A/N: This is a repost for CDM's orphaned "Lost!" Changes to the initial six chapters have been made with permission from the original author, and content after seven is my original work. Hopefully, I can do it justice.


Claudia was right: this was a mistake. He knows it the moment he turns round and sees Helen pointing the gun at him. This was a mistake.

"Oh, for God's sake," he says as he turns back to face her. What else can he say? He knows he should be scared (he is, to a certain extent; there's a gun pointed at him, and he's not sodding suicidal) but really, more than anything else, he's exasperated. Impatient. They're in a burning building, so it seems to him like there are more pressing matters than a future millions of years from now. But not to Helen. No, she's going on about it like it's the very next day, whatever she's afraid of. Like whatever the hell it is she's trying to do, it has to be done that very moment.

She really is a tempestuous arse of a woman.

"You really know how to pick your moments, don't you?"

"If you'd seen what I've seen you'd understand."

Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn't. Truthfully, he's not sure he wants to. Helen was never the easiest to live with before, but whatever it was she saw, it changed her, and not for the better. It turned her into a fanatic. A terrorist, in every sense of the word. It turned her into a killer.

And he knows when he sees the tears in her eyes, even before she pulls the slide back on her gun, that he's slated to be her next victim.

He knows there's nothing he can do about it, either. Nowhere he can run, not fast enough to outrun the bullet that has his name on it. Nothing he can say to change her mind. He's going to die; he knows that.

But for all the things he regrets, all the things he wishes he still had the chance to do that he knows now will have to be left to the others, there's a small comfort that keeps the panic at bay.

"You know what, Helen?" he says. "You're not as smart as I thought you were."

Because his death? It won't change anything. It'll be a hiccup at best, because he's never been the crucial one. He's never been the one that's going to alter any outcomes or write any lines of history. He's a footnote (albeit an interesting one, hopefully). It's the people he's leaving behind that are the real difference-makers. Connor and Abby and Sarah, they're the real players. Not him.

There's no doubt in his mind: Helen's going to fail. And as much as it pains him knowing he won't be there to see the failure sink in and the self-righteousness turn sour, he can at least die knowing it's going to happen. Whether he's there to see it or not.

He won't give her the satisfaction of begging. He keeps his face impassive as he steels himself for the ring of the gunshot, for the pain of the bullet ripping through his chest. He sees her shaking hand tighten around the grip of the gun. Seconds, now. Hopefully, it'll be quick. She won't miss; he knows that. At this range, with her obvious talents with a firearm, she'll hit whatever she's aiming at. Right now, that looks like his heart.

So, it's really just a matter of time.

For what it's worth, he doesn't want to die. But if it has to happen, he does wish she'd hurry up and get on with it.

Just then, though, the beams behind Helen start to break. He can't see what's happening; there's too much smoke, and Helen's in the way. But it almost sounds like someone's pushing through them, and then the flames flare, throwing harsh red-orange light through the room.

"No!"

It's a man's voice, shouting over the roar of the fire. It's strange, because it's not Connor's voice or Becker's or any of the soldiers he knows, but it's familiar. Eerily familiar, like he could put a face to it if he only just took a moment to do it.

He never gets the chance.

The gun goes off.

Nick's never really given much thought to what it would feel like to be shot, so he can't say whether it meets or exceeds expectations when it happens. All he knows is that it feels like someone's smacked him in the shoulder with a cricket bat rather than an inch-long piece of metal. It's off-centre, and it twists him around a bit with the force of it, enough that he loses his footing. He falls.

And there's the pain.

When it comes, it comes en masse. Vaguely, he's aware of the sounds of a struggle. Someone's shouting, but with the blood roaring in his ears and the gunshot still ringing in his head, it's hard to make out what they're saying. He tries to get himself up to see what's going on, but that's a struggle in and of itself. He hears Helen spitting and swearing, and the man with the familiar voice grunts in what sounds like equal parts surprise and pain, and by then, Nick's managed to push himself up onto an elbow. Just the one, though. He doesn't know if he could move his left arm if he tried, and he's not too tempted to give it a go.

Turns out, it's not much use. The fire's burning brighter, and the smoke's gotten thicker. His eyes are watering, and through it all, he can only really make out silhouettes. Helen's the first he sees, and it's the back of it at that. She's running away, he realizes, quick as she can. Obviously, it's not him she's worried about, so that leaves the man.

Fascinating as his ex-wife's retreat is, it's the man that Nick looks for with his bleary eyes. His attention's sort of frayed, scattered, like he's trying to mentally hold onto dozens of ropes all pulling opposite directions of pain and confusion and more pain and curiosity. He can feel his grip slipping with each second, and it occurs to him he's losing consciousness. Shock's setting in, maybe. He feels cold, and he can't seem to draw a proper breath.

And yet, even as he feels himself blacking out, he can't bring himself to look away. Ever the scientist, always curious. Even when he's bleeding out from a gunshot wound.

But it's more than that. There's something familiar about the man, more than just his voice. He's tall and lean, and even though he's standing at an angle to Nick, there's something about his posture that Nick recognizes. Something that he knows, on an almost subconscious level. He can read meaning in that posture, in a way he can't do with most. It's almost automatic. Second nature.

The man looks confused. Or maybe conflicted is a better word for it, because he has his feet braced apart, and he's shifting his weight between them, glancing towards Nick, then down the hall, back and forth, like he wishes he could go both ways at once.

He wants to go after Helen; that much is obvious. But he seems to want to stay, as well. Or, at least, he doesn't seem to want to leave, which Nick finds to be fairly reassuring. He needs help. Alone, he doesn't stand much of a chance of getting out of there alive.

He knows the man. He knows he does. It's like a word on the tip of his tongue, so close he can taste it, but there's something blocking it. Maybe it's the pain, or the shock. Maybe it's something else. But he knows the voice, the outline; he knows the mannerisms. It's just his name and his face that's escaping him, and the more he tries to think about it, the more shrouded it seems to be. He's slipping. He can feel himself going, feel his limbs getting heavier and his breathing slowing, his heart fluttering. He has another few seconds, at most.

And then it clicks, and he forgets how to breath altogether.

"Stephen." The name leaves his lips with the last of his air, but the sound of it somehow manages to carry over the roar of the flames. And if there was any doubt in Nick's mind when he said it, it's put to rest when the stranger (not Stephen, he corrects himself, because Stephen's dead; this man can't be Stephen) snaps his head to look at him.

He seems to make up his mind, then, and with one last look after Helen and a low growl that Nick could be imagining, he turns and jogs over to Nick. He still can't see his face. It's too smoky for him to see much of anything, and when he inhales, he gets a chest full of smoke for his trouble that has him coughing again.

Only, he can't stop. Every one sends a shock of pain through his shoulder and down his arm, but he can't make it stop. His lungs burn, his eyes prickling with tears, and when he feels hands on him, trying to pull him up, it's all he can do to choke out a protest between coughs.

Not-Stephen pauses, but only for a second, and then he's moving again, trying to pull Nick up with him. Trying, being the operative word, because Nick can't help, and he knows he's the heavier of the two of them.

It's a distant sort of awareness. It's like he's drunk, almost. He can see the black edges starting to close in from the peripheries of his vision, and his head feels like mashed peas.

"Come on, Cutter," Not-Stephen says in Stephen's voice. It's the same one that's haunted Nick's dreams and nightmares and waking thoughts for more than a year, now. It sounds strained, as if through gritted teeth, but Nick's not looking at his mouth. He's not looking at much of anything, really. He can't seem to get his eyes to focus, and he doesn't really care to try. "We can't stay here."

He's probably right, whoever he is. But in the end, it doesn't really matter. The ropes have slipped, and everything Nick has holding him to consciousness is gone. He isn't going anywhere. Shame, too. He'd have liked to know who Not-Stephen really is, but the darkness is already closing in too far.

The last thing he sees is a pair of bright blue eyes, and a face he never thought he'd see again staring down at him through the smoke.