Author's Note: Well… this chapter is not going to get any longer or more exciting no matter how long I sit on it, waiting it for it develop somehow. Call it necessary transition? Maybe it's still enjoyable?

WARNING: Some Profanity.


Chapter 9: In which Jack McClane loses his footing...

There was no doubt in his mind now. Jack McClane was definitely slipping. He was losing his goddamn edge. How had he not seen they were being played, used to follow a man who'd been targeted for assassination? How had he let the feisty little thing currently running down the stairs a few steps ahead of him creep up and take him by surprise like she had? How had he failed to see that bomb strapped to the bottom of that chair?

At least, he'd been quick to react once it had been pointed out to him that there was a rather sinister, frustratingly ambiguous explosive device sitting nearby in silent anticipation of manifesting its true nature. Its true destructive nature, which Jack had been unwilling to attempt to ascertain. Not when it was contained within a simple, nondescript black box. Not when he had no indication when it might go off (any second for all he knew, for in real life these sorts of things never had a blinking countdown of digital numbers). And not when the entire building had been evacuated anyway. Well, other than mini-Nancy Drew and his own stupid version of both Hardy Boys rolled into one.

The rumbling of their footfalls was echoing through the stairwell, sounding like distant thunder. And then the storm arrived like a hurricane, if only a hurricane could be stealthy, sneak up and spring on someone with one mighty blow. The floor shook beneath their feet as a deafening boom resounded through the concrete and metal space. He stumbled into the small red head, grabbed her waist, unsure whether he was trying to steady himself or her.

How bad had the explosion been? Was a fireball about to sweep down the hall into the stairwell and expand, sucking the oxygen out of the space and burning them alive? They'd only made it five floors down from Paragon's block of offices. But surely it would've happened quickly. Still... he rounded the corner of the landing they'd paused on, grabbing the federal agent's hand to tug her along behind him. The more distance they could get-

There was another explosion. He hadn't expected that. And when the floor shook he could feel himself stumble towards the flight of very steep, very solid looking stairs, until he was stopped suddenly, his boots balancing precariously on the edge of the metal grip strip, his not-unsubstantial weight teetering towards falling. He just needed to wave his arms about as if struggling for balance to make the comical scene complete. Oh wait. He already was, wasn't he?

And then the force that had prevented his initially taking the (what would've been very unpleasant) tumble tugged him back harder and he overbalanced, stumbling backward and feeling the tiny, feminine body knocked off kilter by his haphazard momentum. But apparently, she was a quick thinker, for she leaned into him, wrapped her arms about his waist, and prevented their crashing entirely to the hard cement floor. Instead, they stumbled into a wall, and she released him, panting hard. His own struggle for oxygen was burning his lungs, his heartbeat affirming how close he'd come to bashing in his own skull in. Idiot.

"Thanks," he said, putting his back to the wall and panting alongside the surprisingly strong (enough to pull his heavy ass back from the precipice), petite woman.

"You're welcome." She looked at him with her big, bright hazel eyes and smiled the kind of smile he knew so well, that of the adrenaline junkie, of the fucked up 'we almost just died and isn't it fun?' psyche. He supposed he couldn't criticize. Then she frowned thoughtfully. "Maybe we should get out of here, because those bombs weren't-"

"On a synchronized detonator, yeah. There could be more." She gave him a strange look, as if she was unused to others finishing her thoughts. Maybe she was simply used to finishing theirs for them. She seemed the type.

They managed the rest of the flights of stairs without incident, deciding to try the first floor, cross to the opposite side of the building, where it was less likely for emergency workers to come flooding in (since they were all already staged out front), and sneak out an emergency exit. They were lucky enough that the heat from the explosion set off the fire systems, which automatically unlocked all of the doors in the building.

He was surprised to find that she willingly accompanied him as he led her down a couple of blocks, away from the circus that had begun its second big top show for the day at Mierloi Plaza, including all of the bells and whistles, police sirens, fire trucks, ambulances and swarming feds. Feeling they'd put enough distance between nosy police and themselves, Jack stopped to think, ducking into an alley and putting his back to some good old New York brickwork, as the mob of spectators began to flow by, towards the afternoon's impromptu entertainment. The air smelled like it usually did, car exhaust, roasting asphalt, the garbage in the alley a stronger bouquet than the standard fare, yet not an unwelcome one. But there was also, of course, the pervasive burnt chemical smell of detonated explosive devices and burning high-rise building.

"What the hell is going on?!" she asked, her expression so fierce that he actually flinched when he looked down at her. She didn't still have her gun, did she? He couldn't quite remember if they'd grabbed it before booking it out of there. Oh, wait. He'd pocketed it, shoving the rest of the stuff in her purse.

"I'm trying to figure that out myself," he said, attempting to keep his tone calm. "I was just played for a fool, but why are you involved in all of this?"

A siren wailed, as a fire truck drove past, its high pitched ringing cutting through his head like a rusty axe. He couldn't think. He needed somewhere where he could just lay out all of the facts and put the pieces together. It wouldn't be a quieter place to think, that was for certain, but there really was only one place to go at this point. Before she could protest he grabbed -what was her name? fuck it, his head was throbbing, she could be Bambi's girlfriend for all he cared- by the arm and guided her out of the alley onto the street.

"We're going back to my office," he growled over her protests. "We can sort everything out there. You can call your people and have me detained and shipped to Guantanamo if you want, but that's where we're going, because I don't think you had any more right to be at that crime scene than I did, and if we go back there, we'll both be spending the next day or two in lock-up. And then who's going to figure out what the hell is going on? The fucking FBI? I don't think so!"

His hateful rant seemed to disarm her protests and she just stared at him with her fucking doe-eyes as he dragged her up the street, trying to hail a cab, which turned out to be quite pointless...

Nell Jones, which was the name he finally seemed able to pull from the recesses of his abused brain, was glaring at him when she every so often looked up from the tablet computer held in her small, slender, very pale -except for the still red and raw scratches and scuffs- hands. She'd said she was going to try to contact her team. He'd asked how long it would take them to get there and give them some back-up, since the bad guys appeared to have explosives, and all they had were stale bread crumbs to follow. Frowning, she informed him that her home base was Los Angeles. He might have cursed at that point.

And why was he trusting her anyway? A woman with a complexion like fresh cream who claimed to live in California. Suspicious. But his gut told him otherwise, didn't it? Or was it the fact of those doe-eyes and that she smelled like happiness, which he finally pinned down as the scent of fresh mountain air and wild meadows (places where he'd always felt the most at peace, free and human, despite being a City Boy, born and raised). But was that any reason to trust her? Because she smelled good, well, great?

No, it wasn't.

But now that he'd examined her more closely, he recognized that cool and collected calmness, that tenacity, stubbornness that screamed 'cop' or 'fed' or 'righteous do-gooder' or whatever the hell precisely the trait represented. Jack wasn't sure exactly what words to use, how to define it specifically, but there was this common personality trait -flaw- that all of the afore listed seemed to possess. His father had it in spades. So did his sister. God, so did he! And this young woman, apparently, was brimming with it, too.

She sighed in frustration.

"I told you that you wouldn't get any signal in here," he said over the noise of the subway as it labored resolutely along its underground path. She glared even harder at him. But then, to his surprise, her expression softened.

"I know," she said. "I just needed to try, needed to do something."

"Hey, we've got a guy," Jack said, compelled for some reason to reassure her, to cheer her up. Like her mood was his responsibility?! God, he was such a sucker. But still, he tried to comfort her. "He's good, apparently. We'll have him do his nerd thing with some surveillance video, public records..." He gave her a sideways glance. "Federal databases..."

She pinned him with a scrupulous gaze.

"My people are better," she said. "And can do it legally. Well, at least with the pretense of proper authority."

He gave her a mock affronted look, but just shook his head. Despite being packed, the subway car was eerily quiet... the day's events had put a dampener on the entire city's mood, filled the air with a tension of pensive anxiety. Was the city under siege, the target of terrorists once more?

It was no place to be discussing the troubling events as if they had more knowledge than they should... which they did. Although it was just short of enough...

What the hell was going on?!


A/N: I know it was hardly worth the wait, but this little bit transitions us to some actual plot reveal and more action (if I get the time to write it)…