So it's all come to this. Me, choking on my blood. Him, the victorious savior to his daughter, ending the life of the monster who ruined his.

I can feel my body aching for the absolution of death. I've come so close to the brink between this world and the next many times, but I've never felt as near to it as I do now. Jack's threatened to kill me so many times that the warning of his gun pointed down at me was beginning to lose its resonance in recurrence.

But he means it now. His finger's on the trigger to pull it. Not to frighten me. Not to put on a show for anyone. This is the real thing. This isn't about anyone else. This is just about us.

We've been through far too much to ever be able to classify our relationship as anything black and white. As I look up at him, I realize how many things he represents to me right now, in these final moments.

Jack. The greatest lover I ever had. My only true adversary. The embodiment of the only reservation I held for making the choices I did. My only true conduit to any kind of goodness within me. The catalyst to the decision of killing Teri that forever and unquestionably tainted me in his mind.

I guess I'll never know exactly what I represent to him.

He was never one for expressing feelings, but I like to think that I've seen more of the true side of Jack than most people- I've seen his anger, his passion, and his weakness. I've seen him strong, and I've seen him broken.

Echoes of our past flash through my mind as I watch Jack struggle with the final decision of judgment. The first time at work I realized that I had fallen in love with him. The first time he kissed me. Him telling me it was over. Seeing the way he looked at his wife, and it ripping me to shreds. Watching Teri die with some sort of sick satisfaction. I tried to tell myself it wasn't personal, but who was I kidding?

When I found him with the Salazars, some long silenced part of my heart had ached for him to be telling the truth. That he had finally forsaken the life that was keeping us apart. But I knew that I was also ridiculous- I was the one who had abandoned the life I should had led. Tony's words of judgment in the CTU interrogation today now return to my mind with painful clarity.

Because I know he's right. For all of Tony's naïveté, he has an unfailing sense of morality that I somewhat envied, but never understood. He was right. I had no ideology, no true motive to make me turn from the life I once held.

Nothing except Jack.

It's easy to blame him, to play the woman scorned and cite that as the reason that I turned. But I'm not sure anything's ever that easy.

When he kissed me in Mexico, I prayed that he wasn't lying. And even if he was, I wanted to let myself believe in his deception. I had missed him more than I could ever admit to anyone. I had missed the brutal veracity he was never able to mask. I had missed the feeling of his mouth insistently on mine, and in that moment, I realized that Jack was the only person who could ever make me feel anything.

I had anesthetized myself to the point that I was convinced I had no soul. Killing brought me no remorse, my flesh was only used as a tool to get the things that I wanted, even physical pain seemed removed and unimportant. I began to wonder if there was anything left-what was my endgame? What was my ultimate goal? Did anything even have a purpose?

I still don't have those answers.

But I know those fleeting, intense moments with Jack were the closest I've been in years to actually letting myself feel. Nevertheless, that night I again made the painful discovery that with letting yourself be vulnerable, you also open your heart to pain.

I knew he was lying. And it took everything in me to stop him. But I couldn't let anyone take advantage of me- that's just not my style. I'm always in control; I'm always the one who holds the checkmate move.

Except with Jack.

I can feel my breath growing shorter as the room seems to get colder. I look up at Jack, his face stricken, torn between the decisions of duty or ultimate justice.

I hear him ask if I really have any information, but his beautifully harsh voice that always made me weak seems to resound barely audible as if he's drifting farther and farther away.

I decide to make a final plea, my heart crying out to know if there's anything left within him that would question my murder.

"Yes…I do." My voice comes out weak and helpless, and it frightens me.

I'm not in control. Not any longer. I take as deep a breath as my broken body will allow, finding some sick comfort in the fact that if I must die, Jack should be the one to kill me. Death's been chasing me for so long that some part of me must have known it would find me eventually.

I watch Jack's face carefully. He's made up his mind.

This is it.

Everything between us is about to end forever.
        
The void of the unknown afterworld lurks before me, making my mind race with terrifying ideas.
        
I make a final attempt to reach for the gun at my side, not even knowing exactly what I plan on doing if I get it. I'm too weak to fight him, but some part of me can't accept that. We're equals, and we should die together as the two sides of a balance which can never weigh even except in death.
        
Before I can even attempt to finally bring a reckoning to the battle of love and hate that's waged between us for years, Jack fires.
        
Once.
        
Twice.
        
It's finished.


~fin~

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