Chapter Fifteen
A/N: ok you guys here we go THE LAST CHAPTER! Dramatic music please!
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Vaughn watched as Tracy crashed to the floor. His heart seemed to ache at her final look, she didn't understand.
It took him some time to realize, but he finally knew. It wasn't his gun that had fired. His gun was still unfired, no smoke came from its barrel. He slowly put it down, but when he heard the sound of movement and it was up again.
Slowly, a figure appeared from behind where Tracy had been. The figure still had his gun up, clearly having shot Tracy.
"So you're Jack's backup?" the man said mockingly. "Interesting… I thought you folks were here to save my little girl, clearly you didn't like her. You almost killed her if I hadn't beat you to it."
The man laughed. Vaughn realized that it was Turner Maxwell, and he had just shot his own daughter. This realization came as a blow to the stomach, it meant that Tracy hadn't joined her father, that she was telling the truth.
"Shocked are you? That I would I kill my daughter? My own flesh and blood? Well believe me, she had more Jack in her than me. She is of no use to me…" Turner said as he looked down at Tracy, sprawled on the floor. "and to anyone, now"
"You bastard" Vaughn finally muttered.
"What's that?" Turner leaned closer with his hand cupped around his ear. "Gaining some compassion for Tracy now are you? Too bad young man… Michael is it? She wont appreciate it now."
Suddenly a groan came from the floor, and Jack began to stir.
"Looks like Jack isn't going to miss all the fun after all." Turner's eyes darted back and forth between Vaughn and Jack.
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Jack hated being knocked out, he hated it more than anything. That was he was thinking as he began to drift back to consciousness.
The next thing he could think of was how he was going to kill Turner Maxwell.
He began to open his eyes, and his head hurt like it had a elephant sit on it. He groaned, and heard Turner's voice, but couldn't make out the words. He was clearly talking to someone else.
His eyes adjusted painfully to the light in the room, even though it wasn't more than what a couple of candles would provide. Again he heard Turner's voice and his heart was filled with hatred. The man was inhuman, doing that to his daughter.
As Jack became more aware of his surrounding, he realized that Turner had done something far worse to his daughter.
Around three feet from Jack was, Tracy was laying motionless on the floor. He could see a new wound on her stomach, and she wasn't moving.
No! Jack found himself screaming on the inside. No! She cant be dead!
"Oh come on Jack! You're going to miss on a whole lot if you're going to stay laying there." Turner's voice assaulted Jack's ears.
"Help Jack up!" He heard bark at someone and he soon felt someone lift him to his feet.
"It's me Jack." Vaughn whispered realizing the state of disorientation that Jack was in.
Jack was unsteadily on his feet but managed to stay standing when Vaughn let go. He was completely aware now.
"Glad you can joy us Jack, old friend." Turner talked to him as he pointed absently with his gun. The gun that shot Tracy. "Me and Michael here were going to play some mind games before I blow a hole in him too."
"You son of a…" Jack began to walk towards Turner aggressively.
"no no no, Jack." Turner said as he pressed his gun against Vaughn's head. "One more step and your friend here joins Eddie and Tracy in the hereafter."
Jack wanted to pounce on Turner, but he couldn't get Vaughn killed too. Too many people had died here today, and it had to stop. So he slowly put his hands up.
"This is between you and I, Turner. Let him go." Jack said calmly. "There's no one left here to help you. So give it up."
Turner seemed to explode with laughter, he laughed like he had heard the funniest joke of his life.
"Oh Jack! You always underestimate me don't you?"
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"No, no, no, no, no, no!" Marshall started shouting at his screens. "No! this cant happen!" he scrambled through his office and went to another monitor.
"Evergreen! Evergreen! Do you copy?" he said franticly into a little microphone. "I repeat do you copy?"
"I copy base-ops" Nadia's voice answered. "What is it?"
"We have a helicopter approaching your current position… seems to be carrying men, weapons and ammo." He said as he scrambled with other screens.
"ETA of the helicopter?" Nadia asked.
"three… four minutes max" Marshall did the math quickly. "I think you guys can handle them… but you need to get up there and fast!"
Sydney and the rest ran back up, being black op they don't get to have any back up or tactic teams come in.
After what seemed like running miles up stairs, they finally got the roof. The helicopter was about to land. One of the men saw them and started to shoot towards them. The team took cover as the man shouted and signaled to his companions.
"You think we have enough Ammo. for this?" Weiss shouted, to no one in particular, over the sound of the chopper's noise and un shots.
"We better make every shot count." Nadia shouted to him. A solemn look on her face. This mission was a disaster by all means.
Weiss took a second to squeeze her hand, and wish he could kiss her before he went back to firing at the men.
"Vaughn and Dad better not be late!" Sydney said, as the bullets continued to shower over them.
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"The second I heard your voice over the phone, I knew that I was up against a monster." Jack said coldly.
"Ah Jack! Careful with those words, you might hurt my feelings if I cared for your opinion!" Turner said in a mock hurt voice before he exploded into laughter again.
"You're a sick bastard!" Vaughn muttered bitterly. He was beginning to get sick thinking that he actually thought that Tracy would team up with such a monster.
"So young man!" Turner says as he nudges Vaughn bitterly. "You didn't seem to found of Tracy did you? Glad she's dead? Look at her pathetic form, just laying there. So anticlimactic don't you think!"
"She was you're daughter!" Jack screamed in outrage.
"Ah Jack she was. But alas, she's gone now. Look at her!" Turner pointed hatefully at her with his gun. "So useless! She could have killed him!" his gun now pointed at Vaughn now. "But she just stood there! She begged him not to do something he might regret!"
"She was a good girl, Turner." Jack said coolly, although shocking up on the inside.
Vaughn just watched as the two older men fought over the dead body of a daughter. Yes, Vaughn realized, Tracy was Jack's surrogate daughter. She was a good person, and he had doubted her over a past she didn't choose.
"She wasn't like you!" Vaughn said harshly.
Turner turned towards Vaughn with wild angry eyes.
"She was MY DAGHTER! He took her from me! He destroyed her! He made her less than she was! He let her betray her destiny!" Turner shouted at the top of his lungs. "SHE WAS MINE!"
"Turner!" some one said in a firm whisper.
Three sets of baffled eyes turned to see Tracy on her knees, leaning on the wall, and holding Jack's discarded gun.
"I was never yours." Tracy said calmly as she lifted her gun. "never."
A single shot rang, and a single bullet escaped the muzzle.
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A dead silence settled on the roof as the gun shots stopped abruptly. Nadia could hear her racing heart as her eyes darted for her sister and boyfriend.
Sydney was still on the far right of Nadia just taking cover behind a huge air conditioning unit, her chest rising and falling heavily from the adrenaline rush.
Weiss was still close to Nadia looking around in what seemed like a panic trying to figure out if the shooters were all down.
"What do you think?" Weiss asked her.
"There's only one way to know." Nadia answered as she stuck out her arm from behind a ventilation fan. In response gun shot came showering.
Sydney gave Nadia a what-the-hell-was-that-? Look, and got up to her feet and shot back. Weiss and Nadia did the same. Soon the last two men who had fired at them were dead.
Sydney ran towards Weiss and Nadia who were dusting themselves off.
"C'mon! we need to know what's going on with dad, Vaughn, and Edward down there. This was supposed to be an extraction not a social call"
Wow, Weiss thought, Someone takes after their Dad!
Nadia had a weird worried look on her face, and Weiss waved his hand across her face.
"Hello?" he said in a sing-song voice. "You there Santos!"
Nadia snapped out of her little trans and gave Weiss an annoyed look.
"This is not going to end well" she said matter-of-factly, and snapped Weiss back to reality.
Nadia was right if Jack, and Vaughn weren't back it was because something major horrible had happened.
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The bullet caught Turner right between the eyes. On his face the look of shock still engraved as he fell to the ground like the dead weight that he was now.
Jack could manage to shake himself out of shock long enough to see Turner fall to the ground, and look back towards Tracy.
Tracy just watched Turner fall to the ground with void eyes, then turn her eyes to meet Jack. A faint smile seemed to cross her face before her eyes rolled back into her head, and she started to fall.
"Tracy!" Jack caught her, but realized he was too late. She was dead before he reached her, before he uttered her said her name.
Tracy laid in Jack's arm, dead. Her body limp and stiff at the same time. And all that Jack could do was lay her down to the floor, gently. He slowly ran his hand through her dirty and blood-caked hair. Her blank eyes seem to look to the sky, cold, but still that peculiar shade of blue.
Vaughn watched quietly as Jack raised his hand to shut Tracy's eyes, and a lump grew in his throat. Jack wasn't crying, but his eyes were tender with love and grief although they weren't watery.
For a long moment Jack just sat there, now Tracy's body firmly in his arms, and Vaughn just watching the incredible scene with a huge sense of loss, regret, and remorse.
The sound of people and running foot steps woke Vaughn up from his shock, but when he looked at Jack he was still holding Tracy. Just looking at her.
Vaughn took a gun from the floor, but through it back in disgust realizing it was Turner's gun, it was the gun that killed his fallen companion. And pick up another.
He rounded the corner quickly and found himself aiming the gun at Sydney. He let the gun go from his arm and pulled Sydney and held her for a few seconds, he didn't say a word he just held her.
The way that Vaughn was acting was scaring Sydney, and she at last pulled away.
"Vaughn where's dad?" She said in a concerned voice.
"Syd, I…" he began to say, when she cut him off fearing the worst.
"Where is he Michael?" she said forcefully.
Vaughn just nodded towards the room he was just in and watch Sydney dash towards it, leaving him behind, Nadia soon followed her.
"What happened man?" Weiss put his hand on his friend's shoulder. Vaughn said nothing and continued behind Sydney, Weiss followed him.
Sydney and Nadia were just standing after the threshold, they seemed to be in complete shock at the sigh in front of them.
"Dad?" Sydney seemed to whisper finally. She started to come closer to him, and called him again. He didn't look up.
Nadia turned towards Vaughn with questioning eyes.
"she's dead…. " Vaughn whispered, defeated.
Nadia just stared back at him, clearly caught in grief.
"And Edward?" Weiss asked, and it dawned to Vaughn that he didn't know where Edward Richards was, or what happened to him.
"C'mon let's find him." Both men left to look for Edward down the hall. It wasn't long before they found him, Nick, Lou and the others dead.
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The team used the chopper that was still on the roof to get back to the main road, somewhere they could easily picked up. It wasn't an option to carry two dead bodies down to the main road.
When Sydney finally managed to get Jack out of his trans, relatively. He told Sydney to stay with Tracy's body and went down the hall to see Edward's. He saw that Vaughn and Weiss had been there, and kneeling besides him.
Jack cleared his throat and they moved out of the way. He kneeled besides Edward and looked at him keenly.
"I'm sorry" he whispered before he got up and told Vaughn and Weiss to carry him.
Jack went back to where Tracy laid and carried her himself. He told Sydney that she would fly them to the road and that Nadia would call Marshal and tell him where they would expect to have pick up.
They all were rushed into the black van on a deserted road, and drove to the air strip where an air plane was already waiting for them.
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Marshall went home once he heard about the team being on the air plane back home. But that wasn't all he heard. He now knew that Tracy was dead, killed by her own father.
He drove home in shock, and began to breathe heavily as he got out from his Mini Cooper and rang the door bell to his own house, having forgotten the keys in the office amidst all his anger.
Carrie came to the door, with Mitchell propped up against her thigh. When she saw her husband in a wrinkled suite and shirt, with a look of incredible sadness on her face her heart sank.
"Marshal, baby? What's going on?" she said in a kind warm voice. Marshal just went into the house and she followed him. He continued to the living room walking aimlessly.
Carrie put the baby down and looked at her husband as he played with his son's fine hair.
"What is it?" this time moving closer to him.
Marshall just looked at her for a long second before he embraced her and began sobbing in her arms like a child. All the Carrie could do was hold her husband and stroke his back, whispering to him that it was ok.
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Tracy's body was taken back to DC and berried in her empty grave in the night when now one watched. Edward's death was disguised as a mugging and a funeral was held for him a week later. All the members of the team watched from afar as he was berried next to Tracy.
Vaughn had some unresolved guilt towards the whole situation, and had his own demons to work through. Se he stayed with Sydney for a couple of weeks after the mission. Both of them consoled by each others presents, but they didn't really talk about it.
Weiss also stayed with Nadia and helped her through her rather spoken fears about what had happened.
But eventually it all came back to normal. It always did. That's what it took to survive, you just move on.
This was hardest for Jack, however. He still couldn't get the image of Tracy's eyes rolling the back of her head. Over and over it played in Jack's head, with every breath he took he watched Tracy die.
Finally, Jack realized what it would take to start healing, to start to deal with Tracy's death. He was going to someone who had shared his loss.
Jack took a couple of days off and went to DC, where he floated aimlessly until he drove his rented car to that door, and knocked. He realized he hadn't been in here since Tracy was a small child.
"Yes?" a kind warm voice greeted him before, the tiny frame of Tracy's aunt Gloria followed. "Oh." She simply said as she opened the screen.
"Hello Gloria." Jack said, with a hint of a smile. "I hope I'm not bothering you."
"Not at all!" she said a bit surprised. "I just didn't think I would see you Jack… not after Beatrice's funeral."
"That's why I'm here." He said simply.
Gloria invited him in, and they both headed to the living room. It was filled with pictures of Tracy. Jack looked at some of them while Gloria went to fetch them something to drink. She returned to see Jack holding a picture of Tracy in a baseball uniform, she must have been around twelve.
"Is she gone, Jack?" Gloria said with some trace of hope in her mind. When Jack didn't show up at the funeral it, along with the lack of body, made her wonder if her Tracy was still out there somewhere.
Jack turned to her with a sad face.
"Two weeks ago." Jack had conformed her doubts that Tracy was still alive, was until two weeks ago.
"How?" she asked as she put the tray of tee she had brought in on a little table.
"It was Turner." Jack said weakly.
"That bastard! How could he! How could he! I thought he was dead!" Gloria said as tears began to fall to her cheeks, tears of anger and sorrow.
"He is now." Jack said coldly.
"Oh Jack!" Gloria said as she completely broke down in Jack's arms. Jack just stood there and held her awkwardly. He just felt comforted by the fact that he wasn't the only one morning a surrogate daughter.
Slowly he reached into his pocket and pulled out a little paper he found in Tracy's student apartment.
It was all worth it because of the few moments that you gave me Uncle Jack… Thank you.
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A/N:
Wow! I gotta tell ya letting go was hard! But I was time to finish
a story right… hope you liked it. I want to thank every one that
reviewed and stuck in there during my long hiatus. I want you all to
leave me a review please tell me what you think… honestly… if you
liked it… if you hated it. If you ever read it… even if it was a
year after I finished it I want to know what you think… EVERYONE if
you read it… I want to know what you thought… now that point is
stressed enough… have a nice life! Hope you read something of mine
soon… LOVE,
--Nat!
