A/N: Yeah, I know... it got real dark, real fast. *hides*
Borden was not right.
It had been an afternoon filled with pacing and stewing, and when the call had finally come, Tompkins had kept hedging around whatever news he had. She'd finally snapped at him to just spit it out, and now the words from the other end of the line rang through her head: "They said he didn't survive the surgery. The doctors tried their best, but his heart stopped for too long. They say it was a combination of internal injuries and a lack of oxygen to his brain… Shepherd, Kurt Weller is dead."
Apparently Weller's team was heartbroken. The three agents who had been waiting for news in the hospital waiting room had left quite shaken, with the blonde shedding tears and the others looking ready to kill whoever looked at them the wrong way. According to Tompkins, even Remy had been holding back tears. Shepherd supposed that after everything the younger woman had experienced alongside Weller and the rest of the FBI team, some emotional connections were to be expected. A part of Shepherd felt satisfaction at the idea that her daughter was finally understanding the sacrifices that Shepherd herself had made.
Sacrifices indeed… Shepherd felt her anger rising at the realization that there was no undoing this. She couldn't simply make a deal or move some assets around to get someone out of trouble. This was as final as anything got. There was no undo button for what had happened that morning. She stood still for a moment, seething, then let out a primal yell of anger. She swept a hand across the desk in front of her, clearing off every piece of paper and sending a lamp crashing to the floor in an explosion of glass and sparks. That didn't satisfy the rage she felt burning inside, and she grabbed a paperweight that had just missed falling from the desktop. She pulled her arm back and let the glass orb fly across the room, where it hit the wall next to the doorframe just as the door itself swung open.
The man walking in ducked reflexively as the heavy object dented the drywall next to his head. "Whoa!" Borden exclaimed in surprise, putting up his hands as he slowly straightened. "No need to take my head off."
She ran her hands through her hair, pausing with both hands on her head to growl out a sigh of frustration. "It's all over!"
"What? Wait just a moment. Come on; calm down," Borden reasoned. "Take a breath."
Shepherd lowered her hands to point a finger at him. "Oh don't you tell me what to do! Kurt Weller is dead!" She had the urge to throw something else, to hear a solid impact. Nothing was within immediate reach, so she settled for slamming a fist on the desktop to accentuate each word. "Kurt. Weller. Is. Dead!"
The look on his face told her this was a surprise to Borden, but he just took a deep breath and nodded. "Okay… You're upset; I understand." He took a step forward. "I know what it's like to lose everything you've worked for your whole life, but trust me, this isn't the end."
Her upper lip curled in a snarl. "You have no idea what I'm feeling right now. This is not one bombed-out hospital. Weller was everything to us."
She could tell she'd struck a nerve, but he just took a deep breath and pushed on. "This plan is bigger than one man. We can rework the plan and keep going. Come on; it'll just take some thinking, but we can figure this out. This doesn't have to mean the end of everything we've built."
"Do you see what is happening?" she demanded, gesturing widely with her arms. "I saw Weller's potential when he was just a kid at that school. I groomed him for years! I influenced his every step! And I worked so hard to keep him in New York because I saw what he could do for us! And now he's gone! All because Olriksen couldn't keep his nose clean and forced my hand!" Then she caught the look on Borden's face. "What?" she growled.
He blinked. "Well, I think…" he paused as if trying to find the right words. "Maybe you need to take a little time to regroup, and then we can plan where to go from here." He was using that infernal calm psychologist voice on her, and Shepherd was not impressed. "The last thing you want is for all of this to the undoing of what we've been working towards."
"All of what?" Shepherd's eyes narrowed. "Are you saying I'm the reason our cause will fail?"
"What? No, that is not what I'm saying."
"Then what are you saying, Robert?" she spat.
He took an involuntary step backward even as he put his hands up in a placating gesture. "I know that things are going to change now that we don't have Weller, but all we have to do is regroup and get back on track."
The worry on his face made her angrier the more she looked at it. Why was he blaming her? It wasn't as if she had purposefully set out to kill Kurt Weller; Borden should know that more than anyone else, for as long as he had been with her. Of anyone, he should understand! But yet here he was… pitying her. She didn't need his pity.
"Maybe a small break would be best?" he was suggesting when she turned her attention back to him. "I can help with the daily operations while you gather your thoughts, and then we can move forward from there."
Was he suggesting that he replace her? Of all the… Shepherd frowned. She did not need replacing. How dare he even think that. "You think you're more capable of leading than I am?" she asked, her voice low with barely-contained anger. "I found you. You were nothing but a broken doctor with no home and no family, about to fall apart. I gave your life meaning again, and this is how you repay me? Trying to unseat me?"
Borden blinked, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down as he processed her words. "No one is suggesting that," he replied, his voice cracking ever so slightly.
"But you just did!" Her mind was whirling now, and she grabbed the edge of the desk to steady herself as she tried to sort through it all. Everything was happening so fast. First Olriksen had messed up, and she had been forced to take care of him, but in the process, she had also killed Kurt Weller. She still had no idea why the agent had even been at that warehouse in the first place, but he had been, and now she had to deal with the fact that he was gone because of her. And on top of that, now her own team didn't even trust her, leading to Borden of all people trying to usurp her position. She glared across the room at him. If he even so much as tried to pull anything on her…
He straightened his shoulders and glared at her briefly. "I'll just be outside if you happen to need me," he bit out. Then he turned on his heel and stalked out of the room with one last glance at the damaged wall beside him.
Borden purposefully left Shepherd alone for the rest of the day. He needed the time to cool down and get past what she had thrown in his face during her outburst that afternoon. Even though he knew that she was just angry with herself and dealt with it by lashing out, there was still a part of him that had been deeply hurt by her words. Rather than saying or doing something that he would later regret, Borden chose to stay away. And even once they started talking again, he found himself constantly looking for projects and tasks that would keep him far away from the woman. It wasn't difficult; there were always things to oversee and errands to run that kept him busy. She didn't seem to mind either. In fact, the fact that she didn't mind worried him.
Over the next week that followed Shepherd's initial outburst, Borden started noticing hints that the others were growing worried about their leader. It was nothing specific at first, just snatches of whispers and sideways glances. His psychologist's brain was in full gear as he started to pay more attention to the nuances of the others' behavior as they witnessed Shepherd's downward spiral towards complete insanity. Judging from everyone's reactions, the majority were growing more and more concerned over their leader's actions, and no one knew what that would mean for their plan. Any hope that Borden had of things getting back to normal went out of the window as Shepherd's erratic behavior continued to increase.
Borden had initially purposed to ignore Shepherd's anger at losing Weller until it subsided and they could all get back to business. After all, grief was something that took time to work past. However, it soon became evident that the mutterings would not just blow over. The men and women were usually more than happy to do whatever job they had been given, all with the knowledge that they were helping to build the cause that would topple the evil that was America. But now, Borden was starting to pick up on the disillusionment that was spreading amongst his compatriots.
The day of Weller's funeral was incredibly tense. Shepherd ordered several of her people to attend the service, giving them orders to report everything back to her. Borden was halfway tempted to go himself, but he knew that he would be immediately recognized if he dared show his face around any FBI agents. He had become a part of Weller's team to spy on them and help guide Remy in recovering the memories that she needed; he had known that was his only purpose, but there was still a tiny part of him that felt attached to those people. He was human after all; he had emotions that still got the better of him from time to time, no matter how much he thought he had them under control. He squelched it immediately, but he still felt a pang at the image of Weller lying in a casket and what he knew as a doctor the other team members were feeling. Especially Patterson… But then he shook his head and went back to his current responsibilities. He could not let himself go down the same path as Shepherd seemed to be. At least one of them had to keep things going.
As his concern grew, he tried to busy himself so as not to be distracted by how Shepherd seemed to be ruining everything towards which they had been working for years. And at first, it appeared he was succeeding at it, but then, exactly a week to the day that Shepherd had gone to meet Olriksen, Borden was retrieving something from his car when he accidentally dropped his phone. It hit the carpet, and he bent down to retrieve it. The car door shut behind him once he took his hand from the handle, but he didn't think anything of it at first. His hand closed around the device, and he was just about to straighten back up when a man's voice reached his ears.
"What, you think she's officially lost it?"
Instinctively, Borden looked around, then realized the conversation was occurring outside the SUV and the question wasn't meant for him. He didn't particularly mean to eavesdrop, but it was hard to ignore the words when they were so clearly carrying through the window that was sitting half-opened.
"Shh. Is it safe?" came a second voice.
"Yeah, no one else is around."
"Okay. Look, yes, I'm worried. How much have we given to this whole cause? A lot, right? Well apparently something went wrong, and now I'm not so sure it's the best option to stick it out here."
"Calm down; I'm sure it's not that bad."
"Ha. Have you seen her lately? Wrigley said she called him in there to do something for her and that the place is a mess. He said there's broken stuff all over, like she's been throwing it, and she's acting really insane."
"To be fair, she's never really seemed completely sane in the first place."
"I'll give you that. But seriously, man, something has gone wrong, and I don't think she's going to recover from it. I've been talking to some of the others, and they agree."
"So… what does this mean?"
"It means we might just need to move on to something that's going to actually pay off. I don't know about you, but we don't think that staying around here is going to accomplish what we once thought it would."
On any other day, Borden would have identified who the two men were and then told Shepherd so she could make an example of them to the others. There was no room for any kind of discontent in the ranks. They had to be united against their common foe. However, something about what they were saying struck a chord inside of him. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Of course, he knew why. It was because he was having similar thoughts about his leader. He had never followed her blindly, but he had always had complete trust in what she was doing. Now… well, now, he wasn't quite so sure.
The men outside moved on, taking their conversation with him, but their words remained behind. Borden sat staring at nothing for a few moments before he arrived at a decision. He sat up and climbed out of the vehicle, then strode purposefully back to the house. Shepherd needed to know just how badly she was endangering what they had all given their lives to accomplish.
When he crossed the threshold, he could already hear her raised voice. She was yelling at someone, and Borden swallowed involuntarily. He knew very well that there could be a repeat of what had happened between them that first morning, but he steeled himself for the possibility. So what if he had to deal with the dredging up of past tragedy? If him going through that would save their work, then that was just another in the long line of sacrifices he had made for the cause.
Not bothering to knock, he pushed the door open and walked inside. The poor young man at whom Shepherd was screaming looked like he wanted to sink through the floor and disappear. Both of them paused to look over when the door squeaked open, with Shepherd glaring daggers at the interruption and the man as relieved as Borden had ever seen anyone.
"We need to talk," Borden said, giving Shepherd a hard look. "Now."
She waved her hand at the other man in the room, who wasted no time in scrambling past Borden and nearly running down the hall. "What?" she demanded.
He shut the door behind him and crossed his arms. "The men are getting worried."
Snorting a laugh of derision, she rolled her eyes. "'The men'? Come on, Borden; you know I've never cared what others think."
"Yes, well," he told her, "you might want to this time. They're talking about leaving."
Her eyes flashed, and she took a step forward. "Who is? Tell me! I'll make them regret ever saying such a-"
"No, you don't understand," he interrupted. "It's not just one or two. I'd say the majority of your followers are starting to think that you can't deliver what you've promised them." That was enough to give her pause, and he pressed on. "Trust me; you are going to lose our entire war off of the fact that no one trusts you anymore."
"So you don't trust me either." It was a statement more than it was a question, and the rise her tone was starting to take was not lost on Borden.
He shrugged. "Can you blame any of us? You have to admit that you haven't been… quite all here the past week." He tried to tread lightly, knowing that he was going to have to choose his words carefully in this confrontation. He needed her to snap out of this mood into which she seemed to have fallen, not snap completely.
Unfortunately, his words seemed to have the opposite effect than he had intended. "What?" she grit out, her tone dark with rage.
"You can't keep going like this," he told her. "I know you're upset over Kurt Weller, but we need you!"
She moved around the desk to close the distance between them. If looks could kill, Borden knew he would have been long-since dead and buried. "You seem like you don't believe in me anymore." Her tone was low, but not in a calm way. It was the extreme one reached after they had become so angry that they had moved past a raised voice.
Borden paused, searching for the right words. "Honestly, you're going to lose your fight if you keep this up. The others want to be on the side of someone who is fighting for them, not who is sinking into her own pit of despair."
"Oh, here we go again!" she snapped. "Do you really think you can threaten me and get away with it?" She closed the distance even further, leaning in threateningly. "You know what I do to people who try to take things from me." The light in her eyes was frighteningly bright, and her cheeks were flushed with fury.
They were nearly at the point of no return, and Borden knew it. He was wracking his brain for the best approach to calm her from this state of territorial furor back to the leader they needed her to be. Honestly, if he thought about it, he wasn't averse to the idea of taking over from Shepherd, but he wasn't about to tell her that at the moment. He supposed it might not hurt to explore the possibility with the men in secret later; if he could keep them on board with the cause by becoming their leader, then maybe a mutiny wasn't the worst idea in the world…
In the pause that hung between them, something suddenly snapped in Shepherd's expression. Her face hardened even further, and her eyes narrowed. "You've been plotting this all along, haven't you? You want to take everything I've built and leave me with nothing! Nothing!" She was nearly shrieking now, and Borden could detect a tremble of rage in her hands as she clenched them at her sides.
Borden put his hands up in what he hoped was a placating gesture. "Shepherd, I-"
He didn't even see the gun until he heard the shot, and by then, it was too late to do anything.
The sound was still ringing in his ears when his legs gave out. No pain accompanied it, so he was surprised when he suddenly found himself on the floor, looking up at the ceiling. He glanced down to find his shirt was quickly growing wet with blood, and he looked back up to frown in confusion at Shepherd.
Her satisfied smile as she squeezed the trigger again was the last thing he ever saw.
This was bad.
This was very bad.
This was very very bad.
Shepherd paced the room, running her hands through her hair as she crossed the short distance from one wall to another and then turning to walk it again.
Who was she to trust now? She had thought she could trust Borden, and for years she had done just that. She had relied on him to be her right hand many times, ever since she had recruited him years before. And he had proved himself over and over, from carrying out dangerous missions to volunteering to infiltrate the FBI in order to keep an eye on Kurt Weller and his team. And Borden had done such a good job of it too, even overriding his emotions when he had started developing feelings for Patterson. Yet all it took was one mistake on her part for the man to no longer trust her. After everything he had seen her do for the cause - after everything he had done for the cause - he would decide to simply oust her and take the control for himself?
Shepherd shook her head. The nerve of him to even suggest anyone in her ranks would mistrust her judgment. They knew she was devoted to overthrowing the evil that was America; she would never risk that for a pity party. It was a completely ludicrous suggestion. Borden deserved what he had gotten.
At the thought of the man, she glanced back towards the door, realizing with distracted surprise that she still needed to deal with the body that was cluttering up her office. She crossed to the door, planning to grab the first person she saw to clean up the mess. But there was no one there. And when she descended the stairs, she frowned with the realization that there was not a soul in sight.
As much as she wanted to tell herself that it was just because of the late hour and because of the various jobs that the men had been assigned to complete, the quiet nagged at her. She threw the front door open, and her stomach dropped even further at the absence of three-quarters of the vehicles that had previously been parked between the house and the barn a dozen yards away. She could hear Borden's voice in the back of her head, reiterating the idea that no one trusted her any longer and telling her they would all be better off without her in command. With a growl, Shepherd kicked the door frame in frustration. She knew whose fault this was - and it wasn't hers.
This was all Remy's fault.
If Remy had done as she was supposed to, none of this would have happened. Everything would be okay if Remy had just stuck to the plan they had crafted. All the people their cause had lost would still be in its ranks, helping to carry out their mission. But no, Remy couldn't do something as simple as that. She had to go and join the enemy, and even though Shepherd and the others had done all they could to bring her back into the fold, it hadn't been enough. Remy had shaken every effort to save her and was now fighting against them.
And it wasn't just that they had lost Remy to the FBI. That would have been bad enough, but no. Remy had caused them to lose good men in the process. Oscar had been killed, although the man had always had such a soft spot for Remy… Shepherd supposed she shouldn't have been too surprised at that one. But Roman! Remy's own brother! He hadn't died, but he might as well have, for with his memory wiped and his recovery being influenced by this weaker version of Remy and the FBI, he was as good as dead. If Remy hadn't lost her mind to the enemy, then even Borden would still be alive. But she had, and he wasn't.
The entire cause was crumbling, and it was all Remy's fault.
Shepherd's expression hardened. She couldn't let Remy continue to ruin things any longer. It didn't matter that they were family; Remy had all but thrown that back in her face already. Sacrifices had to be made by everyone involved in this crusade, and as much as Shepherd had already given, she was being called upon to give yet one more. She put a hand to her hip where her pistol sat tucked into its holster and smiled grimly. If she hurried, she could put this whole thing behind her before the evening was gone.
Then maybe she could recover her army and move on.
It had been less than a day since the team had smuggled Kurt into Jane's safe house, but it felt like much longer. Jane had lost track of the number of times she'd had to tell the man to sit back down, and no, he couldn't go to work yet. Also, no, he could not work from the house because, for one, it was illegal to remove case files from the offices, and two, he was supposed to be resting.
She was relieved when he'd finally dozed off on the couch, seemingly exhausted from arguing the details of what the doctors actually meant by no excitement. Jane would have rathered him sleep in the bed, but at least he wasn't running around chasing down bad guys for the moment. With Kurt, she had to take what she could get. He would probably start back in on trying to convince her that he could sneak into the FBI offices as soon as he woke up again.
After watching the rise and fall of his chest for a few moments, Jane was satisfied that Kurt was indeed sound asleep. She smiled lightly and shook her head, then headed for the bedroom. She felt a bit like a mother sneaking a shower while her baby was napping, and she supposed she was at the moment. Reade and Zapata were outside on the off chance that Kurt got up and tried to sneak out, although Jane doubted the man would seriously be able to do so. Kurt did have a track record of ignoring doctors' advice and pushing himself far beyond normal human endurance, but this time, Jane doubted even Kurt Weller would be able to resume work like nothing had happened. His body was going to need some serious recovery time.
Ten minutes later, Jane was toweling her hair when she heard a muffled thud. She froze, straining her ears for anything further, then relaxed when no other sounds could be heard. It was probably just the wind outside, she decided. But then, just as she reached for her hairbrush, there was a decidedly human footstep on the staircase. There was no way for Kurt to have climbed the stairs, and even if he could have physically, he had no reason to do so. The thought that he had gone to check out the noise she had heard a few moments before occurred to her, but something in her gut told her this was much more serious. They had made every effort to ensure Sandstorm thought that Shepherd had killed Kurt at that warehouse, but the possibility that the truth had somehow been leaked was twisting her stomach into knots even as she snatched her sidearm from the counter and threw open the bathroom door.
She paused to listen for just a moment, but the footsteps had suddenly ceased. This did nothing to quell her fears. If anything, they multiplied in the silence. Jane moved forward as quickly as she could while still being cautious; she held her weapon out in front of her, half-expecting someone to be waiting just on the other side of the doorframe. No one was, however, and she proceeded quietly, her bare feet hardly making a sound on the floor. When Jane rounded the corner into the living room, Jane paused in mid-stride.
She had half-expected to see Shepherd or one of the woman's cronies coming to finish Kurt off. After all, that was one of their fears, even though Sandstorm's end game had seemed to need him alive. With that woman, no one knew what was going to happen next. And yet, the sight of Shepherd standing in the middle of the room, stock-still and staring at the man on the couch, gave Jane pause and set worry coursing through her veins. She stepped forward, raising her weapon to level it with the back of the other woman's head. But just before she growled out an order to turn around, the muttering met her ears.
"No no no no no. This can't be real. You… you can't be real. I needed you. I needed you, and you left me…"
Jane frowned. Something about the woman's voice was even more unhinged than any other time Jane could remember. But she would worry about that later; right now, she just needed to get the situation under control. "Put your hands on your head and turn around," Jane growled.
Shepherd's shoulders stiffened, but she did not move to obey the order.
"Do it."
"You won't shoot me," Shepherd said, her voice low and monotone. She shifted her feet and pivoted so that she was facing Jane. The left side of her mouth tilted upwards in a manic smirk. "You can't."
Jane tightened her grip on the gun. "Don't make me do it, Shepherd."
There was a moment of silence as Shepherd's eyes darted to the still-sleeping form on the couch. Then her eyes narrowed, and her gaze snapped back up to Jane's face. "This is all your fault!" she snarled. "All of it! My entire life… gone. And it's all your fault!" she repeated, her voice rising to almost a screech as fury filled her face. "You-" In the next brief second, her gaze hardened, her hand dropped to the gun in her waistband, and she drew it in one smooth motion.
Smoke curled upwards towards the ceiling as the sound of a gunshot filled the room.
The two women locked eyes. Remy's face was full of emotion, and Shepherd felt the hate rising inside of her once again. How dare Remy even think that she could pretend to care? Not now. Not after everything that she had done to destroy everything her mother had worked to build.
No.
She snarled and moved to squeeze the trigger again, even as a dozen ways to tell the younger woman this was all on her came to mind. But her muscles would not obey.
Shepherd looked down and frowned at the sight of her shirt growing dark with blood. This wasn't right…
Looking back up to meet Remy's gaze, Shepherd's lip twisted up in a snarl. How could she? How dare she?
Shepherd grunted and lifted her gun to aim directly for Remy's heart. If she was going, she was taking the other woman with her. Remy had destroyed Shepherd's entire life's work - the entire future of the world - and she deserved to pay the price for it.
Another gunshot sounded with concussive force, and Shepherd felt herself being jerked backward. Her gun arm felt strangely heavy, and try as she might, she couldn't keep it up. She tried to bring her other arm up to help, and she managed to squeeze off one bullet before another shot tore through her, this one from the opposite direction.
Things were growing hazy as Shepherd shifted her gaze to the front door to see the other two members of Weller's team rushing in.
Then she looked back towards Remy, but her eyes caught on Kurt, who was sitting up on the couch, pain creasing his features as he pointed his weapon at her.
The hurt and confusion in his eyes rent her heart more than anything else had before. She wanted to tell him how glad she was that he was okay, reassure him that everything would now be all right, that they could fix this all.
But then darkness filled her vision and Kurt's face faded from view for the last time.
Fin.