago, and all the bitching about that.
"No problem, Tony," she told him, then looked over at David. "But on one condition. I'm coming with you."
David sat up suddenly, startled. He knew Liz fairly well since they'd been working together for three years now, but she had never done anything more than express a desire to get back in the field. A District Director just getting up and leaving? He supposed that today, of all days, however, things were different. Tony, on the other hand, just told Liz to get down to CTU, because he couldn't wait for her. She hung up the phone and was already standing, opening her desk drawer. It was all so simple.
"You have your gun?" she asked David, clipping her holster to her belt. He nodded. "Yeah, it's in my desk."
"Get it," she told him, throwing on her jacket, taking her cell phone and other necessary items. David didn't waste any time, moving with an agent's grace and pulling his weapon from its hiding place as she locked her office door. He holstered it, grabbed the suit jacket he'd left folded over his chair, and shrugged into it. The two of them went breezing down the stairs. They trusted each other, and both of them knew exactly what to do – the feeling was still there, singing in their souls, even after all this time.
"Is this the smart thing?" he said, just for posterity, as he fingered his car keys.
"No," she told him, "but it's the right thing."
He couldn't disagree.
-Three…-
Jack Bauer kept his eyes on the road as they approached their destination, the CTU caravan screaming across the roads. He didn't want to deal with any more of Duncan's annoying questions, didn't want to hear how worried she was about him. It was distracting and it was not important, not now. Randomly, a fleeting thought crossed his mind: Liz never would have shifted his focus from the mission, because Liz knew what it was like, and because she loved him. He felt the twinge that came after that thought, recalling the last time he'd spoken to her, and how long ago it now seemed.
He had come by her office at noon. Her assistant, David, had been on the phone ordering lunch, and had put his hand over the phone and told Jack she was in. David was a stand-up guy, whom Jack genuinely felt could protect Liz if something happened. If something happened … he shook that idea off. He had nodded, thanked David, and breezed in. She had been ignoring her paperwork, surfing the Internet instead, anything to take her mind off all those damned forms, she protested when he cracked wise about it. He'd sat on the edge of her desk and just smiled. Division had failed to change her.
"You're going to have to do it eventually," he'd continued to tease her.
"I know. Just not right now. For God's sake, they're all low-priority anyway." She'd stopped, spun in her chair, and glanced at him. "What are you, my paperwork fairy?"
He'd laughed out loud at that. "I just wanted to come in and say goodbye. Chase and I are heading up to go see the D.A. about Salazar."
"Where's Chase?" she'd asked as she'd gotten out of her chair, looking through her office window and not seeing Jack's partner as she circled round the desk.
"He's in the car. He says hi, though."
"Well, tell him I said the same."
They'd smiled at each other like old colleagues as she put her hand on his shoulder, like she'd done all those times before. They'd taken another silent moment, and then he'd leaned in and kissed her gently, taking her into his arms and feeling her head on his shoulder. He could get away with that kind of thing here, where there weren't cameras and the only person ever likely to see would be someone they both trusted to keep quiet about their relationship. He just wanted to hold her one more time. He hadn't known why then, but he knew why now.
"You should go," she'd told him, but she hadn't moved.
"Yeah, I know." It took him a few seconds to move, too. Eventually he'd let her go, and she'd leaned against her desk, watching him walk to the door. Neither of them had said anything until he was standing in the doorway. He could still recall the exact words she'd said as he'd turned back.
"Jack," she'd said.
"Yeah."
"Take care of yourself."
"I will."
-Two…-
By the time David swung the car into a parking space, Tony was already coming out of the building, toward where the chopper was parked and roaring. He saw Liz and her assistant, nodded to let them know he knew they were there, and the three of them formed up and climbed inside along with the field team members Tony had brought, who were already on the chopper. Nobody said anything until they were all secure and the helicopter had peeled away.
"David, good to see you again," Tony said, glancing over at the two last-minute additions. "Liz, you sure about this?" He was referring to the fact that if one were particularly nasty at Division, this could cost Liz her job.
She nodded. "Yeah, I'm sure about it. Tell me what we're going to do."
He explained, as quickly and succinctly as possible. Liz shot a glance at David
to make sure he got it – she needn't have worried, as he had a focus in his
eyes beyond his years, so much so that it was almost unsettling. He nodded to
let her know he was ready for whatever she needed him to do. Tony finished by
saying "…I can use the two of you to help me secure the perimeter. You going to
be okay with that?" He knew it wasn't Liz's usual job in the field.
She didn't care. "We play wherever we're needed. Jack doesn't know we're coming?"
He shook his head. She supposed it was better that way. Even if she phoned him and told him, Jack would take it like a professional, but that was still a few minutes he had to use to talk to her. God knew how much a few minutes counted in this business. As Tony briefed his team members and gave them their orders, Liz leaned back into her seat, keeping one hand on her SigArm. She exchanged another glance with David. She had never pressed him for the specifics of why he had quit field ops, but she knew that nonetheless he never once hesitated when she'd asked him to do this. They were laying their jobs and their lives on the line, but they did it because it was what they knew they had to do. As that old familiar calm of mission runs fell across her shoulders, she felt him put a reassuring hand on her arm, and neither of them said a word until the chopper landed. It wasn't time for words now.
A thought: Jack would have been proud of them.
-One…-
The perimeter was secure. Well, as secure as these things got. Liz and David were assigned directly across the catwalk from where the grab was going to go down, in the darkness of a service corridor cutout. She swept the place again. Tony was easy to notice, what with the confident set of his shoulders, the cool control he had picked up over his years of being in charge at CTU. There was still no sign of Jack.
Tony's voice crackled on the radio on David's belt. "Everybody ready?"
Even though he wasn't in front of her, she nodded anyway, hearing David speaking into the device: "We're ready here."
After everyone had come back with similar responses, Tony came back on the line. "All right. Everybody stand by." From her vantage point, she could see him conferring with mall security. Some of the teams farther out had picked up their target, and it was now only time to wait for the perfect moment. She put a hand on her gun but didn't take it out, and David checked chamber on his but quickly put it back. If this kid saw a gun, he was going to freak, no question.
"Here we go," she said and felt David putting a cautionary hand on her shoulder as Tony approached Kyle Singer. She locked her gaze onto the target and didn't let go. Maybe that was a mistake but she would never know.
"Who the fuck is…" she heard David say lowly beside her, and then with pure ferocity: "Damn it!"
In split seconds they saw Tony make it to Singer, and even get out a few words. Then out of nowhere the gunshot. It couldn't be good, not the way he'd gone down. Singer bolted, knowing he was running for his life (or what remained of it), and the shooter went after him. Without their field leader, the CTU field teams were acting on instinct. Liz and David, weapons up, crossed the catwalk in a matter of seconds, heading straight for Tony. Liz had never been very religious, but she prayed then that Tony would be all right. He had done too much for her when he didn't have to, he had done too much for the world, he didn't deserve this. If The Powers That Be wanted a victim, why didn't they just take her instead? She had enough sins to answer for. Why did Tony have to pay the price?
The scene was panic now, and understandably so, as other agents circled round, trying to acquire their target, or at least the shooter. They knew that she had gotten to Tony and they would do everything in their power to complete his mission. Liz went to her knees there in the middle of the mall floor, shoving her gun down into its holster, peeling out of her jacket and throwing it aside. David was on his walkie-talkie calling for an ambulance, and snapped it back on his belt.
"Damn it, I could have had a shot!" he said, still frustrated with himself.
"David, that's not important now!" she cut him off, harsher than intended, before she looked down her fallen friend. "Tony. Tony, it's me. Stay with me. It's going to be okay." It all sounded like she was being pretentious, but she knew it was what she needed to say. She needed to say something to him. He was holding his neck where the bullet had gone in, jaw clenched, obviously trying to deal with the pain as long as he possibly could, which couldn't be long, not with the amount of blood he was losing. Liz carefully gripped him by the wrist and moved his hand.
"Looks like a through-and-through," David said, and she nodded. "That's good news," she said needlessly, letting Tony's wrist go. Where the hell was that ambulance?
-The world ends without a tragedy…-
The sound of his voice shattered her thoughts.
She had forgotten all about his coming there and now, still trying to help Tony, she felt her heart skip a beat, knowing she needed his help. Behind her, David grabbed her jacket and put it under Tony's head, checking his watch with a desperate impatience, but Liz's thoughts cleared for a second. If Jack had been here maybe things might have been different. But he was here now.
That was how Jack found her, kneeling at Tony's side, her hands, forearms and her clothes bearing his blood. The look on his face went from shock at the scene to relief that she was there and all right to a determined yet stunned calm in moments. Inwardly, though they would never discuss it now, not with an agent's life in the balance, each of them knew the other's being there made things just a little bit better. This was what they were meant to do, help the greater good, and do it together. But as Jack went to his knees beside her, they both knew the other half of that sentence.
It wasn't supposed to happen like this.
At least they were together now, for whatever good that might do. In the second that they looked at each other, they knew the truth for what it was. They needed each other, and they needed to come together right here and now, if anything were ever to come to any good. He reached for her hand for just a second, and for just a second, she didn't let go.
-Time is melting into history…-
He spoke to her but his eyes were on Tony. "Liz, what are you doing here?"
She didn't miss a beat. "I asked to be here. Jack, help me turn him over."
The two of them, with David circling round to the other side, carefully moved their fallen friend over onto his back. The amount of blood he'd lost was apparent now, his shirt soaked through with it, blood coating the tile in front of David. Tony was sucking in breaths, trying to stay conscious, trying to take the pain. He would never give up, not until that very last second.
"Tony, it's okay," Jack said. "We're going to get you to a hospital."
"Did we … get him?" Tony's sentence came out in pained breaths.
David snapped his walkie-talkie out again and called for a status report. Jack looked at Liz, still with a reassuring hand on Tony's shoulder. "What happened?"
"Unidentified shooter ambushed the take, Singer bolted, shooter went after him. Our guys are on it now. It's a through-and-through, but it's in the neck. David, I need your jacket over here."
Her comrade peeled out of it and tossed it over to her. "They're still in pursuit," he said, watching her take it and try to staunch the blood flow from the bullet wound. "What can I do to help?"
"You can stay right here," Jack told him. "You two may have just saved his life."
No one was in the mood for compliments. Liz brushed hair back off Tony's forehead. "I swear to God, Tony," she said, "That ambulance will be here soon, or I will personally kick someone's ass myself."
Despite his suffering, Tony managed a chuckle. "I'm not … surprised."
"You should stop talking," she told him, taking him by the hand. He could put pressure on that and alleviate some of the pain. Sure enough, she felt him grip her hand fiercely. It hurt – Tony had a hell of a grip – but she smiled down at him. "Just hold on. Just hang on to me," she told him, even as she felt her heart threatening to break her chest.
-The sky is falling…-
Jack was following her gaze already, waiting for the paramedics. He snapped his glance back around at her. "Have you called Michelle yet?"
Liz swallowed. "No."
He hesitated just a second. On one hand, she deserved to know, but she was also now in charge of CTU. Like Jack and Liz before her, she needed to focus. "We'll call her once he's at the hospital," he said more to himself, but it sounded hollow. If it had been Liz on the floor, he would have wanted to know, he knew, despite himself, despite his rules.
"What do we do now, Jack?" she said, almost afraid.
"What can we do?" he replied, frustrated as he tore his glance away from the entryway to the floor, to his fallen friend. "We stay here."
"You could go … you can get this guy. I know you could."
"No." He shook his head. "They're too far along now. And I'm not leaving either of you here."
He reached out and brushed loose strands of hair back behind her ear. Only then could he see the fear, the torture, behind her widened eyes. The stakes were too high now. Unlike the last time, she had people to worry about, people she cared about, a life to preserve. They both did. She could see it breaking on the floor. He wanted to hold her, but he couldn't. Still, his fingers lingered against her cheek a moment longer, as if to tell her that if he could have taken it from her, he would have. He pursed his lips, wanting to say something, anything.
-Voices crying out in desperation
Hear them calling
Everybody save yourself…-
Just then they all heard the sound of service corridor doors slamming open, and they all jumped to their feet, having been kept waiting too long. A pair of paramedics, carrying a stretcher, emerged through the doors, and David, Liz and Jack stepped back to give them room, the relief clear on all of their world-weary faces.
"Gunshot wound to the neck, through-and-through," Liz explained as they set down the stretcher, inadvertantly in the pool of rapidly drying blood David had almost been standing in. She stepped back, into Jack, who wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "He's lost a lot of blood. He's in a lot of pain."
One of the paramedics was working with his penlight, asked Tony if he was conscious. Their fearless leader was hanging on, forcing his eyes to stay open, jaw still set. "That's a good sign," the paramedic said needlessly. Jack was in no mood for anything that wasn't necessary. "He needs to get out of here, now."
"All right, let's get him up," the other paramedic interrupted, and with David and Liz's help, the two paramedics carefully picked Tony up off the floor and set him down on the stretcher. The two medical professionals started talking to each other in medical terms that none of the counterterrorism agents particularly understood, but they didn't need to understand it, not as long as Tony survived to fight another day.
Liz handed David back his jacket, now fairly covered in Tony's blood, and he glanced down at it, giving it some sort of morbid significance before putting it under his arm, the three of them determined to see Tony all the way to safety, in defiance of whatever fate had put this outcome on his shoulders.
-The world plays its angered symphony
Lost inside eternal mystery…-
"David, can you get me a status check?" Jack asked, and David nodded, going back to the handheld. Jack looked to Liz. "What were you trying to do out here?" he asked her, still not having moved his arm from around her shoulders, and thus able to feel the slight tremors that were happening in her shoulders.
She shook her head. "I was trying to do the one thing I'm still good at," she told him, eyes still locked on Tony. "I was trying to do something that mattered."
There was silence between them for a second. David glanced over, "I'm not getting anything," he said, staring at the radio, realizing that it was more than likely damaged in the fracas.
"Could be the interference from these corridors. Some of them do that. Keep trying." Jack leaned forward a bit, so he could look into Liz's eyes. "You did do something," he said. "If you hadn't gotten there as quickly as you had, none of us knows what might have happened."
She nodded, but despite that said, "Compliment me when he's all right."
They had reached the end of the corridor now, and everyone moved forward to hold open the double doors so the stretcher could get through. Compared to the mall lighting, the daylight was almost blinding, or maybe it just felt like it was.
-The sky is falling…-
The ambulance was waiting for them there, back doors already flung open, and the paramedics wasted no time getting Tony aboard. All of the CTU agents said their final encouraging words to Tony, but he couldn't hear them, as he was sedated almost immediately. Still, they couldn't let him go in silence.
"Somebody going with him?" one of the paramedics asked them.
The three agents exchanged a glance. Jack couldn't go with further things to do, and Liz wouldn't leave Jack when she could help him, and David always made sure he stayed with Liz. But beyond that, they didn't feel they had a right to go. They couldn't turn and quit now, couldn't leave this work undone. Couldn't leave Tony's mission unaccomplished. At least two of them owed him that much, and more.
Jack finally shook his head. "We'll send someone down when we can."
They'd turned back before the ambulance pulled away. Liz slipped back into her jacket and buttoned it. It managed to cover some of the bloodstains on her shirt, but had its own. David left his open, but even though it was black, one who knew what one was looking for could tell it was soaked in blood. To both of them, that didn't matter – it was some morbid matter of honor, some source of odd calm, as if now everyone would know who they were doing this for, that someone would answer these three angels for striking down one of their own. They threw open the doors, pushed headlong back into the darkness.
-Voices crying out in desperation
Hear them callingEverybody save yourself…-
"I still can't get a hold of anyone." David glanced at Jack and Liz. "I could have taken him. I had a shot."
"David, let it go." Liz's voice was softer now. "Nobody saw it coming. It's not your fault."
"She's right," Jack interrupted, though he'd never bring up his own case of survivor's guilt. "You did all you could."
David still seemed nonplussed. He would have to work through it, just like Jack after Teri, just like Liz after Mason. Hopefully, Tony would not be joining those two in fate.
-Doesn't matter what you say
Doesn't matter what you do…-
As they reached the other set of doors, Jack told David to go on ahead.
"Something wrong?" he said, appending the 'else' in the middle of the sentence mentally.
"I just need a second with Liz," Jack said. "We'll catch up. See if you can find out what happened."
David nodded, and slipped through the doors as Jack pulled Liz aside. Hands on her shoulders, he looked into her eyes, past the violent emotions that always came with seeing loved ones hurt in the line of fire, into the things that had brought her here. "You came here because of me," he said, making it a statement, not a question.
Liz didn't waver, didn't make apologies or excuses, but held his gaze. "What if I did?" she said.
"Liz, you could … you could get hurt. You could die. I don't want to see that," he said, his voice breaking slightly on the second sentence before it went quiet. "Please don't put me through that again."
"Jack." She silenced him with a stern gaze as she took his hands in hers. "It's just one more day. And I'm not going anywhere. Not unless you're with me."
They paused together.
"Nothing I can do to stop you, is there?" he said.
She shook her head. "This is how it happens today. This is what I'm here for." She swallowed. "And you're what I've got left." She didn't say anything else, and she didn't have to. The answer was good enough for him, if only because he had said it himself, not so long ago.
-We all end up this way
There's only one thing left to save you…-
He grabbed her by the hand as they pushed through the doors, determined not to let her go as long as he could today. David was leaning against the wall, still trying to radio somebody, trying to pretend that he wasn't looking at Tony's blood on the pavement. He clipped the radio back to his belt as they emerged. "I don't know what's going on out there," he said, running a hand through his hair. "What do you want to do next?"
Jack glanced around. Above them and around them, CTU agents and LAPD officers were trying to secure every exit, every floor. No way would they have enough people to accomplish that. If Kyle Singer and/or Tony's assailant were still on the premises, they were probably either still in the mall but in some highly crowded place, or out in the distance. This was going to be an exhaustive manhunt, but it was the only lead they had. They'd have to tear this place apart. He realized Liz and David were looking at him, waiting for an answer.
"Did Tony have somebody coordinating at the security office?" he asked David.
David nodded. "Yeah, I think he did."
"Let's get down there. The cameras will make this a lot faster."
The three of them picked up their pace as they headed for the nearest elevator. David slammed down on the button, and they were left waiting. It seemed that they were always waiting, as life continued to rush by, taking parts of them with it.
"What are you going to do when you find Singer?" Liz asked Jack.
"I'm going to do what I have to do," he told her. "I've only got three hours left."
"All right," David interrupted, "then let's do this."
There was a silent consensus between them as they stepped into the elevator. None of them would waver from their purpose. In truth, none of them were even supposed to be here. Jack was supposed to have stayed inactivated, Liz was supposed to be behind a desk, and David was supposed to be moving papers. This was a case where the truth lied, however: none of them were supposed to be anywhere else but here. None of them were made for anything else but that. If only they hadn't needed such a painful reminder.
Jack held Liz close to him, resting his chin on the top of her head, and she glanced at David, making sure he was okay before she let her breathing fall in time with Jack's heartbeat. Their fates were sealed now, if they hadn't been before. They were damned to this path, and whatever consequences followed. Through the pain, the anguish, the grief, the death, they had to be here. If such things existed, there had to also be joy, hope, happiness, life. They had to believe in that, because they had nothing else to believe in. You really had only one chance at a normal life, and these three people had given theirs up to do things too important to show the world. They felt a promise at answering the calling in their souls, yet they felt a sadness at what they had left behind.
That feeling would never go away.
-The sky is falling
Voices crying out in desperation
Hear them calling
You can never save yourself…-