"If you're gonna shoot me just get it over and done with." Hannah snapped after about half an hour in which nothing really happened.

Jake and Tessa had spoken in low voices to each other, glancing over to the couple who were sitting anxiously on the edge of the bed. They had nodded and shaken their heads, flicked their weapons in the officers' direction and argued. Apparently they couldn't decide how to proceed from there.

At Hannah's words, all three other occupants of the room turned and stared at her. Jake and Tessa glared, apparently irritated by her impatience. Jo frowned, squeezing their entwined fingers and sending her a calming look.

"Seriously, just do it if you've got the balls." The red-head demanded. She stood up, Jo clinging onto her hand as she took a couple of steps towards their captors. "What's the point in sitting around here waiting? The longer you wait the more I'm convinced you're all talk and no action. Just do it."

"Why are you goading them?" Jo hissed, yanking their conjoined hands and bringing Hannah back to sit beside her on the bed.

"Because nothing's happening!"

"We're still alive, that's always a bonus!"

Hannah shook her head. "What are they waiting for? They were so clear about what was going to happen and then… nothing. They've lost their bottle."

"Maybe, but making them angry is just going to provoke a reaction."

"So what? We just sit here and wait it out?"

Jo smiled wryly. "Exactly."

"Babe… you are not the kind of woman who sits and waits for something to happen." Hannah told her, arching an eyebrow.

"I am when your life is in danger."

"Isn't this touching?" Jake interrupted, his voice and expression making Hannah's jaw clench. "You really think we won't go through with this, don't you?"

"Yeah, actually, I do." Hannah agreed standing up again and invading his personal space. "You haven't got the balls to kill us. You didn't last time and you don't this time." When he flinched at her words, she smirked and took a step forward. "What? No comeback, Jake? You're pathetic, you know that? I don't know what I ever saw in you."

There was a click as Jake cocked his pistol, a vain popping in his forehead as his anger reached boiling point. He shoved her violently with his non-gun-wielding hand and Hannah stumbled backwards a couple of steps, before pushing back and glaring ferociously at him. She got in his face, her anger overtaking her fear.

"What? Don't like the truth?"

"I swear to god if you don't shut your mouth–"

"You're still talking!" She laughed. "You're still talking and making threats but you haven't done a single fucking thing!"

Jake raised the gun, pressing the barrel into her forehead hard. Hannah lifted her chin, staring him out. Her eyes narrowed, a steely glint in them as she refused to break eye contact with him. She'd had enough of being chased and threatened and attacked. She was tired of her family constantly being scared that something would happen to her or Jo. She was sick of the job she loved putting the people she loved in danger. More than anything, though, she needed to show the man in front of her that he couldn't control her anymore.

Time seemed to stand still. Jo's fearful eyes were glued to Jake's finger on the trigger of the pistol, willing him to back down and lower the firearm from her girlfriend's head. She could almost taste the tension in the room. Any sudden movement could spell the end of Hannah's life and Jo was terrified.

Hannah smirked and Jo saw Jake's finger twitch, squeezing the trigger. She screamed and dragged her girlfriend backwards into her. They collapsed in a heap on the bed as a loud bang filled their ears. Glancing up, the brunette saw the bullet embedded in the wall behind them, letting out a stuttered sigh of relief that Hannah hadn't been hit.

Blinking in slight confusion, Hannah looked down at the woman below her, as though she couldn't believe that Jake had actually pulled the trigger and tried to shoot her. Jo shifted and sat up, keeping a firm grip on her girlfriend. The red-head didn't seem to be in any rush to move, however, looking shakily at the man standing over them.

"You didn't think I'd do it?" He snarled. "You're just lucky your whore has quick reflexes."

"She's not–" Hannah started to defend Jo, but the brunette cut across her.

"What do you want?"

"Apart from seeing you both dead? Nothing."

"There must be something else."

"No."

Jo turned her attention to Tessa, who was looking a little pale. "Tess… what about you? Why are you doing this?"

"Because you broke my heart!" The woman exploded emotionally. "You left me for a job, Jo! You abandoned me. I wanted marriage, kids… the whole lot. But you ruined my life."

"I'm sorry." Jo told her genuinely. "I broke my own heart as well when I walked out. That was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. But I had to, Tess, I had to go."

"Why?"

"Because if I hadn't I would have destroyed us anyway. I would have always wondered what would have happened if I'd gone. I'd have blamed you and you'd have blamed me."

"You could have come back…" Tessa told her quietly, looking at her former girlfriend with tears in her eyes. "After Nottingham, you could have come back."

Letting go of Hannah's hand, Jo stood up. She kept her gaze focused on Tessa as she took a couple of steps towards her. She expected Jake to stop her, but he didn't. Everyone seemed taken aback by this new, calm change of direction. Hannah reached out for her girlfriend, but Jo ignored her, continuing towards Tessa.

"I wanted to." She laughed sadly. "You have no idea how much I wanted to. But I didn't think I'd be welcome. We said too much… I thought you'd laugh in my face if I told you I still loved you… still wanted you."

"You…" Tessa gulped. "You still loved me? Do you… do you…?"

"Still love you? I think I always will, Tess." Jo told her softly, reaching out and taking her hand.

Hannah felt as though Jo's words were a knife, slicing through her flesh and piercing her heart. It was agony hearing the woman she was in love with telling someone else she loved them. Her breathing became shallow and laboured as she stared at the scene unfolding in front of her like a nightmare. She couldn't do anything to stop it and neither could she seem to look away.

Instead she clung to the tiny flicker of something inside her that told her to trust Jo. As she focused on that, she felt better. Jo loved her. She loved Jo. That was all they needed and she couldn't lose sight of that; especially now. She needed the strength that she drew from their love to get through this.

"What about…?" Tessa glanced over Jo's shoulder at the pale red-head who was watching them with a frightened look in her eyes. Jo barely spared her a glance as she turned her head and followed the other woman's gaze.

"Hannah and I wouldn't be together now if I'd had the courage to come and see you." She shook her head. "I wouldn't have looked twice at her if we'd been together. I thought I'd lost you, babe."

Tessa lifted her hand and rested it on Jo's cheek. Hannah had an incredibly strong urge to leap across the room and rip the woman's arm out of its socket, but she refrained. She hoped beyond hope that Jo was playing her, but it still hurt so much she could barely think.

"I'm right here."

Jo glanced over her shoulder, meeting Hannah's eyes. Then she looked back at Tessa. "There's so much going on here, Tess. I might still love you, but I care about Hannah. I don't want her to get hurt. We have things to talk about, you and me… lots of things. But…"

"Jake?" Tessa looked at him.

The man frowned, shaking his head. "She's messing with you, idiot! She's telling you what you want to hear to save their skins. She doesn't love you. She just doesn't want to die!"

Keeping her cool, Jo looked at her ex-girlfriend. "Do you want me?" Tessa chewed the inside of her cheek, neither confirming nor denying whether she did or not. Jo smiled at her and raised her hands. She slid her engagement ring off and looked at it for a moment. Then she held it out to the woman in front of her. "Your choice. Does this come off or stay on?"

Hannah gasped, clawing at her chest desperately, as though she could rip her heart out and stop the pain that was ripping through every single part of her. Even Jake looked taken aback at the bold move.

With a shaking hand, Tessa reached out and took the ring from Jo. She stared at it for a minute, before putting it on the chest of drawers beside her and pulling the brunette to her. She kissed Jo passionately, her hands finding their way to the small of the taller woman's back and pulling her closer.

"Come on." Jo said quietly, nodding her head to the en-suit bathroom. "We need to talk things through… privately."

Tessa nodded and smiled, pulling Jo into the small room by the hand and closing the door firmly behind them. Hannah stared at the wooden barricade between herself and the woman she loved, unable to believe what had just happened. There was quiet, only broken by the undistinguishable mumble of the two women in the bathroom, while Hannah and Jake tried to understand what had happened.

The man recovered first, turning to his former partner with a nasty smile. "Well, well, well… fancy that." He stalked towards her and crouched down so that his eyes were level with hers. "She has brilliant timing, I'll give her that. She dumped you just before I'm going to kill you." Hannah looked blankly up at him, numbness settling over her. Jake used the barrel of his gun to trace her jawline. "That's got to hurt, Han? Knowing that the person you offered your own life to save would just throw you aside like that. You're going to die alone. Just the way you deserve."

"Just do it." Hannah whispered, tears escaping from underneath her closed eyelids.

She pictured her children's faces in her mind, hoping that Jo would at least stick around for them. The red-head still couldn't resign herself to the idea that Jo had just abandoned her like that; it wasn't Jo's style. Jo loved her. She loved Jo. It had to be some big plan that the brunette had come up with on the spot to get them out of this mess.

"Why? To put you out of your misery?"

Hannah said nothing, focusing on Jo's face in her mind. If this was some big plan of the brunette's to save their lives then she really hoped she'd hurry up. If Jo left it much longer then Hannah wasn't going to need saving.

"No, I don't think so." Jake told her nastily. "I think I'll make you wait. You can sit there with your eyes closed waiting for death. Then, without warning… BANG!"

He shouted the last word in her ear, making Hannah jump about a foot in the air. He laughed and she shivered, wrapping her arms around herself. Chancing a look at him, Hannah met his eyes. The amusement in them died at once, replaced by a hard disgust. He raised the gun and his lip curled in distain.

"Or maybe I'll just get it over and done with."

Slowly, never losing eye contact with her, Jake cocked the pistol again. Hannah stared back as his finger moved over the trigger. At the last second, convinced that she was about to die, Hannah let her eyes slip shut.

"I don't think so."

Her eyes snapped open and she stared past Jake to where Jo was standing in the bathroom doorway, her raised arm aiming Tessa's gun at him. She narrowed her eyes at the man, who whirled around to face her, although he kept the firearm pointed at Hannah. As Jo's free hand reached out, feeling on the top of the chest of drawers for her engagement ring, she smiled at her girlfriend.

"You alright, babe?"

"Course." Hannah assured her, relief flooding through every fibre of her being.

Jo smiled again, before her face hardened and she scowled at Jake. "Drop the weapon, Webster."

"Why?" He laughed. "I shoot her, you shoot me… I don't care. Mission accomplished as far as I'm concerned."

Slowly Jo moved around the room, keeping the gun trained on Jake until she reached Hannah's side. She pushed her ring into her girlfriend's hand, before holding out her own so that Hannah could put it back where it was supposed to be. The red-head chuckled quietly, pushing the band back into position and tangling their fingers together.

"Did you doubt me?" Jo asked quietly.

"Not for a second."

"Liar." The brunette chuckled.

"OK, maybe a second." Her girlfriend conceded.

Jack looked between them in frustration. He stamped his foot like a petulant child. "Stop it!"

"No, you stop it, Webster." Jo snapped, her tone dropping in temperature. "Put the gun down."

Hannah read his mind, seeing what was coming a split second before it happened. Jake pulled the trigger. In slow motion, Hannah saw the bullet heading for them and pushed Jo out of harm's way, catching the older woman off guard. A searing pain tore through her stomach and she looked down, seeing crimson blossoming across her dress.

"NO!" Jo screamed.

There was another gunshot, but Hannah didn't know where it had come from or what had happened. She slumped slowly to her knees, her hands pressed against her wound, which was pumping blood thick and fast. Hannah knew that wasn't a good sign. She highly doubted whether the numbness that was setting in or the icy cold that was spreading through her body were good signs either.

She used the last ounce of her strength to look at Jo. She didn't seem to be hurt, which Hannah was relieved about. The brunette crawled towards her on her knees, tears falling down her cheeks and dropping onto Hannah's face. Coaxing her reluctant lips into a smile, Hannah met Jo's eyes.

"Take c-care of the k-kids." She whispered, swallowing painfully. "T-Tell them I l-love them."

"No. No! You can tell them yourself." Jo told her forcefully.

"S-Stop being stubborn." Hannah ordered weakly. "I love y-you."

"Han… please don't do this." Jo sobbed, bending over her girlfriend desperately. "Please don't leave me. I love you. Please…"

The fringes of Hannah's vision were darkening. Someone was cradling her head, a hand pressing over hers on her stomach, frantic shouting and banging and then… nothing.

A/N: There! That's the end!

But even I'm not cruel enough to just leave it there! There is a short epilogue which should be up later or tomorrow, but then it will be the end!

I am planning on uploading the series of multi-part-one-shots (I don't know what else to call them) at some point, though, so watch this space!