Once again, thank you to everybody who's read and reviewed. I think there's only about a couple of chapters left (maybe only one and an epilogue), so let me know what you think...

Chapter Eleven

All she could concentrate on was the pain.

He had shot her. Shot her in the same way, in the same place, as he had shot Niall, all those years before. She smiled. Her lips pulling back in a pain filled grimace. He'd probably used the same gun. At least her mother wouldn't have to watch another child die. At least she had gotten some justice for her brother, for her family.

Maybe she had gotten some peace for herself as well.

She had shot Michael Hunte, had seen him fall, just before his own bullet had burnt through her flesh.

Sinead took another step along the deserted street in Nixon, wincing as each stumbling step moved the bullet lodged inside her. She pressed her hand against her chest, feeling her shirt stiff and tacky. She took her hand away, the fingers stained red with her own blood.

She was so thirsty.

"It never comes off, you know."

She looked around the street, hair wiping across her cheeks. She recognized the voice. How could she not? She heard it every night before she slept. "Niall?"

"He got you pretty good." Niall lifted his shirt, revealing a bullet wound at the top of his stomach. "Not as good as he got me, though." He poked at the wound with a stubby finger, dirt still lodged underneath his fingernails.

Sinead shuddered and look away. She pressed her hand back against her shirt. The bleeding had stopped, her shirt sticking to the wound. She took another lurching step, acutely conscious of Niall following after her. She licked her dry lips. She didn't mind the pain. Welcomed it, even, it gave her something to focus on.

"How many people did you kill today, Sinead?"

She managed to shake her head. "It doesn't matter, Niall. None of it matters."

"Doesn't matter?" He laughed, a strange gurgling sound that seemed to tear through her, reverberate off the bullet. "How can it not matter, Sinead? All those fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, their lives ruined by this, by you! How can that not matter?"

She could taste the dust in the back of her throat. Taste dust and bile.

Sinead managed to focus on Niall. "It doesn't matter. He's dead, Niall and that's all that matters. It's all that ever mattered."

Gritting her teeth, she stumbled towards her hotel.

It was cooler in the side streets.

Shaded from the early morning sun, cooler, easier to run. Easier to believe that they could catch the people responsible for the carnage.

Weariness forgotten, adrenalin flowing through her veins, Michelle followed Ben's lead through Nixon's side streets. She could hear bursts of communications from other deputies involved in the pursuit, driving them faster.

They couldn't escape the terrible silence coming from Main Street, though, no matter how fast they ran.

They skidded to a halt at an intersection, the streets tangling across each other. Michelle bit her lip in frustration while Ben paced around the crossroads

"Any answer from Michael?"

"No. I've been trying him since we left." She looked at the phone and tucked it away. Michael couldn't help them now. She looked around the maze of small narrow streets. "Which way, Ben?"

Ben opened his mouth to reply, but his radio beat him to it. "Sheriff!" Reid took several deep breaths, his gulps for air clearly audible across the radio. "He's about to turn onto Little Market."

Ben smiled, an angry, hungry smile....

...a smile she had seen before, on the face of Jack Bauer...

"This way." He turned left and broke into a run, holding his gun high, his finger already on the trigger.

Michelle followed after him, her heart heavy. They needed Nicholas alive. Needed him to lead them, lead Michael to Sinead Loughlin. They couldn't afford Ben to lose control. They needed Nicholas alive.

She couldn't afford to let Ben Franklin lose control.

They were difficult to shake off.

Ignoring the burning in his lungs, the ache in his muscles, Nicholas summoned what strength he had left. Pushing his body as hard as he could.

He glanced over his shoulder. Hoping to see the dirty white shirts disappearing into the distance behind him.

"Fuck."

They were still there. Clinging to his tail with limpet like determination.

He saw a turn off and veered sharply down it, pushing off the wall to try and get some more speed. He glanced back over his shoulder as he ran. "Fuck."

They were still following him.

The phone stopped ringing. Leaving him in silence.

He could hear his breathing, echoing through his body. Every breath seeming to come a little weaker, a little shallower.

He was dying. He could feel the blood leaking from his stomach.

The bitch had done for him, just like she'd done for Brian.

At least he'd got her.

He heard footsteps coming towards him. Moving with slow, deliberate strides. It couldn't be Loughlin, he'd got her. Could it be Nicholas? Come back to make sure? To finish him off?

Michael remembered his gun falling as he did. He tried to reach for it, patting blindly on the rough ground until the agony made him stop.

The footsteps drew closer.

He squinted up at them, trying to see despite the bright sun shining down into his eyes.

His features relaxed and he tried to smile. "Brian?"

Some sixth sense, some instinct, something ingrained in him by....made Nicholas duck as he turned the corner, still running at full speed, still hearing his pursuers gain on him.

He ducked under Ben's blow. Slipping through the attempted grapple, almost losing his footing, his knee banging painfully on the pavement.

Ben grabbed at Nicholas ankle. His fingers slipped, jarring against the sole of the man's boot. Then the boot collided against his chest, driving the wind from him. He stumbled to the ground, seeing Paige's killer, seeing Rose's killer disappearing, slipping through his grasp, in a haze of tears.

Nicholas scrambled to his feet. Not looking back, straining his muscles to try and push clear.

Michelle stepped from the mouth of one of the side streets, pointing her gun at him. "Stop! Don't fucking move asshole!" The gun aimed at his chest.

She wondered if she would shoot him. There, on Nixon's streets.

Nicholas gritted his teeth and ran at her. She was smaller than he was, exhausted and in shock. He didn't risk another look over his shoulder. All of his attention was focused on her. If he could just get her gun...

Michelle saw his plans, saw him turn towards her, his intentions painted across his face. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion, her whole body responding to her brains commands. She measured him up and fired.

She shot him in the knee.

Nicholas staggered, incomprehension and pain racing each other comically across his features. He took another step, almost falling as he put his weight on his shattered knee cap.

He looked around in time to catch the butt of Ben's pistol across the side of his face. He collapsed.

Ben stood over the body for a moment, breathing heavily. Just staring down at it, his gun in hand.

Then he holstered his weapon and reached for his handcuffs.

Michelle released the breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding.

Ben worked quickly, rolling Nicholas onto his stomach, handcuffing him. Two more deputies arrived, guns in hand, breathing heavily.

"Where do you want him Sheriff?"

Ben opened his mouth to tell them to take him to the office. Then he remembered. He shut his mouth, shrugged and glanced at Michelle.

"Take him to the hall."

The two deputies pulled Nicholas to his feet, grunting and cursing as they had to take most of his weight.

Ben and Michelle followed after them.

The pain was getting worse. Taking over her body and her brain.

She fumbled with her keys, trying to open the hotel door, drawing what little strength she had left. She had to lean against it to force it open. Trying to ignore the smear of blood she had left on the previously pristine door.

Somehow she made it to a chair. Sinking into it, exhausted. Sinead just wanted to rest, close her eyes, sleep. Then she knew she would see Niall again. Then she could explain...

Her eyes flared open and she gripped the arms of the chair. Forcing herself to her feet, Sinead fell towards the mini bar.

He could hear the footsteps closer to him. Examining him. He tried to will himself to open his eyes. But his body wouldn't respond to his commands. He concentrated on listening.

"I've got another one, here No, doesn't look like he was caught in the explosion."

'I wasn't' he tried to say. 'That bitch shot me' he tried to say.

"He looks like he's been shot."

Lincoln Memorial Hall had fallen silent when they had brought Nicholas in, handcuffed and bleeding, stumbling with every step. They had cuffed him to a table near the back of the hall. Making him watch them struggle to treat the wounded.

He watched impassively, staring across the room. No emotion showed in his deep set eyes, nothing flickered in his face.

Impassive.

Arrogant.

"I want to go over there and beat the living shit out of him." Vince knotted his fingers together, stretching his arms out. "By the time I'd finished with him, he'd be begging to tell us everything."

Michelle shook her head. "Wouldn't do any good. He's got military training, he's not going to break like that." As she spoke she studied the prisoner, trying to find something that would help Ben get the information he needed.

Ben remained silent. Leaning against the wall, his eyes rapidly scanning the crowd in Lincoln Memorial Hall. He straightened with expectation every time the door opened, before slumping back against the wall in defeat.

Vince sneered at Michelle and stalked across the hall. He deliberately choose a path which brought him close to Nicholas, looming as large as he could.

Nicholas didn't flinch. Didn't even look at him.

"I can't do this."

Ben's words were so softly spoken that Michelle doubted that she had heard them. She looked at him, his eyes now fixed on Nicholas, hatred twisting his features.

"I can't do this."

"Ben, you have to! You're..."

"I can't Michelle. I can't talk to him. That bastard..." He swallowed hard, around the lump in his throat, his eyes swelling with unshed tears. Begging her, pleading with her. His lips moved but no sound came out.

She could read them easily enough, though. 'Please.'

She nodded. "Okay. I'll talk to him." She walked across the hall, Ben's hatred and anger following her like a physical entity. She pulled out a chair and sat down.

She was starting to hate Nicholas as well.

He actually smirked when he saw her. "You again! I've been trying to work out who you are. I know you aren't with them." He nodded in Ben's direction.

"No, I'm not. My name's Michelle. I'm a counter terrorist agent."

"Well, Michelle, you're wasting your time here. I'm no terrorist."

She laughed, trying to shake his pride and composure. "Really? What are you then? A freedom fighter?"

"I'm a soldier. Prepared to kill or be killed for my country."

"No, you're not. You're a murderer, a terrorist, Nicholas. Sixteen dead in the first attack. We're still counting the cost of the second. That's a lot of innocent people. That's a lot of time in jail."

He shrugged. "That's the price of war."

But he wouldn't meet her eyes.

"Where is she Nicholas?"

"Who?"

"Sinead Loughlin."

"Who?"

"We know you were working with her. We know she was training you." She leaned a little closer to him, resting her arms on the table. "You want to be the only one that takes the blame for this? Co-operate, tell me where I can find Loughlin..." She shrugged, letting the words trail away.

"It's an honour to die, serving my country."

His voice wavered, and his eyes flicked a look at her, then slid away. He couldn't look at her, couldn't look at the victims. She wondered who he saw in their place.

Wondered what button she had to push to break him.

"You wont die serving your country." She spoke softly, underneath the whispers and moans. She leaned closer, letting him read her words as well as hear them. "You'll not die as a soldier. You'll die as a terrorist."

Main Street was still in chaos. Vehicles and rubble still strewn across the road.

There were still bodies as well. Waiting to be dug from the rubble.

Carefully, rescue workers lifted another piece of rubble, part of the twisted remains of what was once John Mendolaza's jeep.

"Fuck." The fireman turned around and raised his voice. "Lucas? Lucas, you'd better get over here."

Lucas arrived at a run. He looked down at what they had uncovered. "Fuck." He sighed heavily. "Somebody had better tell Ben."

He looked down at the stroller, overturned, dirty and blasted. At the small body lying crumpled, almost cut in two by the force of the explosion.

At the burned but still recognizable features of Paige Franklin, her broken hands still reaching out uselessly for her baby.