AN: Planning to keep posting every night, but I'm in the mid-Atlantic about to get slammed by Sandy, so if the power/internet goes out, there might be a delay! Thanks for all the comments! They make my day!
Part Four
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She knew it wouldn't take long. She'd learned long ago that the moments she dreaded facing the most were the quickest to arrive. With the hood on and her body twisted in an uncomfortable position, it was difficult to tell how much time had actually elapsed, but still, it seemed like it hadn't been nearly long enough before she heard more footsteps, quiet, quick ones approaching.
He pulled the hood off her, his hand moving to her cheek and turning her face towards his in an uncharacteristically affectionate way. He was shocked by her tears, obviously expecting her to act less like a damsel in distress. "Are you ok?"
She wanted to lean into his hand and let him know how much she appreciated his concern. She wanted to cry on his shoulder for a few minutes. She wanted him to get the fuck out of there before Snow shot him in the head.
Her eyes darted around. "Get out of here," she commanded in a quiet whisper. Snow would be listening, waiting to catch something on tape so he could fry her once he'd killed John. He struck her as the sore winner type.
"The correct answer is 'thanks for rescuing me again, John.'" He winked at her as he moved around to cut her hands free.
"No, John, he's not going to hurt me." Maybe he was, but that was beside the point. "It's a trap. He's here for you."
"I'm not leaving you, Carter." John looked over his shoulders. "I don't see anyone yet so how about we get out of here before he comes back?"
As soon as Carter got to her feet, John's hand folded around hers. She'd seen him with the other people he protected, she knew he had a penchant for maintaining physical contact with the female ones, but it didn't prevent her whole body from tingling. He led her to the closest door and checked out the scratched Plexiglas window.
He turned back to her with a shrug. "We should probably try another door." As he pulled her by the hand in the opposite direction, his other hand moved up to his ear piece. "Finch, we might need some help getting out of here."
After having the same results at the second and third doors and a large window, Carter felt the panic welling back up. "Am I Butch or Sundance?"
He smirked at her. "Don't give up yet, Carter."
"You still won't think it's time to give up after the bullet leaves the chamber, John," she hissed at him.
"What's the point?" He shrugged, continuing to drag her around the building, probably looking for a secret tunnel to Disneyworld. "When it's over, it's over, until then, it's not." He turned his head to the side, annoyance flickering over his face. "You too, Harold? I'm disappointed in your lack of faith." His words were punctuated by the sound of doors opening, all of them, simultaneously, loud footsteps pounding on the floor.
She felt his sudden tension through their joined hands as she realized he truly hadn't understood their predicament it until that minute.
But he didn't hesitate more than a second as he moved away from the sounds, into the stacks of abandoned crates and equipment, looking for somewhere to hide, as though that magical tunnel into a fairytale land might still be there somewhere. She could hear the movement of the men, a methodical sweeping of the building as they closed in.
She gripped his hand tighter and leaned in to whisper. "You should have listened to me. I told you to stay away. I tried to stop this." Tears were welling up again, and she hated the guilty look on John's face, as though he felt worse for making her cry than about his impending execution.
"I tried to listen, Carter, but we got information that you were in danger again. I was just doing my job."
The shuffling of boots was getting closer. She could make out whispers into their radios too. Squeezing her eyes closed, she wondered if she ought to hug him, to tell him how much his friendship had meant to her, to offer him the reassurance that his sacrifice, though unnecessary, would matter in the long run, but her fear that she was about to get killed too kept her frozen.
"Well, Harold, we knew it wouldn't last forever." His eyes turned to her and she saw firm resolve passing over his expression. "At least this way the rest of you are safe. It's the best I can do under the circumstances." He smiled at her for a moment. "Finch, you'll take care of Carter for me, right?" A pause. "Thank you." He pulled the ear wig from his ear and his phone from his pocket before he squatted down. His hand cupped the back of her heel. "May I?"
She lifted her foot and watched in utter confusion as he slipped her shoe off, using the pointed heel to smash through his phone almost silently. He offered her shoe back to her and shoved the broken phone underneath the rusted edge of a shelving unit.
While she was still trying to process both the current situation and the fact that suicidal John had just asked his boss to watch over her, something she'd thought John had stopped, he grabbed her shoulders and met her eyes. "Listen to me, Carter, they're not here to arrest me, we both know that. There's only one way I make it out of this building alive. I need your help."
Her mind reeled with the idea that there was any chance at all she wasn't about to watch John die and she nodded eagerly. Anything. Anything at all. When he reached for her hip, she realized he was going to use her gun to hold her hostage. Desperate. Doomed. They certainly had a sniper, even if they cared about her winding up dead, which she knew they didn't.
But rather than her gun, he pulled her handcuffs loose, placing them in her hand. "Arrest me."
She just stared at him, no longer even hearing the sounds of the men slowly but surely surrounding them, her head shaking side-to-side unconsciously.
"It's my only chance, Carter, you can argue that you've got jurisdiction, open warrants, and that you can't have a prisoner dying in your custody." He reached out to touch her face again, his warm palm sliding against her cheek, his thumb wiping at the tears she hadn't even realized were still falling. "It's the best chance I've got right now, and it'll help repair the damage I've done to your reputation at work. If you're the one that brings me in, IAB will stop asking if you're working with me." His eyes held hers. He meant it. He fucking meant it. He was truly worried about her professional reputation.
Her head continued to shake, refusing to listen. She couldn't do it. She couldn't arrest the man and pretend she wasn't working with him. She couldn't. She wouldn't be able to live with herself if she handed him over to the NYPD or the FBI or the CIA.
She swallowed hard and held his eyes. "I can't, John, please don't…"
"It's either you or Snow, and you know he'll put a bullet in my head." He stepped closer, his lighthearted smirk long gone, his dispassionate mask replaced by a look she could only describe as love, something she'd never expected to see from him, something she thought he was no longer capable of. She would have relished the opportunity to think on that, to figure out why the idea that he really cared for her made her want to smile happily despite the circumstances, but he didn't give her the chance. His other hand moved up, holding her face still as he leaned in, pressing a gentle kiss against her lips. The timing couldn't possibly have been worse, and yet, his mouth lingered against hers, his tongue a whisper against her lip for a moment, telling her that it could have been, should have been different.
"Please, Jos."
She grabbed him as he pulled away, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and pulling him tight, reveling in the feeling of his arms closing around her. And then the sounds were closer still, the men finally in the room with them.
"Jos," he whispered into her hair.
She nodded against his shoulder, reluctantly pulling away and waiting for him to turn around so she could close the cuffs around his wrists. She held her gun in one hand and placed the other on his elbow. "I'll do everything I can, John, but-"
He smiled. "You probably shouldn't be crying when you turn me in." He nodded toward his jacket pocket. "Keys to the Lincoln. I wouldn't recommend asking Snow for a lift."
Before the men had a chance to complete their sweep and find their prey, Carter marched forward with John in tow. She opened her phone and called it in, reporting that she had an extremely dangerous prisoner in custody and that precautions should be taken. Faking a conviction she sure as hell didn't feel, she walked past the armed soldiers Snow had called in. The soldiers, who weren't nearly as dirty as the man giving the orders, backed off and let her leave the building.
Snow was waiting for her outside, he and his partner smiling happily at the sight of John in cuffs. "Nice try, detective, but he's ours." He reached out to take John's arm, but Carter was happy to engage in the pissing contest.
She jerked John back and chuckled. "Oh, I don't think so. I've been chasing this man for over a year. I've got open warrants on him and considering that we're on US soil, well, you'll have to discuss your case with the US Attorney." She moved toward the Lincoln, but paused and looked back. "And you might want a lawyer, because I'm reporting your ass for kidnapping a police officer."
Her tough as nails façade crumbled as soon as she drove out of sight of the warehouse, her instincts telling her to make a run for it, to do anything she could to help John escape. He was quiet, not even giving the impression that he'd be interested in trying.
He was still protecting her, she realized, still hoping that everyone would suddenly believe that she was on the up and up.
She caught his eyes in the mirror. "John, even if the DA can tie custody up in the courts for a day or two, you know Snow isn't going to play by the rules. He'll just cart you out of lock up without jurisdiction."
He smirked back at her and shrugged. "But I'm still breathing at the moment, so I think we did just fine."
