Fighting for Salvation (20)

 Okay, guys, since I gave you such a SHORT chapter last time, I decided to update quickly. So here is chapter 20. The next chapter will mark the beginning of S2...and just to warn you, as the seasons go on, this story will move further and further away from cannon with plots and pairings. Hope you'll stick with me, though!

            "How can they not want to negotiate?" Michelle finally asked. "How can they not want anything?"

            "They do want something," Tony muttered. "But they've already got it."

            "And what's that?"

            "Our attention."

            "So what does that mean?"

            "It means," George told her. "That they are going to shoot every single person in that church."

            "But Ava wouldn't let that happen," she objected.

            "What is she going to do?" Tony asked. "She doesn't have a weapon on her. She refuses to carry them into a house of God."

            "Not even her off-duty weapon?"

            "Nope."

            "You know her, Tony," Mason said. "She won't just lie down and take this. She'll fight. And she'll probably die doing it."

            "Tony!"

            The agent turned in surprise when he heard his name called by a familiar voice. His eyes widened when he saw a bearded Jack striding across the room toward him, anger and fear evident in his expression.

            "What the hell is going on?" he demanded. "I just saw the video on the news – Ava is in that church!"

            "We know Jack, and we can handle it," Mason interrupted.

            "We'll get her back, Jack," Tony said quietly.

            "How? Are they negotiating?"

            "No."

            "Then how do you propose to get her back?"

            Tony frowned as he pondered Jack's question, his worry for Ava weighing heavily on him. Michelle watched the three men nervously, trying to decide if she should say anything. She was still new to CTU, and she wasn't exactly sure where she stood with Mason. But she knew that Tony would give her idea a fair listening, so she decided to speak up.

            "We know for a fact that they're not going to negotiate, right?" she asked. They nodded. "Then what do we have to lose?"

            "What are you suggesting?" Mason asked.

            "We send a team in. Hard and fast. If they're already set on killing all of the hostages, then we can't do anything more to endanger them. Plus," she added. "We have an agent inside. She can catch them unawares while they're focusing on our team."

            "That's assuming that she's still alive at that point," Mason muttered. Tony opened his mouth object, and the director held up his hand to stop him. "I hope she is too, Tony. But if she decides to fight too early or if they just choose to shoot her in the head, there's nothing much we can do." He took a deep breath. "Okay. We'll send a team in."

            "I'm going," Tony said immediately.

            "You're not a field agent."

            "I don't care."

            "He's going," Jack said suddenly. "And so am I."

            Mason sighed in frustration. "Bauer, you're not even an agent anymore."

            "Look, George. We're going, regardless. You can either have us going in with one of your teams, or on our own. Your choice."

            He stared at them for a moment, one hand on his hip. "Fine," he huffed. "But if either of you gets killed or gets in trouble, it's not my problem."

 

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            "You sure you're ready for this?" Tony asked quietly as he and Jack suited up.

            "I have to be. I can't lose her too, Tony."

            "I know."

            Jack looked at him for a moment. "You really care about her don't you?"

            "Yeah, I do."

            "You should tell her." Tony shook his head and Jack sighed in frustration. "Why not?"

            "It wouldn't work."

            "That's bullshit."

            "I'm too old for her."

            "That's even bigger bullshit. What is there…seven years between you? That's nothing."

            "She doesn't feel that way about me. I'm barely even sure of what I feel."

            Jack nodded, understanding both Tony's reluctance and indecision. "Just don't wait too long, Tony. You'll regret it."

            "Yeah, but for now, I just have to focus on getting her back."

 

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            The gunmen were systematic. They spread out among the parishioners, ignoring their screams and pleas for mercy as they coldly fired two bullets into each person's chest. The screams grew louder. Some people tried to resist – but their captors either overpowered them or shot them as they stood. It seemed as though there were no way for them to be stopped.

            "Oh God…we're going to die, aren't we?" Jen whispered, a tear rolling down her cheek.

            "It's certainly looking that way," Ava answered.

            Jen turned to look at her friend in shock.

            "That wasn't exactly the reassuring answer I was looking for. And how the hell can you be so calm?"

            Ava shrugged. "Crying isn't going to save anyone."

            "Sometimes I wonder if you're a robot, you know that?"

            She sighed. "You know me. I'll freak out about it later and breakdown – if there is a later," she mumbled. "Look, I've got a plan."

            "Do you happen to have a gun to go with it?"

            "No."

            "Then what could you possibly do?"

            "Guns are not the answer to everything. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure they're the source of a lot of the questions. This one, for instance." She paused. "They said they're going to shoot all of us. No questions asked, right?"

            "Right."

            "So what do we have to lose?"

            "What are you saying?"

            "We get up. We fight. We don't take this shit from anybody – especially not some masked gunmen who are willing to throw their lives away for some shadowy man behind the curtain."

            "So that's it…we just fight? See how many we can take down with us?"

            "Well, personally, I will not go gentle into that good night."

            Jen stared at her. "You're going to quote Dylan Thomas to make me throw my life away?"

            Ava gave her a sad smile, but there was determination glinting in her blue eyes.

            "'Rage, rage against the dying of the light,'" she whispered.

            "Amen to that," Jen muttered. "So…are we counting to three or something? How exactly do we initiate this last stand thing?"

            Ava looked up to see one of the gunmen aiming his gun at the chest of a little boy no older than six.

            "Three," she whispered.

            Without looking back, she catapulted herself up from the floor, driving her shoulders into the gunman. He fell back with a grunt, the gun clattering from his fingers. Ava wasted no time knocking him out with a few well-aimed punches and then moved on to the next man, who had begun moving towards her when he heard the commotion.

            Jen was only a couple of seconds behind her. She quashed the fears that had settled in the pit of her stomach, making her feel ill. Figuring that the adrenaline would make it go away, at least for the time being, she launched herself at the nearest of their captors, throwing him to the ground. Before she could knock him out, though, he flipped her over so that he was on top of her, his hands clamping around her throat. Her arms flailed around as she tried to find something to strike him with. Finally, her hand rested on an object, and she immediately swung her arm, slamming him in the end with it. He fell to the side just enough to loosen his grip, and Jen crashed her fist into his face, causing him to lose consciousness.

            She sat up, her eyes roving around the sanctuary. People all around her were fighting back now. It seemed that all they had needed was to see someone else taking a stand – then their courage and will to live returned to them and they took things into their own hands. They weren't winning, but they had halted the merciless executions. Now when somebody got shot, it was because they were fighting, daring to rebel against the fate the gunmen had tried to shove down their throats.

            Ava was in the thick of it. Their captors had almost immediately assessed her as the biggest threat and attacked her. She fought them with everything she had, ignoring the faint ache in her left shoulder. She had only recently been able to use it at full capacity again, and her body wasn't thrilled with the prospect of further injury. But she kicked, punched and bit her way through her opponents, refusing to let herself slow. She knew that her life – and those of the people around her – depended on her ability to take out as many of the bastards as she possibly could.

            Jen disposed of another gunman, hitting him with one of the heavy chairs that rested on the altar. She heard his skull cracked and she looked at the chair appraisingly – the blow had had absolutely no effect on the hard wood. Turning, she prepared to find someone else to fight, but found herself staring down the muzzle of a semi-automatic rifle.

            A sound roared in her ears, fighting for dominance with the pounding of her heart. Then the face in front of her burst into nothingness and the body slumped to the ground, its finger still on the trigger. Breathing heavily and suddenly shaking, Jen turned to find the shooter, and she almost cried in relief when she saw Jack Bauer moving through the room, his gun systematically taking out their captors.

            She watched with overwhelming gratefulness as a CTU team swept into the cathedral, weapons at the ready. Already short in numbers from the fight with the parishioners, the gunmen stood no chance against the government agents. Regardless, they fought back, forcing the CTU team to kill them in order to stop them. Finally, there was only the lead gunman left. They had him surrounded, and it was obvious that there was no where for him to go. Swallowing hard, he closed his eyes and raised a pistol to his head, firing a single shot.

            Ava looked at the man now lying crumpled on the floor, a wave of nausea crashing over her. She just couldn't fathom how somebody could be willing to kill themselves for a cause that wasn't theirs, but belonged to someone whose only goal was power and terror. Sickened, she turned away and found her gaze resting on Tony. Giving her a relieved smile, he walked over to her, embracing her and holding her tightly. Ava returned the hug, closing her eyes and letting the relief wash over her as she realized that she was alive, despite the death sentence that had been clamped down on the sanctuary. Eventually, they pulled back.

            "What is it with you and random gunfire?"

            Ava rolled her eyes. "I wouldn't exactly call that random."

            "True." He looked down. "I'm glad you're okay."

            "Thanks to you."

            "You seemed to handling yourself pretty well from where I was standing."

            She shook her head, her face growing serious. "They were gaining the upper hand. I'm not sure I would have lasted much longer." She paused. "And if you guys hadn't come in when you did, I'd be short a best friend right now. So…thank you."

            Tony gave her a small smile. "You're welcome. I'm just glad you didn't get shot this time."

            "Me too." She looked around the room as the CTU team worked to clean up the bodies. "So do we have a lead on this guy?"

            He sighed. "None."

            Ava looked at him in sharply. "None? How can that be?"

            "He left no tracks. All his men are dead. They accomplished what they set out to do – they took control of a situation and we had no power to stop them."

            "But you did stop them. You saved us."

            "But we have no idea who he is. And no way to anticipate or stop the next attack."

            "You think there will be more?"

            He shrugged. "Do you really think someone like that can just let things lie after tasting that kind of power?"

            "I hate people," Ava muttered.

            "Actually, I think you have the opposite problem. You love them too much."

            "Impossible," she said. "You can never love too much."

 

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            "Final count, thirty one dead," Mason announced as Tony, Ava and Michelle walked into his office.

            "Bastards," Michelle muttered. "Who goes into a church and opens fire?"

            "A nut job," he answered.

            Ava shook her head. "Evil."

            They stood in silence for a minute, absorbing what she had said. The atmosphere grew darker as they pondered, but then George broke the spell.

            "We've done everything we can to try and find this guy."

            "And?" Ava asked.

            Michelle answered. "Nothing. He left absolutely no trace. Nothing in the feed or transmission to give any hints of his identity. The shooters have all been identified as former convicts from all around the world. We're digging into their pasts to find out where they could have crossed paths with this guy. But there's no paper trail. They were paid a great deal of money, but so far, we haven't been able to trace it." She paused. "In fact, we can't even be sure that the person behind this is a man. We're completely in the dark."

            "You're not actually suggesting that a woman could be behind this?" Tony asked, disbelief in his voice.

            Michelle raised her eyebrow at him. "You're not actually suggesting that a woman COULDN'T be behind this, are you?"

            He shrugged uncomfortably. "No, but…I heard what that guy…person…said on the video. I just can't believe that a woman would be that cold and merciless when it comes to the deaths of others."

            "What about Nina Myers?"

            Tony winced and Ava closed her eyes at the impact of Michelle's words. The analyst realized what she said and her eyes widened.

            "I am so sorry. That just slipped out. I didn't think about it first."

            Ava gave her a small smile.

            "It's okay. We know you didn't mean anything by it." She took a deep breath and then changed the subject, the pain on Tony's face like a knife in her heart. "So," she turned to Mason. "What's the next step? How do we find this guy?"

            Any hope that she had died as George shrugged.

            "We wait."

            "You're kidding, right? Please oh please tell me you're kidding."

            "What do we have to go on? What leads can we possibly follow?"

            "There's got to be something," Tony interjected.

            Michelle shook her head. "I really wish there was. But we've got nothing."

            "So we just wait?"

            "You said it yourself, Tony," Ava said quietly. "Once somebody like that tastes that kind of power…do you really think they'll just sit back and retire? He'll strike again. And we have no way to be ready to it."