Shields

by Alicia McKenzie

#NO!#

The voice is inside my head, I realize. Inside my head--how strange. It sounds upset, too. That's nice, in a way. That someone cares, I mean. That I'm not just a 'naive', over- principled nuisance whose absence would make things easier for the people who pay lip service to the law, to justice, and then use their authority for their own ends. I wonder for a moment what poor sap they'll find to replace me. Someone a little more tractable, I'd guess.

#Can you hear me?#

I wish I could answer. But something's pinning me down, and I can barely breathe, let alone talk. I can't even see. Everything's in shadow. But my sense of smell's working just fine, it seems, and what I smell is--smoke. An explosion, I remember hazily. I was home, sitting at my desk, trying to catch up on more damned paperwork. My secure line, my personal line, rang. I was just reaching for the phone when the world blew up in my face.

#Hold on, G.W.!# The voice is harsh, full of fury and anguish. The latter's directed at me, the former elsewhere, but I can feel them both, almost taste them, because the voice is inside my head, right there with me. Beating back the darkness, not giving an inch of ground. #Don't die on me, damn it! Not like this!#

I hear a noise like tearing metal, and then the weight on top of me starts to shift and lighten. It makes it a little easier to breathe. Not much, but a little. I try to say something, to let him know that I can hear him, that I'm still here, but all that comes out is a moan.

The last of whatever's pinning me down is lifted away, and then there's light, the most incredible light I've ever seen, fierce and golden like the sun. It almost hurts to look at.

"Nate--" I croak, trying to focus on the shape within the light. It occurs to me that I'm seeing him for the first time, that this is the truth beneath all the masks and the lies. The light, sleeping just beyond the shadows. And all the bits and pieces I'd been putting together over the last year or so, all the cryptic clues and whispers, they all start to make sense. I start to believe them, at last.

"Oath--" His voice hardly sounds like his own as he kneels down beside me. The light fades into a dim glow, enough to let me see him by. Enough so that I don't have to die in the dark. As I think it, he flinches, as if I'd hit him.

Except that he wouldn't have flinched, if I had. He never did. Never backed down, never gave up. Even when he met back up with me and the rest of the Pack, when we finally got the chance to let him know how we felt about the way he'd betrayed us, he didn't crack. He just stood there and took it, without trying to explain or justify himself. I gave him an out, a second chance, if he'd come clean with us, and he turned me down flat. Stuck to his mission, to that lonely road that'd been set for him so long ago.

Looking at him now, I wonder how I could possibly have been so blind as to miss how much making that decision had hurt.

"G.W.--" His voice breaks. He doesn't need to say it, to tell me that there's no chance. I know. Hell, I've been a professional soldier nearly my whole life. I've seen more people die than I like to think about. Enemies--strangers-- friends.

I remember the way Nate had always looked, when we'd had to watch someone die. He was never soft-hearted, not him. In a fight, he'd kill an opponent and turn to look for another without blinking. But afterwards, with the ones who were beyond help, he'd watch. If it was an innocent, a civilian who'd gotten caught in the middle of a firefight or something, he'd crouch down beside them, like he was doing now with me. And when they were dead, he'd get up and turn away, and the look in his eyes would be just a little colder, a little bit more distant, as if he'd taken a few steps into death with them, and part of him hadn't come back.

He's staring down at me now, his eye glowing. I feel him in my mind again, and suddenly there's no more pain. Just weariness, the need to close my eyes and drift away.

"Thanks--" I whisper.

The pain's on his face, now, as if he'd taken it into himself. He takes my hand, squeezes it tightly. "Forgive me?" he asks in a faltering voice.

"Already--forgiven, Nate." Not just what he'd done in the Yucatan, either--shooting Hammer, leaving us to die as he went after Stryfe. At the heart of that had been a worse betrayal--a failure of trust, a lack of faith. Dom, Kane, myself--we'd been trying to reach out to him for years, trying to show him that he didn't have to be alone, that we were there for him. But he'd turned his back on that, turned his back on us. He hadn't trusted us to stand by him, and that had rankled, even after understanding had finally settled in.

He 'hears' all of this, I can see it on his face. Good. He needs to understand. I won't be another ghost haunting him.

"If only I'd found out sooner," he whispers raggedly. "About the bomb--"

"Can't--always--win," I manage. "Should--know that, Nate."

"I swear, I'll find whoever did this and--"

"No!" I try to make the word forceful, but I can't. Frustration drives back weariness for a moment. I reach up with my other hand, grabbing his forearm. "No--more revenge, Nathan!" Revenge was what had driven him after Stryfe had first appeared in this time, what had knocked him into a downwards spiral I could recognize in hindsight. "More--important things you have to do!"

The mutinous expression on his face vanishes, replaced by shock. "You know."

"Yes," I sigh, letting my hand fall back. "Not--all of it. Enough." I stare up at him. My vision's gone hazy again. His face is the only thing I can see clearly. "Promise me--"

"Anything."

"Do--it." I can see he doesn't understand, so I try to explain. "Win--this time. Make things--turn out right." I manage a smile. "Know--you can do it, Nate. Believe in you--always d-did, deep down."

"I promise," he says hoarsely. I blink up at him, sure I must be seeing things. Because if I'm not, if my vision isn't playing tricks on me--he's crying.

"Gonna--ruin your rep, Nate--" I whisper, and his eye flares with light.

"To hell with my rep," he said roughly. "I never had a brother in this time, G.W.--I never thought anyone could ever be that for me, except Tetherblood--" He brushes tears away with the back of his hand, almost angrily. "And I'm a stupid son of a flonq for never telling you."

I smile, and close my eyes. "Likewise, Nathan," I whisper, and feel strong arms lift me, prop me half-upright so that I can breathe more easily. And after a while, I feel myself begin to leave my body, to drift away.

He comes with me, as far as he can--farther than he should, maybe. But I'm not worried. He has a different road to walk, and he knows it.

#Goodbye, G.W.#

I look back, just once, but all I see is the light, like I was looking into the sunrise on the first morning of creation. #Goodbye, Nathan. Tell Dom I love her.# A wicked impulse hits me, and I can't help myself. #Tell her you love her, too, while you're at it.#

Then I go on, forward into some other place. And it seems like he's there, too. Not just him, either. All the rest of the Pack. Grizzly gives his deep, rumbling laugh and clouts me so hard on the shoulder that I nearly fall over. Hammer's walking, and that customarily sour look is gone from his face. He looks happy, content. Kane's talking a mile a minute, but for the first time in my life, I don't have the faintest urge to tell him to shut up.

And Cable and Dom are up front, walking hand in hand. I catch up to them easily, and Domino laughs to see me, grabbing my hand and squeezing it tightly. What took you so long? she asks. I shrug, and Nathan gives me a disapproving look that barely masks the warmth in his eyes. Not a good mission to be late for, Bridge, he says severely, but I can hear the laughter in his voice, too.

Oh? I ask.

Oh, he mimicks me perfectly, and Dom breaks into laughter again. This is the last one, G.W. After this, there's no more fighting. The war's over, after this. Forever.

Really, I say with a grin of anticipation, feeling my heart leap within me in joy. Sounds like life's going to be awfully boring, then.

I can live with that, Nate says dryly.

And I don't have even the slightest doubt that I can, too.

fin

[FOOTER]