Chapter 16

Jack looked at Samuel Radzinsky

"I never got a chance to make this clear. So I will now," Samuel Radzinsky said. "Your leadership skills on the island, truly terrible. I'm really amazed that you didn't kill off more people before we left. And it looks like they haven't improved much in the last couple of years. Here you are in the middle of a situation that could lead to the deaths of people you care about, and you're dead center in the middle of it."

"You don't want to do this," Jack said.

"I think we both know that I'll do whatever I have to."

"There are innocent people."

"That's another thing you never understood, Jack. There's no such thing as an innocent bystander. Anyone who stops you from achieving your goal is an obstacle and needs to be removed."

Jack didn't blink. "I guess you really did belong on the island if you've always thought that way. So I guess the question is why'd you come back? It's not as if anyone would've noticed if you'd been left behind."

"You never did believe in a higher purpose, did you?" Radzinsky seemed to have forgotten his surroundings. "Any time that idiot Locke started spouting out that there was a reason why things happened, you always looked like you wanted to punch him in the face. But in a sense that bald-headed moron was right. Sometimes you've got to be willing to let your wellbeing be sacrificed in the name of an important goal. I had to find that island. And since the Hostiles had gone out of their way to make sure that no one could find it after they stole it from us, I had to leave and tell my bosses where it was."

Jack wasn't sure what was making him angrier: Sam's utter dismissal of Locke's beliefs even though he seemed to agree with them or the way he seemed to nonchalantly refer to the island as something that could be 'taken' from anybody. "So that's why you're letting Widmore's people find the island?"

"I needed resources to get back to where I needed to. Why build a network when you can use an existing one?" Sam heaved a dismissive sigh. "Not that he's any better. Letting a moron like Ben Linus toss him aside? Leaving the island in the first place for the outside world? I suppose I owe you a debt of gratitude for getting the old man out of the way for me. Those people in his network were so desperate for leadership that they were willing to listen to anyone who wanted to help them find it. Even ally with someone who worked for Dharma."

Jack was reeling, mainly because he couldn't square this man whose name he'd never been able to keep straight. Scott Jenkins had always been able to fade into the background. It seemed impossible that Samuel Radzinsky's psyche could ever have allowed himself to be ignored.

"What's this all about, Samuel?" he found himself asking. "Why have you done all this? You found the island but you chose to leave again. What did Hanso's people promise you to make you return?"

"Those fools," Samuel said. "They have some foolish idea about the island being some kind of shrine, a holy place that needs to be protected from the world. They don't even seem to care about the potential that place has. But my father knew. He knew what possibilities that island had. And I'm going to realize his dream."

"Your father's work nearly destroyed the island."

Jack and Samuel had been so focused on each other that none of them had noticed Ben Linus wheel up to them.

"His obsessions led to an explosion that killed dozens of people and could have led to who knows how much destruction," Ben said calmly. "Clearly his obsessions have only been magnified by the next generation."

Radzinsky didn't turn his attention from Jack. "So it seems you've switched sides again, Linus. How utterly like you."

"At least my side believes in protecting the island. You don't even seem to have a side to belong to."

"You don't seem to be able to get much better help than before," Radzinsky said. "Your man Ethan couldn't even tell which man to kill. Then he falls for one of the dumbest traps imaginable. How much longer after that did they wait before they pushed you out?"

"Did you even look for your father when you were on the island?" Ben asked. "All this talk about carrying out your father's wishes and I never remember even seeing you go near the Swan the entire time you were there."

Neither Radzinsky's tone nor expression changed but Jack could pick up a shift in his body language. "Your people killed him when you took out the Initiative. What could I possibly get from looking at a corpse?"

"We didn't kill your father."

"All you do is lie, Benjamin."

"Usually, but this time I'm telling the truth. Your father spent the rest of his days in the station that he'd built. The last years of his life he spent drawing on a blast door wall nonsense in Latin for plans of revenge against his enemies, most of which he'd incurred of his own volition."

Jack knew exactly what Ben was doing – he'd seen him do it often enough on the island. Usually he'd done it to people who had more stability. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"You do remember the Pearl Station, Samuel? Half the reason it was established in the first place was to make sure your father didn't decide to go nuts and blow up the island out of pique." Ben told him. "On May 13, 1996 your father stuck a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. His partner in the station had only 108 minutes to take him outside, dig a grave and bury him. That is your father's legacy. His own mania made it impossible for him to have a marker for his final resting place."

Usually this kind of manipulation by Ben would have provoked an angry outburst. Radzinsky actually smiled. "You must really think I'm an idiot. You think I would be going through all of this because I care about my father?"

Ben's expression didn't change an iota but Jack knew the man well enough to see this unsettled him a little.

"My father didn't acknowledge my existence when I was alive. He treated my mother like he was a piece of property and had no use for her either. I didn't care about the man when he was alive. You really I give a damn that he took the coward's way out?"

Jack was beginning to get worried right about now.

"His mistake nearly destroyed the island," Ben began.

"No, his mistake was relying on the incompetence of the fools connected with Dharma to begin with," Radzinsky said. "Listening to their hippie-dippy bullshit about communing with nature and working in harmony with the good of mankind. He let them hold him back from realizing the potential of that place."

Ben had underestimated Samuel Radzinsky's obsession. He was clearly far crazier than his father had been.

"He wanted to tap into the energy of the island, but he had no idea what to do with it when he found it. But I know what that energy is capable of. And once I have access to it, the world will bow to me."

Ben finally spoke up. "Speaking as a man who suffered from his own delusions of grandeur over the decades, I can say this with certainty. You're a complete and utter fool."

"I'm a fool?" Radzinsky said. "How long were you on that island, Linus? All those years and all you wanted to do was run it."

"That island is special," A bit of Ben's old tone was appearing, but Radzinsky didn't even hear it.

"It's a resource, Benjamin! Like an oil well or a diamond mine. Only infinitely more valuable. The whole world is looking for an energy source. Something nearly infinite and utterly untapped. And no one knows where it is. "

Jack was beginning to agree fundamentally with Ben at this point. "Was Widmore ever this obsessed?" he asked Ben almost curiously.

"Even he never thought of using it to trade as a commodity," Ben told him.

"More fool him," Radzinsky said.

Jack looked at Ben. "I never thought I'd say this but clearly I was wrong. Your obsession with the island is not the craziest thing I've heard of. This beats it by a country mile."

"John would be horrified to hear this," Ben agreed.

"All of these manipulations – trying to recollect the Dharma Initiative, getting Widmore's people to back you, everything you're doing is just so you can be some Pacific Island version of J.R. Ewing?" Jack shook his head. "We dealt with some crazy people on the island, but at least it seemed to be for some higher purpose. You – you're barely a comic book villain."

"Call me whatever names you want to," Radzinsky now reached into his pocket. "But it's irrelevant. Because right now my people are all over this hospital."

"Considering how little value you seem to give them, 'your people' is a bit of a stretch," Ben said.

Radzinsky was now just pretending Ben didn't exist. "No one is going to get in or out of this hospital alive without my say-so. So stop pretending that you have any say in the matter. You're going to bring me the people I ask for."

"They're not here," Jack said.

"I know they're not in the hospital," Radzinsky began.

"They're not even in this state," Jack held up his hand. "That's the whole reason you put us through this exercise. You were going to hold our hospital hostage until you got the people you wanted. Well we had them taken to a place that I don't know about it. That nobody in this hospital knows about. You can kill everybody in this hospital should you so desire but it will accomplish nothing. You won't get what you came for. "

"You're lying," Radzinsky said in that same tone.

"I didn't before and I'm not going to start now," Jack said. "I don't know why you wanted my friends and it doesn't matter any more than the ridiculous reasons you want the island in the first place. They're not here and I can't tell you where they are."

"I know you, Jack," Radzinsky said. "You're a control freak. You could never let one minor detail be out of your hands. You wouldn't dare let something this big be out of them."

As a master of the art of lying Ben was impressed at just how well Jack was able to do it to Samuel's face. "I've evolved, Samuel. You do know what that term means, right? It means that I was willing to grow and change over the past three years. You clearly haven't. You're still as focused as you ever were on the same stupid goal."

Radzinsky actually looked doubtful for a moment. Jack pounced. "But sure, if you want, go ahead and torture me. Set whatever dogs you have lying around to do their worst. It's not like that there's a shortage of equipment in case, you know, they forgot their own. Take all the time you want."

That clearly got to Radzinsky for the first time. The fact that Jack knew about his timetable was clearly unsettling to him. "You think we won't find them?"

"It's a big planet, Samuel," Ben said. "Your people spent decades trying to find an island in the Pacific. I seriously doubt they can find four people on this planet in say, less than a week. Assuming you even have that long. How much time have your masters given for this little operation?"

A little bit of rancor appeared in Radzinsky's tone. "I don't need masters."

"Sam, you're speaking to a man who was barely able to inspire loyalty when he had far more going for him than you did," Ben said calmly. "And you're also speaking to one who was able to inspire great devotion when he had infinitely less going for him than you did. People aren't going to work with or for you willingly. That's why you went to Hanso in the first place."

"You may not believe in the island, but these people do. And they are going to be royally pissed when you can't deliver." Jack took over. "How much time did they give you here? A day? Less? What are they going to do when they know you can't give them what you came here for?"

Radzinsky's expression flickered briefly. "Even if you are telling the truth about the people I need, I know you Shephard. You trusted someone close to you with that information. And they may not be in Seattle. They may not be in this state. But someone will know where to reach them. So you are right about something. I may not inspire loyalty the way you do. But I do have something you don't."

For the first time Jack looked a little uncertain. "Which is?"

"A secondary protocol."

Ben tried to not to show it but that unsettled him. The last time he'd heard of a secondary protocol, it had been when Widmore had sent the freighter. And he was certain in that case, it had been to torch the island.

Radzinsky tapped his wrist. And both Jack and Ben had a horrible sense of déjà vu. Because nearly three years the two of them had been in this exact scenario and they were pretty sure of what was going to happen even before the elevator door opened.

The only real shock when it opened was who the man had his gun to the head of. It didn't come as a surprise that the man in question was Matthew Abaddon and it was only slightly a greater one who the doctor was.

"I do my homework, Jack," Radzinsky said in an all-too casual tone. "And if I recall correctly she has an eighteen-month year old at home. I understand it took a lot of work for her to conceive. It would be sad if the child were to lose its mother."

Addison Montgomery looked remarkably calm for a woman with a gun to her head and almost certainly no idea as to why. It didn't come as any less of a punch to the gut.

"Stop me if this sounds familiar," Radzinsky said. "You have one minute to give me the name of the person who knows where the people I want are. But unlike Ben's little charade, at the end of that time if you have not told me, Abaddon will pull the trigger. And I'm pretty sure not even the very best surgeons in this hospital will be able to fix her."

Terror should have been running through Jack's body. Because he had been in this exact scenario and his decision should have ended with Sayid, Bernard and Jin dead. Instead, he was calm.

For the first time in years he thought back to his first solo surgery and his cutting the Dural sac. But this time, he let the real scenario play out. This time, he heard his father not in the judgmental way he'd thought had always been but as the man Christian really was. The one who had wanted to call his son before he died to tell him how proud he was of him.

For the first time that he could ever remember, he tried to be his father. He looked at Addison. "Close your eyes, count to five, and I'll fix this," he said in a tone that nobody on the plane would have ever recognized.

Ben kept his poker face and Radzinsky continued to look like he had this situation under control. But Addison seemed to understand what Jack was saying, and did what he said.

"You were there when this happened," he said to Radzinsky calmly. "So you know that I had no idea that Ben was bluffing. I let him kill my friends. Do you remember what I did right after that?"

For the first time since he'd mentioned the secondary protocol, Radzinsky looked a little uncertain. Ben, however, clearly picked up on what Jack was implying.

"He beat me until his knuckles were bloody," Ben reminded him. "Then he got on my walkie-talkie and told Tom he was going to lead his people to the radio tower, make a call and get all of them off the island. And then he was going to kill Tom."

Jack nodded. "And it was only because Sawyer shot him that I didn't keep my promise," he said. "I never really thanked him for that."

Radzinsky looked a little nervous now. "You have thirty seconds."

"But I did everything else. We did get off the island. You should remember, you came with us," Jack said calmly. "So Samuel I have to ask you, if it worked out fine for me the last time I was threatened like this, what makes you certain it would work out any better when I have home field advantage?"

"You're not that kind of person," Radzinsky said, all his attention focused on Jack.

"No. But I still am."

Radzinsky didn't notice that Ben was standing until he drove his metal baton into his leg. Abaddon's attention was distracted for just a moment – long enough for Jack to pull his gun.

"One chance," Jack said calmly. "Let her go and walk away. "

"You're not a killer, Dr. Shephard," Abaddon said calmly.

"I euthanized a patient on my third day on the island," Jack reminded him. "It was the hardest thing I ever did. I'll probably sleep badly a couple of nights after I kill you. But I'm betting I have a better support system to get me through it. Besides, I'm not entirely thrilled at what you did to Stevens."

Radzinsky was on the floor now and Ben removed the gun he had been carrying but never had bothered to draw. "I suggest you do what he says, Mr. Abaddon," he said calmly. "I don't know what Radzinsky may have promised you, but it's something he was never in a position to deliver."

Radzinsky was clearly in pain, but he seemed utterly unwilling to realize that he had lost the upper hand. "Shoot her, Matthew," he snarled. "We have to prove that we're serious."

Abaddon thought for a moment. "You're right about that," he said slowly.

Then he released Addison.

And shot Radzinsky in the chest.

The look of surprise on his face as he died was almost comical. Jack was pretty certain there was a similar one on his own.

THIRD FLOOR

Meredith Grey had not been happy at all to let Ben Linus wheel around the floor where she'd been told by Alex that Jack had ended up a few minutes earlier. But both Stevens and Karev were convinced that both he and Jack could handle themselves.

Just then Addison ran up to them looking absolutely terrified – it was an expression that none of them had ever seen on the usually composed surgeon before.

"Grey?" she managed to pant out before she did something even more unlike and threw herself into Meredith's arms. She then spent the next several seconds shivering and trying to speak when all of them heard a sound that every medical professional never wanted to hear.

Addison regained control. "What the hell's going on?" she managed to gasp out.

"The shit officially hit the fan," Karev said.

Stevens looked at Meredith. "Get her out of here and find Dr. Carlson."

There were a hundred questions on Meredith's lips. She chose to ask none of them. "And when I find her?"

"She'll know where to go." Alex looked at his fiancé. "You're going to help Jack and Ben, aren't you?"

"You're not?" she asked.

"The guy saved your life, Stevens, it's not like there was ever a question," he reminded her.

Now Meredith looked upset. "You just told us there are people in the hospital that will kill us all."

"You're seriously going to lecture us on walking into mortal situations?" Alex reminded her.

Meredith didn't know how to answer this. Addison did. "This is a terrible idea."

Stevens nodded. "Yes. Yes it is. We better stop in one of the OR's before we get there."

"You want your first solo surgery that badly?" Alex said with a smile.

"Better to do it on someone you don't care whether they live or die."

She linked arms with Karev and they toddled off.

Addison looked at Meredith. "Has everybody gone crazy?" she asked.

"I wish they had," Meredith said. "It would be a whole lot easier to deal with."

LAX

SAME TIME

There were some advantages to be married to one of the wealthiest women in the world. One of them happened to be that you get doors into the security of major airports with just a phone call.

When Desmond, James and Daniel had arrived at LAX Desmond had already made a call and they were allowed to the security footage as if they were movie stars. James wasn't particularly wild about being at any particular airport these days but he understood the necessities.

When Frank Lapidus' plane had landed half an hour earlier security had sent two men to the front gate to collect him. Unfortunately Hanso's people were a step ahead of them because Frank never got off and a search of his plane had shown he wasn't on there.

"So he vanished off the plane mid-flight," Daniel said.

"Not exactly the weirdest thing we would've heard of, believe me," James said. "There another way off a plane the passengers wouldn't know about but someone else might?"

Desmond had a good idea. "There's an exit in the cockpit. " He then asked for security footage around the tarmacs and airstrips themselves. Not even James would've thought Penny could have had that kind of access but according to her husband she had contacts with Homeland Security.

James had then told Desmond that if they were to have any chance to get to Frank before he was taken off the airport – something they couldn't rule out might have already happened – they needed to divide and conquer. Desmond agreed and told them he'd stay behind and that he and Dan should start searching the place.

Once they made it on to the flight path, James handed Daniel a gun.

"Is this the part where I say: 'Damn it Jim, I'm a doctor not a cowboy!'" Dan said in remarkable deadpan.

"Always preferred Star Wars to Star Trek," James said in a similar tone. "But then since we're being aided by a real-life Scotty…"

"Aren't you the better shot here?" Daniel said in a more serious tone.

"I'm also bigger and faster then you Danny Boy," James pointed out. "I'm hoping that brute strength might be enough to see us through this."

"And if it doesn't?"

"Do you know how to use one?" James asked.

Dan took the safety off.

James got on the cell phone. "Please tell me you have some sign of Saint Francis," he asked Desmond.

"Whoever took him is going to want to move him. I'm looking around for any vehicles near the hangars," Desmond told him.

"Since we're assuming Lapidus didn't go of his own will and that they wouldn't want to make it obvious for very long, they wouldn't have parked that far away from the landing strip," Dan surmised. "Let's head in that direction first."

SEATTLE GRACE

Jack wasn't shocked so much at Radzinsky being shot as to why it had happened. Perhaps that was why Ben, always quick to adapt, reacted first.

"I'm assuming there is a logical reason you did that," he asked Abaddon.

"It's like the man said," Abaddon said coolly. "There was a secondary protocol. Radzinsky was just unaware that it didn't include him."

"Is this the part where you now put the gun to my head?" Jack had found his voice.

"Frankly, my people always considered this particular approach a high-risk, low-reward one," Abaddon told them. "We're more than willing to leave the hospital and everyone in it unharmed."

"On the condition that I give you the exact information that I refused to give Radzinsky," Jack surmised.

"He may have been wrong on his methodology, but he's correct on the need to do it. We need the people you've hidden." Abaddon turned to Ben. "We're hoping that you can persuade Dr. Shephard to tell us."

Ben didn't seem entirely shocked by this. "You do know that I was never particularly good at convincing Jack to do anything," he reminded him casually. "There was a fair amount of blackmail and subterfuge involved most of the time and most of the time I failed anyway. And that was when I was in a position to offer something. How could I possibly convince Jack to give in now?"

"Because it's who you are," Abaddon said simply. "I may not have agreed with everything Mr. Widmore said or did regarding the island, but he had a very clear perception of you were. The island has always been what mattered to you. You want to get back there as much as we do."

"Things have changed over the last two years," Ben reminded Abaddon.

"So you don't want to see your daughter anymore."

Abaddon delivered that statement as bluntly as Ben stuck in so many verbal daggers over the years. He was still surprised that it hurt him so much to hear it.

"You need to do your homework," Ben said slowly. "Alex was never my child. I stole her from an insane woman when she was a baby. She means nothing to me."

"That's what Widmore never understood. Which in itself is understandable. This is, after all, a man who fathered two children but never gave a damn about how either of them lived even when one of them was under his own roof," Abaddon shook his head. "And because he was so close-minded, the idea of willing to sacrifice was beyond him, much less the idea of caring for another life. So naturally he believed that Alex meant nothing to you. I know better."

Jack was uncertain of his next move. Abaddon appeared to be focused entirely on Ben, so he figured there was no reason he couldn't put a bullet in his chest right now. It would end the standoff, but he had no illusions that it would end the threat. Abaddon might say he wasn't going to destroy Seattle Grace if he didn't get what he wanted, but he trusted him no more than he had the last Samuel Radzinsky.

Frankly the idea of trusting Ben Linus to get them through this current crisis seemed only slightly less dangerous than it would have to give in to Radzinsky's threats. Indeed, it said a lot about how much things had changed in the last couple of weeks that he was now considering it as a viable option. He knew what they said about the lesser of two evils, but he also knew the saying about picking the one you hadn't tried before.

What the hell. "You want me to shoot him?" he asked Ben casually.

Ben thought for a moment. "Let's hear the offer," he said after another long pause.

"You were always one of the people we needed, Ben," Abaddon continued. "You knew this going in, if not by now. And you want to go back to the island for the right reasons. You value it. Widmore didn't, neither did he," Abaddon gestured to the not even cold Radzinsky.

"It's important. And it needs a man like you in charge. A man who will care for it. Who has a reason to protect it. Who wants to see his daughter again."

Jack had heard this pitch before to – from Ben. Locke had no doubt bought into it himself, though he might not have ever trusted the messenger. He had a feeling Ben himself admired the irony of the situation, even if his face gave nothing away.

"And all I have to do is convince Jack to betray his friends and we'll just walk out of here together," Ben's voice was as neutral as it always was. "How again would I do that?"

"We're not asking you to do anything you don't want to," Abaddon said softly. "Just let us do what us do what it is necessary to get what we need and you can come with us. "

Ben seemed to be seriously considering this offer. "You're not bad, I admit," he finally said. "The offer is tempting and I'll fully admit it's one I might have been willing to consider. Once."

Abaddon's calm flickered a little. "You've never had a problem with methods before."

"Oh, I know all about using violence. As you'll recall I once led a scenario just like this when I was barely twenty-five. I had no problem killing my own father to get what I wanted."

Jack knew that Ben had changed. He'd mentioned his role in the Purge just prior to threatening to kill the men on the beach. The difference was this time, he was talking about it with genuine regret rather than something that needed to be done out of a higher purpose.

"And it was the right thing to do," Abaddon said.

"Was it?' Ben asked. "The woman I loved – the only person in the Initiative who truly and without any reservations cared for me – had been a part of the Initiative. Granted she had been long gone by time the Purge took place and her family was gone too by then, but when the choice came between her and the island, I chose the island. It was probably the wrong decision then, and it's not exactly a better one now." He looked at him. "You know we're together now. She's never asked about my sins; she's just accepted me for them. And now you're asking me to commit another one so I can see my daughter again? Somehow I don't think she'd forgive me this time."

Abaddon seemed to realize he was losing the battle. "She can come too," he pushed.

Ben waved him off. "She has a life here. Besides, she never really thought the place was that special. But she always thought I was."

Abaddon looked at him. "You'll never see your daughter again."

"You mentioned the importance of sacrifice. And the truth is I never really understood it until I left the island. The last few weeks I was there, Alex and I weren't getting along. She actually told me she hated my guts. I always thought her betraying me was because I was a bad parent. But now I realize that what I was doing wasn't protecting my daughter. It was because I couldn't let her go. I couldn't let her live her own life." Ben looked at Abaddon. "Losing the island didn't hurt the most. It was losing her. You were right about that. But now I know what sacrifice means. It means protecting the people you love, even if they never know what you have to do in order to do it."

Abaddon considered this and sighed. "You're a very persuasive talker," he said quietly. "It's almost a shame I have to kill you now."

"No, the thing is you missed your opportunity," Ben said quietly. "Once you started listening to me, it was already too late."

Now Abaddon was perplexed. "Our people have the hospital," he began.

"And right now, they're listening to you. The problem is, all this time you've been listening to me."

Abaddon seemed to realize what was being said and whirled around.

Just in time for Alex Karev to bring a scalpel dead center into his wrist. Abaddon screamed and dropped his gun. Izzie kicked it away from him.

Alex looked at Ben. "They show James Bond movies on the island?" he asked.

"Timothy Dalton was my favorite," Ben told him. "Though I'm not entirely sure what role I'm playing in the scenario you're discussing."

"Considering that being able to bullshit people was always your superpower," Jack said as he walked over to Abaddon, "maybe a little of both." He hauled the man to his feet. "I'm guessing this still isn't over."

"We've taken out the generals, but the rank and file is still out there," Ben agreed. "Thank you by the way," he said as he walked over to Abaddon.

Jack looked at Alex and Izzie. "Is Addison all right?"

"She's unhurt," Izzie said gently. "Considering she just had a gun to her head I'm guessing she's going to need a couple of months in therapy and a very reasonable explanation from you and Juliet as to why she had a gun put to her head."

"I thought the blunt talk was my thing," Alex said kindly.

"I figured you were recovering from you know, using a scalpel on a human being without anesthetic," Izzie pointed out. "By the way, still swooning over your heroism."

"Before you two duck into a stairwell may I remind you we're still in something of a crisis?" Ben's sarcasm didn't have the unpleasantness Jack had come to associate with his talking on the island. Maybe he really had changed.

"Meredith's taking care of Addison right now," Alex said with no real change in his inflection. "What floor was Juliet on before you tracked down those two?"

"The three of us separated," Jack told them. "Juliet took the floors below to try and see if there was any chance – the enemy, for lack of a better term – has been hiding out in the basement. There are a couple of places where people could disappear if they knew where to look. I'm guessing they did their homework."

"And Sayid?" Ben asked.

"He spotted a couple of facing from those files that he recognized near the oncology ward," Jack said. "I think right now in it's in our interest to split up. Since you helped save my ass back there, I'll let you decide where to go."

"Considering that neither of them is inclined to listen to me and both have every reason to hate me, it's not an easy choice," Ben sighed and looked at Alex and Izzie. "Which one of you knows the basement better?"

Alex shrugged. "I think it's me. Spent a lot of time there avoiding people. You really think Juliet's more likely to believe you?"

"She's less likely to get violent if I tell her not too," Ben said simply. "And in a way it's fitting. Lurking in the shadows is no doubt where a lot of people think I belong."

Jack nodded. "Ready to go a little further?"

"Just one thing, Jack," Izzie asked. "Which one of you killed that man?"

"Neither of us," Ben said. "Abaddon shot him."

Izzie really seemed to notice the man that was on the ground for the first time. "Could you give me a second?" she asked Jack.

Jack would've argued they didn't really have time, and then remembered how this current spate of madness had gotten started. "Make it quick," he asked.

Izzie looked at Abaddon. "The doctor in me knows that it's wrong to hurt somebody in pain," she said carefully. "'First do no harm', after all."

She then proceeded to kick him squarely in the testicles.

"It's a shame for you I grew up in a trailer park," she said sweetly as she got up.

"I have never found you hotter than this minute," Alex said sincerely.

They kissed each other and then they each went their separate ways.

"You two weren't kidding about that anything causes sex in this hospital," Ben said as he left with Alex.

"What I can say? Something's a medical degree is the ultimate aphrodisiac. Other times, its physical violence." Alex said sincerely. "Fortunately for me, I can deliver both."

"Maybe that's the reason Kate spent so much time dithering between Jack and James," Ben couldn't help but say.

"Maybe she changed her mind when she saw Jack beat you to a pulp," Alex said bluntly. "Now can we please get back to saving the hospital?"

TO BE CONTINUED…

This Chapter eventually got to be so long that I decided it would be easier to cut into two almost equal parts. Author's notes for both chapters will be at the end.

We're almost at the end, readers. One last chapter and an Epilogue to go.