CAUTION: This chapter gets a T rating...some disturbing moments in this one...

-o-

Author's Notes:

I know this is slow going, but hey, better slow than not at all, right? :o)

I am also planning on picking up the remainder of "What a Tangled Web" soon. And I have an idea already in the pipes for fox4mel's wish for a "Russian Prison" piece.

But first, let's get on with this story. There will be one more chapter after this, the final Chapter 5, so look out for that. *devilish grin*

P.S. at nunquam perpetuum: Sorry, I'm not available on PM, it's nothing personal, just a general rule of mine. Sorry about that.

-o-

Chapter 4

They say that life is a process of learning. In school, you learned the basics. At work, you got an advanced education. And if your job description happened to include the abbreviation IMF, you either learned some more, or your study time was up. In the most permanent kind of way.

Jane had always considered herself a good student.

Still, as she looked at the sight before her, she got the quite disturbing feeling that nothing in life had ever prepared her for this.

For starters, it wasn't easy to look down the barrel of a loaded gun and think clear thoughts at the same time. It was even more difficult when the gun was that of your own team leader – and it was almost impossible when the man currently holding the gun was looking at you like it was of no difference to him whether you lived or died.

'Easy Jane. This is not the Ethan you know. This is Ethan on a mission past, and you have no idea how that mission ended in the first place,' Jane tried to conjure up a calmness in herself that she wasn't sure she had in her.

Whatever was gonna happen next, she knew that it would all depend on whether or not she could get through to Ethan. And since the actual reality of this room wasn't a common denominator at this moment, she realized her only way to reach Ethan was through whatever he thought was real.

'Alright, Jane… think…what do you know…?'

It was very little.

Ethan had been on a mission, presumably in Burma. He had been looking for some kid in a jungle. Chances were that a kid was probably too young to be a 'target' to be kidnapped by the IMF for information. And she didn't even want to dare think about the IMF sending out Ethan to eliminate a kid as a potential threat. That left the likely possibility that the kid was an asset, obviously in some kind of hostage situation out in the jungle. And Ethan had been sent after the asset on a rescue mission. In fact, that sounded like a mission Ethan would take on in a heartbeat.

From Ethan's feverish murmurs she also deducted that Ethan had encountered some trouble during the mission. Her best chance now would be to find out what kind of trouble – perhaps that way she could talk Ethan down.

"Ethan…?" she cautiously asked him, keeping her voice soft, not sure if he would even speak to her.

"Where is…where's…- kid?" Ethan's voice was husky, rushed and it sounded a bit like he was out of breath. Like he had been running.

Jane took a calculated risk.

"I don't know, Ethan… but if you can tell me where you are, I can perhaps help you find ..."

Almost instantly she was cut off by Ethan's clearly desperate voice:

"You have to know where he is! I saw you talk to him in the village!"

Okay. Two new facts. Point one: Ethan had been tracking the boy even before the jungle, and he had been tracking 'her', too. Point two: Ethan really had no idea at the moment who she was.

Either way, though, she got the feeling that whoever he perceived her to be, he wasn't looking at her as an enemy. More like a source of information. That meant he probably didn't intend to shoot her without sufficient provocation – which she did not intend to give him.

Now, if only she found the right approach, she might be able to convince him that the kid was safe. That he didn't need to find the kid anymore. That he could rest now.

What she was about to do was a gamble.

"Alright… I understand what you are saying… if you saw me with him earlier, I believe you. It's just that I don't remember when that was. If you could tell me when you saw me with him, I might know where he went after that. Can you tell me where you saw me?"

She prayed that he would take the bait. If not, she was prepared to dive out of the line of fire – even though she knew it would most likely be futile. At this range, there was no way Ethan could miss, even in his feverish state.

For a moment Ethan seemed to be unsure what to do. Then she saw a flicker of irritation cross his face. But after another pause, during which he had to steady himself with one hand against the backrest behind him - he seemed to take her up on her offer to help, because he went on talking, slowly, confusedly, as if what he was saying was only coming back to him in flashes.

"I followed you …through the village…you were both guarded … four men…they were bringing you back into the jungle."

He shook his head as if the memory was hazy, like it was trying to evade him.

"I tracked you… down to the camp…but the kid's not…I can't find the kid anywhere. I found…found you, but I can't find the kid…..gotta find…find…kid…" Ethan's words were starting to slur badly, his breath catching as well, so much so that she could see him getting light-headed before her eyes.

'If he falls unconscious now I might get out of this without having to risk my neck any further,' Jane realized, but her hopes were quickly scattered as his eyes flickered back to her once more, this time almost pleadingly:

"Please, tell …me…where the kid is…I can take you with me…you'll be safe…I c-…can save..you both…Mallardo won't find you…" the gun wavered in his hand for a moment, as he struggled to keep himself upright.

It was when she heard that name, that several things suddenly fell into place all at once.

In her early years as an agent, she had once taken an advanced class in 'case analysis'. Their task had been to analyze reports of missions that had gone wrong, to see if they could find better ways to train their agents to avoid similar failures in the future. Some reports they were asked to analyze were clearly fake missions, i.e. they had never taken place. Some, however, were also from real missions, where the reports had merely been cleared of the names of the IMF agents involved.

When Ethan mentioned the name Mallardo, Jane realized she recalled that name from a report she once read in class.

A drug dealer, Mallardo, had planned to expand his business from Burma into US territory. To achieve that goal, Mallardo had kidnapped the son of the then-director of the anti-drug agency in the area, effectively blackmailing the man to look the other way if he wanted to ever see his son again. The matter had been kept quiet for a while, but somehow the IMF had gotten wind of it, and had decided that it was in the interest of the US to give a helping hand in the matter. An agent had been sent out.

But the mission had ended in a catastrophe.

At first, things had looked relatively cut-and-dry. The agent, who had been sent after the kid, had succeeded in picking up the boy's trail. He had found a way to follow the kidnappers into the jungle. According to the report, the agent had then observed the rebel camp for two hours, checking for guard patterns and other important information necessary for a quick go-in-and-get-out rescue. The agent had also determined which of the tents most likely held the boy and that the hour right before sunset – when most of the rebels were having their dinner around the campfire - would be the best time to stealthily move in and get the kid.

When the opportunity came, the agent had gone in.

That's where the mission report turned sketchy.

Apparently, it had been a matter of extremely bad timing. It hadn't been the agent's fault. Nobody could have known that no two minutes before the agent went in to rescue the kid, Mallardo had the boy's neck snapped, because the boy had refused to 'entertain' him before dinner. According to the report, the boy's body lay dead in the dirt just inside the tent, only half clothed, when the agent had found him.

The remainder of the mission report was an assemblage of actions that the IMF neither sanctioned, nor wanted repeated in future missions:

The campsite went up in an explosion that took out a good portion of a nearby drug plantation with it. Many rebels died in the fire. Only the guards at the front of what had been the hostage tent never even felt the explosion – their throats had been expertly cut to exert the most possibly damage, leaving them bleeding to a painful death long before the fire of the explosion burned their bodies to ashes.

The next day, the kid's body was found wrapped in a clean blanket at the doorstep of the local police station. And two days later, Mallardo's body was found fifteen miles away from the campsite, in the middle of the jungle – with no obvious signs of deadly injury. But it appeared that he had been literally hunted down. His feet had been bleeding. His clothes had been dirty and drenched with old sweat. His face had been contorted in death in a lasting grimace of panic.

The coroner later concluded that it might have been some kind of heart attack – brought on by a prolonged state of extreme physical overexertion. Nobody had never seen anything like it. As the words in the coroner's report described it: If anybody ever died from 24 hours of non-stop screaming in fear – it would look exactly like this.

When the IMF got a call from its agent on the fourth day, requesting a pick up, the whole matter had reached a point where the IMF decided to sweep the whole incident under the carpet. The director of the anti drug force had retired soon after, with the order to keep quiet about the circumstances of his son's death. As far as the world was concerned, no rescue had ever been attempted, officially. And the mission file only served as a training example to teach agents like her that sometimes, missions simply went wrong – and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

Which left Jane in quite a delicate situation.

She knew now what kid Ethan was referring to. She also knew that the kid he was looking for was dead.

And she knew damn sure that this was not a piece of information she wanted to give Ethan in his current state.

'It's time to skirt the truth, Jane. And you better lie well…' she concluded, as she saw that Ethan seemed to be waiting for her to say something.

But she also saw that whatever was keeping Ethan upright was not gonna keep him going much longer. His hand was now visibly shaking. Sweat was pouring down his face, and his shoulders leaned heavily against the backrest behind him. She could see his eyes slowly lose their focus altogether.

Whichever way this went, it would be over within the next minute. That basically left her with two options.

Should she try and attempt to take the gun from Ethan's shaking hand and hope she was faster than he was in his weakened state? Or could she take the risk of stalling Ethan just a little longer, and hope he lost the battle with consciousness before he could decide to shoot her after all?

Technically speaking, the gun was still aimed at her, a risk to her life.

But it was the look in Ethan's eyes that made the decision for her.

The pain in his features was gradually outweighing any aggressiveness in his posture, and his eyes now no longer held any accusation – they only held desperation. And hope.

The hope that she could help him find the kid.

The hope that she could bring this to an end.

And the hope that he could finally rest. He was so tired. So bone-tired.

So Jane spoke up once more, even softer this time:

"It's alright Ethan…I know where the kid is…I know. You found him. You found him and everything is taken care of. The kid is home now. He is with his family. He is safe," Jane soothingly spoke, and when she saw that her words were starting to have an affect on Ethan, she dared not stop again.

"You brought him back. You no longer have to look for him… it's time for you to rest. You did good, Ethan, so you can rest now…" Jane continued, and she saw the gun in Ethan's hand waver.

And then it began to lower.

She wasn't sure if it was only due to her words, or if it was the muscles in Ethan's arm simply losing their tension as his whole body started to tilt forward, but whatever the reason, she was glad to see the gun come down.

Carefully, not making any sudden moves that might startle Ethan into trying to raise the gun again, Jane slowly reached out with one hand, forward, inch by inch, until her hand touched the top of the gun slide, her fingers coming into contact with the cool metal. As she felt Ethan's grip on the gun weaken even further, she slowly adjusted her hold on the gun, taking it from his hand as it slowly slid out of his fingers.

Just as Ethan's hand lost the last point of contact with the gun, he also lost his fight with consciousness, and he slowly fell forward, his head coming to rest against her shoulder as she caught him just in time. Holding Ethan upright with one hand while she held on to the gun with her other hand was not easy, but somehow she managed to hold on to both without dropping either.

Putting the gun out of reach behind her, she then used both her arms to get a hold of Ethan's upper body, so she could settle him back against the pillows, letting him come to rest in a more comfortable position. In the end, as she looked down at him, now motionless once more underneath the covers, she finally allowed herself a deep breath.

That had been a close call.

One that she would probably remember for the rest of her life.

But her only hope was that Ethan might not remember it at all. If she had one wish free, it would be that. It would be kinder on him that way.

He had carried the fate of the dead boy around with him for years without their knowing. If things had gone the way they should have, Jane would never have found out that the unknown agent from that botched up mission years back was none other than the man who was now lying before her.

But now she knew.

Only that knowledge had never been intended for her.

This was Ethan's call. His memory to share, if he ever decided that he wanted to share it.

Hell, they all had skeletons in their closets.

Maybe not as scary as the ones that Ethan carried around with him, but if you dug deep enough, there was something in every agent's file that was kept in the farthest corner of their minds, some dark memory they had simply learned to live with.

It was something that belonged to you.

No one else.

So as she slowly moved back to her chair again, still keeping one eye on Ethan at all times, she settled in for the rest of the night with the resolution that whatever had taken place here tonight, it would stay in this room.

If Ethan wanted to talk to her about it, she would be there.

But if Ethan never remembered any of this in the morning, she would not force him to relive the memory by telling him about his fever dream.

It all depended on what Ethan would remember once he woke up…

-o-

To be continued in the final chapter …

Oh, and…don't ever underestimate the rest of Ethan's team – they still have one trump card left to play. ;)