Ooooook! Here it is! Final chapter. I'm not overly pleased with my writing in this one, but this is it, I've taken this story where I wanted to take it, hopefully it kind of works.

There will be an epilogue to show where things went from there, so do wait for it please :) and thank you, so , so, so much, for all your support and especially h who has been a amazing source of support from the beginning and to the end!

thank you all so much. I hope this doesn't disappoint you too bad.

Truth is, Alice didn't exactly have any kind of plan in mind when she started shooting at the Rakyats. The only plan was to stop them from killing Alec.

Technically, this had turned out to be the worst decision Alice could have made. The best decision would have been not to hide, but to deliver not only the Americans, but Vaas himself, then ask for the Rakyats to take her to Jason Brody. There, she would have begged for his help, and he would have helped her, because he was civilised, and they were both westerners, and his friends would have felt for her, poor abductee. The only issue was obviously Citra, who was helping Jason. Last time they'd spoken, Citra had sounded like she considered Alice a traitor. And of course, there was the issue of Alice having messed up the hostage exchange situation, and having killed one of her warriors.

Ok, actually, perhaps the running and shooting decision wasn't the worst one. Maybe it was the least worst of them all.

So once one of them is down and the doctor is safe inside, the other Rakyats raise their weapons to the windows and open fire. Alice and Carlos get to the ground again.

"What the fuck, mermaid?" Shouts Carlos.

"They were going to kill the doctor!"

"So?!"

"Well I can't treat a stab wound, can you, genius?"

Carlos says nothing to that, successfully persuaded, and Alice marvels silently at how proficient she has become at lying.

"You stay here," instructs the pirate. "Protect Vaas. I'm going downstairs, me and Earnheardt will keep the bottom. I'll bring you ammo."

The bullets have momentarily stopped raining onto them, and as Carlos makes his way downstairs Alice risks a look out. The warriors, only five of them, as some departed with the van full of hostages, are taking cover, and appear to be deploying around the house. They know what they're doing. Alice sure doesn't, Alec is probably useless with a gun, Vaas is out, and Carlos is good but can he single handedly take down five people?

She hears coughing behind her, and crawls to Vaas' side.

"Here," she says, pulling him off the bed and onto the floor, between the bed and the wall. "Hide here, don't move, don't make a noise."

Carlos returns with ammo, and helps her move the bed and mattress around so they would shelter Vaas from bullets coming from the door or the outside. He makes to leave again, and Alice calls:

"Carlos, wait! What are we doing? They're taking cover and I think they're trying to surround us..."

"You think?" He sasses, "yeah they are. Earnheardt is holding the back windows and I'm gonna hold the front ones, we need them to die before they call reinforcements. They haven't yet, don't think they got a radio. That gives us time. They don't know how many of us there are, they're careful. You stay here, protect Vaas. If you hear footsteps you shoot, alright? Shoot at the stairs, through the wall. If it's me or Earnheardt we'll call from downstairs. Gotta go."

He disappears again. Alice ditches the AK-47 and picks up the shotgun and extra ammo Carlos has brought her. He knows that's her best weapon. The only one she's actually decent at, that is.

It's grown awfully quiet, Alice feels it on her body like cold water, a bad omen. She looks at Vaas. He is conscious, though too weak to move. She can see his fingers twitching, like they'd used to twitch around her dress, her hair, her thighs. Alice walks to the desk and flips it over, kneeling behind it, weapon raised and aimed at the door, ready. She's terrified. Excited. She's taunting the Rakyats in her mind. Come on, fucker. I'm ready. Try coming here, see what happens. The shotgun feels good in her hands.

Footsteps. Downstairs, not here. Adrenaline makes them sound awfully close. There's struggle, grunts, breaking glass, a single shot. Silence.

Footsteps,careful, slow, steady. They make the wood squeak on the old stairs. Alice waits. Careful, slow feet climbing up. How many? One pair, is it? One warrior. Maybe the others are dead? She's only heard one shot. Could be anyone. Alice waits. Terrified. Excited.

The steps are near. They're just opposite the wall now. She'll get to see the person in the door soon. Door's shut actually. Good. Squeaking, cracking, whining wood. Alice stands, raises the shotgun at the door. She can't miss, she's too close.

Silence. Careful.

The doorknob twitches. Alice shoots.

There's an explosion of splinters and she hears a body tumbling down the steps. She lets out a breath, halfway between a whimper and a snort. Her fingers are tingling, her heart pounding. She walks to the door, weapon raised, looks down. There's a dead body down there, and she doesn't see the other one, the live one, the one that's hiding under his companion's corpse. She turns to Vaas, smiling.

"Got one." She tells him. She doesn't react straight away, doesn't register the hurried footsteps. It's too late when she does.

Alice flinches away but does not have time to dodge the powerful punch thrown at her from behind. She ducks, gets hit and stumbles to the floor. She crawls away, blinking away the stars to find the shotgun that's escaped her. Her assailant reaches her as she reaches the weapon, kicks it out of her hands, hits her again, grabs her hair and hits her head against the floor. Alice stops moving, stops fighting. Maybe it's a survival thing, she plays dead.

The strikes subside and her attacker takes a look around, turns to her shotgun,a few feet away. That's what Alice is waiting for. She rises suddenly, punches him in the groin, starts hitting his face repeatedly, as hard as she can, but she isn't strong enough and he grabs her face, crushing it, pushes her to the floor. He sits on top of her, joins his fingers around her throat, presses. Alice's eyes fill up with burning tears as she thrashes wildly, unable to topple him off, scratching at his tattooed arms and face, slowly realising that she is being murdered.

There's a movement above the Rakyat's head, and his hold abruptly weakens and leaves as he reaches up to his own throat, his face a mask of comical surprise. Blood starts pouring out and Alice sees the pink pencil buried in the warrior's throat. Vaas collapses again, with a pained grunt, and reaches for the shotgun. He rolls it over to Alice and she picks it up, only to have it slapped out of her grasp again by the Rakyat. He's still fighting. Blood pouring, he's still fighting. He goes after the gun, and Vaas grabs his legs, collapsing him to the ground. Alice crawls to the weapon, feels teeth digging into her thigh. She yells in pain, surprise and anger, and turns to arm the weapon. She's close, but Vaas is on top of the warrior and they are wrestling, she isn't sure she won't kill them both. She kicks the Rakyat's face.

She gets up to her knees, suddenly calm, relaxed, terrified, excited. The weight of Vaas' body, coupled with the pain the Rakyat is currently in, pin their enemy to the ground, and Alice kneels above him, as if she is about to sit on his face, and places the canon directly onto the Rakyat's head. She fires.

Red and pink bursts before Alice's eyes and settles on her face, her hair, her arms, her crotch, everywhere.

Vaas rolls off of their common victim, utterly spent. Alice drops the gun. Wipes her face. Takes her top off, wipes her face and arms,drops it onto the steaming red hole where there used to be a head. She turns to Vaas and pulls him carefully away from the bloody corpse. She gets the mattress flat on the ground, helps Vaas get on top of it. She takes a quick look at his wound. It has not reopened. He's ok. She makes to move away but he grabs her arm, his hold amazingly strong despite the state he is in. He whispers something, staring into her eyes.

"Pardon?" She asks, wiping some blood of her nose.

He pulls her to him, until her ear is directly against his mouth and she can feel his hot breath filling her. She tries to be aroused.

He whispers again, this time she gets it, it's something along the lines of "...win you back."

"You're welcome to try." She tells him, pulling away. "But you might not want to."

His response is to kiss her hand, desperately, and she has to push him away to get him off of her.

She's so calm.

Is that normal?

It can't be right. She's so calm.

Is it shock? Do you call this shock?

She picks up the shotgun and walks downstairs, not bothering to be quiet.

She's really calm, there's nothing left to worry about. She's done.

Carlos is sitting against the wall, eyes open, and there's a little red hole right between his eyes.

She walks past him. Alec is on the floor, so is a Rakyat, a machete buried in his back. That's two upstairs, one down here. Three dead, two left. Alice feels the doctor's pulse. It's still there, he's only passed out.

She reloads the shotgun.

They could be anywhere. They're coming for her.

Alice is so, so calm.

She begins screaming.

"Heeeelp! Help, please! Oh my god!"

She stumbles to the door, one hand holding the shotgun flat against the wall as she stands in the doorframe.

"Heeeeelp!" She screams, starts crying. "Please somebody, help me!"

There's movement to her left. A Rakyat appears, followed by another.

"Please help me, they're all dead, oh my god sir please!"

"Who are you?"

They're careful, weapons raised at her.

"I'm Alice, please, oh god, the p-pirates are dead, help me please, there's so much b-blood..."

She sees them see her half naked self, covered in blood, see the clean trails left by the tears running down her face. They lower their weapons. Alice raises hers.

BANG

One down.

"Wait, wait, please!"

BANG

And the other.

Alice walks to them. One has a big, important looking backpack. She opens it. It's full of petrol and matches. They were instructed to burn the house down. That's what needs to happen, then.

Alice, still calm, still master of herself, strides back into the house. She pours water onto Alec's face.

"Alec."

The doctor blinks, takes in her appearance.

"A-Alice!"

"I'm fine. The pirates are dead. Carlos is dead. Vaas is alive. Listen, Citra sent these guys to kill you and burn this house down. I don't know why. It doesn't make sense,because she's helping Jason Brody, and you're helping Jason's friends. She's taken Jason's friends. This is what we need to do. We need her to think it happened. We need Jason to think it happened. We need Jason to hate her and we need Jason to make sure she never sends anyone here again."

"Alice, love, what happened to you?"

"Alec, focus! Listen! Next time Jason Brody comes here, you are going to speak to him, do you understand me? He's going to find the house burning, and he's going to find you still alive. You killed the two Rakyats outside in self defence. Vaas isn't here, he's dead, I'm not here, I was killed by Carlos when Vaas died."

She doesn't like the way he's looking at her. Like he doesn't like her anymore. Like he... Respects her.

"You will help me get Vaas out of here, we'll hide in the greenhouse. We need to start burning the house. Jason will come, and you need to tell him everything. How the Rakyats came to take his friends to Citra's temple. How they'd been instructed to kill you. I am dead, Vaas is dead, all pirates are dead. Citra turned on him. Ok? We'll save the house once Jason has seen it burn."

He nods.

"You have gone mad." He murmurs, and it's not an insult. He's just stating a fact.

"We're all mad here. I was always mad, otherwise I wouldn't have come here."

Alice goes upstairs and searches through the drawers to find a new top.

"Nena"

She freezes.

"Nena"

Now decent again, Alice goes to Vaas' side.

"What?" She's not forgotten her anger. Despite everything, she's not forgotten her anger. She'd still be normal if it wasn't for him. She's also quite fond of this new coldness governing her, it's stopping any form of guilt from getting through.

"Baby," he tries to sit up, fails. "Baby, I'm gonna win you back."

"Yeah you said that."

"I will. Or I'll die trying."

"Promises, promises." She leaves, evading his searching hand.

She finds Alec again, he stands as she approaches.

"Ready?"

He nods.

"Then let's get burning."