What's worse than almost dying?
(As if anything could be worse).
Well— what happens next.

The gun in her hand feels the same as it did before. Her breath is steady. She is, as ever, a firm spot amid the universe. Even now.

(Especially now).

The shooting range is dark. So, so dark, the pitch black lighting giving the barest way only in the booth where she crams herself. The gun in her hand goes off and in the space where the bullet meets the paper, there is, blissfully, nothing.

(Simmons is a danger, and she's in protective custody. Taylor is somewhere safe, with Finch and Fusco and Shaw. And she is here, waiting. Waiting. It's easy enough to slip away, no one can fake a statement like the police. No one can bury bullets or bodies or themselves, like the police.

She has, at most, an hour, before they notice her missing. And by then she'll be back, as if she'd never left. An hour from now, she'll still be waiting, so she might as well live her life till then).

There are footsteps behind her, and the gait of them is familiar, the burn at the back of her neck where she knows she's being watched. Maybe it makes her feel safe. Maybe it did, once. He pulls up behind her, so near they're flush but not touching, and for all her preparation, she leans. His chest catching her.

Touching through the thin fabric of their clothes like the haven't since his arms where tucked round her like a vice (like he's keeping her alive by the sheer force of his will over the universe), since she'd laid prostate in her hospital bed and the brush of his thumb over her check was the most fleeting of things, concrete among the haze of pain and fluid and gauze.

Something goes dry at the back of her throat.

If she could play it out all over again, she'd still have done it. She'd take them all out, one by one, dismantled rotting, gangrene empire poling under her city. Put herself on the line, all over again, for something's are greater—and if she can save a few of them, she would've. She will. She puts herself on the line, and that's a choice, the choice she gets to make.

He doesn't get to be angry for that).

"I need you safe, Joss." (That voice pitched low, like gravel, sliding. A low rumbling tide). The staccato pellet of her gun rings clear, and it hits. Dead on. His hand covers her, lowers the gun and the line of her jaw snaps shut, with his arm parallel to hers.

"My stance is good." She says, instead. There's no space to move from him, even if she wanted.

"Could always be better." And there it is, the fleeting touch, here on her arm, there on her back, so she stands a little straighter, and the breath that knots a little tighter in her chest since…then, eases.

His hand in on her wrist. Her pulse thrums, and that isn't a lie. But she doesn't need him to hold her steady. When she pulls the trigger, it's a little off center.

He thinks himself a number of awful, horrible, terrible things. And she, she has no regrets. The rot has been cut from her city, the head of the snake half sliced, sinking into shadows where they creep.

He steps back, lets her turn, moves the hearing protectors down from her neck, onto the shelf where Carter turns and presses herself. Her front to his. Even ground. The coolness of her eyes, the firm set of her mouth.

"I'd do it all again. No matter what you say, John." The hard thing must be done, and it will be, so help her god, if she has to do it herself.

He thinks himself unbearable, and yet. When she reaches, the flesh of him is warm, like she knew it was, and he leans, and in the distance where they meet—

The gunpowder scent of him mixes nicely with her perfume.

"Detective," he murmurs, so low she might've not heard it if her whole body wasn't in tune with his. They run these concentric circles around each other. This, the shortest distance; the point in which they meet.

(The danger is out there; the danger is real. The danger is him and her and what they might do to the world outside them).

"John—" and her mouth falls to the corner of his, lashes soft, wisping over her cheek (he is subsumed, in that motion, the half lids of her eyes measuring him in equal terms). He's taken his far share of liberties tonight, but her fingers find his collar, the curve of his cheek, the slit of her open mouth in half a gasp.

His hand, in her hair, soft on the shell curve of her ear and the tenderness of him, the wolf lean and bare and hungry, could make her weep. and the worst thing happens to words is when the go unsaid, she could say, "It wasn't your fault", he could say, "You should've never been apart of this fight".

But what consolation is that, with the blood in both their mouths. Some bridges are never meant to be crossed. (This is one of them). Somethings, better left dead, unsaid, dying, gone.

"He's coming after you."

"Not if I get to him first."

"Carter—"

"You call me Carter when you need something. Detective when you're pissed or playful. Joss when you—"

"When I what?" She doesn't flinch from the burning of his eyes. (She was an interrogator, once. She stands her ground, burns and burns and burns too, more radiant than the sun. All the brighter for her resolve, that nearly got her killed, once).

"Don't mock me." It's suddenly hard to breathe. The line of his mouth is tight and drawn and her hand falls, from his, cold mist cooling around his mouth. He is so still. Eyes like a wounded deer.

There's not enough space to run from this, suddenly, this angry thing that rears, she lived and died and lived again, "you changed me" he said but still ran, and that, that…

"This is serious, John," She says, and maybe it's about revenge, for the grief laden in her son's eyes. For the liquid guilt in John's. As if she'll break.

"When it comes to you," he says, so carefully, between gritted teeth, treading on eggshells (but she's a bomb ready to blow), "I am." Joss falls still, too. For a moment. (There it is. The problem).

"You nearly died." He says, slowly, and her laugh bounces with as edge, it's funny how he says it as if she's not aware, as if she's not here, alone in this range with a gun in her hand and a bandage on her chest and trauma bitten down in her cheek.

"I know, John. I know," There's a crack where her composure is should be, hand, on her chest, over where her heart beats, under white linen and antiseptic "So just, stop-"

"You don't get it, do you." John's voice is low and cold, eyes glistening with sharp intent.

"Right, I forgot. You're the only one allowed to sacrifice yourself. You're the only one allowed to save people. Shit, I'm just a cop. What the hell do I know?"

"Carter-"

"Detective. Carter. Joss. Which do you want me to be, John? Who would you like me to be?" Joss' laugh is humorless and strained and sharp, not meant to cut, but that's what it does it does, it hurts him, that bitter, timorous laugh cutting his skin as easily as would a knife. "Will it matter? Will you even stay this time, or when I turn my back will you run?"

"I left to track Simmons down."

"You left me." She says. Her hands are empty. And the space between them, she can't reach. "You left. Have I been avenged to your satisfaction?" Was it worth it?

"It wasn't about you-"

"Then why are you here?"

"I don't know." She closes her eyes.

"I think you should leave." He wavers. Reaches, like he can make this whole. They always, always, tread in concentric lines, in circles, round each other. For the first time, she flinches.

(She's tired, now. Not proud, but tired, and that should be something that's allowed, after it all).

She never imagined it'd go like this.

That they could hurt each other for real. That when he turned his back, she'd be the one to walk away and not look twice.

But they do.
And she doesn't.