Author's Note: Confession. This has been literally over 99% written for about a month. Not sure why I just didn't finish it off and post the update for you all earlier… (Because I'm a horrible fanfic friend?).

Chapter 10: In which Lucy McClane meets a fellow feisty red-head…

What the hell was going on?!

The tension in the city was palpable for Lucy McClane, and she wasn't even on the street. It seemed to lie thick in the air, transforming the usual background hum of its pulse into something irregular, an extra dissonant note skewing its normally pleasant chords. The news programs were saying eco-terrorists. The environmental protestors outside of the federal courthouse, peacefully picketing for the past two weeks, had precipitated into a riot. Whether or not they'd been the cause or simply pulled into the violent melee, she had not seen any evidence to convince her either way.

And somehow her idiot brother had gotten tangled up in the complex web of whatever-the-hell-was-going-on. She swore that sometimes, Jack could be worse than their hero-complex father for getting into shit. What was it about the McClanes? Not that she could wholly complain, not really, because in the end they saved a lot of lives and put a lot of bad guys out of commission. Although, if they weren't such magnets for psychopathic a-holes, it would make their little detective business much easier to run.

There'd been a second series of explosions at Meirloi Plaza, this time taking out several floors in one of the buildings, and she could only pray that Jack hadn't been in the middle of that one. But praying, she knew, was a futile endeavor. Of course, he'd gone back there, to the scene of the crime, as it were, because he just couldn't walk away. He'd been manipulated, used. They all had. And he was a McClane. To their family, it came down to winning or losing. And winning was simply defined as 'outliving the bad guys,' which sometimes required tracking down and killing them.

"Have we heard from Jack?" Her father asked as he strapped on his old shoulder rig. Oh, shit. The man was supposed to be retired. She'd sweet-talked him into this -apparently stupid- detective agency scheme of hers, because all of his years of service to the Big Apple (and you know, saving the entire nation from cyber-terrorists) would lend their fledgling business a little more clout. And instead of an easy gig, he was being pulled back into the fight.

"Not since before the explosion when he asked us to run a check on that girl," she said, frowning as she watched him inspect his Beretta and load a fresh magazine. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Being McClane," Matt Ferrell said, looking up from behind his computer screen only to hastily return his attention to his work upon catching her father's glare.

"Who is this girl you're talking about, anyway?" John McClane asked, holstering his prepped weapon.

"The one Jack saved this morning," Lucy said, while Matt chuckled, saying 'Faline' under his breath. That had been a weird conversation, for certain.

"Yeah, I remember that. I'm not senile... yet. I'm just curious who the hell she is, exactly, that Jack risked his ass for her," her father said, even though he knew as well as she did that Jack would go out of his way to help anyone he saw in need.

"According to this..." Matt swiveled the flat computer screen so they could see the file and photo on display. "Nell Jones is an intelligence analyst with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service's 'Office of Special Projects'... whatever that is."

"Sounds top secret," Lucy said.

"Then they should probably secure their file server dealies better, huh?" her father said, causing Matt to blink at what was the old man's form of compliment. Lucy knew her father had no idea how Matt did what he did, or even what he did half the time, but she could see the little bit of pride glimmer in his blue eyes whenever the young man produced some miraculous, unexpected result.

"Matt, how about the security footage for Paragon's offices, or surrounding the Meirloi building?" she asked, knowing it had been amongst the long list of data mining requests she'd barked at him earlier. Unlike her beloved father and brother (who seemed only to get worse the more he was around their dad), Lucy liked to have all the facts before reaching a conclusion and forming a plan of action. And she'd obviously been mistaken when she outlined the procedure for the Charles Wright case. And now that things had gone sidewise, they'd found themselves woefully uninformed.

Matt ran his fingers through his shaggy black hair, which was getting to a length where Lucy might have to talk to him about getting it cut, or take some scissors to him in his sleep, because the hints she'd been dropping hadn't hit on target. She recognized the gesture, however, no matter the length of the locks being tangled.

"Sorry, babe," he said, realized his slip, tensed as he looked wildly about and then relaxed, finding her father to be distracted with inventorying the secret arsenal he and Jack had built into a hidden safe in the wall, claiming it was a father-son bonding project when she questioned not only the legality but the wisdom and necessity of it. "They must be on a closed system network. No outside access."

"Damn." Lucy began pacing the small Manhattan office space. "What about the more thorough background search on Mr. Wright? Did it dig anything new up?"

"I'm still waiting on the financials of his Aunt Bertha and cousin Bill." Matt sighed, typed away for a few seconds. "But nothing out of the ordinary has popped up. What about your contacts?"

Lucy pursed her lips. She put out calls for information and promises of massive favors for several hours earlier in the day, but no one had gotten back to her yet. And it might be too soon to start the harassing emails, texts and voicemails. It was a long shot anyway. Even pulling all the strings she could, she wasn't sure any were attached to the prize they desired. She was about to reveal her failure when the main office door swung open, revealing a rather irate young man and a red-headed girl.

"Jack!" The knot of worry in her stomach released upon seeing her brother in one piece, if looking a little ragged around the edges.

"Hey," he said, stopping in front of the desk she and Matt had been using as a workspace. She jumped up and pulled him into a hug.

"I'm so glad you're okay," she said, then feeling that sudden flare of temper she knew was her dad's genetic legacy, let go of him to punch him in the arm. "Idiot! What the hell did you think you were doing, going back there?"

"Being McClane," Matt muttered again, receiving an even more intense glare from Lucy.

She turned to the petite girl who was standing a step behind and to the side of her idiot brother, recognizing the face from the file Matt had just pulled up for them. So, not a young girl, if she'd read her DOB correctly, but damn she was a tiny thing. Lucy wasn't a large woman by any means, but this federal agent was rather pixie-like.

"I'm Lucy," she said extending a hand, which the young woman grasped with a surprisingly firm if slender hand.

"Nell," she said.

"Who's this?" John McClane sidled up beside his daughter, his tone edged with suspicion but when Lucy glanced at her father, she found that shit-eating grin on his face.

"Faline," Matt provided from behind his computer screen, causing both her father and Nell's expressions to screw-up with confusion. Jack glared, his cheeks turning an adorable shade of pink.

"Ignore the idiot children." The older man extended his hand, as Lucy had done, and the young woman accepted the greeting. "I'm John McClane. Jack and Lucy's father. And that anemic creature parked at the computer over there is Matt."

Nell smiled as if remembering some inside joke, or perhaps she had a familiarity with the computer nerd type.

"I'm Nell. Nell Jones."

"Nice to meet you Nell," John McClane Sr. said. "And thanks for making sure my son didn't get his ass killed."

"The day is still young."

"Matt!" Lucy glared at the young man who was sometimes so prone to negativity.

"Uh, actually, I think you got that the wrong way around," Nell said. "I owe Jack my life."

Jack shifted uneasily, blushing like a coy school girl. No, McClanes weren't used to receiving direct compliments. Death threats somehow made them feel much more at ease. Lucy exchanged an amused look with her father. Jack obviously liked this girl.

The younger John McClane cleared his throat. "So I'm thinking that they're cleaning house."

"Of course," Nell said.

"Makes sense," John said.

"What?!" Matt said.

Lucy shook her head at the somehow still naive computer nerd, smiling to herself. Admittedly although it could be sometimes frustrating, his oft oblivious nature is what seemed to preserve a certain level of innocence in the man.

"But what could they possibly be covering up?" she asked of the assembled former detective, current and former government agents. "And who is 'they'?"

"That's what we need to figure out," Jack said.

"Maybe this will help." Nell Jones pulled a tablet computer out of her bag and walked around to stand beside where Matt was sitting at his 'superior' computer rig (Lucy sort of zoned out when he explained the specific technology whatnot that made it so much better than her laptop). The red-headed fed popped a microSD card out of the tablet and handed it to Matt. "I managed to tap into the CCTV for the building and download the surveillance footage for the last few days, but I don't have the proper software on this to decrypt the files. Maybe..."

"Piece of cake," Matt said taking the disk and doing his computer geek thing. Lucy was briefly surprised to see Nell lean over his shoulder and a whispered discussion of nerd-speak ensued between the pair. And then she remembered what the file said her official job title was... 'intelligence analyst'. Apparently that was 'government' for 'computer nerd'. She shrugged at Jack and her father who both also appeared transfixed by the instant rapport and subsequent exchange between the pair glued to the computer monitor.

"Got it," the black-haired boy and red-haired girl chimed in unison, and the McClanes moved to gather around the 20 inch LED screen. There were multiple little windows, each one a different camera feed, black and white, with people coming and going, standard office building fare. The time stamp was for two days ago.

"Have anything more recent?" Jack asked.

"Yup," Matt said. "Any particular timeframe? Person we're looking for? Something? Anything?"

"They could've dropped off those bombs in the plaza anytime the previous night," Jack said.

"Try 01:30," Nell said. Matt nodded and brought up the associated file to run.

"That's you, Jack," Lucy said, catching sight of her brother briskly passing through the stationary field of a stairwell camera.

"Keep watching," Nell said. Most of the cameras seemed to be fixed on a vacant building. Lucy could make out the figures of police officers stationed outside the lobby door, and then Jack appeared again on a different camera as he entered the floor housing (well, which used to house) Paragon's Offices.

Nell's finger stabbed out towards the screen, making Lucy start from her trance.

"There," the young woman said.

"What?" Matt asked.

"Where?" John asked.

"You think it's the bomber, Nell?" Jack asked.

They all seemed to lean closer to the computer screen as Matt took the footage back and then paused it as the figure rounded the corner and his face became visible.

"I passed him on the way up," Nell said. "The feds had ordered the building sealed, even from their own people. So he had no business there. Well, no more than us, anyway... It could be nothing."

The group of licensed detectives and staff remained silent. Lucy knew they were as transfixed by that face as she was.

"Thomas Holloway," Jack said after the silence stretched uncomfortably long, his voice more growl than human speech.

"You're instincts are spot on, kid," John said to Nell. "That asshole is the one who hired us to watch the meat puzzle formerly known as Charles Wright."

Lucy felt a bit queasy, even though they had all suspected it since that morning. They had been used by the bad guys.

"You just surveilled a man for a homicidal maniac?" Nell's tone had turned sharp, and Lucy took a step back as the petite woman rounded on Jack. "No questions asked?"

"No, we didn't," Jack said, his jaw visibly clenching. "Thomas Holloway hired us to watch a man he claimed was his wife's brother-in-law, to figure out if the man was cheating on his wife."

"So you're simply gullible enough to believe any lie."

Nell Jones was not backing down. But neither was Lucy's obstinate brother. The two made quite the pair, alright. She wasn't sure if the expression on Jack's face was one of deep loathing or intense affection. She looked to her father, who appeared equally perplexed but prepared to pull them off one another if things got physical... whether that would be because Jack tried to strangle the petite woman or shove his tongue in her mouth... who the hell knew. Certainly not the posturing young man.

"He had all of the pertinent information and his story sounded completely legit."

Lucy snorted in suppressed laughter as Nell rolled her eyes. True, she felt a little insulted that the federal agent thought she knew the situation better, thought them stupid for taking on the case, when she had a sweet government gig so what did she know about the private sector, about struggling to keep a business afloat? But it was nice to see her brother put in his place, without having to do all of the work herself.

The intelligence analyst had returned her attention to the computer screen, instructing Matt to send the man's image to a certain email address with a banal subject line and cryptic message, so she didn't notice Jack twitch, his father's hand on his arm pulling him back from whatever the hell it was he'd instinctively been about to do to the young woman who'd challenged him.

Father and son held a silent, intent exchange, staring one another down until Jack threw up his hands in a passive gesture and the ex-cop released the ex-spy's arm. And then the pair were looking at Lucy strangely, tilting both of their heads with a hard look of concentration that she returned with one of utter bemusement before both sets of blue-grey eyes widened in an expression of 'oh, shit!'

"Wha-"

Before she could complete her question, however, her father had knocked her to the floor, shielding her with his body and shouting "Get down!" as the world exploded in a cacophony of destruction.

A/N: Oops, another cliffy… (Definitely a horrible fanfic friend!)