Jo Robertson - The Avenger

"God, I love you," he whispered as he collapsed on her, "love you to the ends of the earth."

Their bodies were slick with sweat, their hearts thundering like a herd of wild horses, their breathing an exercise in agony. Afraid of crushing her small body, he rolled off and gathered her close against him.

They slept the deeply satisfied sleep of lovers long familiar with one another's needs and desires.

Jack woke hours later to the odor of coffee and bacon wafting up the stairs from the kitchen. He smiled. Olivia, being unusually domestic, he supposed. Showering quickly, he dressed in jeans and a tee shirt.

As he shaved using one of Livvie's pink disposable razors, he caught his reflection in the bathroom mirror. He looked lighter, he thought, less ragged, more relaxed. He frowned, knowing the hardest part was still ahead of him.

How to explain to Olivia what he'd done? How he'd planned for this day? What he had yet to do? Would she understand?

He sighed heavily and padded on bare feet down the stairs to the kitchen.

Already alerted by Higgins, the Judge rose to meet Jackson Holt as he strode through the office door in his usual brash manner. The agent looked better than he had in a long time, but a kind of raw edginess showed in the way he jerked his head at the director and threw his long body into the leather guest chair.

Warren extended his hand. "Excellent work, Jack."

Jack ignored the proffered hand.

Warren coughed to cover the awkward moment. "You look well," he said. "Fully recovered?" He didn't need to ask. He'd gotten daily updates on Jack's health from Dr. Davis, who supervised the fragile and dangerous recovery in a specialized wing at Bethesda Naval Hospital.

Jack nodded briefly, steepled his fingers, and waited until Warren had seated. Shuffling papers across the desk, the Judge covertly sneaked looks at his young protégé. He'd never seen the agent look so calm, yet agitated at the same time.

Shit, something serious was in the wind.

"I haven't received your DLK report yet," he mentioned, keeping his voice casual. "Will I have that soon?"

Jack merely continued to stare at a spot directly over the Judge's right shoulder, out the window at the sprawling expanse of Baltimore and the Chesapeake Bay. Warren shifted uneasily in his chair, following the direction of Jack's eyes.

He reached into his bottom drawer to remove a cigar from the lacquered box. A gift from the president of Columbia on Warren's last visit there. He started to offer one to Jack, but remembered he'd given them up. What was it he'd said months ago when he began the assignment?

Something about being a warrior.

Jack didn't look much like a warrior now. The battle scars were there, sure, but there was quietude beneath the tanned flesh, composure below the furrowed brow, satisfaction around the mouth. Not at all the Jackson Holt the Judge was accustomed to interviewing upon return from a complicated mission.

His concern and curiosity were now thoroughly piqued. "Would you prefer to give an oral report?" he asked.

"No, I think not, Warren. You'll get the written summary. Tomorrow, maybe later." Jack reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a legal-sized envelope. "But first… "

Tossing it on the Judge's desk, Jack rose and meandered to the window, his hands stuffed in his pants pocket, his back towards the room.

"What the hell…?" Warren sliced open the envelope and unfolded the single sheet of paper. He read the paragraph three times before commenting.

"A letter of resignation? After all these years with the Organization, you think you can just walk in here and resign?"

Warren's blood pressure rose in tandem with his anger. "What the hell kind of a fool do you think I am?"

The Judge hadn't seen this coming. He'd expected a request for an undefined leave of absence, a recruiting assignment, hell, even temporary non-field assignments. But not this complete severance.

"We're the only family you've ever had, Jack," Warren sneered. "What the fuck you think you're gonna do instead of Invictus?"

Jack turned to face the man who'd been a father-figure to him for nearly twenty years, the person who'd become his whole family from the age of seventeen when he'd been ripped from his foster family and Slater. From Livvie.

He felt the sick bile of betrayal, both given and received, burn his throat. The Judge was right in more ways than he knew. Jack vacillated between remorse and fury. Pissed that he showed any reaction, he unclenched his fists.

Warren wouldn't miss the signs.

Sure enough he didn't, and the knowledge seemed to curb the director's temper. "You know as well as I do that there's no going back from where you've been," he reasoned.

With considerable effort, Jack reined in his emotions. He had to believe otherwise if he intended to have any kind of future with Livvie. "You think so? I've served Invictus nearly twenty years and – "

"You're a valuable commodity, Jack, and we own you," Warren snapped. He took a calming breath and continued, "And besides that, it's nigh impossible to go back to the real world." He stepped forward tentatively. "Come on, Jack, you know that."

A commodity, Jack thought, all these years he'd been a product, and he would continue to be bought and sold until his usefulness ended.

The Judge stood close to Jack near the window. "Jack, men like us… we're not good with civilians." He sniffed the cigar and put it in his jacket pocket. "We're hell on families. We're not made to be husbands and fathers. You said it yourself. We're born to be the warriors in this sorry-assed world."

Suddenly weary of the battle, Jack decided he wouldn't explain further. The letter said it all. He wasn't returning to Invictus. The confrontations with Howard Randolph and Ted Burrows had been the death knell to his work.

From the moment that Olivia had stared wide-eyed and terrified into his eyes, he knew he'd never be able to return to the messy work of the Organization, no matter how noble or necessary the Judge made the cause seem. He couldn't stand the agony of living with himself if he did. The anguish of never having Livvie in his life.

That price was too high and he damn well wasn't paying

He smiled when he felt like grinning and caught himself

"What the fuck are you smiling for?" Spittle gathered at the corners of the Judge's mouth, his breath matched his mood, stinking and foul, and his eyes were unfeeling pits.

Jack gazed at Warren, saw the rage and exhaustion running through every line and crease of the map drawn there. The dark cast to the eyes, the knowledge not only of what he'd done himself, but what he'd ordered his agents to do. And the horrible necessity that required that kind of work. Those kinds of decisions.

Jack knew one day he'd look into a mirror in some god-awful third-world country and see those same signs etched on his own face. If he didn't quit right now. While he had the chance.

That's why he smiled when he felt like grinning. Hell, felt like laughing out loud. But of course, he wasn't about to tell the Judge that.

The director stood within inches of Jack's face, his florid complexion threatening apoplexy. He jabbed a thick forefinger at Jack's chest, punctuating each word. "We own you, Jack. Don't. You. Forget. That."

Warren barely reached his shoulder and as Jack looked down at him, he wondered how he'd ever respected this puppet of a man who stood before him, issuing his puny threats. Well, maybe not so puny. The Director of Invictus could make good on many of his threats.

But he didn't know about Jack's ace in the hole.

"There's a Swiss bank account," he began. "Unnumbered, of course."