Counter Terrorist Unit

Los Angeles

Six Months Later

          "What's next?"

          I looked over at Lex as the two of us walked across the floor, fresh from the break room. "I don't know."

          "Did you go and get your head checked?"

          "Oh, like that's going to tell me anything." I laughed. "I'm just taking it day by day."

          "Good idea."

          The two of us settled in at our workstations. CTU was virtually the same as I had always remembered it, with the same people and energy that made me love to be a part of the place. Alberta Green had been fired. They'd replaced her and Chappelle at the same time, consolidating the office so as to avoid bureaucracy in the future. Lex had been utterly stunned when he heard that Alberta's replacement, to work in concert with Mason, was none other than Langley's own Jackson Haisley.

          I was back at work and acting as one of Mason's pillars to get CTU back on its feet. I would help explain to Jackson how things worked, and sit down with him, Mason, Jack and others to decide how things needed to be run from here. Other than that, it was back to business as usual, making CTU work twenty-four seven without a hesitation. It was pretty good, and I knew I'd made a good career choice. I wouldn't be making any feature films, but at least I could work with Derek and Jason on a film or two, and that would be good enough.

          "Oh, by the way…"

          "What?" I said, turning round to face Lex.

          "We're changing your job title to 'Special Agent In Charge of Superheroics.'"

          I laughed. "Don't deify me yet."

          And as we turned and walked on, I couldn't keep from thinking the future was here, and the future was now, and we were right in the middle of it. There was nowhere else I could be.

Something wrong for something right

There's trouble in the air tonight

From the dark into the light

Change is in the air tonight

****

And I'm searching through the years to find the answer

Now it seems within our line of sight

          I walked through the door of the Starbucks and found he'd beaten me to it. He was already there, looking relaxed and ready for anything, and when he saw me we smiled evenly at each other. I took the seat Derek had once occupied, and looked across at Detective Smith, who had a slight smirk on his face. Sergeant Friday had told me that he had been very pleased with the conviction of Teddy Hanlin on all counts by an L.A. jury, and that look confirmed it for me.

          "You can't possibly still be that happy."

          "Watch me," he said, lips quirking.

          "It was a week ago."

          "Hey, it's not that long." He looked across at me. "How are things going?"

          "Good. We'll be ready when the time comes."

          "How much time?"

          I shrugged slightly. "I don't know. You never know. You just try to be ready when it happens, and I think we've got a spirited team with the skills to succeed. I can't clearly define my enemy, but … I know what the horizon looks like."

          The man I'd come to like and respect immensely nodded encouragingly. "Take care of yourself."

          "I will," I promised. "Plus, I've always got you to cover my back."

          "You know it," he said, "but you won't need it."

In your hands

In your hands

The freedom that you want

Is in your hands

***

Reaching for another life

They're walking on the wire tonight

Caught between the wrong or right

Doesn't matter anyway

          I made it home by eight. My social secretary was making dinner arrangements, ordering out. "Everyone's upstairs," she told me, and I nodded.

          We had indeed renovated the apartment above us, using funds given to us by CIB out of the account they'd used to cover Michael's aborted recon. Now the upstairs level was home to staff quarters, a meeting room, a medical facility, and the other necessities of the Los Angeles branch strike team. As for me, though, I still lived downstairs in my old bedroom, which I breezed into to get cleaned up. The renovation had been finished about five months ago thanks to some help from all of my friends in getting it done expediently, and Derek, Jason, Chloe and Lan had moved in right about that time. It made a nice duality: I saved the known world, then battled the unknown, and while they were waiting to join the fight, they worked on their own pursuits during the day. Including Adam's disappearance.

          I set my CTU attache case down on my bed and looked over at myself in the mirror. If you'd asked me three years ago, now three and three-quarters years, if I'd ever thought I'd sacrifice my life to fight for not one but two government agencies in the cause of the higher good, I would have been surprised. But now it just seemed like something I was now prepared to do, something that I was now capable of doing, and would continue to pursue with the dedication I'd known before the crossing over.

          With a little smile that reflected both how lucky and how challenged I felt, I finished up and headed up the new staircase to the second level, the ascension both a symbol and an action, and some combination of both.

They've been searching for the answer

Still searching for the answer tonight

          The entire strike team was waiting for me at the meeting table. We were trying to distance ourselves from acronyms and miscued allegiances and were thus unofficially known as Code Black. Whatever we were called, all seven of us were present as I headed up the stairs and chose to stand rather than taking my chair at the circular table.

          I looked at all of them, now trained, educated, armed and ready for a fight of unknown proportions. Derek sat to my left, next to Jason, Lan, and Chloe.

Next to Chloe was my old friend, Eric Weiss. He and I had served together on all of my missions, and when I needed someone he jumped at the chance. He'd stepped down as Leticia's handler at the CIA to focus on his ops duties, which would allow him more time on the squad.

The final member of the team was Ben Carroway, a former member of the FBI's Psychological Warfare division who'd been fired for some clandestine reasons. We'd picked him up through some interagency contacts, and he'd been reinstated with the Los Angeles Bureau office thanks to George Mason. All of them were willing and committed to what we knew would be hard. But life often is.

In your hands

In your hands

The freedom that you want

Is in your hands

"We're doing pretty well," I said for starters. "We're ready for this. But."

People were surprised by the 'but' in my statement, but I continued.

"People are going to say this isn't real. They'll say even if it is it can't be done. And what are we going to tell them?"

          Everybody at the table was able to come up with the answer, but Weiss got it first, in traditional Eric Weiss fashion.

          "Bring it on."

End.

****

Acknowledgements:

As with Coventry and Their Law, this piece of work was inspired by stellar actors who provided great characters, and I'd like to thank them all: Xander Berkeley (George Mason), Kiefer Sutherland (Jack Bauer), Richard Speight Jr. (Lex), Ed O'Neill (Sgt. Joe Friday), Karim Prince (Jason), Lizette Carrion (Lan), Lisa Sheridan (Chloe), Greg Grunberg (Eric Weiss), Andrew McCarthy (Ben Carroway), Anthony LaPaglia (the fictionalization of Professor Cox), and my favorite conflicted hero, Jack Davenport (Michael Colefield). However, I have to give a big nod to Ethan Embry (Det. Frank Smith/Derek Barnes), whose Dragnet and Freakylinks work inspired me to take another go at this series and bring him along for the ride. I probably wouldn't have considered a part three to Life Serial if I hadn't seen a lot of Dragnet. And of course, Tisha, who, although she may not have been in this one a lot, is still my perpetual sidekick.

As for the question I keep getting asked, which is who Brittany ends up with at the end of Heaven's Fortune, I'll let you make up your own mind – it could be Michael, it could be Derek, it could be Det. Smith, it could be anybody or it could be nobody. If I ever do a part four, which I'm outlining now to be called Imago Dei and focus on the strike team, I'll give you my idea. But go whichever way you prefer. In the words of Seal, "Who am I to tell you something that you enjoy really isn't that way? If you like it, that's the way it is."

Music List:

Part 6: "Wash It Away" by Black Lab.

Part 7: "How's It Going To Be" by Third Eye Blind.

Part 9: "If You Want Blood (You Got It)" by AC/DC.

Part 11: "Farther Down" by Matthew Sweet.

Part 12: "On A High" by Duncan Sheik.

Part 13: "Crash" by 12 Stones.

Part 14: "Here" by VAST.

Part 15: "In Your Hands" by John Farnham.