The end is here...T_T

First of all I want to apologize for making y'all wait for so long, the idea was to finish this story weeks ago, but I went on vacation and I didn't have much time to finish editing the chapter. But now it's here and you'll get to read it in just a second, I just need to say a couple of things first, so bear with me, okay?

I hate to get all emotional, but I really want to take the chance to thank you for all the support and encouragement during the year it took me to finish this story, it's been a long, long ride, but you all have made every second of it worthwhile. Of course I would like to thank each and every one of you for taking the time to read this story, but that's kind of a tall order, so...

To all of you who encouraged me to write and publish this story, thank you.

To all of you who read it even though it was a WIP, thank you.

To all of you who took the time to leave reviews or fave the fic, thank you.

To all of you who made some kind of fan art, edits or gifs, thank you. (I'm a big fan of your work)

To all of you who contacted me on social media to talk about the story, thank you.

And finally, to all of you who're just binge-reading this, thank you.

I couldn't have finished this monster of a fic without any of you, so from the bottom of my heart...THANK YOU.

Anyway, this got longer than I expected, so I won't say more, just that I hope you like the end of this story and that you stick around to read some of my other fics. I'm gonna start posting two new malec stories simultaneously sometime around next week, so I really, really hope to see you there!

Enjoy the chapter and as usual, don't forget to leave reviews, follow and/or fave the story!

Also, READ THE END NOTES ;)

Chapter 32

Magnus opened his eyes, he was dizzy, numb, and very disoriented. He blinked several times to try to focus, but his brain drifted in and out of consciousness every few seconds. It was a very strange feeling, something he had never felt before; it was as if a part of his brain knew he had to stay awake and fight against the darkness, but the other wanted to succumb to it and just forget about the world.

He sighed, fighting against that feeling by taking some deep breaths and practically forcing himself to stay awake and concentrate on his surroundings. He didn't know where he was, but he was lying on his back in what appeared to be the trunk of a moving car. The last thing he remembered was being in the back of the garbage truck listening to Valentine's report on the heist, and that was it. He didn't know what had happened after that, but it wasn't difficult for him to guess that Jonathan had drugged him at some point and that he had lost consciousness—there was literally no other reasonable explanation for it.

Still disoriented, Magnus tried to move, but both his hands and feet were tied and there was a cloth in his mouth that muffled his moans and prevented him from screaming. He tried to use what little energy was left in his body to free himself, after all, they had only used rope to tie him, but he was still unusually slow, his limbs felt sluggish, clumsy; he supposed it was some side effect of the drug they had used on him.

Magnus cursed in silence.

If the drug running through his veins was the same they had used to knock down the guards at the bank, then he knew he would be fine as soon as the effect wore off, but he didn't know how long that would take and if he wanted to make it out alive before it was too late, he needed to find a way to get out of the trunk before the car stopped moving.

"Hmph!" He exhaled through the cloth when he tried, in vain, to free his hands for the second time.

His situation wasn't ideal, but he knew he had to help his mind clear up a bit so he could think more clearly and come up with a way to escape. He was where he was because they were going to kill him, he had known that from the very beginning. When he had walked out of the bank with the money and without triggering the alarms he had become a liability, a threat, and the only way to ensure that he didn't have the opportunity to ruin Valentine's plans was to get rid of him permanently. He knew that if he had any chance of surviving at all, he had to act—and act fast. He had no idea how long he had been trapped in that place, but he knew he didn't have much time left.

Magnus started to look around, trying to find something, anything, that could help him free himself from his bonds, but these people had left nothing to chance; the trunk of the car had been modified to work as a bunker or a moving grave. He wondered if they were going to just leave him there to die until he ran out of oxygen or if they were going to throw him along with the car through some cliff.

If he was honest, that would be a great way to get rid of him once and for all, but he doubted they were going to do that. These people weren't stupid, his death couldn't draw a lot of attention, if the idea of this whole plan was to blame him for the robbery and escape with the money, they needed Magnus's death to go unnoticed. And that was why he was certain that they weren't going to leave this to chance—not this time. They were going to make sure he didn't survive to open his mouth, but they were going to do it in silence, without witnesses, and with no one to know where to find him...ever.

The car kept moving for a while, Magnus didn't know exactly if it had been seconds or minutes, his sense of time was still off, but he was still trying to free himself. Slowly, he was starting to feel more in control of his own body, his limbs were getting some of their strength back and he no longer felt like passing out every two seconds. He knew that if things continued that way, he would be able to break free at some point.

Unfortunately, before that could happen, the car came to a halt and almost immediately the engine went out—his time was up.

"Shit!" He cursed in his mind as panic grew within him. This was it. His time had come. His death was mere seconds away.

Magnus heard the driver get out of the car and shut the door behind him, so he took a deep breath and tried to prepare himself for the worst. He didn't know who was going to be in charge of finishing the job and send him to the afterlife, but whoever that was, Magnus knew that he no longer had hopes of surviving, his minutes were numbered.

"You're awake!" Jonathan exclaimed rather surprised when he opened the trunk and noticed that Magnus was awake. "It seems that I used a pretty low dose on you, not that it really matters, I was going to wait for you to wake up to finish the job anyway. I wanted to see your face."

"Mrmph mmmrpph mmmrrrmph!" Magnus complained through the piece of cloth in his mouth although he knew Jonathan couldn't understand him, but he hoped his eyes reflected what he was thinking—that Jonathan was a bastard and that he hated him with every fiber of his being. But Jonathan ignored him and just pulled him out of the trunk, letting him fall head first to the ground.

"You should have used your hands to avoid hitting your face." Jonathan said in a mocking tone when he noticed that with the fall blood had begun to sprout from Magnus's left eyebrow. He had known that Magnus's hands were tied behind his back and that no matter what he did, the fall would hurt him badly. "Oh, right...you can't do that, my bad."

Magnus just sent him a killing look. The fact that he was about to die didn't annoy him as much as seeing how much Jonathan was enjoying the process.

"Anyway, let's get going, we have no time to lose." Jonathan said, grabbing him from his tied feet and dragging him inside the building.

It was a construction site, abandoned by the looks of it, there were tools of all kinds here and there, kegs of nails, ladders, discarded materials, and even old prefabricated structures scattered everywhere. Magnus couldn't see much beyond the wooden boards that surrounded the place to avoid prying eyes, but he recognized some of the skyscrapers that loomed over the horizon and knew he was somewhere in Brooklyn. Of course that information wasn't useful for his complicated situation, he had no way to escape and he was sure he was going to die anyway, but it was comforting in some sort of twisted and ironic way to know that he wasn't that far from home.

"I'm considering letting you walk from here," Jonathan said when they reached the building; the place had clearly not been finished and there was no elevator, just the pit; if they wanted to go somewhere upstairs, they'd have to use the stairs to get there, and since Magnus was tied up that meant that Jonathan would have to carry him or drag him all the way there, "or maybe I'll just kill you here."

With all the dragging from the car to the building, the cloth around Magnus's mouth had loosened a bit, so Magnus used his shoulder to get rid of it and be able to speak. "Do it here, then, end this once and for all!" He said, looking at Jonathan firmly.

Jonathan laughed. "I'm afraid I can't do that, I have specific instructions to follow and I do not intend to disobey them. No one's ever going to find you. Those were my father's exact words, he ordered me to follow them after your boyfriend tried to stop us."

"The FBI was in the warehouse!?" Magnus asked, feeling all sorts of emotions swirling in his stomach—anxiety, excitement, fear. Alec hadn't been during the attack to the bank, so it only meant that he had tried to stop them at the only other location he knew: the warehouse in New Jersey.

Clever. Magnus thought approvingly.

"Oh, yes, they arrived to the warehouse with all their FBI circus, your boyfriend at the front, of course, but don't worry, they failed. Your fed isn't that clever and he wasn't able to stop us...my father and I had a secret passage to the other building, so we escaped. I left in a car to finish you while my father took our money to a safer place. That's not the only security building we had, we knew someone could betray us, so we were prepared."

Magnus was conflicted, a part of him was happy to hear that Alec had received his message and had deciphered it, but the other was deeply concerned. He had never doubted of his boyfriend's ability to solve this mess, he was the smartest person he knew, but he had questioned the time the task would take him. Alec's record in deciphering coded messages wasn't the best, after all, that little message that Magnus had left for him on those postcards had taken him almost two years to decipher. And although this wasn't the case and Alec had connected the dots in record time, everything seemed to indicate that in the end, Valentine had managed to escape and that couldn't be good news for anyone.

"Who do you think told the feds where we were going to be, huh?" Jonathan asked. He was untying Magnus's hands and tying them again but this time in front of him. "We both know that your dear fed isn't that smart, so I doubt he has figured it all out on his own. Someone must have told him, but who?" He asked, tying the rope around Magnus's wrists so tightly that he could feel it digging into his skin. "Most of our men are criminals and hate the FBI, the few who don't are from the FBI itself. I didn't do it, my father didn't do it, so that only leaves you. You told him, didn't you?"

"Maybe…" Magnus admitted blatantly.

"When?" Jonathan asked. "Was it when we were in the library or the bank? Those were the only times you were out of one of our security buildings. Did you leave a message for him in any of those places?"

"Maybe…" Magnus said again, smiling.

Jonathan gave him a long look of disapproval before speaking. "You're smart and pretty slick, I'll give you that...too bad your little plan didn't work out in the end. You both won't get away with this. You're going to die alone and with no one to help you, and that agent of yours will become the mockery of the FBI, especially after we tell everyone what you two had. They're going to think he helped cover for you so you could steal the Federal Reserve." Jonathan said, smiling triumphantly. "Your beloved Alexander's going to lose everything he's worked so hard for and you know what? All that is going to be your fault."

Magnus tried not to react to that and instead just attempted to provoke Jonathan even more. The young criminal couldn't threaten him with revealing what he and Alec had anymore. The truth about their relationship would die with Magnus, he had left everything ready in case something like this happened. No matter what rumors they tried to spread about the nature of their relationship, he had made sure that Alec and his reputation remained untouched.

"Oh, right, I almost forgot! You're going to pin this heist on me too!" Magnus exclaimed, feigning shock. "You know what? I should actually thank you for doing that, you're going to make me look like a legend. 'Magnus Bane breaks into the Federal Reserve Bank and walks out of it with thousands of dollars in cash and without triggering a single alarm!' After that becomes public knowledge my name and my achievements will forever be remembered, so thank you." He said smiling.

"You will never become a legend," Jonathan said, there was anger in his eyes, "we're gonna take care of that too, why else do you think I've been using your same MO, huh? It wasn't just because we needed someone to pin this on, it's because someday I'm going to claim what you've done as my own."

"What?" Magnus frowned, confused.

"I lost many years of active duty when I was in witness protection, there's no way to go back in time, but I can claim what you've done as mine. I'll make you a myth, people will wonder if Magnus Bane really ever existed and when they all think you're dead and begin to forget what you did, I'll come back and reclaim not your name because, let's be honest, it's pretty lame, but your deeds. I'll become greater than you ever were and-"

"Are you so desperate for recognition that you have to use what I've done to make you feel better about yourself?" Magnus asked, smiling amused at what he had just heard. Jonathan was so desperate to have a place in the criminal world that he was willing to use someone else's crimes and claim them as his own just to achieve it. Pathetic. "I thought you were better than that, but apparently I was wrong. You're just a poor abandoned boy who thinks that becoming a cheap and pathetic imitation of another criminal is going to help you impress your dear father. I have news for you, Jonathan, that's not going to happen. You'll never be your father's pride, you'll always be just the son that he abandoned and then used to get what he wanted. He'll always see you just as a means to an end and-"

"Shut up!" Jonathan exclaimed, hitting him hard in the face to keep him from talking.

Magnus spat some blood, but kept smiling. He had nothing else to lose and had decided a few minutes ago that he wasn't going to go down without a fight, he was going to cause as much damage as he could before he died. "You can hit me all you want, it won't make what I just said any less true. You're just a pathetic, insufferable brat who will become nothing more than a cheap imitation of me. How does it feel to know that you'll never be able to make your father proud just by being yourself? I bet it must hurt a lot, especially since you have a very twisted admiration for him, I wonder if that-"

"I said, shut up!" Jonathan exclaimed, hitting him on the other cheek. The blow was so hard that Magnus would have fallen over if it weren't for the fact that he was already on the floor.

"The truth hurts, doesn't it?"

"Well, not as much as this." Jonathan said, furiously dragging Magnus from his hands up the stairs.

The stairs, of course, hadn't been finished, so each step they climbed left a series of cuts and bruises on Magnus's back that hurt like hell. He was still wearing the coverall and uniform he had used to break into the bank, and although they did help to protect his back a bit, all those layers of clothing weren't enough to leave him unscratched.

Magnus laughed. "It wasn't that bad." He said, when Jonathan stopped on the first floor. It had hurt, but not as much as he had imagined it would.

"Let's see if by the time we get to the last floor, you still think the same thing." Jonathan said and even less carefully than before, started to drag him by the arms until they reached what appeared to be the top floor.

Magnus had to admit that by the time Jonathan let go of his hands and dropped him there, he could barely feel his back and he was pretty sure that one of his shoulders was dislocated, though he had no way of telling which one it was, he couldn't feel either.

"Well, look at that!" Jonathan exclaimed with satisfaction. "You finally shut your mouth."

Magnus didn't say anything and just sent him a killing look. Jonathan smiled at him and walked away, leaving him there alone. Magnus was in a lot of pain, but his survival instinct was still there, so taking full advantage of those seconds Jonathan had given him, he quickly looked around and tried to find something that could help him free himself before it was too late.

The floor hadn't been finished either, so it was completely open, with nothing around it, just half-built walls, frame-less doorways rising from the concrete and the remains of the material that had been left there. Magnus spotted a board with some nails in it lying on the edge of the building and crawled toward it, trying to grab it before Jonathan noticed it, but unfortunately he moved too slow and Valentine's son stopped him before he could reach it.

"Not so fast." Jonathan said, dragging him to the opposite side of the place and tying him to a column there, forcing him to stand with both his hands and feet tied firmly to the structure.

Magnus fought back and protested as much as he could, Jonathan hadn't bothered covering his mouth again, but none of that worked, he was still weak and his captor knew no one was going to hear him if he tried to scream and ask for help—they were alone in this abandoned place.

"That's better." Jonathan said, making sure that the ropes that kept Magnus standing were firmly secured and that he had no way to escape. "Now you're not going anywhere."

Magnus said nothing and just observed him, Jonathan was walking around the place, preparing something. He was opening one of the cement sacks that were there and mixing it up with some water, sand and gravel. There were other things too, some masonry shovels, plastic bags, and a wooden box that looked a lot like a coffin. Magnus couldn't help noticing that all those things had been added recently, these weren't covered in dust like the rest of the things in the room, it was clear that they had been brought specifically for this day—the day they were going to get rid of Magnus. All that preparation that Jonathan seemed to be doing was for his very own grave.

"So you're gonna bury me there?" Magnus asked amused by all the trouble they were willing to go through just to make sure he never saw the light of day again.

"I told you that no one would ever find you." Jonathan confirmed his suspicions.

Magnus sighed. It was true, for anyone to discover that he was buried in that concrete coffin would be a bit difficult, if not impossible. The chances of someone finding him were very, very low.

"Well, I have to admit that it looks like a smart plan," Magnus said, "did you come up with it all by yourself or did you steal the idea from someone else? You don't have a very original record under your belt."

"Shut up."

"Who was it?" Magnus inquired.

"I told you to shut up!"

Magnus sighed while Jonathan kept getting everything ready. When the criminal was done, he wiped his hands with a rag and approached Magnus, circling him and examining him as if wondering where to start cutting? Slicing? Killing? Magnus had no idea what that psychopath planned to do with him, but he had the suspicion that whatever it was, it was going to be painfully slow.

"You enjoy taking your time torturing your victims, don't you?" Magnus asked.

"You don't?"

"Well, I've never killed anyone, so I have no way of knowing if I would enjoy it or not, though I doubt it." Magnus said.

"Oh, that's true...you never dared to cross the line." Jonathan said. "Well, too bad, if you had, first, you wouldn't be here, and second, you would have been unstoppable."

"Maybe, but at what cost? Killing thousands of innocents just for fame and recognition? That's not my thing, I'm not like you."

"Clearly," Jonathan said, "but I'm not talking just about fame and recognition, I'm talking about freedom. Killing gives you freedom, knowing that a person's life can end with the simple movement of one of your fingers is very, very empowering. People learn to respect you when they know you won't hesitate to end their lives. You were your father's puppet for years even though you were a better criminal than him, but you didn't dare to do what you had to do to get your freedom. If I had been in your place, I would have killed my father at the first opportunity."

"Then why you didn't? Your father isn't better than mine."

"All in good time…" Jonathan said, the ghost of a smile curled one side of his mouth.

Magnus chuckled, not because he didn't believe him, but because he knew Jonathan was serious. One day he was going to be the one to stop Valentine and a part of Magnus was happy to hear that. No matter who did it, Valentine had to be stopped.

"Anyway," Jonathan continued, "how do you say we should do this?"

"Well, I'd say you did it quickly, but since that's not going to happen then do whatever the hell you want, I couldn't care less. Death doesn't scare me, it never has." Magnus said because it was true. At this point in his life he really didn't care about his fate and death was a concept that had never frightened him, on the contrary. Besides, he had already done everything in his power to help and make sure that the people he loved and cared about were safe when he was gone, whatever happened to him no longer mattered.

"Well, I could let you bleed to death, but I'm afraid that's going to take a lot of time, time that I don't have, so maybe I'll grant you a final wish and make this quick...a bullet right here." Jonathan said, putting his index finger right in the middle of Magnus's forehead. "Would you like that?"

"I don't care how you do it, just do it!" Magnus exclaimed.

"Very well…" Jonathan said, walking back to where he had left all his things to pick up his gun.

Magnus took those seconds to take deep breaths and embrace what was to come: an imminent death. He reminisced about his life, his friends, his family...Alec. He had had a good life, perhaps a bit different from what he had imagined it would be when he was young and still saw the world with the glasses of innocence; but now that he was standing there, at the end of the road, he was glad to see that despite everything that had happened, despite everything he had gone through, he felt at peace with himself. Of course, if he had another chance in life he would have changed some things here and there, he would have rewritten more than one chapter, but the truth was that he couldn't complain about the life he'd had. He had lived, he had loved and he had enjoyed his time in this world at its fullest. He had some regrets, of course, but like that Frank Sinatra's song said, they were too few to mention. His decisions and even his mistakes had led him to where he was now and although he would have loved to have a couple of years more to enjoy with the people he loved, he was okay with what he had accomplished.

It was a bit ironic how situations like the one he was currently living made a person realize what really mattered in the end. Because when the time to say goodbye finally came it was a bit hard not to notice that life wasn't about all the bad things a person had gone through, but the blessings they had had along the way—and if Magnus was completely honest, he had had many.

He had had a family, friends and most importantly, he had experienced love as most people never have the chance to. He had found in Alec, in that smart, sexy, handsome and compassionate man, his other half and although their time together had been relatively short, he was grateful for every second he had been able to be with him. Falling in love with Alec had helped him see that true love, that rare and unique feeling that authors used as inspiration for their beautiful stories, really existed and that for some reason he still couldn't understand, he had been lucky enough to find it. So if dying was the price he had to pay for the privilege of having experienced that love, for having been granted with that instant of happiness, then he was willing to pay it—over and over again.

"Any last words?" Jonathan asked, putting his gun right in front of Magnus's forehead. It wasn't touching him yet, but it was merely two inches away from him. The moment Jonathan pulled the trigger, he would be dead.

Magnus shook his head. He wasn't going to give Jonathan the privilege of knowing his last words. If he had had the opportunity to say those words to someone, he would have addressed them to only one person: his Alexander. He would have looked him in the eye and whispered how much he loved him, as he had done so many times while they made love. He would have wanted to see those beautiful eyes that he loved so much for the last time and leave this world with that image engraved in his memory.

"Then, good riddance, Magnus Bane." Jonathan said, cocking his gun.

Magnus closed his eyes and embraced death, welcoming it as an old friend. Being his father's son, he had always known that his days had been numbered. Of course, as human beings our time in this world was always limited, but when you were the son of a criminal and you were a criminal yourself, that limited time reduced considerably, so in a way a premature death had always been written in his cards. However, when the shot was heard nothing happened as he had supposed it would. He had been expecting darkness to overcome him sooner rather than later, but that darkness never came. He didn't feel the pain he had assumed a shot in the head would cause him. In fact, he hadn't felt anything at all, just the aches of his very bruised body.

For some reason his still-shocked mind couldn't understand, Jonathan had missed and he was still alive.

Confused, Magnus opened his eyes and gasped when he realized what had actually happened—Jonathan hadn't missed, someone had come to his rescue and now the criminal lay dead on the ground. There was blood everywhere, a scarlet-red puddle was rapidly forming next to his lifeless body.

Magnus forced himself to look up and see who had done this, who had saved his life. And there, standing by the stairs and still holding his gun up high was his savior, the man whose face had been the last thing Magnus had had in his mind when he had heard the gunshot: Alexander.

o-o-o-o-o

Alec hadn't really had time to register what he had done until he had done it. When he had reached the last floor of the building where Jonathan had taken his boyfriend to kill him, all he had seen was Magnus—his Magnus—tied from hands and feet to a column with a gun aimed at his head and instinct had kicked in. He had put his finger on the trigger and had shot without thinking twice, taking full advantage of his position to make sure that Jonathan couldn't even react and hurt Magnus by accident.

After that, everything had happened too fast, the criminal had dropped dead to the floor and almost immediately a pool of blood had formed next to his body. Magnus, who had had his eyes closed the whole time, had opened them and after a few seconds that had felt like hours, had looked up and fixed his gaze on Alec. Alec had breathed again when he had seen that his boyfriend was fine, but hadn't found in him the willpower to move from where he was. More than one person had told him in the past that killing someone changed you, and Alec could feel that change in him as he tried to assimilate what had happened. He had moved a finger and a person's life had ended. It was a hard concept to wrap your head around, but he tried not to dwell on it too much. He had done what he had to do to save a person's life, to save the life of the man he loved—he had had no choice.

"Are you alright?" Alec asked, rushing to Magnus's side to make sure the man was unharmed. He didn't seem to have been hurt by what Alec had done, but he had to be sure—everything had really happened too fast.

Magnus was nodding slightly, his eyes were open wide. He seemed confused and dazed, as if he couldn't quite understand what was happening—what had happened. Alec knew he was in some sort of shock, so he tried to reassure him.

"You're okay now, Magnus, do you hear me?" He said, gently wiping some of the blood that was running down one of Magnus's eyebrows and feeling how, with that simple contact between them, his soul came back to his body. It hadn't been that long since the last time they had seen each other, but in his heart it felt like a lifetime.

Magnus didn't reply, but blinked several times, so Alec took that as a confirmation that he had understood what he had told him and quickly did what he had to do. First, make sure Jonathan was really dead—you could never be too sure with those people—and second, free Magnus from the column. Jonathan had tied him up with a very thick rope, so Alec had to look around the place to find something sharp that could help him cut it. In the end he found a knife on the floor and used it to free his boyfriend as fast as he could.

"Alexander…" Magnus whispered. His body almost collapsing the moment Alec cut the ropes.

Alec caught him just in time before he could touch the ground and pressed him against his body as if not quite believing he had actually arrived in time to save him. Magnus was hurt from the back, that gray coverall he was wearing was torn and stained with blood, but Alec was careful not to hurt him as he hugged him.

"You're alive, you're alive, you're alive." Alec whispered over and over again, feeling how those words finally sunk in. Magnus was really alive, it seemed unbelievable after all that had happened, but it was true, as true as he was holding him against his body. Alec could feel Magnus's breath against his neck and the warmth of his body emanating from his every pore. It was like a miracle, he had arrived on time and thanks to that, his boyfriend was alive. Two seconds too late and the story would have been very, very different.

"I'm alive thanks to you." Magnus whispered.

Apparently the man had recovered himself from the initial shock and had found his voice again. His body was still shaking, Alec could feel it trembling under his touch, but he suspected it was more due to the uncomfortable position in which he had been since God knew how long and not so much for what had just happened.

"You saved me." Magnus whispered.

"I was so worried." Alec said, breaking the embrace just so he could see Magnus straight in the eye. He still needed to see in those eyes that he now knew better than his own that he was okay, that everything was in the past. "I captured Valentine and he said they were going to kill you, I thought I was never going to see you again and-" he stopped, his voice was breaking despite how much he was trying to keep it under control.

"I'm fine now." Magnus said, smiling at him. "But I don't understand, Jonathan said that Valentine had escaped."

"He almost did, but I stopped him."

"Did he hurt you?"

"No."

"But your leg…you're bleeding." Magnus noticed.

"Don't worry about it, it's an old wound from the explosion, the stitches ripped a bit during the operation, but I'm fine, it doesn't even hurt." Alec admitted sincerely, because as incredible as it might sound, it was true. Somehow his mind and body had managed to forget about the pain. "How are you?" He asked instead. "He hit you." Alec added, touching Magnus's face where two bruises were visible and gently trailing his fingers over that eyebrow that was still bleeding. "And your back…"

"Well, I'm fine too, just some scratches here and there, it could have been worse," Magnus said, "I could have ended up buried there." He pointed to a wooden box.

Alec looked at it and noticed with horror that it wasn't just any wooden box, it resembled a coffin. "He was going to-" he couldn't even finish asking because the answer to that was plain obvious. He had noticed the concrete and the other things when he had looked for the knife, but somehow he hadn't put two and two together.

"That was the plan before my knight in shining armor came to my rescue." Magnus said, smiling again.

Alec knew what his boyfriend was doing, lightening the mood and trying to make this not as serious as it was, but this was too much for Alec. If Jonathan wasn't dead already he would have killed him again without hesitation. There was pure rage boiling inside him. He was seeing red for the second time today and-

"Hey, it's all over, Alexander...it's finally over." Magnus's voice snapped him from those thoughts and brought him back to reality.

Alec looked at him. Magnus was right, it was all over, it was finally over. "It is." He said, smiling back at him and exhaling with relief. But just as that fresh air was leaving his tired lungs, the image of his sister and Lydia telling him to go help Magnus before the FBI arrived came back to him, reminding him that this wasn't over—at least not yet. "We have to go." He told Magnus.

With everything that had happened and the joy of knowing that the love of his life was alive, he had momentarily forgotten that their time to get out of there was running out, the FBI was on their way and they had to leave before it was too late. "The FBI and the police will be here any minute now, there was a helicopter following the car Jonathan used to bring you here, that's how I knew where to find you, but they're on their way...we have to go!"

"What?"

"We have to go! Lydia, the agent from the Washington office, along with my sister, said they would try to buy me some time so I could come here and try to save you, but I'm sure they're almost here now. We have to leave before they see you. Jonathan and you were the only ones who managed to escape, but thanks to what Valentine said and that I had agents everywhere we could follow the car here."

"You had agents in the sky?" Magnus asked, there was a tiny smile on the corner of his lips.

"Yes, I had agents everywhere, underground, outside the building, in the sky, I even had some criminals here and there in case someone managed to escape and we had to infiltrate the criminal world."

"Really?"

"Really...I guess I finally learned to think outside the box."

"You did." Magnus smiled. The pride in his voice didn't go unnoticed by Alec. "And you finally put an end to all this."

Alec shook his head. "We put an end to all this, Magnus, I could have never done any of this without your help. From the very beginning and until the very last minute, I did this with you."

"We're a very good team then." Magnus said, apparently pleased with that statement.

"The best team, the perfect team." Alec smiled and leaned over to finally do what he had been wanting to do since he had gotten there: kiss Magnus. But just as their lips were about to touch, the sound of thousands of sirens and a couple of helicopters broke the silence.

"Shit!" Alec exclaimed, already looking around to find a way out of there without the FBI and the police knowing. They were on the last floor of a twelve story building, there was no elevator and no way to escape—they were surrounded. "Shit, shit, shit! You have to run, you have to hide! They can't know you're here!"

"Alec..."

"Do you know if Jonathan left some of that rope he used to tie you up? It's thick enough, so maybe if we use it, you could jump from here to the building next door and escape, or use it to rappel down." Alec said, trying to find a way to help Magnus escape. If the FBI saw him there, they were going to imprison him no matter how much he had helped them capture Valentine. One good deed didn't exempt him from a past of crimes.

"Alec…"

"Here," Alec said, handing Magnus the phone he had been using to get in touch with Ragnor and Raphael, "call your friends, ask them to come for you, I'll go look for the rope and see if I can find a hiding place for you. I can also distract the FBI and the police and tell them that I couldn't catch you. I can buy you some time, make them look in every corner of the building while you escape, I can send the helicopters away to clear the sky too and-"

Magnus was shaking his head.

"Magnus, please!" Alec said desperately. He knew why Magnus was shaking his head so much. He was tired of running, he had told him so himself one night when they had stayed awake just talking and sharing intimate thoughts about themselves. "I don't want you to end up behind bars, I know I shouldn't be saying this since I'm a federal agent and I've always believed in the law, but please, Magnus, go! When we first started this I didn't know what I was going to do when this moment came, I didn't know how I would feel when I had to make a decision, but now I do, and you know what? If there's something I learned these past days is that I can't live without you, so please, go! I'll find a way to distract them and buy you some time, you can hide and-"

"Alec, please don't."

"Magnus, please!" Alec practically begged. "Please, go! Go far away! I'm willing to risk losing everything if that's going to make you free! Please!"

Magnus shook his head again.

"Why not? I know you're tired of running, but this will be the last time, I promise. Your father is dead, he died in the warehouse, you're a free man, Magnus. I'm giving you your freedom, please go! Change your identity and leave all this behind, you can be free for good! I'll try to protect you from here and wipe your files from the system, I can give you that, a new beginning, a-"

"Your brother talked to me when we were at Renwick's." Magnus said, interrupting him. "He shared some stuff with me about my situation."

"Your situation?" Alec asked confused. Apparently Magnus wasn't understanding how great the opportunity that Alec was giving him really was. He wasn't only giving him the chance to be free, but to have a new beginning, to start again.

"My legal situation...he talked to a lawyer."

"He-"

"I'm sure he'll tell you all about it when he has the chance, but, well, in short he said that if I surrendered myself now, thanks to what Valentine did these past months and what I did for the FBI, I would only be charged for the break into the Library of Congress where I had to leave those fingerprints for you."

Alec blinked in confusion. What Magnus was saying made no sense whatsoever.

"Valentine used my same MO, Alec, thanks to that now there's no way any of you can prove that I did all the things I've done in the past—of course you know it was really me because you know everything I've done, but thanks to the assistance I provided so that you could-"

"-capture Valentine and rescue Jace, this could actually work." Alec completed Magnus's sentence because, well, he hadn't thought of that, but it was true, with a good lawyer and Alec's own statement, Magnus could manage to get all his past charges dropped and only be sentenced for the break into the Library of Congress.

Alec had been so caught up in what they had as a couple and had been refusing to think about the future that he hadn't stopped to consider different alternatives so that they could be together despite the complexity of their situation.

"It's a 4-5 year sentence, Alexander, I can do it, I can-"

"No, no, no, no, no, please go!" Alec said desperately. It was true that there was another alternative for them now, but it wasn't the only one—or rather it wasn't the one Alec wanted. Magnus couldn't end up in jail, he couldn't, just the thought of that was breaking his heart to pieces. "Go! I'll catch up with you later, I promise," he said without thinking, "I'll go with you wherever you want us to go and we'll be together forever and-"

"Alexander," Magnus said, grabbing his hands and lacing their fingers together, "I can't ask you to go with me and live a life of running and hiding, it's not fair for either of us. You don't know what it's like to be constantly moving from one place to another, to be hiding all the time. You got a glimpse of that life when we decided to start with this, but is that really the life you want? Losing your job? Not being able to be with your family ever again? Having to hide all the time? Not being able to go out without taking millions of precautions?"

Alec sighed. He didn't know what to say. He was confused, he had no idea what kind of life he wanted, he only knew that he wanted a life with Magnus in it, no matter what price he had to pay.

"Besides," Magnus continued, gently stroking Alec's cheek, "this was never the life I wanted for myself, and you know that. I wanted something else, but I was forced into this by situations beyond me, now I have the opportunity to change that and stop running for good."

"But what am I going to do without you?" Alec asked. There was a resolution in Magnus's eyes that Alec hadn't seen before and that scared him to the bone. He knew his boyfriend wanted to do the right thing, but Alec didn't want to lose him. He was selfish enough to admit that.

"What are you going to do without me? Don't be silly, my love, the same you did before you met me...live your life." Magnus said. "I know you're not the same man as before, but I can't ask you to wait for me either, it's not fair for you; you're young, you deserve to have a good life, so I just want you to live fully and love plenty. I want you to find someone who can give you what I couldn't and who can be there with you when you need him and-"

Alec started to shake his head frantically, not wanting to hear that. He didn't want to find anyone, if this was what Magnus wanted to do, then he knew exactly what he had to do. "I'll wait for you." He said, tears were already welling up in his eyes. "I will visit you every week and then, when you're free, we'll be together, without hiding, out in the public eye."

"Alec…"

"No, listen to me, Magnus, if this is what you really want to do, then I'll support your decision even if it breaks my heart, but I won't give up on you. You can't ask me that. I don't care if I have to wait five, ten or fifty years, I'm not going to give up on us, on what we have. You changed my life for the better and I don't want to lose that. Maybe I'm being selfish, but I don't care, I don't want to lose you."

Magnus smiled. "You're never going to lose me, my heart is yours forever, but I can't force you to wait for me, Alec, you have to understand that, you deserve to have a life, to-"

"You're not forcing me to do anything, in any case I'm the one who's forcing you to be with me because I don't want to be with anyone else, I love you and it's always going to be you and only you. I know that with every fiber of my being." Alec said with determination. The tears he had been trying to suppress were now falling down his face in uncontrollable waterfalls.

"Are you sure?" Magnus asked, Alec saw tears in his eyes too.

"As sure as how much I love you." He said. The police sirens could be heard practically outside the building, they both were aware that it was only a matter of minutes before they found them here.

Magnus just smiled and sighed with resignation. "You're stubborn, aren't you?"

"You bet I am."

Magnus chuckled. "Well, then...I won't try to change your mind, but you have to promise me that if this situation gets too much for you, you'll tell me so we can talk about this again. I don't want to drag you with me into this, I don't want to make you feel like you have to wait for me to live your life and-"

"Magnus…"

"Promise me."

Alec rolled his eyes because he loved this man with all his heart, but sometimes he could be really exasperating.

"Please?"

"Fine, I promise, but that won't happen, that much I can assure you. I already told you that I don't care if I have to wait an eternity to be with you, I know that in the end it will be worth it."

Magnus smiled with a sigh. "Well, then...it happened, Agent Lightwood, you finally caught me." He said, extending his wrists as if to allow Alec to handcuff him.

Alec's heart stopped beating. When their paths had crossed for the first time all those years ago on the rooftop of that jewelry, Magnus had told him that he was only going to capture him when he so wanted it. For years, Alec had refused to accept that claim as true and had convinced himself that instead, he was going to capture Magnus due to a mistake on his part. This...this moment that was happening between them was the bitter proof that they both had been right from the very beginning. It looked like some twisted joke of fate, but Magnus was letting Alec capture him because his mistake had been that he had fallen in love with Alec himself.

"Do it…" Magnus whispered.

Alec hadn't realized that he had stood frozen in place, just looking at Magnus's wrists and not quite believing what was happening. Never in his wildest dreams had he thought that they would come to this, that this would be the outcome of their love story.

"I can't." He confessed.

"Yes, you can...do it."

Alec shook his head. He really couldn't do it, this was the hardest thing he had ever had to do. He felt physically sick of just moving his hands to reach for the handcuffs that were in his pocket, it was wrong, it wasn't what he wanted and-

"If you don't do it then someone else will..." Magnus said, "I'd rather you did it."

Alec locked eyes with him. Magnus was staring at him, there wasn't anger or reproach in his eyes, on the contrary, there was peace and even gratitude. Magnus really wanted Alec to do this.

"Please, Alexander." Magnus said, as if reading his thoughts.

Alec took a deep breath, reached out for the handcuffs in his pocket and, with trembling hands, put them around Magnus's wrists, feeling his heart shatter into thousands of millions of pieces the moment he secured them.

"I'm sorry…" Alec whispered before almost choking on his own tears when he tried to read Magnus his rights and do what as a federal agent he was required to do.

o-o-o-o-o

Seeing Alec so broken was destroying Magnus in every sense of the word. The agent had his eyes fixed on Magnus's now-handcuffed wrists as he repeated those by-the-book words they had to say whenever they captured a criminal or arrested a suspect. Magnus could see how much of an effort it was taking his boyfriend to utter every word and how guilty he felt with the whole situation. He didn't seem to understand that Magnus didn't blame him for what was happening, that on the contrary, he wanted to find the words that could help him see that none of this was his fault and that he was only doing what was right.

"I'm so sorry, Magnus, so, so sorry." Alec said again once he was done. He could barely speak with all the tears he was shedding.

"Don't be...I deserve this." Magnus said, trying to give him a reassuring smile.

"No, you don't, you-"

"Yes, I do, and a part of you knows that, you just don't want to see it right now, but one day you will. I've done bad things in the past, things outside the law, Alec, and this is what happens to people like me. I've always known that, maybe before I met you I was cynical enough not to care about it, but you changed my life too, Alexander, and I really want to do things right for once. Now, would you escort me out before they come for me?"

"I love you." Alec said in that blunt way he had of saying things. It was his way of admitting that although he knew Magnus had done wrong in the past, none of that changed his feelings for him. He loved him no matter what.

"And I love you too, more than you can imagine." Magnus said, closing the small gap between them and finally kissing Alec.

He had refrained himself from doing so from the moment Alec had saved his life because he had had a bad feeling about what was yet to come and he had not wanted to give Alec false hopes, but at this point and after all they had said to each other in the last few minutes, he could no longer control himself. No matter what he said or what he did, it was clear that Alec loved him and that although things looked difficult for them in the near future, now he was certain that their love was bigger than everything.

"Magnus…" Alec whispered, deepening the kiss.

The kiss felt so much like a goodbye kiss that the tears Magnus had refused to shed betrayed him and started to roll down his cheeks. After all they had gone through in the last couple of weeks, it was hard to believe that they were here at the end of the road and yet so far from the promised happy ending that true love usually entailed.

"There's something I need to ask you," Magnus said, breaking the kiss and using his handcuffed hands to wipe the tears from Alec's eyes and his own, "it's something important, so I need you to listen carefully, okay?" He said, remembering his meeting with Catarina all those months ago when he had planned a series of things in case this moment or a worse one happened.

"Please don't propose, or else I'll run with you right this second." Alec said with a chuckle. "And I mean it."

Magnus smiled, his chest contracting at the thought of one day being married to Alec. It had been in his plans, the idea of a lifetime with Alec had been something he had considered and even made some preparations for it, but as usual, his plans hadn't gone as expected. In fact, now that he thought about it, nothing of what he had lived with Alec had gone as expected, from the fact that he had fallen in love with him even though the man was his natural enemy, to the cruel way in which they were reuniting after these last few days apart. "Don't worry, I won't...you deserve better, I would never do that in the situation we are in, maybe if life does give us a second chance, we can revisit this conversation. I just...I just want to ask you something. Take care of my cat, will you? He loves you and he's going to feel very lonely now that I'm no longer with him, so would you take care of him for me?"

Alec nodded.

"Also, I feel like I need to warn you about something I did a couple of months ago…"

"Huh?"

"I...well, I'm a practical man, you know that, and I made some preparations in case something bad happened to me. I won't give you all the details right now because we don't have time, but, well, you need to know that my loft is yours. I put it under your name like almost everything I own when we started chasing Valentine."

"What!?" Alec asked in surprise, but Magnus didn't have much time to explain, so he pretended that Alec hadn't said anything and just kept talking.

"I have a friend, her name is Catarina, Catarina Loss. She was my mother's nurse when we were here in New York, I'm sure she'll get in touch with you the moment she learns where I am, but I want you to know that she's my contingency plan. I knew this could happen, I knew I could end up in jail or worse, dead, so I prepared everything to protect you. She has all there is to know about me under her possession, properties, money, sealed evidence of my crimes, written confessions and even documentation of my past that you won't find anywhere else. Talk to her, okay? She has instructions to give you everything and-"

"Magnus…"

"Shhh." Magnus said, placing a finger in front of Alec's mouth to stop him from protesting. "Do whatever you want with what I left for you, okay? I don't care, it's yours, that's why I left it for you, I know you'll do the right thing with it, just...just don't kick out my cat, will you? You can donate all the money to charity if you want, return all the stolen art pieces back to their respective museums or private collectors, but take care of the Chairman, he's too spoiled and he's going to need some love."

"I won't abandon him, I promise."

"Thank you."

"But Magnus, I-"

"They're almost here." Magnus interrupted him. He could hear the FBI already entering the building, it was only a matter of seconds before they were there to take him to the Bureau for questioning and he still had some things to say. "Whatever happens to me in the future, I want you to know that you're the best thing that's ever happened to me. You know I've met a lot of people in the past and I've fallen in love once or twice along the way, but this...us, is the closest thing to a happy ending I've ever had, Alexander, and I wouldn't change it for anything in the world. Being with you and loving you-"

"Magnus, please stop." Alec said, tears were still running down his face.

"No, I need you to know how important you are to me, and I need to thank you as well because thanks to you, I started to believe in myself and that made me try to be a better person, a person worthy of you and-"

"Magnus, please…"

"I love you, Alexander."

"I love you too."

Agents began to enter the floor through the stairwell, securing the place and pointing their guns at Magnus's head, but when they noticed that he was unarmed and that Alec had everything under control they lowered them. One of the agents quickly got closer to where they were standing and tried to grab Magnus.

"I got him." Alec said, firmly grabbing Magnus by the shoulders. "The place is empty, it was just Jonathan and Magnus." He informed the team of agents. "I had to take down Morgenstern's son because he was a threat to us both, so pick up the body and collect all the evidence you can find. Here's my gun for the records. I'll take Mr. Bane personally downstairs."

"Yes, Captain."

In complete silence, Alec guided Magnus downstairs, both were quite aware of the agents who were escorting them. Magnus wanted to say something to reassure Alec, he could feel the agent still shaking as he took him out of the building, but there were too many people around for them to speak freely. Their time alone was over and whatever else had remained unsaid between them would have to wait until they could meet again in a couple of weeks or months after Magnus's trial.

"Agent Lightwood," a man said when they reached the first floor of the building, he was wearing an Interpol vest, "my agents are in position surrounding the entire building, sir."

"They're no longer necessary, everything is under control." Alec said and continued walking with Magnus without further explanation.

They exited the building and Magnus found himself face-to-face with the most impressive display of special agents and cops he had ever seen. They all were staring at him, admiring the fact that after years and years of trying, someone had finally caught him. Magnus could see the surprise, the excitement and even the pride reflected in the faces of all those men and women, there was no doubt that they were happy to see one of the most wanted criminals of all time being escorted to prison.

"It seems that all the cavalry is here." Magnus whispered.

"Shhh..." Alec said.

Some FBI agents tried to approach them, Isabelle, Alec's sister, included, but Alec dismissed them, holding onto Magnus as if he were his shield and simply walking to where some ambulances and police cars were waiting, granting them a few seconds alone.

"Alec…" Magnus whispered again.

"You're gonna be fine," Alec said, being discreet, but firm with his words, "I'm going to take care of that, trust me, okay?"

"I trust you, but that's not what-"

An agent wearing an FBI jacket interrupted them, approaching Alec and addressing him with respect. "Captain." She said with a nod.

"Please, Agent Penhallow, take Mr. Bane to the Bureau for questioning, but first make sure he gets proper medical care in all his wounds." Alec said, instructing the agent. "Oh, and treat him accordingly, don't forget who helped us capture Valentine. Any agent who dares to disobey my orders will be suspended and I will personally fill out a report so they get placed under review and reassigned, understood?"

"Don't worry, Captain, I'll make sure your orders are followed to the letter." The agent said, grabbing Magnus and taking him to one of the ambulances.

Magnus turned around to look at Alec one last time. His boyfriend wasn't alone anymore, there were thousands of agents and policemen around him trying to congratulate him for what he had done—after all, he had captured not only two, but more than ten of the most wanted and dangerous criminals of all time in one day—but Alec was ignoring them all and had his eyes fixed on Magnus.

"Goodbye, Alexander." Magnus mouthed, before the paramedic pushed him inside the ambulance and started treating his wounds.

Magnus didn't get to see what Alec said or even if he understood what he had told him because the ambulance door was now closed blocking him the view, but he didn't need to. For some reason only his heart understood, he knew they were going to be okay, maybe not today or tomorrow, but someday.

Someday.

Did you really think I was going to leave it like that? Ha! You don't know me at all! I live for happy endings, so a very long and fluffy epilogue will be up tomorrow around the time the show usually airs, so don't kill me just yet, you'll get your 'someday' ;)

PS: Don't tell the ones who are just reading the fic about the extra chapter, let them think it's complete **evil laughter**

See you tomorrow! (I know, I'm evil, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)