Hello all! Yes, I'm still alive even though I've been slacking for a while. I've been planning this story ever since I saw ep 13, and I've been working on it on-and-off for a few weeks. I'm actually very pleased with it.

If you read my Christmas In the SRU, give me another chance to prove to you that I am capable of writing something half-decent. The Christmas story was so incredibly rushed, it couldn't seem to decide whether it wanted to be extremely funny, sort of funny, romantic, angsty, or downright sad, and in the end it turned out to be a piece of crap (Thanks to Justicerocks for consistently reviewing anyway.:) Will delete as soon as I remember.

Again, I warn you of spoilers if you are one of the few poor suckers who has not yet watched Ep 13 onlin

I transcribed the dialogue directly from the episode, but added a few parts of my own. Hope you appreciate it.

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Fear is not an emotion that Sam Braddock is familliar with. Anger, guilt, frustration, and panic are entirely different matters, and he knows them prehaps better than anyone on the team. But they aren't the same things as fear. Not even close.

Anger can be at himself, for screwing up and putting his friends lives at risk, or at a close friend, but really more of a brother, for betrayal and abandonment. Guilt is a permanent fixture, the only thing in his life that will always be there, no matter what. Frustration comes and goes, but it's never more than one mistake away, and each time it comes back, it always feels worse. Panic is screaming for help as he clings to the hand of his best friend, covered in blood, dying by Sam's own bullet. Not knowing what to do, or what will happen. A terrifying, blinding, confusing hurricane of emotions, that's panic.

But outright fear. This is something new. There's time to think, time to wonder if everyone's going to come out of this alive.

"Jules..." Ed's aprehensive voice crackles over the airwaves. Apprehensive, that's not Ed Lane at all. What's going to happen on the rooftop is going to be bad. Without knowing how he knows, he just knows.

Sam's hand tightens on the grip of his rifle as Jules replies to Ed.

"I know."

Sam knows, too.

"He's waiting for us." he says quietly, hating how rattled his voice sounds. Vulnerability is almost as painful as fear. "He wants Ed but he's getting us." He leans against the wall of the tiny elevator as it slowly, agonizingly slowly, works its way up the skyscraper. Trying to shake the unmistakable sense of terrible forboding that's been hanging over him like a storm.

"He's not getting any of us." she murmurs in return. She too sounds scared, yet defiant as always.

He looks at her, his eyes meet hers, and the elevator rattles to a halt.

"Jules, in case we both don't come down-"

"Don't even start, Sam. Let's get this job done and go home."

"Please, just listen to me!"

"That's not even an option!" she snaps back.

"Jules-"

"Sam, look at me."

His eyes, chips of blue artic ice, meet hers, pits of dark, honey-brown fire. She moves her hands onto his shoulders, and squeezes, hard. He notes that her grip is equally strong as any guy on the team.

"We're going to be okay. We're going to get this guy, then we're going to go home, and you're bringing me some thinner, because I still have a quarter of a can of Santorini Sky that is not going to waste. Do you understand me?"

He could swear he heard her voice crack. He locks his arms around her in a desperate attempt to comfort himself, to quench the flames of fear quickly rising inside. In turn, her arms tighten around his neck, and she kisses him once on the lips, fast and hard.

They break apart as Ed advises them,

"Proceed with maximum caution. This guy's targeting law enforcement."

"We're going in." Jules whispers back.

Sam opens the door with shaking hands, and they see the sunlight, feel the warm breeze. A beautiful day to hunt down a murderer hell-bent on revenge.

"Ed, we're at the roof ready to move in." Sam reports numbly.

"Northwest corner by the vent, looks like a rifle barrel." the team leader cautions them.

"Copy."

As the move out onto the roof, he subconsciously counts every step he takes. He can practically hear his heartbeat echoing off the walls of the surrouding skyscrapers that make up the canyons and mountains of this urban jungle. And then he sees the predator. Lying on the edge of the rooftop like a tiger, tensed and ready to kill. So silent and still, he could pass as a pile of discarded canvas. Yet, ready to kill at any moment.

"He's not moving." Jules announces breathlessly.

"Go in slow." Ed replies with reassuring caution.

"Has he shot himself? Any signs of trauma?" Sarge inquires.

"It's hard to tell." Sam hears himself say.

"I think we've got him." Jules confirms, with a spark of hope in her voice.

"Stay back." Sam orders her. He won't risk her rushing into combat with him and getting hurt. She flashes him a look of indignace, but knows this is no time to start an argument. With every nerve on fire and every muscle tensed, he charges towards the subject.

"Police! Drop your weapons, hands in the air or we will shoot!" she screams from behind him. Drawing courage from her battlecry, he reaches the misshapen figure who's caused so much chaos and fear.

"Show me your hands! Show me your hands! Show me your hands!" he yells, more to steele his own nerves than to order his target.

His voice dies in his throat as he rips off the cover.

"It's a decoy!" he gasps as panic threatens to cloud his vision. He turns around defensively, shield and gun raised, not allowing himself to be paralysed by shock and fear.

"Where is he?" she whispers tensely.

His heart almost stops as he realises he's got the shield, and she's defenseless. Instinctively he begins to move towards her.

"It's a decoy? Fall back! Fall back now! Take cover!" Ed doesn't bother to hide the panic in his voice this time.

And then he hears it. A sound he's heard countless times in his life, but this is the first time it's turned his blood to ice. The unmistakable whip-crack of a high-powered sniper rifle. He feels the bullet fly straight into his heart, but it's Jules that crumples to the ground.

And for a moment, time stops. This isn't real, this isn't happening, all his senses are lying to him, because Julianna Callaghan cannot be lying on the cold concrete with a bullet in her chest. And a pool of blood beginning to form beside her.

Running, gasping for air, slipping on the jagged floor as he crashes down beside his best friend, the one he shot. Hearing his blood pounding in his ears as he sees Matt's blood covering the stones beneath him. Knowing he did this, it's his fault, his bullet. He screwed up and his best friend is dying for it.

It's happening again.

He screwed up and his best friend, and so much more than that, is dying for it.

He had the bullet shield. Thinking she would be safe, he charged headlong into the situation and left her defenseless.

It's happening again.

"Officer down, officer down! Jules has been hit!"

He doesn't bother listening to the rest of the team's panicked replies as he collapses at her side, holding the shield over both of them.

"Stay with me Jules, stay with me." he murmurs, trying to keep his voice calm and quiet for her.

There's a gaping hole in the middle of her side. The body armour wasn't enough to save her, and there was no exit wound, so the huge bullet is still in there somwehere.

What did you do? Why did you do that? he screams inwardly. He suddenly realises he's heard those words before. From Petar Tomasic, with tears pouring from his eyes after his father was shot right before his eyes. In Ed's words, he was close enough to feel the bullet fly.

"Stay with me, Jules!" he pleads. "Don't leave me."

Another whipcrack. Less than a quarter of a second later, something slams against his shield, the metallic clang reverberating through his entire body. Before he can register what happened, it happens again. And again, like lightining strikes. Each bullet sends shockwaves of hot terror through both of them.

"We're under fire, get up here now!" he screams into his two-way radio. "Somebody get an angle on this guy! Shots are coming from City Hall!"

---

"Boss, this is about me. I'll come out and draw his fire. You get her out of the way." Ed suggests in desperation to his superior officer.

"Negative, negative. We do this as a team!" Sarge snaps back. "Hold tight. Lewis, you cover!" he orders the rest of the team. He can hear every shot slamming against Sam's shield. He can pratically feel his terror and adrenaline pulsing through the microphone.

"Sam, you're doing great. Just try to keep her conscious, and stop the bleeding. We're coming to get both of you, just hang tight." he orders in a voice of forced calm. "Keep talking to us so we know you're ok."

"We're going in!" Wordy yells. "Lets go, go, go, go!"

---

Finally, after what seemed like a lifetime, Sam hears something other than bullets pounding against his shield, seperated from his body by only an inch of metal, and Jules's laboured breathing. The voices and footsteps of his approaching team. Salvation. The dull impact of bullets ceases, but he can still hear them slamming against shields that aren't his own as the fallen pair is finally surrounded their team, by the safety and protection that comes from surviving everything together. He slowly stands up, leaning on his shield, exhaustion and shock almost causes him to black out. He feels Lou's hand on his shoulder, steadying him, sees Jules being gently carried off by Wordy and Sarge.

"We've got you, Jules." he calls to her. It's all he can muster, so he hopes she can hear him. Hopes she's still conscious enough to hear anything.

The long walk downstairs passes in a haze of panicked voices and shouted orders, mainly from paramedics as they lift Jules onto the stretcher and attempt to get her stabalized. A million things are rushing through Sam's mind that he wants to tell her, but he can't possibly, not while they're surrounded by the rest of the team, so he settles for clinging to her hand like it's the only lifeline he has. And truth be told, it is.

"Hey, gotta let her go." Greg's gentle voice shatters the cold scilence in his brain. "Job's not finished yet."

To a spectator, the moment when he lets go of her hand seems like a simple, uncomplicated motion, but it's one of the hardest things he's ever had to do.

"Sam, let's find a sierra shot." Wordy orders.

Suddenly grief, shock, and confusion is replaced by a fierce new anger and a sense of purpose. Sam knows his job, and knows what the target has done to Jules. Every time he closes his eyes, he sees her lying on the cold concrete in a pool of blood. It's not just a job anymore. This is personal.

"I'm on it." he grunts as he charges past Wordy, barely pausing to grab some equipment.

Instinct leads him up several flights of stairs to a cement balcony, as Ed and Spike's voices inform him that they know roughly where Petar is, and are searching the mechanical room in building across from Sam's location.

"Boss, I found a vantage point." he breathes as he leans against the hard gray wall, wasting no time readying his rifle. "I can see the mechanical room."

A minuite passes. Two minuites. Three...

A new voice cracks across the radio waves.

"For the first five minuites of every day, I forget that he's gone!"

Chills run down Sam's spine. A middle Eastern accent, sounding close to tears. There was no doubt it was their target. Staring into the scope, Sam can make out two people in the mechanical room. Close together, appearing to struggle.

He's got someone.

"Then I remember and I see him die!" Petar continues viciously.

He's not hurting anyone else today. If Sam had spoken the words aloud, they would have been just as passionately angry as Petar's.

"He's got Ed. He's got a gun to his head!" Spike gasps.

Let's get this job done.

"I don't have a clear shot. Ed's in my line of fire." Spike continues. Nobody has ever heard him sound so uneasy. And the rest of the team is still minuites away.

It'd down to Sam now, whether or not Ed will go home to his family tonight.

Sam searches for a clear shot at the target, but all he can see is Ed. Petar is concealed behind a pillar. Sam weighs his options as an eerie calm presses against him like fog. He can move right for a better shot, every second counts. Ed's life could be over before he can aim the rifle. The better option would be if Ed could move...just slightly.

Ed isn't going down without a fight. Tactics have always won over talk in his eyes, but right now, talk is all he has. So he tries.

"You know what you have to do what you gotta do to save you're family, okay, I'm just-"

"My family is dead!" snarls Petar. "You killed my father!"

Ed's reply is shaky and incomprehensible. Sam can't decide which would be worse: being able to hear what's going on up there, or not.

"He was all I had!"

"Petar, let's just slow it down here-"

"For the first five minutes, tomorrow morning, your son will forget that you're gone!"

Petar isn't going to be talked down, anyone can see that. Unless Sam risks making contact with Ed, he doesn't have much time left.

"Sam, we need a solution!" says Sarge. Like Spike, his fear is barely concealed.

"I can't get a clear shot of him, he's behind the pillar."

Now or never.

"Ed, you gotta move forward." Sam barely whispers. The request is so simple, but if the gun-wielding subject hears it, it's over.

Yes.

Slowly Ed begins to move. In a matter of seconds, if he lasts that long, everything will be ok. Everything...

He has the solution.

Fear is gone.

This is for you, Jules.

*******

Part 2 is in the works. It will not be a carbon copy of "Up Down Beep Breath" a really great story by Dragonfly's Girl, but it will be slightly similar. In my defense, I had this idea before I read that story. Hehe

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*Roxxy,
How do you stay so fresh?
I think cool thoughts.
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