A/N: I typed this chapter faster than I've typed ANYTHING in a very long time. As for the final result… I'll let you be the judges.

First things first, though! THANK YOU, from the bottom of my heart, for your reviews, listings and support. This part of the tale is coming to an end so it's good to know that there's so many of you marching it through with me.

Awkay, before I get all mushy… Let's rock! I truly hope that you'll enjoy the ride.

The Measure of a Man

Outside the government base the crowd of people continued to grow. Humans. The Others. All of them scared to the cores of their beings yet determined to make a change. Determined to stop the devastation while there was still some world left. Determined to create a better future from the ashes of the lives they used to know.

They stared at the building, stern looks on their faces. None of them was entirely sure of what they were supposed to do. Except for one.

Everyone else stared with quite open stun when one woman eventually separated herself from the crowd. She made her way to the front with her head held high, her red dyed, shortcut hair shining radiantly in sunlight. Despite all the attention she was getting and the armed guards keeping a close eye on her there wasn't a trace of hesitation on her face. From her brown eyes they all found what they'd been desperately looking for.

Hope.

She looked at them all. Even without a microphone her voice was as firm as thunder when she spoke. "My name is Elle Greenaway. Not too long ago I was lost, fast on my way to self destruction. Angry. Without a sense of direction. Until someone very special crossed paths with me." For a moment her eyes shimmered. She allowed a couple of tears to roll without seeming ashamed of them. "He already knew that his time was running out when we met but he never stopped hoping." She took a deep breath. "It doesn't matter if he was a human or one of the Others. What matters is what he taught me to believe."

Aaron and Emily both spun around as quickly as they could, startled by the unexpected voice. Unexpected but familiar. They found themselves face to face with Jason Gideon.

"What are you doing here?" Aaron demanded instantly.

The former BAU member took a deep breath. "The same as you. Trying to bring an end to this." He nodded towards the cubicles. "Now let's get these people out of here. We don't have a lot of time left."

They worked in utter silence, all of them focused and determined. Most of the Others they saved were weak and sick, almost too much so to be able to walk. A lot of them began to cry and scream once they realized that they were finally on the verge of freedom. They appeared throughoutly lost, overjoyed and horrified all at once. The mixture was throughoutly heartbreaking.

In front of their motley crew Aaron slipped into the role that came naturally to him. He took a deep breath and claimed leadership. "Alright, everyone. I know that you're tired but you can't rest just yet. We need to get out of here, do you understand? You'll be safe very soon but first we need to make it out."

All the rescued lost souls nodded slowly although not all of them seemed to really understand. Slowly, hesitantly, they began to follow him out. Towards a tomorrow that was far beyond uncertain.

Outside the room they faced a horrifying sight. Guards, apparently five of them, lay on the floor, all of them butchered. Jason, Aaron realized with chills.

Although Jason stood beside him it was hard to hear him from when one of their rescues began to scream. "They would've killed us", the man explained in a voice that held no remorse. "So save your moral arguments for some other time."

Aaron gritted his teeth and kept his silence. He didn't approve but he also knew that they indeed didn't have the time for this particular argument. Instead he chose another hot topic. "There's a bomb in this building", he stated, careful to keep his voice so low that the others wouldn't hear. "We need to stop it."

"We can't." Jason's expression was tight. "We didn't activate the bomb. A dosage of the cure did." Those eyes were full of storm when meeting his briefly. "The bomb is a living being, Aaron."

"Every single life is valuable. Every day, every breath, is a gift. We can't waste those on this horrible, pointless bloodshedding. This world is worth so much more than that."

Further away from the whole chaos JJ stared at Will, her eyes full of disbelief. "What… What's going on?"

"There's a way out of this, Jaye", Will announced. There was a degree of desperate hope in his eyes. "We can finally leave. Start again far away from this insanity."
JJ's heart thumped a little too fast. That… sounded almost too good to be true. "How?"

"In an hour and a half a plane will take off, towards safety. Only few know about it." Will's face held such joy and cautious hope that it was heartbreaking. "This is our last chance. Henry's already there, waiting for us."

But JJ couldn't just… "My other family… They're still out there." Her eyes were pleading him to understand, one more time. Even though both of them had done things that the other couldn't accept. "Will, I can't leave them!"

And by some miracle Will did understand. He nodded and tried to smile although it didn't come out quite right. "Then we'll get them and leave together."

JJ knew, all too clearly, that once this was all over they'd have a ton of things to talk through. That their marriadge might not make it through this. But in that moment she leaned forward and kissed him, with absolutely all the passion there was in her.

Thank you.

Once the kiss was over she gave him a small, secret smile. Then called out. "Maeve, let's go!"

"There's been too much death, sadness and destruction already. We've made too many mistakes. Far too many innocent lives have been sacrificed."

While they glared at each other Diana Reid and Erica Leonor both knew that Erica wasn't going to make it out of their meeting alive. In the end a small, ice cold grin took over Diana's face. "I may have ordered the death of your father, once. But you tried to take away my son. And for that, Erica, you will pay with your life."

At first it was like fireworks had gone off inside Erica's head. She saw radiant colors that began to blur together, shapes that didn't make any sense, heard voices that couldn't possibly exist. And then came the pain.

While Diana tore through Erica's mind, shredding it piece by piece, the scientist howled with such a sound that couldn't possibly be human. In those moments of despair her hands began to shimmer with electricity, a side of her she'd spent years upon years disguising refusing to be hidden any longer.

Diana chuckled. "Oh, Erica… You spent all your life ashamed of your mother's legacy. Refusing to be what you really were." The grip on her mind became, if possible, even stronger. "You chose to be a human. Now you'll die as one."

And with those words of verdict the last remaining pieces of Erica's mind were torn to pieces.

For a few more seconds Erica stood absolutely still, her glazed over eyes staring straight ahead, unseeing. And then she slumped down. Like a puppet that'd had its strings cut.

Diana stared at her crumbled form for a moment, as though making sure that the woman wouldn't get up again. Then she turned around and walked away with perfectly steady, confident steps. A smile lingering on her lips.

It was finally over, almost.

"So let's bring an end to this madness. Today. Right here, right now. While we still can."

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.

The echo of gunshots felt endless and for a while Derek was sure that his heart would give out before it was over. One way or the other. Keeping his eyes open required absolutely all of his willpower.

Eventually there was only one guard left, holding a recently fired gun with a perfectly steady hand. The man lifted his head, revealing his face. And they met a steely determined William Reid. "I'm not going to just leave my son here", the man growled.

Derek didn't know what to say. In the end David spoke for him. "Thank you."

William nodded, then breathed in deep and focused once more. "There'll be more guards coming down soon. They're monitoring this floor closely. So let's hurry up."

Well, Derek and David certainly had no objections to that. Without exchanging another word they hurried on, following William who seemed to know exactly what they were looking for. There was a small, barely visible teardrop shaped picture on the wall. William flashed his keycard on it and exactly three seconds later a door came to view.

Derek blinked several times. "What…?" He closed his mouth as quickly as he opened it. The time for questions would come later. Hopefully. Now they'd have to worry about getting Spencer out of this whole mess.

In one fluid motion William fished out another keycard and ran it over the door. It began to open with a sigh. The trio wasted no time in pushing their way in. The sight that met them, however, froze them to the spot.

Spencer lay on the floor, unmoving and barely even breathing. There was a trickle of blood running from the young man's nose and it didn't require a medical doctor's degree to discover that several bones had been broken. The life was barely there.

While David remained paralyzed by shock Derek and William both dashed to the unconscious agent. William's hand shook while he caressed his son's cheek helplessly, tears filling the man's eyes. "Spencer?" There was, of course, no response. A choked sob left the father. "I… I'm here now, Spencer. So please…!"

Determined to focus on anything else for the sake of his sanity Derek checked Spencer's pulse although his own fingers were far from steady. It was frail and thready. Blinking away the tears blurring his eyes was one of the hardest things he'd ever done. "We… We have to get him out of here. Fast."

He really, really should've remembered that fate didn't tend to be at their side. Because just then several sets of steps approached and before they could do a thing four more guards stood at the doorway, staring at them.

William looked back at them with tears running down his cheeks. A prayer in his eyes. "Please…!" the father begged. "He… He's my son. So please…! Let me take him out of here."

With the heated standoff none of the participants noticed that the room's other, even more hidden door was slightly ajar. From the crack Spencer's former tormentor observed them with a clearly visible degree of amusemenet. In the end the door closed with nothing more than a sigh of air and the mysterious torturer disappeared like a fragment of a nightmare.

"Because we're more than this. We can leave behind something better than this. Now is the time to prove it."

Alex, who'd been looking at her son with tears shining in her eyes, felt the bottom fall from her world when all of a sudden Ethan dropped the test tube he'd been holding and slumped to the floor. Screaming from the bottom of his heart and soul, both hands pressed against his head with a desperate amount of force. The patterns on his skin were spinning madly while his blue glow kept intensifying, to a point where it was hurting her eyes.

"Ethan?" she screamed, her heart hammering madly and falling apart at the same time. No, no, no…! She couldn't be losing him again. Not when she just got him back. Not like this! When he only kept screaming and rocking himself helplessly her terror grew to something beyond. She rushed over to him, crashlanding to his side with a force that hurt. She didn't even notice. "Ethan, honey, what's wrong? What's happening?"

Silvery tears were running down Ethan's face while the teenager kept rocking himself, trembling from sheer agony. "Make it stop!" the boy begged. "P… Please, make it stop…!"

That was when Alex realized that not all pain she was experiencing was caused by what happened to her son. She looked at her skin and felt ice cold chills go all the way through. There, all over her hand, radiation damage was spreading. Suddenly everything began to make sense.

The special made door of this room she'd never really registered before.

The way Erica let her in so willingly.

She was never supposed to come out alive from facing her son unprotected.

But somehow Alex found it hard to believe that even Erica would've predicted something of this magnitude. It looked like Ethan was being torn to pieces, inside out. In a few moments she understood far too clearly what was happening.

A nuclear expolosion, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

Alex could've tried to run away. But she didn't. Instead she wrapped her arms around Ethan as tightly as she possibly could and closed her eyes, finding it easy to imagine the baby she once gave birth to. "It's going to be alright, sweetie", she whispered, her voice breaking slightly. "I… I know that it hurts. But it'll be okay. I promise."

Sobs and pain shook Ethan's falling apart frame. And in that moment he clung to her with the sheer power of despair. "Please don't leave me", he begged in a heartbreaking whimper.

Alex was in a tremendous amount of pain. But still, sitting there with her son she'd imagined lost in her arms, she smiled and held on tighter. "I won't", she swore.

She was never, ever leaving her child behind again.

"Let's show those who remain after us just what our hearts were made of."

Once she was through with the speech Elle looked at the crowd, out of breath and words. She'd given them absolutely all she could. Now… Now she could only wait.

A second passed. Then another. And the crowd exploded to the loudest cheers she'd ever heard in her life.

Elle wasn't entirely sure how long the surreal moment lasted until all of a sudden another group merged with hers, led by a face she'd imagined she'd never see again. Those people were tortured, exhausted, some of them barely able to stand. But they were still alive, finally out of the nightmare some of them had been locked into all their lives.

Elle smiled until she saw Jason's morose expression. He made his way to her and whispered into her ear so that the rest of the crowd wouldn't hear. "Elle, we need to get these people away from here. Soon this place is going to be nothing but a pile of steel, stone and ashes."

Elle shivered, feeling more than a brush of terror. Then nodded, her face grim. She refocused on the crowd. "Alright, we need to go."

Slowly and hesitantly, pained and terrified, they began to move away from the nightmarish place together. Never noticing how a lot of new people joined them on their path, even some of the soldiers and guards choosing their bizarre team.

They were quite a group, most of them with nothing but their undying hope giving them shelter. None of them was entirely sure where they were headed or what was waiting for them when they'd get there. If they were really honest with themselves they couldn't even be sure if there was a tomorrow waiting for them. All they knew was one thing, the only thing that mattered in the end.

They were marching on together.

Less than half an hour later the entire place exploded, a mushroom shaped cloud wiping away nightmares, dreams, love, hatred, life and death alike.

"Let's prove them that we can create our own tomorrow."

TBC

A/N: Awkay… That was a tiny bit emotional. Soooo, the question remains. Did everyone make it out alive? Will everyone survive?

We've got only one chapter and a epilogue of this one left, folks! I know, I can't believe it, either.

I've really gotta get going now. Until next time, you all! I really hope that I'll meet you there.

Take care!

Violet: It's a real pleasure to hear that, ya know? (BEAMS) I really hope that you'll enjoy the remaining story just as much.

Monumental thank yous for the review!