A/N: Thank you for not killing me for the last chapter! I hope I'll survive after this one, too…

Still don't own them :(

Chapter 16

Brandt ran in the needed direction, Mike limping stubbornly behind him despite the agent was getting further away every second. Both of them fully realized the need to get there in time. Both dreaded the worst.

The agent stormed into the lab and looked for the door. After a few seconds of scanning he spotted it. A metallic door in the far wall. Not wanting to lose any more precious time he ran towards it and proceeded to open it… but failed. It was locked. No matter how he tried he couldn't even see the lock. He started banging on the door out of sheer despair, feeling the pain in his injured arm multiply as he used it without thinking about the wound. He had come so close and now he couldn't save his friend because of some stupid door.

"Benji!" he yelled, his voice threatening to break any moment. "Benji, are you there?" there was no response. An invisible hand squeezing his heart seemed to be tightening its grip. "Just hold on, okay?" he was getting quieter with every word he said. The "please hold on" he added after it was a mere whisper.

He had no idea what was going on behind that door. He had no idea how to get there. He made to put his hands behind his head in an exasperated manner and hissed, remembering his injury again. He looked out of the lab in search for Mike but the poor guy seemed to be too far behind. The guard's phone rang in his pocket. After a few seconds of ignoring the call he finally picked up and felt a slight relief upon hearing Ethan's voice on the other side.

"Brandt," the team leader sounded panicked. That was a bad sign. "Have you got him?"

"No," the former analyst breathed out. "Why? What…"

"They are using some kind of a gas. It's lethal to humans and destroys this Anti-God stuff. So that no-one finds out anything if they find the body".

Brandt barely heard Hunt's "be careful" as he lowered the hand holding the phone. The body. Did Ethan even realize it was actually Benji he was talking about? Their lively Benji Dunn. He wasn't… couldn't be… It sounded too much like their team leader had lost his hope. And if Ethan Hunt had lost his hope, it meant things were going really bad. A noise not far from him made him come back from his trance.

"Okay, Brandt," Mike was breathing heavily, leaning on the control desk, trying to stay upright. When the agent moved in his direction in order to help, he raised his hands dismissively. "I'm gonna try to open the door, and you'd better stay there, closer to it. So that you're fast enough to…" the analyst's nod cut him off and spared him some time.

As Mike got to typing something, Brandt just stood there. He had never felt so useless. His friend was just there, behind that metallic door, and there was nothing he could do. He didn't even know whether Benji was alive at all. Simple as that. He was torn between the need to keep his hope, his fear of the worst and the rational need to be prepared for the worst. He clung to hope instead. As blindly as he could.

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"Your friend is lucky," Wickham seemed to be as calm as anything. Ethan and Jane exchanged glances once again.

"How is he lucky?" Jane finally asked. "What do you mean?"

"Isn't the gas working as you told us?" Ethan figured the guy was crazy and had lost the good grace to know right and wrong. Violence wasn't needed to get the information here.

"Gas?" Wickham narrowed his eyes. "Oh, no, it has already worked. No, I meant your other friend. Normally there would be lots of guards to stop him but most of them followed you. That's such luck for him!"

"What do you mean by 'has already worked'?" Jane felt sick. She had already had her suspicions but she wouldn't believe them until she heard a direct confirmation.

"I think you know what I mean, my dear," he gave a soft smile. "You seem to be clever. Why would I offend you with direct answers when you know them already?"

Carter's vision blurred and she felt tears rolling down her cheeks.

"Oh, don't be upset," Wickham added softly. "It's such a huge step forward for the science. I'm disappointed you can't see the bigger picture. It's just one life on the way of the progress of the mankind".

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"Got it!" Mike quipped after what seemed like days and weeks of typing. "The door's unlocked!"

Without a second's delay Brandt rushed to it, happy that there finally was something for him to do… And the door still wouldn't open. The former analyst threw a confused look at the other man. And then tried again. The door wasn't locked, indeed. Something was holding it from the other side, not letting it open. As the agent pushed a bit harder, it finally budged. Holding his breath, he stepped inside and had to summon all of his strength in order to stop his dizziness as soon as he saw what exactly had been keeping the door from being opened. It was, indeed, a body. The body of his best friend.

Trying to block all of his thoughts for at least a few seconds, he dragged Benji out of the room and back into the laboratory, shutting the door behind him so that the gas wouldn't get to them. As he rolled the tech onto his back and got a proper look at his appearance, he felt nauseous.

The bandages on the ex-technician's shoulder were soaked in red, exhibiting the sings of a recent bleeding. He must have disturbed the wound while trying to get out. The analyst felt a suffocating lump in his throat at the thought. Blood from the cut on Benji's forehead was covering a significant part of his face, mixing with some of the already dried out blood from older cuts. However, the worst part were his eyes. Those blue eyes that had always shined with emotion. They were wide open. Unmoving, unseeing. Empty. Just like in that dream. Only this time everything was too real.

Brandt rubbed his own eyes violently, getting rid of the tears. He wouldn't let Benji leave that easily. There was no way he would let this happen. Not today. Not ever.