A/N: Wheee, this chapter of Bejerot took place on my 21st birthday XB. Also, a scene from the last part of the chapter is illustrated and can be found on my devART -- my username there is simplytonks.

---

At first, all of Lisa's unbalance made Jackson laugh uncontrollably, but after she almost fell down the stairs and dislocated her shoulder when he caught her, he quickly became almost eerily clingy. When she'd go into town to pick up groceries at PriceChopper, he'd hold the keys from her so she'd be forced to take him with her and as she shopped, he'd stay close enough that she could feel his body heat. At night, when she'd leave to take a little walk around the Bennington Battle Monument down the street, he would catch up with her before she was even two houses away no matter how quietly she left. Whenever she had a few moments away from him, even if it was just when he'd leave her at the café at the centre of town to go into Chittenden Bank across the street, she would take a cathartic sigh and relax. He had her more wound up than the prospect of being kidnapped by Islamic militants.

In addition to the near-stalking her husband was imposing upon her, Lisa worried about his sanity. She hadn't noticed it before, but he had a very addictive personality. Although it had only manifest itself in the cleanliness of their condo before, now it was applying to everything. They kept a strict schedule, he had a certain way he wanted everything laid out including everything in the cupboards, and there wasn't a particle of dust anywhere in the entire house. More negatively, his obsession was starting to spread to vices. He'd drink heavily in the Dog's Breath Bar when she was waiting for him in the café, believing he was at the bank. They were spending more and more time with graduate student friends at Bennington but never together: whilst she sat out on the couches watching Family Guy with her friend Antonia, he'd be behind a towelled door smoking high-quality hashish with the house chair and her friends. She guiltily enjoyed the time after his cannabis meetings; he became incredibly affectionate with her, and many times they had incredible make-out sessions on the couch that made everything feel worth it.

On the last night of April, the couple walked along Monument Avenue, both clad in heavy coats and boots to block the oddly late cold weather. There had been nearly a foot of snow in the last week, which was wonderful for Mount Snow but miserable for the citizens of Bennington who were all ready for spring. A lot of the chimneys along their street were smoking, and as they reached the overlook, they could see a bonfire burning at the End of the World on the Bennington College campus. The next day was May Day, and there were flyers all around town posted by the college about the big parties the students were planning. Lisa smiled, thinking back to her college days, and then stepped up on the stony wall at the edge of the overlook.

Jackson put out a hand and she took it, holding out her arms to keep herself balanced. The icy snow crunched under her feet.

'Jackson.'

He looked up at her. 'Hm?'

'What are we going to do after the baby's born? We can't stay hiding forever.'

She turned and he took both of her hands, stepping back so she could jump down in front of him. 'I'm counting on interest petering out.'

'Does that happen with terrorist organisations?'

He shrugged a little as she walked away from him. She crossed the street and stood under the statue at the base of the battle monument, looking up at the bronze man and the slightly cloudy beyond. He stayed where he was as she walked along in a circle, her hands shoved in her pockets, holding the fabric tightly against her stomach. Jackson couldn't help but smile as his eyes traced the wide arc, but the smile quickly faded when she dropped to the ground. After running across the street, he caught his foot on the curb and fell, getting a face full of snow, but made it to his knees and crawled over to her. Lisa just gave him an odd glance before looking back up at the sky.

She sighed, releasing a puff of white into the air. 'Do you sometimes feel like we did everything too quickly?'

Jackson was still poised next to her, wrist-deep in snow, his breath coming in short puffs and a look of panic and anger apparent on his face. 'What?'

Her face turned to look at him again. 'At this time last year, I had just been promoted to head manager of the Lux Atlantic, I lived in an apartment alone with my cat in Miami, and I went out for a drink every now and then, but mostly just had a laid-back existence. Now I'm on the run from terrorists, pregnant and married.'

He laughed a little, relaxing onto his elbow. 'This time last year, I was planning the assassination of Ihab al-Sherif. Now I'm playing husband in Vermont.'

'We've known each other for less than a year,' she said, slightly exasperated. 'What has it been, eight months?'

'I've known you for almost ten,' he said snarkily. 'Having second doubts? You're about seven months late for that.'

In the clear light of the moon, he could see her brow knit before she looked into his icy eyes. They stared at each other for a few minutes before Jackson finally laid on his back next to her, taking her left hand into his right. There was something different in their touch, something that neither of them could understand. Lisa felt a fleeting terror in the pit of her stomach, but she brushed it off as the baby kicking, pressing a hand to her stomach. The baby was apparently very unhappy about being woken up by his mother's drop to the ground and was not about to stop kicking until getting his point across.

She hummed lightly, which made Jackson turn his head and watch her. Her hand ran up and down as she closed her eyes, her hand relaxing in his as she tried to calm the child in her womb. Rolling onto his side, bending their arms up so that their hands touched her shoulder, he laid his left hand next to hers and laid his head on her chest, listening to her heartbeat. Her fingers laced into his and she released the hand by her shoulder, choosing to rub his back instead.

Pressing his lips to the top of her stomach, he sang breathily along to her humming and she was surprised at the purity of his voice. Together, their hands moved over their fitful baby, and his kicks slowed. Once he appeared to be at the end of his fit, Jackson stopped singing, Lisa stopped humming, and the night became silent once more.

'I wish it could stay this way.'

Lisa was surprised at her husband's statement and just rubbed his back harder, slightly upset at the finality of the sentence. 'What do you know that you're not telling me?'

She felt him swallow before he held her hand tighter. 'They found and killed Dr Millwood in New York City and discovered an encoded note on her. They don't know what it means, and they called in our contact in Albany, Melissa Bayley, to be part of the decoding group.'

'How long do we have?'

'I don't know,' he answered softly, pressing his cold nose into her coat. 'She got me a few pictures of the document, but I haven't been able to figure out anything else but the fact that the geographic co-ordinates for Bennington were hidden in it.'

Lisa tried to sit up, but Jackson held her down. 'We have to get out of here then!'

He shook his head. 'I'm not taking you anywhere else. It's too stressful. We'll stay here in Bennington, and if something happens, I'll protect you, I promise.'

'Sometimes that's not enough,' Lisa pleaded. 'You're strong and smart, but you can't do everything alone.'

He sat up and glared down at her as light snow began falling around them. 'I will protect you, Leese.'

Neither was conscious of the fact that Musab Reza was watching them from their now-murdered neighbour's house.

---

The next morning, there was a general celebratory feeling in the city of Bennington. Everyone was out and about despite the extra three inches of snow that fell the night before. The city seemed to be begging spring to make an appearance, flowers strewn over the sparkling snow like bouquets on a widower's grave. In downtown, each lamppost had a bundle of flowers tied to it in twine, and there were little groups of young girls going from door to door to the downtown shops, especially the chocolate shop and the general store, to get little gifts in exchange for songs. They dressed in their winter jackets and snow boots, but they had garlands of flowers hanging over the cold-weather clothing. The women at the Naked Sheep were teaching people how to make crocheted flowers, the bookstore had half-price books about gardening, and the Dog's Breath Bar had been open since sunrise with Happy Hour prices.

On the Bennington campus, a pig had been roasting at the spit since dawn. There was an exquisite May Pole in the centre of the Commons Lawn, and there were groups of students dancing around it dressed in flowing clothes and bare feet, obviously uncaring about the iciness of the day. A tent was set up on the corner of the lawn for the over-21s to buy beer on keg, and a large number of under-21s were watching them, obviously amused that the college thought this would stop them all from partaking. Dining services had set up a hot line for everyone who was coming on campus, but most people were just standing next to the charcoal grill to get warm.

Jackson and Lisa had spent the entire morning lazing around the Bennington College campus doing their normal things, and by mid-day, they were sitting with the rest of the city watching the crowning of the May Queen. Jackson paid no attention to the stage, rather choosing to nuzzle and kiss his wife mellowly. On the other side of Lisa, their older neighbour from across the street smiled at them and then looked up at Lisa.

'Jane dear, did you notice other Jane at all this morning?'

Lisa turned from Jackson, eliciting a disappointed grunt from him. 'Hm?'

'Well, Jane usually walks Maggie in the morning at the same time that I walk Brady, but she wasn't out this morning,' the woman said with a worried expression apparent on her face.

'Henry,' Lisa asked, shaking Jackson when he didn't respond. He looked at her. 'Did you see our next-door neighbour this morning?'

He shook his head. 'No... she... her newspaper... it was still in the... uh... driveway. When we left. You know, this morning.'

She pressed his head down to her breast and took off his glasses, hooking them onto her coat as he dropped his head to her lap. 'Maybe she's sick, Mrs Neil.'

'I thought that, so I went and rang the doorbell. No one answered, and Maggie didn't bark at the ring. She always barks at the ring. There was someone moving inside though.'

'Well...' Lisa breathed, running her fingers through Jackson's hair. 'Have you called the police?'

'Oh Heavens no,' Mrs Neil said, shaking her hand at Lisa. 'They're too busy with the festival to be looking into an old woman's paranoia. I just wanted to make sure that no one else had seen her so I can yell at her about making me walk Brady alone in the cold.'

Lisa smiled and Mrs Neil went back to watching the stage. She looked down at her husband, who was now staring intently slightly to the side of the stage, and then carefully glanced at their house and jumped when there was movement in an upper window of Jane's house. Jackson made another unhappy noise, but she made him stand and they walked back to their house arm-in-arm. She was relieved to noticed that he was coming down from his high because of how he carried himself but became terrified when he tensed up and looked into Jane's house.

'Lisa, go home, now.'

'I'm not leaving you. What if someone's waiting in our house?'

He grumbled. 'Stay behind me.'

They walked up the stairs to the porch and crossed carefully to the door. Jackson reached hesitantly out to knock on the door, and when he did, it creaked open slowly. Opening the door all the way, he was almost knocked down by the combined odours of blood, death and heat. Lisa pressed her nose into his coat and he could hear her taking deep breaths of his cologne as they stepped forward into the house. Looking from side to side, he guided her to the foyer, an arm stretched out behind him to keep contact with her side.

'Oh shit,' he murmured.

Lisa brought her head over Jackson's shoulder, and he tried to stop her, but it was too late. She dropped to her knees and immediately started throwing up, her entire body shaking with sobs and retching. He dropped beside her and rubbed her back as he surveyed the scene with the detachment that he still possessed from his prior line of work.

The two of them had only been in Jane Edwards' house a couple of times, but Jackson basically knew the layout of the entire house. Come in the front door and there's a dining room to one side and a parlour to the other. Step through the front area, through an arch, and there's a squarish foyer with stairs lining the outside walls. Hanging from the ceiling is an exquisite chandelier that has crystals that cast rainbows all over the walls when the light from the front windows hit it just right. Today, however, when the light came through the crystals, it either didn't send out a reflection at all or a reddish one, because Jane had obviously put up a fight that sent her blood flying all over her chandelier before she was finished off.

Jackson could tell that she'd been badly injured before the assailant had hung her from the light piece. An arm hung at an odd angle to her body, handfuls of hair were missing from her scalp, and she had bruising and cuts all over her. From the look on her face, she'd also been conscious for at least a little while as the killer moved to the next part.

With her head loosely to one side and completely naked, coated in blood, Jane Edwards had been almost field-dressed. Cut from sternum to pubic bone, the skin had been roughly ripped open and her carefully excised intestines fell from the cavity down past her pointed toes and pooled on the floor, flies buzzing around them. Jackson was about to leave his wife and walk over to the body when there was the sound of someone coming down the stairs. He roughly pulled her to her feet and wrapped his arms around her, listening to her halting breaths as she pressed her sweating forehead to his cheek. Groping for the gun he kept in his pocket as they backed up, Jackson watched the stairs and relaxed when Jane's old boxer, Maggie, came trotting down the stairs and immediately started growling at them, exposing her teeth as she frothed at the mouth.

'Hey, Maggie... it's okay. It's just us,' Lisa offered, squatting down and putting a hand out.

The dog made it down the final flight and looked warily at them until Jackson put both hands where the dog could see them. With a slight growl still issuing from her throat, she edged her way to Jackson and Lisa, sniffing them for a minute before putting her unclipped tail between her legs and curling into Lisa, drooling all over her. As Lisa scratched the dog's back, her head buried in her fur, Maggie whined and looked at her mistress. Jackson scratched the dog's head absently before taking out a kerchief and walking to the phone, picking it up with his covered hand and casually dialling 911. He had a short conversation with the dispatcher and within moments, there was the sound of a siren and a couple of on-foot patrolmen came in followed soon by the police in the squad car. Their reaction was about the same as Jackson's.

'Wow, shit,' said a young officer, his hand poised on his gun. Other officers murmured agreement.

'Mr and Mrs Cohen,' one of the officers said, gesturing to the outside. Lisa took Maggie's collar in her hand and led the dog outside with Jackson's hand protectively around her waist. 'How did you come across Ms Edwards body?'

'Mrs Neil from across the street mentioned that she hadn't seen Jane today,' Lisa said, rubbing Maggie's head. 'We were walking home and decided to check on her to make sure she wasn't sick.'

The officer looked at her nauseated face sympathetically. 'Will you be all right?'

Lisa nodded vaguely. 'I think so. I just need to lie down for awhile.'

'Why don't the two of you head home. If we need anything, we know where you live,' he said, taking Maggie's collar from Lisa. 'Don't skip town or anything!'

Jackson laughed lightly before shaking the man's hand and stepping off of the porch with his wife still firmly in his grip. He pressed his lips to her ear. 'We're getting out of here right now.'

---

Twenty minutes later, as an ambulance pulled up to take Jane Edwards' body to the morgue, Lisa and Jackson walked calmly out of the house, her carrying the basket she always took to the grocery store and he carrying a briefcase he always took to the bank. Jackson locked the door and put a note on it, glancing at the police chief and giving him a wave.

'Jane and I are running downtown for a little bit if you need us.'

The chief didn't reply but returned the wave, so they crossed the street and walked past the cemetery, bagel shop and Catholic church before coming into the centre of the downtown area. Jackson tried to pull Lisa across the street to go into the bank with him, but she gave him a look and took her arm back.

'I'm just going to stop by the café, okay?'

'Lisa...'

'If we're going on the lam again, I'd like to talk for just a little bit with my friends here. Everyone's out today, Jackson. You don't have to worry. See,' she said, pointing down towards the café. 'There are people walking all along the street here and the police department is right across the street. Nothing's going to happen. Just go in there, settle things up, and come get me. What's going to happen in five minutes?'

He gave her an uncomfortable look before noticing that the little red man for crossing the street was starting to blink. 'All right, five minutes.'

'Thanks,' she replied, giving him a kiss on the cheek. 'Everything's going to be all right.'

Jackson ran across the road to Chittenden Bank and disappeared into the building before Lisa moved. She walked past the bookstore, looking at the paperbacks that were on display on the racks on the sidewalk, and then went up to the café. When she opened the screen door and walked in, the door slammed very loudly, but no one looked up. On a couch just inside the door, a Bennington student that Lisa recognised as one of Jackson's smoking circle was sleeping, his arm thrown over his head. She almost went over to shake him awake, but she stopped a couple of steps away from him when Michelle, the cashier, stepped out from the back room.

'Jane, hello. How are you today?'

Lisa stepped away from the student, Will, and looked at the tables around the café. 'I'm doing fine, Michelle, just in to grab something for the road.'

'Oh, are you and Henry going away again?' the woman asked, holding handfuls of curtain around her.

Nodding, Lisa looked closely at the denizens of the café. An old man was bent over a manuscript, his face hidden by his hand. Ethan, one of the people who worked at the café, was obviously on break and had fallen asleep in a wooden chair in the back of the store; Lisa could see his legs sticking out. A woman across the room was leaning back with her eyes half open looking at a book propped up in her hands, and Lisa could see her friend Antonia at the farthest table with her head pressed against her girlfriend Daphne's—from the way they were sitting, it appeared that they were studying something.

'It's really quiet in here today, Michelle,' Lisa said and watched as Michelle's eyes flittered to behind the counter. Lisa froze and looked the woman in the eyes as she seemed to be pushed forward and moved behind the counter.

'What would you like?' Michelle asked, her voice suddenly hoarse and tears gathering at the edges of her eyes. 'The normal?'

'Are you okay?' Lisa asked, taking a hesitant step towards the counter. Michelle tensed and tears started pouring down her face as she screamed.

'Jane, get out of here! Hurry, run, find Henry and—'

Lisa gasped as there was a bang and a bullet erupted from Michelle's forehead. The blood splattered all over her and she watched helplessly as Michelle crumpled to the floor behind the counter. She backed up slowly as a man stood, his gun trained on Lisa, but she stopped when she ran into the table where the old man sat and he fell, exposing the fact that he'd been shot point blank in the forehead much like Michelle. Screaming, Lisa tripped and landed hard on her tailbone, hitting the floor next to the body and backing into another table in her flurry. She found herself looking at the woman with the book, who had been shot through the temple, her hair covering the entry and exit wounds. As the man came around the counter, Lisa used a chair to climb to her feet and ran over to Antonia and Daphne, shaking them. Daphne fell over onto the book in front of them, dead, but Antonia was still breathing slowly.

'Okay, Mrs Rippner. You decided to be difficult, and look what we had to do,' Reza said coldly, cocking his gun. 'Your neighbour, your friends, your fellow townspeople... would it not have been easier just to let us take you in Miami?'

Backing up more, she knocked into Ethan's legs and was startled to see that he no longer had a head. Bile burned her throat, but she put a hand over her mouth to stop herself from throwing up. Looking around the headless boy, she sleekly picked up a large mug and fork as she pretended to throw up into the dish collector.

'Look at you now. In Miami, you still had the ability to fight but now you are helpless without your beloved husband.'

For a second, Lisa thought there was a possibility that Reza had killed Jackson, but when she looked up in surprise, she could see that Jackson was crossing the street from Chittenden having obviously just closed their account and put the money in the briefcase he now held in his left hand. Turning her attention back to Reza, she let a couple of tears run down her face as she kept her hands weakly on the edge of the plastic container.

'We have been told to not kill you,' he said with distaste as he took another couple of steps close to her. 'But if you try something, I will not hesitate to wound you.'

She nodded as Jackson disappeared to the other corner, and she knew he'd be in the café in a matter of seconds. Once Reza lowered his gun and was about to grab her by the arm, however, she quickly pulled out the mug and slammed it over his head before taking the fork and driving it directly into his left eye. As he leaned screaming against the wall, she pushed past him and to the door that Jackson had just opened, running into his arms and he looked around coldly.

'Rooh!' Musab yelled, and a small group of men came through the curtain Michelle had appeared from.

Jackson immediately pulled out his gun and fired at them, hitting two in their chests before pushing Lisa out of the café and running after her. The first car waiting at the stop light he ran to, ripping the door open and pulling the driver out, taking her place as Lisa got in the passenger side, breathing heavily. Without waiting for the light to change, he slammed on the gas and turned right, speeding immediately towards the east. The driver yelled at him but was quickly shot in the head by one of the militants, which caused the streets to erupt into havoc.

Musab Reza stepped out after his little army, holding a dishtowel to the eye socket, now empty and bleeding after he ripped the fork and eyeball out. The two uninjured assassins waited for commands from their leader, and after collecting himself, Reza pointed them towards their car, and soon they were pursuing Lisa and Jackson.

For the first time ever, Jackson was honestly terrified. His eyes were wide as he thought through the different ways he could go, and when he came to the fork right outside of Bennington, he decided to head towards Wilmington. His breathing had slowed back to normal, but he could hear that Lisa's had become more jagged. When the road became slightly straight, he looked over at her and found her forehead was dripping with sweat and she was grabbing onto her stomach tightly.

'Leese...' he said, reaching out to press a hand just atop her belly button.

She screamed and sobbed, grabbing one of his hands tightly as they sped along the back roads of rural Vermont. 'Oh God, Jackson, it hurts so much!'

'Fuck,' he said, driving with his knees and he reached out to pull Lisa closer to him. She buried her face into his arm as he rubbed her stomach. 'Come on, Lisa, it's not time for this. You still have a couple of months, come on, breathe normally. This isn't real, you're just having a panic attack.'

He hoped he wasn't just lying to her when she bit into his arm, her entire body tensing as he felt the baby move under his touch. When she relaxed, she was shaking, and he wanted nothing more than to just pull the car over and hold her, but just as the thought entered his head, he saw another car in the rear-view mirror, a black Beemer. Pushing Lisa down so that her head was in his lap, he pressed the pedal all the way down to the floor and cursed himself for stealing such a shitty car.

'Leese, you need to calm down for me, okay?'

He could feel her tears rolling onto the fabric of his pants, but her breathing was becoming deeper and more rhythmic as she held tightly to her stomach, her eyes squeezed shut. She braced herself as he turned sharp corners, nearly falling off of the seat each time. Jackson's hand came down atop hers once more and he drove with one hand clutched to the wheel as he tried to help her calm down.

'Just let them take me,' she pleaded, grabbing onto his hand. 'We can't do this anymore. They're going to kill you if you don't give me up.'

'I'm not giving you to them,' Jackson said through clenched teeth. 'You are mine.'

'You have to let me go,' she said, still breathing heavily.

In response, he just tried to push the pedal harder, glancing in the rear-view mirror at the rapidly approaching BMW. The trees around them thinned as they came to lake on the right side of the road, and Jackson realised in horror that they might try to ram them into the water. The BMW came up close enough to tap the bumper a bit, so Jackson strained to get the Mitsubishi fast enough to at least get past the lake. As it thinned out to a river, Jackson considered his options.

'Dearest, can you sit and buckle up?' he asked in a shaky voice.

Startled by his use of a nickname, she strained to sit up and buckled in, still keeping careful track of her own breathing. As soon as she was buckled, Jackson took a sharp turn onto a dirt road created by road construction. The car complained loudly, but he was able to keep it under control, taking a deep breath as the BMW ran past the road, giving them a few extra seconds of lead. They bounced along, Lisa feeling decidedly nauseous and Jackson looking tense. He swerved off of the road and onto the snow beside it, cutting down a hill to get back onto the main road. Really and truly, he was starting to run out of ideas—if Lisa wasn't pregnant, he'd have had them bail out of the moving car long ago, but she was clumsy and slow now, and there was no way he could have them separate and meet up elsewhere because he felt the need to be with her and protect her.

They'd made it to the outskirts of Wilmington when there was suddenly enough traffic to hide in other cars. There were at least three cars between them and the militants, and as soon as possible, Jackson took a turn onto the road heading to West Dover. Not far outside of town, however, the BMW was back with them, and no one was going either direction because the ski areas had already closed for the day. The engine of the Mitsubishi was starting to overheat, and Jackson's blue eyes reflected on the red overheat light with great worry. When the engine finally locked, the BMW slammed into them easily, and all Jackson could do was swerve to avoid making the Mitsubishi overturn. They rolled backwards down a hill into a snowy field, and before the car even stopped, both he and Lisa were out and running towards the tree-line, he pulling Lisa to help stabilise and speed her up. Right before they reached the trees, however, a shot rang through the air and Lisa immediately became dead weight. He panicked and turned to find her curled on the ground, her leg bleeding.

'Leese,' he said, curling up beside her and checking her leg. The bullet had missed the bones but did a number on the calf muscle.

'Fucking hell,' she hissed, trying to grab at her leg, but stopped by her stomach.

As Reza and his men came across the field, Jackson crouched in front of his wife, trying to hide her behind him as he wrapped her leg in a strip of wool ripped from his coat. He felt for his gun before realising it must have slipped from his pocket when they crossed the field. They were completely defenceless and for the first time in his life, he felt helpless.

'Mr Rippner, please give us your wife,' Reza said as he got within hearing distance. His lackeys stood menacingly on either side of Lisa and Jackson.

Lisa looked up with half-closed eyes at Reza and his men, vaguely feeling as Jackson picked her up and locked his arms around her. 'You can't have her.'

Reza laughed. 'She is just a pawn, Mr Rippner. We need her.'

'If you take her, you're taking me too,' Jackson spat. 'She is seven months pregnant with my child and I'm not leaving her to you.'

Reza nodded towards one of the lackeys, and in an instant, a tire iron was brought down on Jackson's head and he went limp, falling in the snow. Lisa fell back against him and rolled to the side, drunk with anaemia. She whimpered a little at Jackson, slipping her hand into his and trying to squeeze it, but she dropped it when one of the men bent down and picked her up, carrying her away from Jackson and to the black car.

Reza looked down at Jackson, who had a trickle of blood running down his forehead. 'I'll take care of him.'

The other lackey nodded and followed his associate to the car. In the quiet late afternoon, two more shots cracked through the air followed by crunching footsteps and the sound of a car driving away.