oOo
After he helped her out of the vent he began bombarding her with questions. "What are you doing in there? How did you escape?" And then the one she didn't care to hear, "What happened to your face?"
She recognized his voice from the radios. "Roy?" She asked, but then corrected herself. "No, John, right? You're John… McClane?" And then she realized: John McClane is Holly's policeman husband.
"Yeah, how'd you know?" He asked, eyeing her suspiciously.
"I was with them when he was talking to you." She explained. "Hans, that guy, he's been- he wouldn't let me out of his sight."
"Uh huh, so how'd you escape?"
"Franco, he was taking me to the bathroom- Hans wanted me out of the room I guess, when Ellis started…" She trailed off, remembering the gunshot, and looked John in the eye. "Harry's dead isn't he?"
"Yeah," Slowly, John nodded. "Yeah, Ellis is dead. Were you guys close?"
Charlie couldn't help but snort at the thought. "No. Far from it actually." She knew she wasn't supposed to speak ill of the dead, but she couldn't help thinking Good riddance. "Anyway, when he was ratting you out to Hans, Franco took me from the room and when I was alone in the bathroom I pulled one of the vents off the wall and crawled into the shaft."
John nodded, accepting her story. "How'd you know I was Holly's husband?"
"I've seen your pictures on her desk, Holly's my boss."
"Is she okay?" John asked suddenly.
Charlie nodded. "Yeah she's fine. She's kinda taken charge of the hostages down there. Making sure they're taken care of and stuff."
John smiled and sighed with relief. "Yeah… that sounds like Holly. Good." They stood in silence for a moment, he being relieved by the news of his wife's safety, she enjoying the fresh cool air.
"What's your name?" John asked.
"Charlotte. Everyone calls me Charlie."
"Well come on, Charlie, we need to keep moving." and they started walking. It was then that she noticed his bare feet.
"Where are your shoes?" She asked, realizing that she too was still barefoot.
"Left them downstairs when the shooting started." John said. "Where's yours?"
"Left them in the lobby… before the shooting started." She replied, and John chuckled slightly at this.
"So Hans wouldn't let you out of his sight, eh? What makes you so special?"
"I ran into them in the lobby when I was trying to leave, then when he took Mr. Takagi…" She sighed, remembering that he was also dead now. The man's dead face flashed through her memory again. It had been a long fucking night. "When he took him upstairs to the conference room, he brought me with them."
"Shit! You were there when that happened?"
She nodded slightly. "Then he said I knew too much to go back with the others, he said he couldn't trust me not to talk… and I've been stuck with him ever since."
"What do you know?"
She started to answer when they heard commotion. Charlie froze and remained as silent as possible. John held a finger to his lips and held up his handgun, ready to shoot if it was a "terrorist". He shimmied the bag from his shoulder and handed it to her, whispering "Hold this- guard it with your life… and stay here until I call you." Then he sauntered over to where the noise had come from, his bare feet not making any noise on the marble floors.
There was silence for a while, then she heard John say, "Hi there. How you doing?"
Whoever it was replied in a panic. "Oh! Oh- please god no! You're one of them aren't you? You're one of them! No- don't kill me! Please no, don't kill me!"
"Whoa, whoa, relax!" John replied. "I'm not going to hurt you- I'm not going to hurt you! What the fuck are you doing up here? What are you looking for?"
"I managed to get out of there, and uh, I was just trying to get up on the roof and see if I could signal for help." The man explained. His voice sounded familiar but she couldn't place it. "It's just through here, why don't you come with me?"
Another hostage escaped. Charlie thought.
"Hey forget the roof-" John said, then again more forcefully. "Forget the roof, they've got people all over. Come on. You wanna stay alive, you stay with me."
"Alright." The other hostage replied. Charlie couldn't place a face to the voice. She knew pretty much everyone in the building and this guy sounded familiar enough.
Slowly, she stood up and started slowly- quietly- making her way around the corner to where they were talking. She stopped short, listening- after all, John still hadn't given the all clear yet.
"You smoke?" She heard John ask. The man replied in the affirmative.
"You don't work for Nakatomi, and you're not one of them." The hostage ventured.
"I'm a cop from New York." John replied.
"New York?" The hostage replied with astonishment. His voice was so familiar it was bugging her.
"I'm John, by the way. John McClane." John introduced himself. "You?"
"Clay." Replied the hostage. "Bill Clay."
Charlie jogged her memory trying to produce a face to match the name... and suddenly felt sick. She knew everyone that worked in this building, she had fixed the computers enough times and even had to file time cards by hand more than enough times to memorize the names of everyone in the building- even the janitors and guards had accidentally been committed to memory over the course of a few weeks- and while there was a Mr. Clay, there certainly was no Bill Clay! It's a trap! She covered her mouth, stifling a gasp.
"Know how to use a handgun, Bill?" John asked.
NO! Charlie thought, and started to move quickly, hoping to reach them in time to stop John from doing something stupid.
"All you gotta do is pull the trigger." John said, and she heard something click into place.
Shit! She could practically see him handing over the gun. She stopped just before rounding the corner, heart thumping hard in her chest.
"Seems they're letting you guys slip through the cracks left and right." John said with a laugh.
"Beg your pardon?" Said the impostor.
"Oh, I just mean you're the second hostage- you know what? Come on, you probably know each other."
No-No-NO! Don't bring him over here! Charlotte thought in a panic. Don't sell me out!
She started backing away but John rounded the corner, saw her and immediately said "Oh, Charlotte. Come on out. You know Bill, right?"
timidly, she followed him back around the corner into the light, and froze, realizing why "Bill Clay" had sounded so familiar. It was Hans. He'd been doing an American accent and it had fooled them both! He stood there, gun in one hand, cigarette in another.
"...You?" She breathed.
"You!" He said, equally surprised.
"So you two do know each other." John said, glancing back and forth between them.
"Kind of." Hans said, lifting his arms to cross them, but giving her a clear view of the gun in his hand. While John's gaze was on her, Hans gave her a pointed look. It clearly implied what he would do if she said the wrong thing. "She's in a different department but we've seen each other around." He raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to play along.
She glanced nervously at the gun, and then nodded. "Yeah. He's like an intern… or something."
John chuckled. "Intern? Aren't you a little old for that?" and Hans simply shrugged in a 'what-can-I-say' sort of way. Flicking the remainder of his cigarette away, John moved past him. "Well, let's get moving, you two. It's going to be a lot harder being stealthy with a crowd."
"John wait-" Charlie started to say, but stopped- and so did John- when they heard Hans start speaking in German. He was talking into his radio, alerting his friends. He leveled the gun at John. "Put down the gun." He said to the cop, then he looked at Charlie. "And give me my detonators."
Detonators? She wondered briefly, but then realized what he meant. She glanced down at the messenger bag slung across her chest. No… Once again she had found herself to be in the exact wrong place at the exact wrong time, and worse now; this time she was holding the exact thing Hans was desperately searching for.
"Well, well, well." John said slyly. "Hans." He looked over to Charlie. He was clearly wondering why she hadn't said anything. "What the hell?"
"I-I'm so sorry." She whimpered, glancing between John, and the gun Hans was pointing at him. John only grinned in a wry sort of way.
"Eh. Don't worry, kid." He sighed, not happy but understanding her fear.
"Put it down." Hans repeated firmly as John slowly advanced on him, his machine gun pointed lazily in Hans' direction. "Now."
"That's pretty tricky with that accent." John said, ignoring his demands. "You ought to be on fucking TV with that accent. What do you want with the detonators, Hans? I already used all the explosives…" He tilted his head, a new thought occurring to him. "Or did I?"
"I'm going to count to three." Hans said calmly.
"Like you did with Takagi?" John asked with a knowing laugh.
CLICK!
Charlotte jumped as Hans pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. He pulled the trigger a few more times. CLICK! CLICK! CLICK!
"Oh? No bullets." John sang playfully, snatching the empty gun from the other man. "Do you think I'm fucking stupid, Hans?"
A familiar DING sounded in the small hall, and everyone's attention was drawn to the elevators. Above the doors, one of the lights had come on, meaning someone was seconds from joining them.
"You were saying?" Hans replied with a smirk.
"Run!" John yelled at Charlie, and then ran, pointing his machine gun at the elevator doors, and spraying them as they opened.
Charlie moved to follow him, but Hans was quicker. He grabbed onto the strap of the bag and yanked her back. "No you don't!" He snarled, pulling her close, wrapping his arms tightly around her torso and waist and lifting her easily off the floor so she couldn't run.
Deafening explosive pops and bangs sounded as bullets started flying. He threw her down behind a copy machine, ducking down beside her. She covered her ears as everyone began firing back and forth, bullets PING-ed around her, she was certain she was about to get hit with a ricochet soon. Someone threw Hans a gun.
"Schießen das Fenster." Hans hissed to Karl.
"Was?" Karl asked, looking confused. Hans repeated it, and when Karl still didn't seem to understand he shouted, "Shoot the glass!"
As they started shooting again- and glass began raining down around them- Hans and Karl stood, their guns trained on the same spot. She couldn't see John, but she could see from where they were aiming that he was on the move.
"Run, Charlotte!" She heard him yell. "Run, god damn it!" The shooting had finally stopped and she heard a door slam shut on the other side of the room. John was gone.
Hans turned to glare at her and she hated that his gaze had frozen her to the spot. But as he lunged for her again she snapped out of her fear and rolled away, just barely out of his grasp. As she scooted away, she wriggled the strap off of her shoulder and threw the bag at him as she stood up, hoping he would let her go if he had his detonators. No luck. He simply dropped them to the ground at his feet and continued to advance on her, the look in his eyes promised murderous intent. She started running and she could hear him following, and then before she had even taken four complete steps in the direction that she had last seen John, Hans tackled her hard to the floor.
Glass shards sliced into her right foot, leg and hip where she'd landed and she cried out. Her right arm managed to only get them around her elbow, upper arm and shoulder. Once he'd roughly wrestled her into submission, he sat on her hips, held her injured shoulder down with one hand and pointed his gun at her face with the other. "Give me a reason." He hissed and she froze. "Give. Me. A reason." He hissed again, clicking the hammer into place. "You promised to behave," He snarled angrily. "And yet you are far more trouble than you're worth."
"I can open the safe!" She blurted out. In the silence that followed, time could have stopped.
This time, Hans froze. Then snarled again, pressing the muzzle of the gun against her bruised- and possibly broken- left cheek making her cry out again. "You're lying!" He said through clenched teeth. His fingers gripped painfully into her shoulder, digging the glass deeper.
"I'm not!" She cried. "I can open the safe- please don't kill me!"
He thought about it. He really did. She saw a storm of fury in his eyes as he debated.
"Please…" She whimpered quietly as tears finally fell from the corners of her eyes.
"I'm not in the habit of giving second chances." He said carefully and then let go of his death grip on her shoulder. She couldn't help but gasp in pain and a fresh wave of tears welled up in her eyes. "There will not… be… a third." He had leaned over her as he said that part, bringing his face inches from hers. "Am I clear?"
She nodded quickly, and after a few seconds to glare at her, he stood and went over to the bag. It was covered in shards of glass but he ignored that. Ripping the zipper down the line, he shoved his hand in and pulled out something she couldn't see, inspected it for a second, and then put it back in the bag, zipping it closed again. With a deep sigh he stood up and threw the bag over his shoulder.
"Smile Karl." Hans said without a trace of humor in his voice. "We are back in business."
Karl turned suddenly with a wild look in his eyes and Charlie got the feeling that he no longer cared about the score anymore.
A.N.: I'm approaching the point where the plot thread has escaped me. I have a few vague ideas of the bones I want to use but for the most part I don't really have much of a plan after the canon plot ends. So if you have an idea you'd like to see used or advice on where to go with this plot, PM me, leave a review, however you want to reach out. I'm open to ideas but I don't promise I'll use every suggestion.