Silence reigned again in the safe room. There was no news from Lester other than that Special Forces had surrounded the building, but did not dare storm it, as there were still about fifteen hostages in the ops room. Becker resumed his pacing, and Jess simply stared at the computer until her eyes hurt, but the data transfer was still nowhere near complete.

Becker's abrupt stop in front of the screen tore her out of her trance. The hostage-takers were approaching them again with another one of their colleagues in tow, a man, about fifty, whom Jess dimly remembered as having something to do with accounting. Dreading what would happen, she got up and stood next to Becker in front of the monitor.

"Is the data transfer finished?" She shook her head.

"It will be at least another half-hour. And then I'll have to modify it before we can hand it over. Do you think we can convince them to give us some more time?"

"I doubt it. Giving us more time to copy the data is exactly what they don't want."

Nevertheless, he walked over to the intercom to try and negotiate with the hostage-takers, but Jess only heard him dimly through a haze of fear. Transfixed, she stood in front of the screen, staring at the trembling man with the gun to his head who vaguely resembled her uncle. From somewhere far away, she heard Becker yell something, then there was the by-now sickeningly familiar bang, and she watched as the life left the eyes of yet another person standing no more than ten feet away from her. Yet another person they had been unable to save.

Jess had slid to the floor after the men had left, dragging the dead hostage with them, and had now been staring at the wall for fifteen minutes without moving, maybe even without blinking. Unable to stand the sight of her pale, shell-shocked face any longer, Becker racked his brain for some way of distracting her.

"D'you wanna play a game?" Slowly, she turned her head to look at him, baffled.

"A game?"

"You know – Poker, or something. Or we could listen to music, maybe? The computer here has Internet access, right?"

"We are not listening to music! What is the matter with you? Our colleagues are dying out there."

Her tone was sharp, and he looked sheepish.

"I just wanted to distract you..."

"Well, you shouldn't! I'm not going to listen to music and play games while my colleagues are killed off one by one by these psychopathic bastards because I can't solve this stupid problem with the data fast enough!"

"They won't hold that against you. They will understand you had to protect Connor's research."

"No they won't! I'm their boss. I answer directly to Lester, I have higher security clearance, I earn more, and I give them orders and instructions. And now I'm the only one with a reasonable chance of getting out of this alive, tucked safely in the panic room with their head of security while they're being used as gambling chips. No, I'm pretty sure they won't understand!"

For the second time that day, she had raised her voice with him, and he could not blame her. She was in what had to be one of the most horrible situations of her life, and his attempt to distract her had been ridiculous. She felt guilty about the fact that she was safe while her colleagues were dying, and helpless because she was unable to do anything. However, Becker knew that, by realising that Connor's dangerous research had to be kept from the criminals, she had probably already saved thousands, if not millions of lives, even though she could not see it like that right now.

Sitting down next to her, he put his arm around her shoulder and gently pulled her closer. She struggled against him for a few seconds, still upset, before accepting the embrace and burying her face in his neck. Shortly after, he could feel hot wetness on his skin and knew she was crying.

He marvelled at how different this felt from the contact they had shared mere minutes ago, a bit ashamed for having felt like that at all in such a situation. The death of his two colleagues had brought him back to reality with a thud. Of all the times to feel attracted to Jess, this had to be the absolute worst.

They remained in silence for a few more minutes, but a furtive glance at his wristwatch told Becker that another half-hour had passed. Any minute now, the terrorists would reappear with another hostage in tow, another innocent person doomed to die.

He looked at the laptop to find out if maybe the data transfer was complete, but he couldn't really make much of the symbols and numbers flitting across the screen.

"Jess?" Her head snapped up from his shoulder, and the look of terror on her face immediately told him she understood what was about to happen.

"Is the data..." She shook her head no before he could finish the question, and his heart sank.

Then he looked over at the screen, and sure enough, a group of people emerged from the other end of the garage. Desperate to do something, Becker went over to the telephone and called Lester to ask him if there was any progress on the outside. But, as he well knew, the ARC's security and locking system were airtight. He had made sure of that himself, and now it was going to bite him in the ass. He switched seamlessly from yelling at Lester to yelling at the kidnappers when they positioned themselves in front of the camera and repeated their demands once again. Again, his pleas went unheard, as did Jess', who came up next to him halfway through the debate, tears screaming down her face as she begged the men to spare their colleague's life. To no avail: For the third time, the hollow bang of the gunshot echoed through the ARC.

Jess was leaning against the wall, her head lowered as if she didn't have the strength to hold it up anymore. The hostage-takers disappeared again, and Becker sat down on a bench, utterly at a loss what to do. Jess, who had been holding up quite well, seemed to be quickly losing control of herself, tears streaming down her cheeks as her shoulders shook. He wanted to go over and comfort her like he had before, but could not find the strength to do so in him.

For long, dreary, stultifying minutes they sat like that, both feeling scared and isolated despite the fact that they were not really alone.

Eventually, however, Jess' dazed, empty look became too much for him. It was worse than all the crippling guilt and helplessness he was feeling, and it finally made his strength return. He would not give up. For his colleagues, both the dead and the ones still in the hands of the hostage-takers, and for Jess, he would find a way to end this situation. He stood up, trying to look optimistic, but quickly feeling a little sheepish when the sudden action received no reaction from his catatonic friend. Trying to shake her up, he announced:

"This has got to stop. I will not let them kill any more of our colleagues." It took her a few seconds, but gradually, her eyes focused on him instead of the wall.

"But how will you stop them?" He hadn't really thought of a plan, as such, but considering there was nothing he could do from in here, the answer was quite obvious.

"I'm going out there. By now, there should be eleven hostage-takers. If I play my cards right, I can take them down. The important thing though, is that you stay in here."

"So you're going to go out there, guns blazing, to pull a John McClane?"

He looked at her, confused.

"Die Hard? Bruce Willis frees a bunch of hostages in an office building all by himself? Major nineties action film? Come on!" He ignored the reference, although, under different circumstances, it would have made him smile that she compared him to Bruce Willis.

"I realise the plan's not very sound..." Fortunately for him, making plans was exactly what Jess excelled at, and the promise of some sophisticated planning and hacking revived Jess within seconds, as he could see from the way her eyes lit up and colour returned to her cheeks

"Well, you've got one advantage over John McClane...", he looked at her inquisitively. "You've got me. I'll get a remote access to my desktop at the hub so I can help you navigate around the hostage-takers. With CCTV and motion sensors, I should be able to give you some pretty sound back-up."

He had expected her to protest, to insist on going with him, but he wasn't really surprised at her cooperation either. As much as the situation troubled her, she was their field coordinator, and as such used to staying calm and making rational decisions no matter what. She may not have been dealing well with sitting here and watching people die – well, who would have -, but now that she had something to do, she was quickly returning to her full efficiency. His plan was the best chance they had, and she knew that she was most useful in the safe room behind her computer. While she whirled around and started typing into the computer, he started equipping himself with a kevlar vest and as many weapons as he could carry, glad for his decision to install a weaponry cupboard in the corner.

They told Lester about the plan, and he agreed to have Special Forces stage an attack as a distraction for Becker to get out of the room. Minutes later, everything was ready, and they watched as the men outside appeared to receive news of the raid. Two of them promptly left, leaving behind only one man whom Becker could deal with easily. Just in case, Jess had remote-started an exploration robot from the machine-room next door, which entered the garage, causing the man to turn around and take a few steps away from the door.

Becker grabbed his weapon, but stopped to look at her for a second before opening the door. If this had been a film, she was sure this was the moment where hero and heroine kissed for potentially the last time before he went into battle. Unfortunately, she felt not at all like a Hollywood heroine, but rather like the confused bystander who had got in way over her head. She suddenly felt the urge to stop him from this suicidal mission, but instead, she just grabbed his hand and wished him good luck. He squeezed her hand gently, looking into her eyes in a way that she knew would make it even harder to let him go.

"Stay in here as long as possible, all right? I need you to be safe."

Jess nodded, unable to say anything, and then he had opened the first door and slipped out. She took one – hopefully not last – long look at him before closing the door after him, and shortly after, she watched on the monitor as he took out the guard in front of the door.

She was alone.

A/N: So, as I'll be away for a few days but I did promise you I'd update, here's another little piece of Jess and Becker's shitty day. I hope you don't mind the rate at which I'm killing off ARC employees, but it's not like the show is any nicer about this.

I just looked it up on imdb, and Die Hard is actually from 1988, so please tell me you know this awesome film, or I'll feel really old ;-).

Also, as English isn't my first language, please point out any mistakes I make, unusual/badly translated idioms or things that just sound weird. I'd appreciate the learning experience.