Title: Touchstone

Chapter: 8

Author: Evidence

Rating: PG-13

Author's Notes: Thanks to D and Maple Street. This chapter took time for me to write. I wrote it one-way and then changed my mind and rewrote it. Thanks you for your patience. Two more chapters left to go.

He had never loved anyone like he did her. He had never wanted to change so that he could have a better life with someone. He knew now the torture Jack and Samantha must have faced everyday without each other.

"Get in," he ordered Lyle Mason who had turned ghostly white.

"Please Thomas don't kill me," he pleaded with a sniffle.

Thomas wanted to kill him, to take his life as he had taken Shauna's. Jail would be better than the thought of waking up every morning and not talking to Shauna on the phone or meeting her for lunch or loving her. He felt his finger take hold and begin squeezing on the trigger. The gun aimed at Mason's head. Then he heard it- a small grunt that nearly sounded like a wounded animal in the woods.

"Shauna..." He turned his attention from Mason, relaxing his finger and moving towards Shauna's body.

The grunt came again.

Thomas fell to his knees his left hand searching for a pulse. It wasn't strong but it was there. Happy tears cascaded down his face and he let the gun go as he held her. "Live Shauna, don't give up. Come on my Juliet don't leave me."

Mason had a choice: garb the gun and please his master or make a run for it. He choose the latter.

"Hey," Thomas yelled after him.

Mason ran out of the building heading to his car when a dark car and two police cars pulled up. Vivian Johnson got out and looked at Mason. Then she heard Thomas's cry for help.

"Grab him," she ordered the police officers and ran into the warehouse. Thomas was clutching Shauna close to him. Her blood drenched his shirt. "Tommy, I'm here."

"Oh Vivian, oh thank God, help her."

Thomas could never recollect after the chain of events that occurred but he knew that Vivian had called an ambulance and they had taken Shauna away breathing for her and helping her heart to pump. Vivian's kind words kept echoing in his head, "I'm here for you."

+++++

The hospital scene was chaotic. Vivian was leading him around, talking to various doctors but he couldn't comprehend what they were saying. His mind was jumbled in a dream like state. Like he was a fish in a large blue ocean and the rest of life was swimming by slowly.

Danny was there too. He had stayed with Martin while Vivian went back out searching for Shauna. Vivian had not found Thomas by luck. A passing motorist had seen a man in a car with a gun. Using his cell phone he phoned the police who in turn called the FBI seeing the man fit Thomas Spade's description.

Somehow Vivian got Thomas to sit down calmly and wait for news on Shauna's condition.

+++++

"Take a seat," Jack instructed the man who worked for Franklin Podena. The interrogation room that held a warm memory for Jack and Sam now housed the both of them and one would be killer.

The man sat down. He was of average height and build with balding dark hair and a sneer to his small lips.

"Who are you?" Samantha asked.

"The messenger of doom," he released a smile.

"Really? Wow, I've always wanted to meet you," Jack said sick of these games Podena and his associates had been playing. "Guess who I am. I'm the guy who's going to make the messenger of doom's life hell."

The man laughed Podena-like. "Really. I would like to see you try."

Jack bit at his lip. He had to contain himself from leaping over the table and strangling this man that was hired to kill Samantha.

"We have your fingerprints so it won't take long to find out who you are. If you're upfront now maybe we won't let Podena know what you said about him," Sam said with a smile.

The smile on the man's face faded. "Please don't tell him I failed him."

"Oh we won't tell him, we'll bring you to him. You can tell him yourself." Sam's smile grew. Checkmate buddy.

"Please you can't do that..."

"Then tell us what we need to know," Jack interjected.

The man swallowed hard, his eyes shifting to the floor. "My name's Walter Podena. I'm Franklin's cousin."

"Was Harry your father?" Jack asked.

"Yes," Walter replied.

Harry Podena had held the dumping ground for Franklin's victims. When Martin and Danny went after him in upstate New York, Harry Podena responded with a shotgun.

"I see the apple doesn't fall far from the tree," Jack muttered to Sam.

Samantha spoke, "How did this plan come into being?"

Walter shifted in his seat. "I went to visit my cousin at the hospital and he told me he had a plan to seek revenge. You stole his chance to be famous."

Jack and Samantha exchanged a look.

Walter continued. "He asked me to get some helpers so I talked to Lyle Mason who Franklin knew a secret about and I asked Jeffery Gibbs to visit my cousin. He was so unstable he would follow any orders."

"Once you got your gang together what was the plan?" Jack asked.

"Jeffrey was to commit suicide at the courthouse Thomas Spade worked at, giving me the chance to grab his girl who Lyle told us visited him everyday for lunch. Jeffrey was the only one who accomplished his mission." A groan came out of Walters's mouth. "Lyle was then supposed to set a bomb off in the subway to create chaos in the city. And I had to hide Shauna in an old warehouse so that I could find you." He looked at Samantha his eyes glazed over. "My mission was to kill you."

A shiver went down Sam's spine but she pretend to be not effected by his statement.

"Was there anything else to the plan?" Jack asked.

"Nothing he told me about."

"Where is Shauna?" Sam questioned.

"I can show you but she's already dead. Lyle was suppose to kill her by now."

Jack's hand immediately went around Sam's shoulder as she took a deep breath. "Where's her body?"

A knock on the door interrupted the interrogation. Ken Landes, an agent, poked his head in. "Excuse me but there was a call from the hospital. Agent Johnson found Thomas and Shauna. Shauna's quite bad. They don't think she'll make it."

Samantha let air out of her mouth slowly. She was alive at least but if she died Thomas would never have a normal life again.

"Go to the hospital, I'll finish questioning Walt here," Jack said whispering in her ear.

"Thank you."

Ken interjected, "We have another person under arrest, a Mr. Lyle Mason. He's on his way in now."

Jack was now the one to smile. Samantha shot him a look of hope before leaving. Jack turned back to Walter Podena. "I guess Frankie P.'s plans are all fucked up now, huh?"

Walter's eyes flashed with anger. "My cousin will never be forgotten."

"I have to agree with you there," Jack said.

++++

Thomas sat in the chapel of the hospital saying a pray of his own making. He was begging the aliens to come to give Shauna a magic healing powder to bring her back to him.

He spoke out loud hoping they could hear them through the walls and buzz of equipment. "Please help her. You can take me home with you if you do but just help her. She is a wonderful person she deserves to live." Tears streamed down and he brushed them back with his hand. "I would like to stay with her if I could because you see I never really lived until I met her. Just like my cousin Sam- I was in a set routine of a life until someone special entered my life. Sam and Jack never really lived until they got together. Keep them together and maybe keep me with my Shauna. At least let her live. Please."

From in the doorway of the hospital Samantha watched him. He was on his knees praying to what he believed in. Yes, it was aliens but it what was what he always turned to. In his moment of absolute terror he took the time to wish her relationship with Jack well.

Sam entered and put her hand on his shoulder. He jumped at the touch thinking he was alone. He turned to look at her his face still wet. Sam bent down with him and his arms immediately went around her, the tears flowing again.

"I'm scared, Sam," he said.

"I know, Tommy, I know."

"Excuse me," a voice said interrupting them. A doctor stood in his scrubs a clipboard in hand. He had dark curly hair, height and a strong jaw. "I was told I could find you here, Mr. Spade."

"Yes..." Thomas said standing. "How's Shauna?"

"I have good news and bad news."

To be continued...