Title: Decisions
Author: DrawnToDarkness
Rating: K+
Pairing: Jess/Becker
Summary: Jess makes a decision Becker disagrees with.
For: PrimevalYank, whose request will be at the end of the story as its spoilery. This is my forth attempt at writing this prompt so I really, really hope you like it :)

In the end, it was the easiest decision she'd ever made. Given a choice between her life and the lives of everyone she'd come to care about... Well, there was no contest as far as Jess Parker was concerned.

She sat at her chair in front of the ADD, bathed in a red glow as the lights flashed around her and the klaxons blared, an automatic voice warning all personnel that they had six minutes remaining to evacuate the ARC.

Six minutes until the security protocol Philip Burton had attached to the lockdown programme would be initiated and the climate control systems would kick in to start removing the oxygen from the very many labs and offices and floors of the Anomaly Research Centre.

There was no anomaly, no incursion. At first, they'd thought it was a computer glitch – an error in the programme. It was only when she realised that the lockdown programme was causing the doors to shut far too fast to be normal that she realised it was a virus that had been planted in the system.

The others were being evacuated; they'd had no choice but to temporarily abandon the building. Connor had already left with Lester and the Ops team, a laptop hooked up remotely to the system in his hands. Abby had taken a few minutes to secure the menagerie, grateful that the animals it was home to would be unaffected as their habitats were the one area of the ARC that ran on a separate system, before joining her fiancé outside. Emily, Matt and Becker were overseeing the evacuation process, making sure each level was secured and that all personnel were accounted for.

All but one, but they wouldn't realise that until it was too late to change it.

She didn't have a choice, not really. If she'd left her post as she'd been ordered to do, the lockdown procedure would have progressed too quickly. People would have been trapped, locked in rooms and deprived of oxygen.

The virus that had been let loose on the ARC's systems was vicious, and whoever was behind it had designed it so the majority of personnel wouldn't have had time to escape. Jess had managed to change that, typing frantically, trying to keep two steps ahead of the ever changing code as she monitored the evacuation process and only allowed the heavy metal shutters to close when she had verbal confirmation from Matt and Becker that each section was clear.

The Ops room had been cleared already, the hub empty of everyone but herself. Needing to focus on the other areas of the building, Jess had let the doors around her close with a definitive clang, sealing her in the room with no way of escape.

"We're all clear. Final personnel leaving now." Matt's voice came across loud and clear over the comms. "Jess, Connor, any luck isolating the virus?"

"None yet." Connor answered immediately, the frustration in his voice clear. "Jess, where are you?"

It was the question she'd been waiting for and dreading in equal measure. Jess bit her lip, tempted to ignore it.

"Jess?" She glanced at one of the screens in front of her as Becker stopped in front of the door that had just sealed shut behind him, turning back to look directly up at the security camera fixed above it. "Tell me you're not where I think you are."

"If you think I'm in the hub, I won't be able to do that." It came across as a little more flippant than she'd planned and Becker glared at the camera in response. "I had to stay and try to override the lockdown. It was the only way of buying enough time to get everyone out."

"That was you?" Connor sounded both impressed and surprised. "I wondered what was going on! If Jess hadn't hacked the programme, the lockdown would've been automatic. No one would've made it out." The scientist's jubilant tone shifted abruptly. "But if you're still in the hub... Jess, you're locked in."

"I know, Connor. It was the only way." And she'd do it again, in a heartbeat. Assuming she ever got the chance. "I've found the origin of the virus but it's already spread into so many system files and directories that it's not going to be a simple case of deleting it and rebooting. The whole system would be destabilised..."

"Well, maybe if we..."

"Open the doors, Jess." Becker cut Connor off mid-suggestion.

"I can't do that, Becker." Jess glanced again at the monitor showing the CCTV images of the car park. In the background, she saw the various personnel preparing to set up a new base of operations at one of the agency's back up buildings but she paid them little mind, her attention quickly refocusing on the man staring through the small lens of the camera as though he were staring right at her.

"Can't or won't?"

"Won't." She could probably open the doors long enough to let him and the rest of the team in but, until she could be sure that she could abort the legacy that was Burton's programme designed to keep the ARC secure against incursions, she wasn't about to do it. She wouldn't risk letting Becker or anyone else in the ARC only to have them suffocate alongside her. "Three minutes until the climate controls kick in."

"Jessica." Becker moved closer to the doors, his voice dropping in both volume and pitch. "Open the door now."

"There's no point, Becker. I might be able to open the doors to let you in but I can't keep them open anywhere near long enough to get out again. And Connor can't access the ADD remotely since the virus has disrupted its connection to the server so lockdown can't be lifted from outside until the system's been purged."

"She's right, I can't. Our best chance at doing this is to have someone in the ARC working directly on the problem. Damn it." Connor shut the laptop with audible frustration. "I'm sorry, Jess. I should've stayed there with you."

"No, you shouldn't. You'll be needed to set everything up again if I can't get the system cleared. The backup data that was last uploaded to the external servers will need to be scanned and cleaned before it's uploaded or you'll end up facing this exact same scenario again." Jess narrowed her eyes at the lines and lines of code on the screen in front of her, trying to decipher what should and shouldn't be there as the automatic voice reminded her of the countdown. "One minute to go. Damn it. Once the programme starts, I don't think I'll be able to interrupt it. The back door protocol has been disabled and I can't get access to it."

"Jess. Open the damn door now while you still can."

"No. Why?" The answer and the question left her at the same time. Jess stared at the monitors as she watched the lockdown programme access the climate controls and felt her heart jolt in her chest at the realisation she was officially running out of both time and air. "It's started. The programme estimates it'll take twenty minutes for oxygen levels to drop. Add another twenty to thirty for it to be effective and the lockdown should end in around an hour. I'd guess you'll be able to get back in then."

"It'll be too late. You'll be dead in an hour." Becker's tone was even but it was the note of something she couldn't identify that caught her attention. "Jessica."

"I'm still working on it." Though panic and anxiety were starting to make her feel light-headed, which was making concentrating quite difficult. "If I can remove the virus, I can force the system to reboot. And that should put everything right again."

Fifteen minutes in and Jess's confidence was beginning to falter; he could hear it in her voice as she gave the occasional update on her progress. All but the main team had cleared out, moving across to the backup building. It didn't need to be said that he wasn't going anywhere, and Becker wasn't surprised that the others weren't, either.

Connor was back on his laptop, going through the backed up data to see if he could find something that might be of use to Jess. Becker didn't pretend to understand what the two computer-minded members of the team were looking for or talking about but he knew form the mutterings of the man behind him that they weren't being as successful at finding it as they hoped they'd be.

As they needed to be.

It was frustrating. He was a man of action and here he was, helpless, unable to do anything because there was nothing he could do. Give him a dinosaur or a flesh and blood enemy any day and he'd take care of it. He'd get the job done. Computers and viruses and technology left him baffled.

Frustrated.

"How did the damn virus get in the system in the first place?"

At first, he wondered if he'd spoken aloud or just thought it, as there was a short, silent pause.

"It must have been uploaded internally," Jess told him quietly. "Our firewalls are too secure for it to have been done from the outside."

"So someone did this deliberately? Someone who works at the ARC?" Fury and fear combined to cause his blood to boil. "Who?"

Since Jess wasn't there to answer in person, Becker spun to stare at Connor.

"We can find out, probably." Connor blinked in surprise at whatever it was he saw on Becker's face. "But later, yeah? After."

After they'd solved the problem facing them or after it was too late and Jess was already...

"How are you doing, Jess?" It was Matt who asked, though Becker waited with baited breath for the answer. "Feeling okay?"

"Little light-headed, but I'm okay." She didn't sound it - there was an undeniably false brightness to her voice. "I think... Another twenty minutes and I could do it."

Twenty minutes would be too late. In twenty minutes, the ARC and Jess would already have been without air for five whole minutes.

"Alright, here's what we're going to do." Matt waited until the other members of the team were looking at him before continuing. "Connor, head on over to the secondary site. You can keep working on it from there and let us know if you find anything. Abby, Emily, go with him." He held up a hand when the dark haired woman opened her mouth to protest. "I want you all to come back in fifteen minutes with a med team, oxygen tanks and blue prints for the ARC. If Jess hasn't figured a way to get lockdown lifted, we're finding another way in."

No one argued with him, but it was with obvious reluctance that Emily, Connor and Abby left the car park. Becker looked at Matt, wondering for a moment why he hadn't been told to leave, too. As Head of Security, he knew he should have gone with the others. There were things he could be doing, security procedures he should be implementing and overseeing.

Instead he was standing outside a building he had no hope of being able to enter, doing nothing as the minutes and seconds of Jess's life ticked by.

Matt took out his comm. link, motioning for Becker to do the same.

"What?" Becker arched an eyebrow when Matt said nothing even after he'd done as instructed.

"If Jess can't find a way to stop the virus and reverse Burton's programme..." Matt's expression was grave, his blue eyes dark with both sympathy and grief. "Even if we find a way in, it might be too late to help her."

Becker clenched his jaw, not needing the reminder. "I'm aware of that, Matt."

"Then what are you waiting for?"

Becker stared at him blankly. "There's nothing I can do. If there was, I'd have done it already."

"You can tell her." Matt's gaze was unflinching. "Tell her while she's still conscious and can hear you."

For a moment, Becker didn't say anything. He thought about denying any knowledge of what Matt was talking about but dismissed the thought after a few seconds. He wasn't one to talk about his feelings, usually, but his emotions were feeling particularly raw, something in his chest aching at the thought he might never see the special smile Jess reserved only for him again, never get the chance to ask her out on a date or find out what her favourite meal was or see what she looked like first thing in the morning with bed hair and no make-up and...

"Put your comm. back in." Matt told him quietly, his own remaining in his hand. "I'll... I'll go check the perimeter. See if there's another way inside."

There wouldn't be; they both knew that. Even when not in lockdown mode, the ARC was one of the most secure buildings in the city; it'd been one of Becker's first jobs when he'd started at the new building.

Slowly, as he watched Matt walk away, Becker put his comm. link back in his ear in time to hear Jess ask where Matt was going.

"Matt? What's going on? Becker?"

"How are you, Jess? Really?" Instead of answering her, Becker asked a question of his own.

From the hesitation before she answered, he knew whatever she was going to say wouldn't be the whole truth. "I've felt better but I'm okay. A little cold, headachey. But I'm okay."

"Oxygen deprivation will do that to you." He glanced at his watch, a cold feeling spreading through him at the silent countdown taking place. "Look, Jess..." He lost his nerve, glancing over his shoulder to check Matt wasn't in sight. "Is there any way you can get this damn door open long enough for me to get inside?"

"Not now the climate controls have been accessed." Jess sounded more confused than surprised at the request. "It wouldn't achieve anything, Becker. If I can't do this... If I can't figure it out, all that would achieve is you dying, too, and I won't let that happen. There's nothing you could do to stop it if you were in here."

He bit back the overly dramatic declaration that sprung to his lips, knowing she'd take no comfort in hearing it. "I could stop you from dying alone," he said eventually, his voice quiet but hoping it was loud enough for her to hear. "I can't... Damn it, Jessica."

There was another pause. "It's okay, Becker. You can't... It's not your fault. Please don't feel guilty about this. There's nothing you could have done to prevent it."

"I'm Head of Security. The security of the ARC is my job, Jess." He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "The safety of you and everyone else in it is my responsibility."

"Be that as it may, you can't take the responsibility for this. Unless you're the one who planted the virus in the ARC system, which I don't see happening." Even without seeing her, he could picture the half-teasing smile on her face. The image was ruined, however, when the sound of her attempting to take a deep breath and failing because of the thinning air around her came over her mic. "Ten minutes left. I don't think I'm going to be able to do it."

He crossed towards the doors, closing his eyes as he let his palm rest against the smooth surface of the metal preventing him from going to her side. "Keep trying. Please."

"Please?" The request startled a surprised laugh from her. "I don't think I've ever heard you say please."

He'd said it to her once before, another time when he'd thought she was going to leave him. He'd murmured it into her hair, clutching her unconscious form against him as he sat on the cold floor of the panic room, willing her to live. Begging her to stay with him.

"Jess, I..."

"Don't, Becker."

His eyes opened at the tremor of her voice. "Don't what?" He frowned when she didn't answer, looking up at the camera he knew she'd be watching him through. "Jess?"

She exhaled shakily. "Don't say something you don't mean because you feel you have to. It's okay. Really."

He wasn't sure for a moment what surprised him most: that she'd guessed what he was about to say, that she thought he wouldn't mean it or that she thought he'd say it if he didn't mean it. "I'm not going to say anything I don't mean, Jessica. I never would."

"Oh. Sorry. I thought... Never mind." She sounded embarrassed, something he might have enjoyed teasing her about if she didn't sound so breathless, her voice unsteady.

"Jess? You okay?"

"I... No. Not really. I can't... It's getting really hard to breathe."

He muttered a curse under his breath and kicked ineffectually at the door. "Just stay with me. The others will be back soon and we'll find a way in..."

"There's no way into the ARC during lockdown, Becker, you know that. You helped make it secure." She inhaled, or tried to, coughing instead when her lungs strained for oxygen that wasn't there. "Just... Just promise me you'll find out who did this, yeah? And make sure they can't do it again. I don't want anyone else to get hurt."

Becker chuckled humourlessly, he couldn't help it. "Can we focus on saving you first? Then I promise, I'll make sure the person responsible can't do this to anyone else."

"There is no way to save me. I knew the risks when I chose to stay behind..."

"See, that's one of the reasons you have to live through this. How the hell am I supposed to yell at you if you die?"

She laughed weakly. "You can yell at me now if you like," she offered quietly. Becker realised that he could no longer hear the sound of her fingers on the keyboard and felt something inside him break at the knowledge that she'd given up. "If it makes you feel better."

What would make him feel better was for some miraculous solution to the problem, for Jess to be alive and well and warm and in his arms so he could tell her... So he could say...

"Jess, I need you to know..."

"... I..."

Under any other circumstances, she might have found his nervous stuttering amusing. The cool, calm and collected Captain Becker was usually above such things. She could count on one hand the amount of times she'd seen him get flustered in her presence and if the situation had been different, she would've been thrilled to have their usual positions reversed.

Her eyelids were drooping, her body felt heavy. She wrapped her arms around her middle as a shiver ran through her and drew her legs up onto the ADD chair, curling up as much as she could. "Just say it, Becker." She wasn't sure exactly what it was he was trying to say; she had her hopes but wouldn't let herself believe them until the words were actually out there. "Please?"

"I... I love you, Jess. I've tried to fight it, and I've tried to pretend I don't and I've really wished at times that I didn't because it makes things messy and complicated and I don't..." She heard him sigh over the comms, saw him bow his head for a moment on the screen in front of her before lifting it to look at the lens recording him. Looking at her. "I've always told myself it would be a distraction I can't afford but I can't live with the alternative, Jess. I don't know what I'd do... I need to know you're there so I have a reason to keep doing this. I need you. Please don't leave me."

She lifted a trembling hand and reached out to the screen, her fingertip tracing his face as a tear slid down her cheek. "If I had a choice... If I could stay..." She tried to breath, a second tear following the first at the tightening in her chest. "I love you, Hilary Becker. And no matter what happens, you have to promise me you'll keep fighting. What you do is bigger than both of us. It's more important..."

"Right now, nothing is more important to me than you." There was a note of honesty in his voice, a truth that was sincere. "So you have to promise you'll keep fighting, Jess. Promise me you won't give up."

Summoning what was left of her strength, Jess sat up in her chair. She reached for the keyboard in front of her, determination surging through her. "I'll keep fighting," she promised quietly. "I promise I'll try."

When they finally made it into the ARC, Becker's first port of call was the hub. He didn't care that the others were struggling to keep pace with him, didn't care that they were going to be there to witness his reaction to whatever awaited him in the Ops room.

Five minutes after the computer had announced the successful cleanse of the building, Jess had stopped speaking. He'd strained to hear her breathing over the comms but hadn't been able to hear anything. His mind had conjured the worst, supplying him with images he didn't want or need to see.

Images that paled in comparison to what he found when he made it to the hub.

For as long as he lived, Becker was sure he'd never forget the sight of Jess slumped over her keyboard, her skin and lips tinged with blue as the cursor flashed on the reboot screens in front of her.

She'd done it. She'd located the virus and cleared it from the system, lifting lockdown and restoring the air to the building but the woman herself was motionless. Not even the hair that had fallen over her face moved.

"Get the oxygen." The order came from someone somewhere behind him; Becker wasn't aware of who issued it.

He wasn't really aware of anyone or anything other than Jess in those moments.

Easing her out of the chair, wincing at how cool her skin felt against his, he sunk down onto the floor with Jess in his arms, praying to a god he wasn't sure he believed in. He held onto her as the medics swarmed around them, glaring when they suggested he let her go so they could do their jobs properly. He watched as they fit an oxygen mask to her face, watched them check her pulse. When he heard them announce it was there, weak but there, he stopped paying attention to everything else, straining instead to hear the faint rattling of her breath inside the oxygen mask.

"Stay with me, Jess. Just stay with me." He pressed a kiss to her to the top of her head, rubbed her bare arms to chase away the chill he could still feel in her skin. "Just stay with me."

He didn't know how long it had been between arriving at the hub and feeling her move within the circle of his arms, just that no matter how many minutes had passed it had been far, far too many.

"Jess?" Her name was a plea, a murmur not loud enough to be a whisper. "Sweetheart?"

"Hmmm." She shifted, her eyelids fluttering as she let her head fall back to rest against his shoulder. "You've never called me that before."

Relief overwhelmed the vague embarrassment, and he let himself forget their audience as he tightened his arms around her. "Get used to it."

"Before or after you yell at me?" Her voice was muffled through the oxygen mask but he still thought it was the sweetest sound he'd ever heard.

Placing a soft kiss against her temple, Becker closed his eyes as his frantic heart settled into a regular rhythm. "Both."

There'd be time for yelling later, for demanding to know what she'd been thinking in between kissing her the way he wanted to.

Later.

End.

For PrimevalYank, who wanted heroic!Jess sacrificing herself so everyone else would be safe, and Becker confessing his feelings over the intercom. I started this four times, then kept abandoning it. I really hope this one reads okay - it's a prompt I love and thought would be easy to write because I had so many ideas for it but it's one of those stories that didn't want to be easily written.

And this is the last of the one shots, you'll all be relieved to know! There are other stories in the pipelines, though, and I'm starting to get a vague idea of a Milestones IV *&* Milestones V so I'm sure I'll be back to bug you all in no time! ;) xx