Well, after more than a year of working on this story, here it is: The FINAL chapter! Hope you enjoy, and thanks for reading!

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Chapter 35

Renee wearily ran a hand over her face and glanced at her watch. It was nearly one o'clock in the morning, but the house was still filled with police officers, FBI, and CTU agents.

Forensics agents swarmed through the first floor of the house, taking photographs, cleaning up blood splatters, collecting shards of glass, fabric fibers, and spent shell casings, and leaving yellow evidence tags in their wake. The bodies of the three deceased terrorists had been carefully photographed, tagged, and finally zipped into black body bags and taken away.

With the help of Assef's now-decrypted detailed list of names and photos, law enforcement and federal agents had swept through fourteen cities across the nation in a late-night raid, taking terrorists-in-waiting into custody one by one.

Renee glanced into the kitchen, where Nadirah sat numbly with her hands folded on the table in front of her. "Kayf haalek?" Renee asked gently in Arabic. "How are you doing?"

Nadirah shrugged. "I don't know," she answered dully in English. Her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen from her tears, and glazed over with grief, shock, and sheer exhaustion. "I've told them all that I know," she said, indicating the FBI CIRG agent who was paging through a notebook. "But what do I tell my son? How do I tell him this?" Her voice trembled. "My husband is dead. Adam and I can't stay in this house. Where do we go? What do we do?"

"For the time being, you'll be taken to one of our safe houses while the initial debriefs and investigations are finished," Renee told her.

For the rest of Nadirah's questions, she had no answers.

"Adam is asleep upstairs, isn't he? For now, why don't you go lie down with him and at least try to get some sleep."

Nadirah nodded. "All right." She met Renee's gaze. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Renee replied quietly.

She walked into the family room and sank down onto the couch.

The breath caught in her throat and a stifled gasp escaped her lips as sharp pain flared in her chest. She grimaced, imagining the bruises that lay beneath her shirt and Kevlar vest.

"How are those ribs feeling?" William asked, raising an eyebrow. He held up a syringe from the medical bag. "Why don't I give you something for the pain? Not to knock you out, just to take the edge off for a while until you get to Medical."

Renee sighed. "I would really appreciate that." She rolled up her sleeve and held out her right arm. William uncapped the syringe, located a vein in her forearm, and swabbed the spot with alcohol. Renee flinched slightly as she felt the sharp prick of the needle, followed by a brief stinging sensation as the medication entered her bloodstream.

"There. Now your ribs will stop screaming at you." William smiled slightly.

"Perfect. Thank you."

William nodded as he walked away, already intent on his next mission.

Renee pushed off the back of the couch and sat fully upright as Quinn approached with PDA in hand. "What've you got?"

The exhaustion showed plainly on his face. "We found an envelope that held keys to a self-storage unit. LAPD sent a team of officers to check it out. Here's what they found."

Renee took the small device from him and scrolled through the emailed images on the screen. "Good Lord," she said in horror. "It's an armory. Handguns, rifles, plastic explosives; you name it and I think it's somewhere in there. Looks like this is what happened to some of the missing ordnance from Al-Bayji."

Quinn nodded grimly. "The boxes looked innocuous enough until they were opened. Definitely not typical contents of a self-storage unit. Take a look at this crate," he added. "Look familiar?" The crate contained wrapped blocks of military-grade plastic explosives, rolls of thick tape, and carefully sorted bags of screws, nails, ball bearings, and the all-too-familiar large blue marbles. "Handmade bomb in a box." Quinn grimaced. "LAPD and the FBI seized it all, and EOD teams are checking it out."

Renee shook her head. "Have DOD and Homeland Security been briefed on all this?"

Quinn nodded. "Yes, they have. And they're drafting revised security protocols, just in case."

"Good." Renee sighed. "This isn't over yet."

-o-o-o-o-

Jack appeared from somewhere and fell into step next to Renee as she made her way towards the kitchen. "Hey," he said quietly.

She smiled slightly. "Hi."

"How are you holding up?"

She shrugged. "Exhausted and sore, but fine. William gave me a shot for the pain."

"I almost lost you like this once already," he said quietly, motioning towards the hand that she was unconsciously cupping over the sore and bruised area on her side. "I don't want to lose you again."

Cupping her chin in his hands, he brushed a stray strand of hair out of her face with his thumb, and then drew her towards him and kissed her gently.

"You won't," Renee whispered as she leaned into his embrace and returned the kiss.

He kissed her a second time. "Good."

As they pulled apart, Jack wearily ran a hand over his face. "For tonight, our work here is done. Why don't we go get a few hours of sleep before we have to be back at CTU for debriefs tomorrow morning? Make that later this morning," he added, glancing at the clock.

Renee nodded. "Sounds good to me."

Jack hesitated, then glanced sideways at her with a smile. "After this is all over, would you like to go out to dinner with me? There's a nice Italian place fairly close to my apartment. Maybe we could go see a movie, too."

Renee laughed out loud. "After all we've been through lately? A school shooting, a hostage situation, suicide bombers, radical terrorist sleeper cells, and a gunshot to the chest? I don't think dinner and a movie will cover that, Jack."

She grinned as he chuckled. "Yes, I'll go with you. I'd love to."

Jack smiled as he pulled her against him again and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. "Later. For now, let's go home and get some sleep."

-End-

(This is the official end of the story, but there is still another chapter after this one. Chapter 36 is an Author's Note with some more information on the details of this story plot, how I came up with the ideas, and some of the real-world events behind my fictional plot.)