Faded Scars
By Camilla Sandman
Chapter Eight
And I've watched an existence torn apart at the seams
And though I may seem helpless
I will do all that I can do
Oh I've seen a part of people that I never really want to share
Oh I've seen a part of people that I never knew was there~
Friday evening. But nothing near normal. Just a week ago, it had been a Friday like all the others, but Fridays wouldn't be the same again for a while.
There wasn't much reason to party, for one thing. The spirit of Sydney had been broken, but it was not dead. It would rise again, slowly.
Mick and Jack walked into Sydney Hospital and tried not to glare at each other. They were going to visit Helen, and Alex couldn't walk all that well, so it was just the two of them.
Which was why it was rather tense. But Mick was too happy to be finally allowed out of “protective custody” after hours of waiting to care that Jack was about as happy as a sour grape all the way over.
“Nice that you could break free from your partner for a while,” Jack commented as they walked up towards the hospital
“Bugger it, Jack,” Mick said forcefully, and decided to change the topic. “How's Helen doing?”
“Fine,” Jack snapped back, opening the door. Mick rolled his eyes and decided silence was a good thing. They walked down the hallway in silence until they reached Helen's room.
But she wasn't there.
“Must have physiotherapy or something,” Jack muttered. “I'll give Jeff a call an find out how the search is going.”
He wandered off, leaving Mick to wait for Helen. Waiting again, Mick tried not to pace. He hated waiting. And today had seen too much of it.
Footsteps outside made him look out in the hallway in the hope it was Helen.
It was Julian – no, Roger.
Their eyes met, and Mick recognised him. Not just as the guy who had pretended to be their new diver, but the guy who had knocked down Alex at the Opera House. It was the same amount of anger and madness in those eyes. Finally it made sense, all of it.
They stared at each other for a few seconds, then Roger turned and ran.
“Hey!” Mick called out, and dialling his phone, he ran after. “He's at Sydney Hospital!”
******
“He's at Sydney Hospital!” Mick puffed into the phone as Frank answered.
“What?”
“Roger – at – Sydney – Hospital!” came the extravagated reply and Frank didn't waste any more time.
“Shit!” he turned to Jeff, who was chatting to Donna by the front desk. “Roger is at Sydney Hospital! Mick's in pursuit, I think.”
“What!” Jeff snapped. “Reilly? Why is Roger at the hospital?”
The two looked at each other for a few seconds, then a horrible realisation dawned on them.
“Another bomb!” they both said in unison.
“Mick, get the place evacuated!” Frank shouted into the receiver, but the only reply he got was the dial tone.
“Shit!”
******
Mick had tossed the phone, sprinting to catch up with Roger. Mick wasn't just running for himself, but for Tayler and Gavin and Matt, demanding justice. And for Alex, because this bastard had laid a hand on her.
They were halfway down the hallway when Mick managed to grab a leg and pulled the guy over. They tumbled crashing onto the floor, but Roger managed to swing around and Mick's gun went flying down the hallway.
“I should have killed you back then!” Roger hissed, trying to get a chokehold on Mick. They struggled , just as a clear voice called out.
“Stop!” It was Helen, holding Mick's gun and pointing it squarely at Roger. A few metres down the hall Jack came running.
“You..” she said in a low voice, leaning forward in the wheelchair. Roger swallowed.
So this was the face of evil. Helen looked at it long and hard, and it was all she could do not to shiver. There was fear on his face though, all too human fear.
It would be so easy to pull the trigger. For Gavin, for Matt, for Tayler and fifteen hundred faceless people that were dead because of this man and his accomplices.
Jack had done something similar when Rachel had been stabbed, but he hadn't killed Charlie Driscoll, and she had turned out to be innocent on that account.
But this man.. this man wasn't innocent.
“Helen..” Mick said, getting unsteadily on his feet.
“He's one of them isn't he?” she asked, even if she knew the answer.
“Yeah,” Mick replied. “Don't do it, Helen.”
She stared at Evil again and he stared back, looking so scared she could almost be convinced he was human. But he wasn't. No human would do what he had done. She would be doing the world favour, ridding it of a monster.
As she hesitated, Roger saw an opening and reached into his jacket. The gun came out just as Helen fired. And fired and fired and fired and fired until the gun had no more bullets and even then, she kept pulling the trigger.
Roger Jackson lay in a pool of blood, dead.
They all stared at his body for a while, then Jack nearly jumped as his phone rang loudly.
“Christey,” he breathed. “No, he's dead.. Yeah.. What do you mean, a bomb?” He looked over at Mick, who looked up.
“Did you say bomb?”
Jack waved him off, listening intently to Jeff. “You gotta be kidding me! How long till the bomb squad can get here? Aw, shit.. We might not have that long, damnit..”
Hanging up, he glanced over at Mick.
“This day just keeps on getting better.”
******
Alex limped to Rachel's car, silently cursing the ground for being so rocky. She had just begun to think nothing would happen, that she would go insane while waiting, when… Boom!
“Was that all Frank said?” she complained to Rachel, who was holding the door.
“Just that Roger was at the hospital and Mick had spotted him.”
“Bloody hell,” Alex cursed, nearly tripping over. God, her foot hurt. But it was nothing compared to the painful throbbing of her heart. If something happened to Mick.. No, nothing would happen to Mick, fate couldn't be that cruel.. Could it?
She managed to get into the car, clenching her teeth as she hit the bad foot against the side of the car. God, when she saw Mick she was gonna hit him hard. He was a bloody fool, always playing hero.
Rachel started up the car, glancing over to her passenger. The worry was visible, and she understood it a bit too well. If it would have been Frank, it would have been her who had barely been able to breathe.
She loved him. She had loved him for a long time, even while she had loved Jack. It had been so hard to admit, and now it seemed too obvious. What had she been afraid of?
Glancing over at Alex, she found her answer. The same as Alex was afraid of; giving in to the feelings would make it so much harder to lose the person you loved. And in their line of work, it was a constant danger.
She had lost Jack, even if he was still alive.
Pushing the pedal harder she decided that Alex would not go through that.
******
The hospital was being evacuated as Mick and Jack hurried down the stairs.
“What makes you think the bomb is in the basement?” Mick asked, jogging after Jack.
“That's where I'd put it.”
“You spend too much time thinking like the crooks, Jack.”
They finally reached the end of the stairs and glanced around. The basement was dark, but the low ominous ticking led them straight to the source.
“Oh shit,” Jack cursed, staring at the numbers. 2:56.
“That's a hell of a bomb,” Mick muttered. “How do we disarm it?”
“You're asking me?”
“Yes.”
They exchanged a long look.
“I think we're supposed to cut a wire,” Mick suggested, looking at the bomb. Problem was, it were four wires. Green, blue, read and white.
“Yeah, which one, genius?”
“Ummm…” Mick stared. “Red? No.. Blue.. Eh.. Wait, these are Americans right?”
“Yeah, bloody patriots. You don't think they would really follow the colours of their flag?”
“Any better suggestions?”
They thought about that for a second, then stared at the timer. 1:42.
“Green it is,” Jack muttered, and prepared to pull it.
“For the record, Jack, I think you're a jerk.”
“The feeling is mutual, Reilly.”
And closing his eyes, Jack pulled. He didn't dare open them for a few seconds, just waiting. But nothing happened. Cracking one eye open, he looked around. The timer had stopped on 1:27 and the bomb was silent.
“Bugger,” Mick said in a low voice, and exhaled. “I thought I was rid of you there for a second.”
And he began to laugh. Jack looked at him for a few seconds, then joined in. They laughed and laughed, leaning against the wall for support.
They continued to laugh as they made their way up the stairs.
******
Rachel stepped on the brake hard as they pulled into the hospital parking lot. There were plenty of police cars there already, and she nearly hit one. Even before the car had come to a full stop, Alex had ripped the door open.
It wasn't very hard to spot Jack and Mick though. They were standing just outside and.. Laughing? They must have lost it. As she limped closer, Mick spotted her and the smile he directed at her was just dazzling.
“You are such an idiot!” she declared, and Jack smirked.
“You too, Jack,” she added, sending them both an angry glare. They stopped laughing, but were still smiling rather silly. She settled her glance on Mick, who squirmed. Jack just kept on grinning.
“Impressive, Christey,” Rachel remarked, walking over with her arms crossed. He gave her the first true smile she had got from him in a year
“Ya reckon?”
“Yeah.. Helen okay?”
”I don't know.. Let's find out,” Jack suggested and Rachel followed him towards the area where some ambulances had gathered and Helen was explaining what had happened to Jeff, Frank, Tommy and George.
“Roger Jackson is dead,” Mick informed Alex, as Rachel and Jack had walked away. She still looked pretty mad. “Hey, he was here, what was I gonna do?”
“If you scare me like that one more time..”
“You were scared?” he couldn't help but ask. She looked at him furiously, then lifted her bad leg and kicked him in the shin.
“Oww!” they both complained.
“What did you do that for?”
“Because you scared me!” she shot back. “Damnit Michael, I don't wanna bloody lose you, I bloody care about you and..”
“I'm sorry,” he muttered. “How's your ankle?”
“Bloody painful. Your leg is bloody hard.” She was still mad he could tell, but she was beginning to calm down.
“Don't go kicking it, then.”
“Don't make me want to.”
Finally she smiled, and allowed him to put an arm around her. “How about I give you a lift home to make up for it?”
“Oh, you're gonna have to work harder than that, Michael.”
“You're a hard woman to please, Alex.”
“I'm quite sure you'll think of something.”
He grinned, and they slowly began to make their way towards his car. Halfway there, Mick decided she was walking too slow and swept her up to carry her the rest of the way.
Rachel looked up from Helen's story to hear Alex yelp as Mick ignored all protests and was carrying her. It was hard not to smile, and even Jack seemed amused. Helen too, saw the commotion, but her smile was only on the inside.
She felt… She wasn't sure how she felt.
The ruling on Roger Jackson's death would be self-defence. Yet, as she remembered the look in his eyes.. She wondered if she would have shot anyway.
It was a disturbing thought. Was she a killer? She had wanted to kill him so badly. And while she had debated, he had pulled a gun on her and made the choice for her.
Roger Jackson was dead, and she wasn't officially a killer. That didn't make it any better.
She had wanted to kill him. But would she have? Problem was, she didn't know. A week ago she would have been sure she could never kill anyone in cold blood, but a week ago..
Another time, another her. It was hard to believe a week could change so much.
“You did well, Helen,” Jeff said softly. She didn't reply, just gazed up at the sky.
'Forgive me, Tayler,' she thought, not realising it was herself she needed forgiveness from.
******
“Long week,” Frank commented, as he and Rachel got into the car. She nodded as she put her seatbelt on, throwing one last look at Jack, who had decided to stay with Helen for a while.
“Bloody long week,” she agreed, glancing over at him. “Not quite the homecoming I had pictured.”
“Yeah.. You and Jack gonna be okay?”
“Since when do you care about Jack?”
“I don't,” he replied honestly, “But I care about you, and if that means I'll have to tolerate Jack, then I will.”
A faint smile touched her lips. “You're just saying that so you can get some.”
“Damn right.” He grinned, lifting an eyebrow suggestively. “Seriously, Rach, I mean, I want you to be happy. And if you want Jack in your life in some way..”
“As a colleague, Frank. He's a great cop, and maybe one day we might even be friends.. But nothing more.”
“I'd be a liar if I said I wasn't happy about that,” he replied. “I just.. Want to know that you're happy where you are.”
“Nowhere I'd rather be, Francis. Even with this mess.”
He felt something warm in his chest, a sort of quiet happiness that comes when you have survived the crap the world has thrown at you, and managed to find a lump of gold in between it all.
“Why didn't you tell me this a year ago?”
“What, and have you walk around with that silly smirk of your ever day?” she joked, then looked serious. “I couldn't, I wasn't ready yet. There was so much pain after..” She didn't finish the sentence, didn't need to. He took her hand, wishing he could take away the pain from that stabbing. She'd always have scares from it, not just on the outside.
Damn that bastard who had stabbed her! Frank understood how Jack had reacted all too well he would have done the same and gone after the bastard who'd done it.
But that wasn't what Rachel needed. Revenge wouldn't help her heal. That he reckoned, had been Jack's mistake. And however much he felt kind sorry for the guy, Frank couldn't say he regretted the way it had turned out.
“I know, Rach..” he said softly, and let go of her hand.
She smiled at him as she started the car, and even if the smile had a touch of sadness in it, it was a genuine smile. “Let's pick up David from dad's and go home.”
Home. It wasn't the Footloose, or even his house or Rach's. It wasn't Sydney or Venezuela or even the water police headquarters for that matter. Home was wherever she was.
And it felt damned good to be home, finally.
******
Jack had finally buggered off, leaving Helen alone with her thoughts. She was staring idly at the sky, wondering what the hell to with her life when a very familiar voice said her name softly.
“Helen?”
“Bruce?” She looked up confused, he was the last person she expected right then. For a second she thought she was seeing things, but it was indeed Bruce Johnson, her brother and Tayler's father.
It was him, looking tired and older than the last time they had met. And strangest of all, tears were brimming in his eyes. He didn't look angry as she would have expected, just sad.
“I'm sorry,” she muttered with her eyes downcast, not daring to look at him He had to hate her. She hadn't even dared to call him, knowing he would just hang up. She had lived and Tayler had died. He had to blame her.
“No, I'm sorry,” he whispered and bent down, catching her glance. “I thought we had lost you too and.. I couldn't breathe. I'm so sorry.. about everything.”
Astonished, she took his hand. “Bruce..”
“You'll be at the funeral?”
“Of course,” she assured him. He actually asked her.. She had to fight back tears, but this time they were for another reason.
“I think.. She would have wanted..” he bit his bottom lip. “I don't know if she ever knew.. That I was proud of her.”
“Of course she knew.”
“I didn't agree with her choice, and I never encouraged her at all.”
“She knew, Bruce.”
They looked at each other for a long time, both on the verge of crying.
“I loved her like a daughter,” Helen whispered finally. He nodded, smiling faintly.
“She was closer to you than anyone else. I think.. Maybe you should speak at the funeral.”
She didn't know what to answer, and he didn't seem to expect a reply, resting his head in her lap. His body shook slightly as he cried, and she could do nothing but slowly stroke his hair. If Tayler was watching from somewhere beyond, she would be smiling.
******
It was over in a way, Jeff realised, as he stood in his office, staring out over the Harbour. The lights had been turned off and the building was being emptied.
“Night, boss!” Donna called out, but he turned and called after her.
“Janevski.. I just wanted to say that you've done very well this week.”
She seemed to light up slightly. “Thanks.”
“Sorry I've yelled so much,” he continued. “You're doing well, Donna.”
He could practically see her swell with pride.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Good night, Donna.”
“Good night,” she smiled, and disappeared down the stairs. He listened to her walk out, leaving only him in the building.
He didn't want to go home. He didn't want to go to bed, and have a weekend off. He didn't want to wake up and think about the dead. He didn't want to feel alone.
Through the crisis, they had all been in it together. He hadn't felt so close to the people working under him.. Ever. And yet, he'd been alone. It was a funny feeling that. They'd all been there, yet he'd been alone.
It wasn't just the job. He'd distanced himself from them, because.. Well, at the end of the day he was still their boss.
He wasn't sure he could be any more. He was tired, bloody tired. He'd been in this office so long, and it was time to move on.
He wanted to move on, yet he wanted to stay in this office forever. It was such a large part of him, had been for many years. Good years, sad years, eventful years, years that seemed to stretch on forever and yet had passed in the blink of an eye.
The office had become him.
So many people had come and gone. Terry, Fiona, Tayler, Tommy, Gavin, Frank, Rachel, Jack, Mick, Alex, Lance, Matt, Helen..
And Clarke Webb. Walking over to the desk and reaching into a drawer, Jeff took out the dollar bill. Webb had given it to him when Jeff had become Chief Inspector, saying “the buck stops here.”
And it had, Jeff thought to himself. Or at least he wanted to live in the illusion that it had. He had been a good boss, hadn't he?
Sure, he'd made mistakes, some worse than others, but all in all he'd like to think they had been fixable. He and Helen had run a good ship, he had to believe that.
Looking at the one dollar bill, he smiled briefly. Yeah, it was time to move on. Not because he wasn't a good boss, but because he wanted to do like Frank, follow a dream.
Frank had come back at peace with himself, even in the whole mess. Jeff envied him, in a strange way. He and Frank had had their differences, and when Frank had wanted to just sail away, Jeff had thought him crazy.
It was crazy, but Frank had seen the truth of it. Go for what you want before life rips it away. If this Tuesday had showed the anything, it was how fast anything could come tumbling down.
But the dream hadn't died.
Africa. The thought made Jeff smile. He'd always wanted to see Africa, write about it, and live it.. Be there, maybe almost get trampled by a rhino or be a few metres from a lion. He wanted to go there just to say that he had, he'd dared followed a dream.
Africa it was. He might even manage to talk one of his kids into coming with him. A grand adventure.
Putting the buck down on the desk, he threw one last look at the Harbour. It still was an amazing view, even without the bridge. It just seemed.. Emptier. “Eternity” the bridge had been lit up with fireworks during the millennium change. He smiled as he remembered.
Eternity it was, even without the bridge. Things would last forever if you let them.
He turned off the light and walked out.
And I hear what you say
Can't look at the world
Through innocent eyes
We promise we will never forget the message~
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