For the John fans!
Taking down Ultra headquarters wasn't easy, but it was efficient. Everything so far was going to plan… well the plan after John had had to replan to factor in Irene being out, and re-replan after factoring in Jedikiah being, well, not useless, just not able to work as John had in mind.
Flashback...
It was Russell that came to get him; he hadn't even been in his room organising artillery for more than a minute.
"We have a problem", was all he said. John moved to follow his retreating form immediately, not overly surprised when it led to their hastily put together lab.
Seeing Irene's prone form on a table with Roger, Marla, Jedikiah and now Russell gathering at the other end of the room, John barely spared them a cursory glance before going to Irene's side. Hurriedly gentle he found her pulse, and ran a hand over her forehead, pushing back errant curls to assure himself she was whole.
"What happened?" he demanded staring pointedly at Jedikiah.
"Ah dude," began Russel nervously, "She's just the other problem… there's a bigger issue."
John hadn't moved his gaze from Jedikiah, who looked exhausted albeit the epitome of the proverbial cat that got the canary.
"She's alright, she'll be up and about in an hour or so like nothing happened. I just sedated her", Jedikiah answered him calmly, steadily meeting his gaze.
"Why?" John could barely get the word out through gritted teeth. He knew it was going to be something bad, knew it the second he'd seen that victorious fire in Jedikiah's eyes, but he just couldn't stop giving Jedikiah the chance to… he didn't even know anymore.
"I don't know, I mean if he opens his eyes and walks out of here…"
"You might forgive me?"
"We'll see"
And he'd wanted to, so badly wanted to forgive Jedikiah that he'd transferred all his 'bad' into one neat little bundle and tied it to Roger. Tried to think of everything he'd done as some noble sacrifice for his brother, tried to hope that they might have kept their relationship if not for Roger and The Founder. Tried to think that maybe, like Cara, there was something salvageable, to build again. It was about to punch him in the gut like only Jedikiah seemed able to do, he could just tell.
Jedikiah didn't answer him at first, and then grinning broadly he TK'd a serum filled vial over to John who caught it easily, though the trajectory was a little erratic.
"I finally found the formula. I think you'll agree trial results have been successful" Jedikiah was genuinely cheerful. Roger beside him slapped him on the back laughing at his joke and sharing his smile. Russell and Marla beside them just looked worriedly towards John, waiting for an explosion.
That more than anything reminded John that now wasn't the time, there was a job to do and a small window in which to do it. So he crushed his eyes closed. Breathed in. Breathed out. Shook his head and ruefully whispered "You're unbelievable" Opening his eyes again and breathing out some more he stated in a more normal voice as he left the room, placing the vial on a table on his way out "I don't have time for this".
No one made to follow him back into the control room; he'd trained them well in that at the very least. So he shut the door behind him and went back to loading guns, sorting ammunition, making sure there would be no chance of a misfire with a violent, methodical precision years of training had engrained into him.
Again, he'd had barely a minute back at his task when the door clicked open and closed behind him. He didn't look up he knew it was Jedikiah. John didn't need to be a TP to be able to know that particular scuff of shoe, quietly huffing breath, rustle of a once-expensive business shirt and wafting scent of the cologne that he still hadn't given up wearing even when he'd stopped bothering to shave. John hated that he knew so well a man who probably didn't know a thing about him, past how to motivate him to do his dirty work.
"You know, it's really not a good idea for you to try to talk to me when I'm holding a firearm" he spoke jauntily to Jedikiah, but he still wouldn't look up, even attempt to meet his gaze.
Jedikiah gave his hmming half chuckle and replied simply, "I can help with this". John didn't move to accept or decline, just kept up his meticulous task, finding hidden weapons, ammunition, explosives, wiring, putting them together to be checked and packed. Jedikiah joined him on the other side of the table, picking up a small handgun and dismantling it expertly, wordlessly. Eventually after several moments of silence with nothing but a tabletop and 6 years of grief separating them, Jedikiah started the conversation John knew he'd really come for. Well, John knew he obviously wanted to have a conversation, what he could possibly want to say to him, he had no idea. Besides, they were all on the same page as far as the Founder still needing to die, maybe he wanted someone else dead too. John was resolutely focused and passed caring.
"You know I did this for you too John" he said benignly.
John laughed outright at that attempt, "Don't bother" he replied simply.
"Not 20 years ago obviously, but 20 minutes ago when we found the alleles. You have no idea how important it was to me to be able to fix you!" Jedikiah spoke passionately.
"Fix me?" John raised an eyebrow, but kept his gaze focused on the wires he was in the process of wrapping around a stick of C4.
"You know what I mean John" was the plain answer he got.
"Oh I do, and you're right – I have no idea how important it was to you, because even before I sacrificed my own powers to protect your brother, you'd never once let me into your head" John put down one neatly wrapped stick, and picked up another to wrap, "Do you honestly think you can 'fix' me? Is that…? " He stopped and picked up one of the many paperweights that littered his desk, an oversized novelty crystal, which he promptly launched at the wall. They both watched it connect and shatter into splintered fragments across the floor.
"Tell it you're sorry Jed" he demanded sarcastically.
"John-" Jedikiah tried to placate.
"Do it!" John all but yelled.
"You know I'm sorry for what happened to you kid," Jedikiah stated, near pleading.
"Not me, the paperweight, but there you go – you're sorry and nothing's changed. It's not magic, still just a mess on the floor" point made he went back to his wrapping, but John wasn't quite done, "even if you had the time to sit down and put it back together, it'll always be cracked, there'll always be pieces that are just lost – it can't be whole, can't be right again" he turned to search a draw for a fuse he remembered putting away after the Killian incident, furiously swiping at his eyes before he turned back to the table with it.
"If you know you broke it, and you know you'd spend however long it took to get it back together, and it means the world to you, no matter how many cracks or chips are missing… then it just means that much more to have it there again, doesn't it?" Jedikiah replied gently.
"I don't know Jed, if it mattered to me at all I probably just wouldn't have smashed it on purpose in the first place" was all John would say.
"I know you're angry with me John" Jedikiah tried, and John wondered if he realised he was parroting his brother, "but on this one thing at least, why won't you let me make it better for you? Why do you want to suffer and risk being more vulnerable when I can have you up and fighting at full strength in less than an hour!"
"You really don't get it do you?!" John exclaimed, finally meeting Jedikiah's eyes, "They don't have an hour! I need to be out there with a plan in the next two minutes before someone else dies! This isn't about me not having powers; I don't need them for what I plan to do, it would have been good to know you had my back if I couldn't get a shot on the Founder – but it is what it is, I'll just deal with it, come up with another plan" he finished angrily.
"I do have your back John, I can finally take care of you in a fight instead of the other way around for once!" Jedikiah declared emphatically.
"I don't need you to take care of me in a fight, I have 20 other TPs that can fight and teleport away! I needed someone else that could kill if I failed, not just another TP" he finished deflated.
"You're not going to fail, and you wouldn't have even if I was human fodder next to you… but that's not what this is really about is it?" Jedikiah said sure of himself. "You're feeling guilty because you handed over your leadership without a fight, and you let your people make terrible decisions rather than force them into line because you didn't want to step on your girlfriend's toes. You felt you had to support her and let her make her own mistakes, now everyone's dying and you've finally realised you always had control over them, you were just too polite to take it."
"They're people, they can make their own decisions – they chose Cara to lead them, I support that" John defended.
"They did, and like every other time they listened to someone other than you it led to them dying" Jedikiah replied cheerily.
"First of all, how would you know? Secondly, you were usually the one organising the killing so again, not the best thing to bring up when I'm holding a weapon!" was John's testy reply.
"The answer to one is two" Jedikiah joked, John glaring daggers at him over the barrel of a handgun he had just clicked into place encouraged him to continue more seriously, "You know Cara and Stephen have gone to destroy the transmitter, if you have so much faith in their potential, then you know you have time to take the serum, gather all of your forces and be ready for this fight"
"I do have faith in them, but I'm done leaving things to faith" John's reply was straightforward, "I have a plan, and a last resort backup. Both of them require I have the ability to kill, you think the serum will work- that's good, but what's to say it won't override what I went through to gain the ability to kill? I'm everything I need to be to get this done, the Founder can't sense me and he won't see me coming. The other TPs, they aren't going to like it if I have to use my back up – Cara and Steven, they'd never agree to it, but this is going to end today, no matter what I have to do. Do you get that?"
"You know I do, I always will… I know you hate how you got here, and I am sorry for that, but I can't tell you how proud I am of how you turned out – no matter how much you hate me for it, you'll always be my greatest achievement. I hope you get that." Jedikiah searched John's expression, but he was resolutely not meeting his gaze, packing explosives into a backpack, and a series of handguns on his person. Shouldering the backpack and picking up the last gun from the table, John finally swallowed painfully and handed it purposefully over to Jedikiah, not quite looking at his face.
"I don't hate you" Jedikiah took the gun and pocketed it in his jacket. John coughed to clear his throat and instructed more steadily, "Aim for the shoulders, humans can't shoot very well if they can't lift a gun, most TPs wont be able to TK either and it shouldn't trigger the Prime Barrier. I'll be handling most of the people, but you need to take out the Dchips… no one else down here can really shoot"
"I might still be able to kill, that's neural, not genetic… we won't know until we test it" Jedikiah offered.
"No, this isn't the time – the pain is incapacitating, and I won't be stopping to rescue you because you were stupid" John said the words to Jedikiah, but they both knew it was himself he was trying to convince. "I don't suppose you still have control over ALICE? Or a kill switch?" John asked hopefully.
"I doubt it after I stole the last lot of files, and a kill switch was too obvious unfortunately, it won't take me long to hack in once we get there though" Jedikiah answered.
"Doesn't matter, I didn't expect that you would" John casually replied, "TIM, transfer for project Helena" he commanded the machine, "I'm sorry for your loss Jed" he joked.
"You can't be serious John, there's no way TIM can take on ALICE", Jedikiah stated incredulously, "I mean I love him, but ALICE is basically older and wiser, faster, stronger – all of his faults corrected, TIM doesn't stand a chance!"
"We'll see" John replied confidently, "It's not like he's just been static you know, I've spent the last 6 years making improvements."
"I knew you would, all the more reason why you shouldn't destroy him going up against something he is clearly out powered by!"
"Do you say that for your love of ALICE or your love of TIM?" John joked as he removed a usb from the supercomputer's hard drive. He was glad to be joking, removing TIM was one of the last constants of the lair… somehow it just wasn't much like home anymore he realised as he looked around. "Look, Jedikiah, I need to ask you something ok?" he said quietly before the man had a chance to answer his last question.
"Sure thing kid, shoot," said Jedikiah, trying to drive back the more positive mood.
"You're like a cockroach" John began.
"This is starting positively I see" laughed Jedikiah.
"What I mean is, you always survive" John added, "and so if you survive this, which you probably will, and I don't… which I probably won't. I want you to do something for me" he was emphatically sombre.
"You're not dying today John" Jedikiah was equally insistent in his positivity.
"Everybody dies. I'm just saying, if I do – will you promise me something?" John was holding eye contact for the longest he'd managed in the last few minutes.
"Ok son, what do you need?" John tried not to flinch at Jedikiah's usual nickname.
"I'm making Morgan and Charlotte go to one of the safe houses" Jedikiah nodded his understanding and John continued, "I just want her to have a family, and a normal life and be safe… will you do that? If I can't?" he pleaded, and Jedikiah wanted to deflect, to joke but the sheen in John's unwavering gaze left his mouth dry.
"John, I'd be a terrible father," he rasped out, "you know that better than anyone – I'm the last person you want raising your surrogate sister, she'd hate me, and I don' blame her!"
"You were the best one I ever had" John said sadly, surely, "just promise me you'll take care of her ok?"
"Ok" Jedikiah managed to get out. John just nodded and left the room, to mobilise his people. Only Jedikiah remained, still shell-shocked.
Present...
The takeover had gone like clockwork. Everyone had teleported into the headquarters at once, under the pretence of handing over a bruised and incapacitated Roger. That some had teleported onto the wrong floors or un-d-chip-protected rooms in their exuberance was questioned, but not found to be cause for alarm after security forces gathered them back with the main group seeing the Founder. Russell had immediately set loose TIM, more Casanova than Trojan, Ultra was unaware their feeds were on loops for a long time after John and Jedikiah had laid detonators and taken out d-chips wherever they found them on poorly manned floors.
When the fighting really started, John just switched off and let his mind be nothing but the task at hand. Every agent that couldn't get up was another one of his people safe. He didn't know how many people he'd killed, and he never wanted to remember. Eventually they made it to the main area, where Roger and the Founder were facing off, the remaining TPs doing their best to incapacitate the agents without killing them. Taking guns, sticking on their own stolen collection of suppression cuffs, those that had managed to steal stun guns were making the most difference.
At some point Cara and Stephen had also made it into headquarters, and by the relaxed, cocky nature of the round house kicks and punches Russell was delivering to the Ultra agents, John knew they had returned with good news. Not that he really saw anything apart from his goal in front of him. The Founder.
John and Jedikiah shared a pointed look and split up to edge into Roger's fight. The Founder spotted Jedikiah and laughed as he stood squarely next to his brother pointing a gun. They exchanged comments about power, inevitability, jealousy, impotency. John didn't listen, he just slid fluently amongst the crowd of fighters, incapacitating any that got in his way. Once in position, John's eye's found Jedikiah's again and they raised their guns and fired simultaneously. The Founder easily deflected Jedikiah's bullet, who had fallen clutching his head after firing it, and laughed at his new found taste of weakness. Clearly, with the adrenaline of the moment, he hadn't even felt John's bullet until he was dropping on the floor. Dead.
John knew enough about battles to know that this one hadn't ended yet though, and finally let his gaze scan the room to find other threats. That was when his eyes found her. Charlotte – holding her own against a TP agent across the room. John panicked, his heart in his mouth, pulse roaring behind his eyes. He started moving towards her, gaze determined, hand steady as he shot down any agent he could see. But then one he hadn't raised a gun. He raised it at Charlotte. And John knew there was nothing he could do to stop it as he heard it go off and he felt like his whole world just shattered and stopped.
Then just like that he realised it had. He'd frozen time and he didn't know how because it wasn't just humans and bullets and fighting. It was everything, and it was excruciating to hold it. So he didn't question it, just thought of Charlotte and of home and like that he was colliding in teleportation first with her and then with the familiar cement floor of the lounge room in the lair, his body wrapped around hers to cushion her from the impact.
"Charlie! Charlie! Are you ok?!" John yelled, running his hands over her face, her arms, checking she was whole. Utterly relieved to see her bushy hair and dirt-streaked face totally unharmed.
"I'm fine" she cried back and hugged him fiercely, clinging to him as he held her now kneeling up on the floor. The moment was short lived however as John was hit by a white-hot pain behind his eyes, like a migraine, so sudden he was rendered blind. Then his nose began to gush blood and he could feel it running down the side of his face too, whether from his ears, his eyes, or both he was quickly losing the sentience to tell.
Charlotte was screaming for help, he could hear her but he couldn't piece together why anymore. She tried to lay him back down gently on the floor as she screamed, but that confused him even more as he attempted to get his uncooperative limbs to work to help her. One of his hands found hers, and though he couldn't find the strength or fight the pain to open his eyes, he squeezed it.
"It's ok Charlie I'm here. It's just a nightmare, wake up now I'm here," he mumbled tiredly, no longer really knowing where he was or why, just that Charlie was upset. More voices suddenly started in the lair, and Jedikiah's yells soon joined Charlotte's screams.
He was sat up gently, arms wrapped around his chest firmly as someone commanded him to breathe and open his eyes. He definitely couldn't open his eyes, he was doing his best to breathe, had to to soothe Charlie… but it was hard, there was so much blood.
John knew the arms were Jedikiah's, even before they were wiping something over his face to try and stem the blood, or clean it. Whichever. He knew the smell, knew the shirt, knew the arms and the heartbeat he was pressed against. He wasn't sure why Jedikiah was upset; he only ever got hysterical over things to do with Roger. John hoped nothing had happened to Roger, but he couldn't find the energy to try and save him again, it wasn't his job anymore – Roger had Stephen. But Charlie was his job, he wanted so badly to sleep but he could still hear her screaming… he had to help her before he went to sleep.
Then he remembered, who always stopped his nightmares at Ultra and he knew how to help her now.
"Shh Charlie" he whispered, using all of his strength to lift her wraith-like hand to meet the arm wrapped around his chest. She came with it, throwing her body across his and tucking her head under his chin like she always did, forgetting about the blood that pooled around them.
"It's ok now Charlie, Jed's here. He always knows how to stop the nightmares. It's ok to sleep now" Charlie had stopped screaming, her breaths shuddered in tears against his neck. Jedikiah was still yelling, but he was a solid presence, just like before. Just like always. It was safe to go to sleep.