Jo Robertson - The Avenger

Then he hunkered down and prayed a little anyway, though he'd given up the notion of God years ago. Couldn't hurt, he told himself, and if it helped… well, it was a small inconvenience. He waited for Jack to snap out of the systemic shutdown of his internal organs.

Warren was peripherally aware of the bustle around him. Two patrol cars arrived a few minutes later with several deputies and federal agents who raced around securing the scene and suspect. Slater took the Gant woman to a patrol car. Howard Randolph was shackled and locked in the back of another car.

The ambulance finally arrived and carted the patient off. By the time they reached the hospital, Jack had begun to recover his color, his breathing stabilized, and his blood pressure normalized. The Judge could tell, however, that the agent was still in a lot of pain, and he knew Jack would need continued medication for at least a week before the recovery journey would begin in earnest.

"Damn, Jack, I'm too old for a rescue mission," he grumbled, standing beside the bed where the agent lay in the emergency room.

Warren understood Jack's refusal to let the ER doctor do more than take blood pressure and pulse. When the doctor left to examine Olivia Gant, Warren administered an injection of fentanyl intravenously. He saw the curtain of pain begin to lift from Jack's eyes.

His agent was returning from the dead.

Olivia couldn't bear to look at him. Through the police custody of Randolph, finishing up at the abandoned church, and the emergency medical attention, she had studiously avoided Jack's eyes. He didn't blame her.

He'd lived with what he'd become – what he was further capable of becoming – for a lifetime. Even though he'd felt the gentle tug of what he'd once been pulling at him again, even though he knew she loved him, he couldn't expect her to accept the kind of life he lived.

The hospital released him quicker than they approved of, but Jack's own body would heal faster than anything civilian doctors could do.

"Are you heading back to Baltimore?" Jack asked the Judge.

"We both need to wrap it up as soon as we can." The Judge eyed him speculatively as if he expected an argument. "I'll be in on the interview with Howard Randolph."

Jack kept the surprise from registering. Warren had never been in on an UNSUB's arrest, never participated in an interrogation. Hell, there'd hardly ever been an interrogation anyway what with the suspects dead for the most part.

"You okay with that?" Warren asked.

Jack twitched a shoulder and immediately regretted it when a pain shot through his ribs. "Why not?"

"I'll meet you there," the Judge said and turned to go.

"One last question," Jack said. He met Warren's faded blue eyes with a steady gaze. "Have you always known about Olivia?"

The Judge hesitated, indecision flitting across his face. "You were always different, Jack. I suspected it was because of her, but I underestimated the, ah,… connection."

With that he and Higgins hustled out of the hospital.

Hadn't they all, Jack thought.

Considering what he'd been through, he didn't feel too bad. The drugs and his body's own healing powers, weak as they'd been recently, were now working their recuperative magic.

He overheard the emergency room physician suggest Olivia stay overnight for observation, but stubborn even in crisis, she squelched the idea quickly. "No, I'm leaving now, no overnight stay."

Jack heard her bewilderment and scented the underlying pain as he watched from the sidelines while the nurse cleaned cuts and scrapes and applied bandages to Olivia's slender body. Someone – probably the ever-vigilant Higgins – had provided clothing, which hung baggy on her small frame. Finally Slater led her down the hospital corridor and pulled a patrol car around to the emergency room pickup circle.

She hadn't once looked Jack's way. Sitting outside on a cement bench, she stared straight ahead, refusing to acknowledge him as he sat down beside her.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

After a long moment she lifted her shoulders in answer.

"Olivia," he began, "I'm sorry. Sorry you had to… to see that."

"No," she said, her voice eerily calm, "it's better that I know the truth. See it for myself." She looked down at her hands folded tightly in her lap. "I know you told me about the Change, but it's not the same. Not the same as seeing it firsthand."

"I'm sorry," he said again. "I'd undo it all if I could." He scooted closer and put his arm around her, ignoring the slice to his heart when she jerked involuntarily.

"We've got to find a way to get past this, Livvie." He turned her face gently toward him. He dipped his head to touch her forehead softly with his lips. "I love you."

Her eyes shimmered with emotion, but she didn't cry. "I don't know how I feel, Jack. I need some space… and time. I need to figure things out."

He told himself she was still in shock, that later she'd acknowledge her feelings for him. She loved him, of that he was certain. But he didn't know if that was enough for her.

He nodded and minutes later watched the taillights of the patrol car until their red glow dwindled to the same size of the nothingness in his own dark heart. Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he hunched his shoulders and crossed the parking lot to the Blazer a deputy had retrieved for him.

Inside, he folded his arms over the steering wheel and rested his head on them. Jack was terrified that nothing – even time – could undo what Olivia had witnessed in the abandoned church. He started the patrol car and accelerated onto the freeway, exorcising his frustration through reckless driving as he sped toward Bigler County.

Deputy Harris had arrived an hour before Jack and already processed Howard Randolph. The Judge waited in the bullpen. He explained that Jack had a seven-day grace period before he must start Dr. Davis' continuing drug regimen. After that, permanent damage to major organs would compromise his long-term health. Probably kill him.

That wasn't Jack's main concern right now. As primary on the DLK case, he had a responsibility he wouldn't shirk, and he had no intention of leaving the interrogation to the Judge or anyone else. Only Jack would know for certain which crimes belonged to the man they now had in custody. Legally they couldn't be positive that all seven murders had been committed by Randolph until they'd sifted through endless tons of forensic evidence, necessary proof for a conviction. Seven counts of murder with special circumstances.

Jack knew in his gut, knew with his extra senses, that Randolph was his man, and eagerly prepared himself to confront his long-time nemesis.

In the interrogation room Jack bit back a wince from the pain in his right kidney that fentanyl. The Judge leaned his heavy bulk against the wall. Slater and the ADA watched from the viewing room.

Howard Randolph sat opposite Jack as he slapped the grainy photos one picture at a time onto the interview table in front of him. Randolph's sneer grew with each photo.

"Laura Jean Peterson." Slap.

"Henry Walker." Another slap of slick cardstock on wood.

"Angela Buckley." Slap.

"Susan Evanston." Randolph shifted and his eyes wandered with curiosity to the Judge behind him. "Pay attention, you slime ball," Jack ground out.

Randolph swung his gaze back to Jack. A chilling smile curled his lips.

"Carl Bender." The sharp smack of Jack's palm on the table resounded through the room like a firecracker.

Randolph blinked.

"Keisha Johnson." Jack tapped his finger against the picture. "Remember her, Howard? Course you do. She's the one you saw from time to time in Dr. Gant's office. She's the one you wanted to watch having sex with Ted Burrows."