A/N: These recent stories are due to the self-enforced two-day break I'm taking to let my mind clear from editing so I can start editing all over again. I still won't be touching the unfinished stories for a while. However, taking a break from "work" doesn't mean the creative juices stop flowing. This feels like a short story with a few short chapters playing around with some of the ideas I found unrealistic or unresolved in the final season.

The story is AU with a nod to canon. ~Calla

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Running his hand through his hair, Jane stared out over the waves. There was something to be said for being exiled in a tropical paradise with favorable extradition treaties; but he was tired of his home away from home. He missed his family. Not the one in the graveyard. They were gone. He'd accepted that long ago. He meant the family he'd lost to the crap storm that incinerated the CBI and decimated California law enforcement agencies. Never let it be said the FBI wasn't thorough. They were. Just not thorough enough. A few rats escaped the sinking ship. Really big rats.

Human Sumatran bamboo rats.

Fortunately, he knew who they were and where they were hiding. While it took a few weeks, that encryption wasn't as tough as it seemed. Once he had the names, he'd sat on them. He had a few things to ponder, and a plan to develop. One that had everything riding on it. About the time the guilty parties started believing they'd made a clean break; he'd made contact and shattered the fantasy. Not in an overt, threatening way. Just the opposite in fact. He wasn't interested in black mail. Not the kind they were thinking. He made that clear. He didn't need their corrupt power or their dirty money. Nor was he interested in sharing their identity with the other players on the drive. That wouldn't get him anywhere.

All he wanted was his life back.

Once he had that, they could go back to their unholy lives without that nasty record of their iniquities hanging over their heads. Not in any tangible way. However, that didn't mean he didn't have insurance in place if anyone overstepped their boundaries. He did. The kind that would not only destroy them, but everything they held dear. While not a guarantee he'd survive his first step on US soil, it was the best he could do if he didn't want to spend the rest of his life in the shadows. Looking over his shoulder was no way to live. Then again, he didn't really do that. He didn't have to. The authorities would have a hell of a time trying to extradite him if they tried.

However, while his tropical paradise was a nice place to visit, he didn't want to live here. Not permanently. Not one second longer than it took to put his plan in play - all twenty-one months, twenty-three days, sixteen hours, twenty-six minutes, and twenty-three seconds. Actually twenty-three-and-a-half but that was getting neurotic. Anyways, the better part of two years was long enough to cool his heels. He was ready to move on, and he was on the cusp of doing that if things went according to plan.

Famous last words in his case. When had that ever happened? Hopefully, this time was different. He'd done everything in his power to ensure there weren't any hiccups. He'd verified his immunity from prosecution and put his safeguards in place. If he was prosecuted, or anything untoward happened to him or anyone he cared about, every unencrypted name on that drive would suddenly come to light at multiple law enforcement agencies throughout the country and countless newspapers around the world. Both their identities and indisputable proof of their crimes. There would be no escaping the web they were caught in, and their lives would be over.

Forget the cushy prisons. They'd do hard time. Nothing else would be acceptable. That wasn't an idle threat, and all sides knew it. It was a promise. The final consensus was, hopefully, that they were damned if they did, and damned if they didn't, so it was better to play along and pray he never had reason to use what he knew against them. While Jane was confident the rats saw things his way; he was less confident the remaining variable would accept what he had to offer. He'd know the truth of it in about twenty minutes.

Not long after Renaldo handed over that final letter with instructions to join him on the beach…