A/N This chapter has some dark parts in it, but there are also some light moments to balance it out somewhat. We get a few flashbacks in this chapter, changes in POV from Carter, Shaw, and Reese. Hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer ~ I don't own any characters from Person of Interest.

Friday, September 7th 2001

Special Forces, Rangers Airborne. That's what the *tabs and SSI on his uniform said, but right now, even though he was still dressed as a Ranger, he was putting it all behind him. For the weekend at least. Today was Friday, he was on leave, and he was meeting her. 'She', was Jessica, his sweet Jessica, his love, his light, and the woman he'd been with for the last six months. She was a pretty blonde, tall, and bubbly. She had a radiant smile. She reminded him of baked apple pie, a white picket fence, and barbecues on the lawn in the back yard. She made him think of giving everything up, leaving the military behind, and settling down. She made him think of home.

The sun was setting as he waited outside the hospital for her. He anxiously paced the sidewalk, his boots sounding on the pavement. More missions than he could count, he saw danger almost every day, but the thought of her in his arms made butterflies flutter within his stomach. He smiled. A stupid, silly grin crossed his lips, and he shook his head. He felt more like a young twit and not the seasoned soldier that he was. She'd done this to him, and it had happened so fast.

He heard laughter behind him, and as the automatic doors slid open, he turned to see her emerging from behind them.

"John!" she squealed his name and ran toward him. He scooped her up in his arms, kissing her over and over again, not caring who saw.

She was like coming home he thought, as he nipped playfully at her lips. For him, she was home.

"Jessica," he finally said, and smiled at her.

"I missed you."

"Son of a bitch." Carter gritted her teeth at the pain in her left arm, and at the blood that flowed freely from it. "Damn it."

More stitches, she thought. The gunshot at Klaus' mansion was merely a graze, but this recent injury was a result of Dawid plunging a knife into her arm when she entered his hotel room. It'd come out of nowhere, and right after she'd had him within her grasp, but it had successfully angered her enough to earn him a solid blow to the side of his face. It hadn't been easy to get him here, but here they were, and despite this little setback, she wasn't deterred from her objective in the least.

"He got you pretty good," Shaw said, looking at the extent of the injury. "Lucky for you, I'm here."

She tore a strip of cloth from Carter's shirt and tied it around her arm, just beneath her armpit; she had to stop the bleeding.

"I don't know if lucky is the word I'd use right now."

"I would. I think it suits the situation perfectly."

Carter briefly softened at the satisfied smile on Shaw's face. Despite the pain in her arm, she was right; if she hadn't asked Shaw to come along, she might have been dead. The cover she'd provided from an adjacent building with her sniper rifle had eliminated some of Dawid's security detail while she took care of the others.

"Thank you," she said, as Shaw opened her medical bag and took out her surgical needle and thread. She cleaned the wound, mopped up the blood on Carter's arm, and took out some *Lidocaine.

"No," said Carter, stopping her. "No thanks."

"Look, I know you're a bad ass, you don't have to prove it. This is gonna hurt."

"I want it to hurt," Carter said. "I want to feel the pain. It'll remind me of everything he did to me...and to Amelia while I question him."

"Does John have any idea about what you're doing here?"

Shaw's eyes met hers cheekily, the needle and thread suspended in her hand between them. Her mention of John made Carter blink, and she thought of him in the motel room alone. For a moment she wondered if he was okay, if he needed anything, but she shut those thoughts down. Her feelings for him didn't belong here, not when she knew what she was about to do. She didn't answer the question, her steely gaze conveyed that it was a topic she didn't want to discuss. Shaw's eyes showed that she fully understood. She wasn't entirely sure of what the outcome of the situation would be, but she was nevertheless one hundred percent supportive.

With a shrug, she loosened her belt from around her waist and handed it to Carter. "Here," she said. "You might wanna bite down on this."

Reese looked at the clock on the nightstand. It was almost midnight. Carter had left over six hours earlier and she hadn't called or come back since. He constantly flicked through the local channels, looking for reports, news, anything that would inform him of her whereabouts or if she was okay. So far there had been nothing, and she wasn't answering her phone. The pain that had been kept at bay with the medication was turning into a dull and annoying throb in his torso. He'd forgone his next dosage, wanting to remain alert and awake in case she came back and they had to leave.

But she hadn't come back, and he was worried. No, he was terrified that she had failed. He was terrified that she'd been arrested, or worse, killed, in an attempt to get to the senator. He kept telling himself that she was good, that she was more than competent, that she wouldn't get caught. But the silence was killing him, and the more the hours ticked away, the more anxious he became.

"Where are you, Joss?"

The question quietly pierced the dark, and finally, the answer he'd been looking for was given. A news break interrupted a broadcast drama, and the media was reporting that a few hours earlier there'd been an attempt on Senator Dawid Belka's life. There wasn't a confirmation on whether the attempt had been successful, in fact the details were sketchy at best, and they did nothing to allay his fears. They showed no interviews with the senator, no sound bites, no footage. The statement from the local authorities reeked of a cover up. With his wife already reported missing and his possible disappearance or death, the government of Montenegro was doing its best to maintain diplomatic relations with Poland. They were stalling until they had a better handle on what could possibly turn into an international disaster.

"Come on, Joss. Call me."

Sunday, September 9th 2001

John laughed, deep, and throaty, and it felt as if the sound reverberated through his soul. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had so much fun. He and Jessica sat on lounge chairs next to each other by their motel pool. They'd spent most of the afternoon drinking fruity beverages spiked with Caribbean rum. Sweet cherries anchored the umbrellas that sat atop both their glasses. While the sun beat down on them, she regaled him with tales of the drama at the nurses' station at the hospital. They were silly stories really, inconsequential details of her work life, but every word made him feel more and more like a normal person, someone whole, and free.

She leaned over, kissing him, and he put an arm on her shoulder. She ran her hand across his face, her fingers grazed his brow, and he felt he never wanted this to end. And now it didn't have to. He hadn't told her yet. He was planning to, later.

She got up, smiling, biting her lower lip, and he didn't miss the hint of mischief in her eyes.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Come on," she said, grabbing his hand.

"What?"

"Let's go in the pool, John." She grabbed both of his hands and walked backward.

"Be careful, Jess," he warned, seeing how close she was to the edge.

She pressed her lips to his, still walking backward.

"Jess…be careful." His words were firmer, still he couldn't resist the smile on her face, her teasing voice.

"I don't have to be, you can catch me."

She fell backward suddenly, and her high pitched scream filled the air. In an instant he joined her, and both of them were immersed underwater. His arms went around her waist, and he pulled her to the surface where she threw her arms around his neck.

"See?" she said grinning. "I knew you'd catch me."

The playfulness was gone in an instant for him. So sure were her words, he was touched, and wanted her more than ever. He pinned her against the outer edges of the pool, pressing his growing erection into her. His tongue explored the inside of her mouth, tasting and taking, driving them both to a frenzy.

Her hands moved beneath his swim trunks, taking him into her hands, caressing him. He wanted to bury himself inside her, feel her warmth, and show her just how much he needed her. With her lips pressed against his, he flicked his thumbs over her nipples, and a soft moan escaped her mouth.

"Make love to me, John."

She cupped his face in her hands, staring into his eyes. He looked around, the area was deserted, and they were completely alone. She sensed his hesitation and kissed him again, the passion behind it becoming more and more urgent.

"Make love to me, John," she whispered.

He led her out of the water and onto the lawn chair where they lay earlier. With a towel spread underneath them, he took her, and she quietly drew him into herself, grasping onto him while he pushed them closer and closer to release.

Shaw looked through the two way glass at Carter as she circled Dawid Belka in his chair. Her eyes, and her movements were absolutely predatory. Whatever it was about this guy it was personal, Shaw thought, but there was something else there, something else that Carter seemed to be working through that she just had to get out.

She was in her living room earlier, going over footage again when Carter came knocking at her door. She had a strange look on her face when she asked for her help again. This time she didn't require her medical skills, although she did tell her to bring her kit along. This time she needed firepower, and she needed a partner.

She accepted her offer, but before they left, she told her about the brief meeting she witnessed on her surveillance tapes with Mark Snow, the briefcase, and the drop off. It piqued Carter's interest and she vowed to question Dawid about it before she killed him.

"You're gonna kill him? Just like that?"

"You think we're going to his hotel to have a chat with him?"

"No, I didn't. Just excited about a woman who knows what she wants and isn't afraid to go after it."

There was a hotel adjacent to Belka's building, and through the scope of her Barrett M82A1 rifle through an opened window, she helped guide Carter directly to him. It was her first job, even though it was 'unofficial', and she was glad to sink her teeth into a 'mission' that was nice and juicy. She loved the taste, she loved the rush, and her only regret was that she wasn't close up like Carter was to test out her hand to hand combat skills. Carter had held her own. To watch her take down some of Belka's men was a thing of beauty, and even after the man had personally used a small dagger to carve a hole into her arm, he hadn't slowed her down. Her blow in answer to his assault sent him straight to the ground. The others, in Shaw's opinion, were simply for fun.

By the time they'd dragged him back to this safe house, he was sporting a few bruises, and looked a little worse for wear. His eye was swollen and so was his top lip. They tied him to a chair while Shaw tended to her arm. Now, Carter's anger was far from diminished, in fact it seemed to have exacerbated. Before she'd left the room, she'd gathered her tools and was about to pack them up. Carter told her to leave them, just in case. Things were about to get interesting, Shaw thought. She, like Carter had been trained in advanced interrogation techniques, they'd both endured it themselves, but she'd never actually seen them carried out on someone first hand. Shaw felt as if she was about to learn something, and she was a willing student.

"What happened to Amelia?"

Carter looked down at Dawid while he stared defiantly at her. He was the one strapped in the chair, but he looked at her with a superior look on his face.

"You killed her, Dawid. I know you did. And you're going to pay for that, but I have some questions I want to ask you before that happens."

"*Murzyn," he muttered under his breath, but loud enough for her to hear. "No, no, no, no, no….*Czarnuch. That's a better word for you."

Carter stiffened at the terms, knowing exactly what they meant. He had nothing left to lose, and his use of the racial slurs was his last attempt at getting a reaction out of her.

"Klaus was always attracted to your kind, even back in school. He would chase the dark girls when we visited London, the United States…he would discreetly seek out their company. There was one girl in particular that he met in Paris. Her skin was dark like the colour of grapes, her eyes wide and brown like saucers. She had a body, I will admit, very attractive. He thought he was in love. His father found out and put a stop to it, she wasn't good enough you see, not for his son. His father had to make him see and eventually he married Pia. But…it seems he could never get the taste for her out of his mouth. And I told him this would happen. That very night I told him that his tastes would be the death of him. So…you killed Klaus, and I killed Amelia. I loved my wife…but she betrayed me."

Carter could feel every hair on her arm stand up. His condescending tone almost caused her to lash out, but she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of seeing any effect he might have on her. Instead she smiled sardonically, and raised an eyebrow at him, waiting to see if he was finished. She could tell he'd expected a different reaction, something more explosive. He was waiting for her to be wounded by his words, and then he'd planned to go in for the kill. But she was better than that.

She bent down and unbuttoned his shirt, and then slowly rolled up his sleeves till they were past his elbows. He looked at her, confused by her silence, wondering just what she was about to do. With his chest and arms exposed she turned to the table in the back of her and took out a scalpel, a ten inch blade, and held it up in front of him.

"Ever had a paper cut? I've had one maybe twice, three times before. They catch you off guard, and they hurt like a bitch, don't they? They're so damn tiny, sometimes not even…half as long as your finger. They don't even need to be that deep to cause the most excruciating kind of pain, and they can last…sometimes for days, Dawid."

She walked up to him, hearing his breath quicken, and she held the blade to the side of his face.

"You are going to tell me what I want to know, or I promise you, I will carve you up into tiny pieces. And I do have all the time in the world."

"No-"

His words were cut off, and he cried out as she cut into his chest.

"I have all the time in the world, Dawid."

Reese had allowed himself some sleep during the night. But as the morning wore on, he realized he couldn't wait for Carter to contact him any longer. He had to go and find her himself. The bug he'd planted inside her watch back in Poland was still there, he could use that to track her and find out where she was.

He rolled to his side slowly, and lowered his legs over the side of the bed before using his forearms to push himself upright. He sat still for a minute, then planted his feet firmly on the ground and pushed himself to stand. He felt a slight dizziness, but he sat at the small table in the room and rummaged through his backpack for his military tablet. After activating the software, he initiated a search for the device and put it down till it processed through.

He made his way to the bathroom to wash his face and brush his teeth. His wound, his muscles all complained. It'd been hours since he'd taken any of his medication and since he intended to head out in search of Joss he couldn't take any of them now. The drowsiness they would bring would only slow him down, and he needed to find her as soon as possible.

After he was dressed and armed, the search was complete. Judging from the results, she was in a building in Tuzi, a settlement in the municipality of Podgorica. It was about an hour's drive from the motel. If he hurried, he could make it there in less time. He left the room with a scowl on his face, and went in search of transportation.

Tuesday, September 11th 2001

"I wish this weekend could go on forever."

Jessica's eyes were full of regret, knowing that their brief vacation was coming to an end. He looked at her, heard the longing in her voice and knew he couldn't leave her again.

"It already has. It's Tuesday," he reminded her, and she smiled.

It was her turn to remind him that he had to go back to the base, and that they'd be separated again by his job, his duty, and it would be another two weeks until they saw each other again. Little did she know, he had other plans. Despite her not telling her mother about him, despite his suspicions that she might have reservations about dating an enlisted man, he wanted nothing more than to settle down and commit to her.

"Ask me to stay," he said, as he threaded his fingers through her hair. "Ask me, and I'll quit. I'll quit."

He kissed her collar bone, her neck, and her mouth, feeling intoxicated by her, feeling caught up in the moment. In a month's time he'd get his discharge papers, and he planned to come home to her, to build a life, to finally be happy, and he told her so. The look on her face was priceless, happy, and ecstatic. She loved him, just as he loved her.

They planned to celebrate with tequila, but while he picked up the phone to order room service, they realized that the world was crashing down all around them, literally, in the form of two planes that had brought the Twin Towers down in New York. They watched the news together in silence, saw the devastation of the attack, and witnessed something they never thought would ever happen. War had come to their country, and all thoughts he had of quitting, of having a normal life with her, vanished in a matter of moments.

There wasn't going to be a home to come back to. He had to re-enlist, there was no way around it. He thought of the life he could have with her, the family he could have, children, and he knew it would never be. He had to go back.

The light that he'd seen, that he'd thought he could bask in, was growing dimmer by the second.

This wasn't an interrogation anymore. Shaw realized that. Over the last few hours it had turned into something else. As promised, Carter had cut Belka into pieces. He was a bloody mess as he sat bound and bleeding in front of her. There were marks not just from the blades of her scalpel- the ones she had taken from Carter already-but there were marks from other things, bruises and scrapes and she wondered how much further this would go.

The night had been long, but it hadn't been all about making Belka suffer. They'd learned a great deal. The canister was a biochemical weapon that was capable of killing hundreds of thousands upon exposure, once it was opened and activated. The terrorists who were buying it from them were going to use it on American troops stationed at their base in Afghanistan.

Belka claimed not to know Mark Snow, he'd never heard of or seen him, but he did know the arms dealer that Shaw had been watching. His interests lay in a region in Kosovo, but he didn't know the specifics. Carter didn't believe him at first, but even after suffering further cuts at the edge of the scalpel, he maintained his ignorance.

"I think we're done here," Shaw said to her, but the look on Carter's face said otherwise. "Look, I don't know about you, but I don't think he can tell us anything else at this point. Another couple of hours of this and he won't even be coherent anymore."

"I'm not finished," Carter answered.

"I can see that," Shaw answered, and pried the scalpel from her fingers. "You said you were gonna kill him, so do that and be done with it."

"You've been a great deal of help, Shaw. But I think I can-"

"Sssh," Shaw said interrupting her. "Did you hear that?" She removed her gun from her waistband and cocked it. "Someone's here."

Wednesday, September 12th 2001

He kissed Jessica goodbye. He'd felt her lips for the last time and he knew he'd never see her again. He'd come to see her at the entrance of the hospital, and now he was leaving her there.

"I'll see you, soon," John said, though he knew it was a lie. The sun was setting, the sky was darkening, and the smile that had greeted him just days ago had faded.

"No you won't," she said, brokenly.

She turned away and didn't look back, and he wondered if the dim horizon ahead was a premonition of things to come.

"Joss."

John's voice was ragged, his face sweaty, and he looked as if he'd pass out at any moment. Carter knew that he was in pain, knew that his body wasn't ready for the amount of effort it took him to find her and seek her out. He was standing before her through a sheer force of will.

"Good, you're here," Shaw said, glancing back and forth between the two of them. "Now somebody can talk some sense into her."

She left the room, and the door closed with a resounding thud.

"What are you doing here, John?" Carter asked, surprised at the anger that filled her voice.

But just why was she angry? She couldn't fully pinpoint one reason. All she knew was that she saw flashbacks of being in a cell, being suspended by rope from a ceiling. She felt the bruises from the blows to her body all over again, and it rose up like bile in her throat. She felt the betrayal of Mark Snow, losing Amelia, and the humiliation of having to bare herself in front of Klaus Berger. She felt it all in that one moment, and the only thing that made her feel better was inflicting pain on Dawid Belka.

She looked down at her hands, blinking in confusion. They were bloodied and bruised, just as Dawid was. Who had she become through the night? What had she done?

"I came for you, Joss… and I want you to come with me."

He walked toward her, reaching for her arm, noticing the new stitches that now accompanied the first ones. "Joss," he whispered in agony.

"I'm not going anywhere, John," she said, pulling her hand away.

"What do you want, Joss? Do you want revenge? Do you want vengeance for Amelia? Then take it and let's go!"

She'd never heard him raise his voice before, not once in the four months that she'd known him, and now, it echoed loudly in the small room.

"You think this is who you are, but it's not. This isn't what you want. This isn't the woman that I know."

"You don't know me!" she screamed.

"Yes, I do. I know exactly who you are. I know that you're good, and you're kind, and you're not this monster, or this thing that's trying to control you now." His eyes were full, and they darkened to a deep ocean blue. "I know that you're stronger than what you're feeling, and I won't let it destroy you."

"John…." she began, still unable to find the words to speak. She stared at Dawid, barely conscious, and was horrified at what she'd done. "I'm just so….angry."

He walked toward her, and touched her cheek. "I know. I know, Joss. So finish it, but let your anger die with him."

He handed her his gun. It was heavy, loaded, and he stood to the side, waiting for her to use it. The tears she'd held back since she was tortured in Poland finally spilled over onto her cheeks, and she felt her anger spill over with it.

"For Amelia," she whispered as she pointed the gun toward Dawid and put two bullets in his chest. His head lolled over, and she breathed a sigh of relief. She heard John groan in the back of her, his hand clutching his wound. She spun round to see him fall to his knees. The wound had reopened and blood coated his hands.

A/N *tabs and SSI ~ Shoulder Sleeve Insignia

*Lidocaine ~ Local anasthetic, administered by injection

*Murzyn ~ From what I read, this is word is a 'mild' reference used in Poland to describe a POC, however depending on the context its used in, it can be considered a racial slur.

*Czarnuch ~ Racial slur used in Poland