Complicated

Chapter Twenty One: Lights Out

I saw a picture of you
Hanging in an empty hallway
I heard a voice that I knew
And I couldn't walk away
It took me back to the end
Of everything
I taste it all I taste it all
The tears again

Adam Lambert - Sleepwalker

It hurt. That was the first and only thought in Grace's mind as she lay there staring at the ceiling trying to catch her breath. She could sense the flurry of activity around her as flashes of faces both familiar and not assaulted her vision. There were voices, so many people talking at once, she could hear the urgency in their tones but her mind was stumbling over the words.

Jesus, she was so tired, her body was so weak and exhausted, she could barely move. Her eyes began to flutter closed again as the darkness claimed her like a wave dragging her back under. A hand slipped into hers, she could feel the rough scars from his own cigarette burns across the back of her hand.

Adam.

The name brought a tiny smile to her face, it generated some stability amongst the confusion that was waging around her. Her fingers hooked his lightly, she managed to tense them for a second or two before her grip went slack.

Her head was spinning, she could feel the room revolving as her head tipped backwards into the pillows, her eyelids heavy. She wanted to fight it, to open her eyes and see what was going on around her but in the end the exertion won out and she was drawn back into a endless sea of nothing.

It was the Desert Eagle that sealed the deal.

Simon Kade was lying flat out on his back upon the concrete floor, rasping from the bullet wound to his gut. It was fitting, Flack thought as he stood over the other man watching the sheen of sweat glistening on the other man's face. Kade cast a long look at the discarded weapon, lingering tantalisingly out of reach.

The blood was spreading across his white wife beater, staining it as he drew in each choked, shuddering breath. Flack reviewed the other man coldly, his gaze straying to the padding bandaged on his left shoulder, spotting crimson from a bullet wound Angell had managed to get off just after Grace had gone down.

It never failed to amaze Flack how fate intervened sometimes. If Grace hadn't had a craving for pancakes this morning, if he'd left the bar earlier last night, if Grace had never been suspended...

All of those things factored into this moment, he couldn't change any of them but he could get justice for what had been done. Simon Kade had shot to kill this morning at the diner, it was only fair that he gave the other man the same chance as he'd given Grace.

He levelled his weapon with Kade's head, he watched the other man's eyes widen in surprise and horror as he lifted his head to stare down the barrel of Flack's Glock. His dark eyes flickered to the NYPD badge hanging on his waist before coming to rest back on the weapon pointed directly at his face.

Flack thought about Grace, the way her smile lit up the room like sunshine when it erupted on her face, the sound of her abrupt laugher jingling around the apartment when she was watching the TV with the volume turned up just that little bit too loud. The intensity in her gaze when she leaned in, brilliant grey eyes on his as his fingertips ran though her short silky dark hair smoothing it away from her porcelain features.

He thought about saying goodbye to all that, about the blood he'd scrubbed off of his hands in the Men's Room of the Precinct, and the sound of her antagonized whimper in his ears as her life ran out through his fingers.

He couldn't bare the thought of waking up every morning without her, knowing that she wouldn't be at the Crime Lab to give him a wink or a finger wave, that he would be spending every night for the rest of his life alone because there was no one else who could ever take her place.

His finger tightened around the trigger as their life together flashed before his eyes. An assemble of random jigsaw pieces in no particular order as the details of the crime filtered through to his brain drowning out his memories.

50 calibre, hollow point.

Desert Eagle.

Severe blood loss.

Death.

He could hear his own controlled breathing as he looked down at the man wheezing on the floor almost absently, he was here in this moment and it was time to do what was right. Every action had a consequence. This was Simon Kade's coming back to bite him in the ass. Flack stared the immobile man straight in the eyes as his finger squeezed the trigger. He watched his pupils dilate as the crack of the gun shot resounded in the air, his body jerking once as the bullet pierced his brain.

His own breathing was coming in rapid pants now as he stared at the corpse. He had expected to feel relief at this action, satisfaction even. Instead he was overwhelmed by a sense of numbness, a feeling that left him both drained and empty.

Flack was already walking like a ghost up the stairs that led from the Boiler Room up to the main floor of the warehouse. He heard footsteps coming towards him, he tilted his head up to see Danny standing at the top of the stairwell, gun swinging downwards when he caught sight of Flack skulking towards him.

"Hey, we got Connor, he's unhurt. One more perp's unaccounted for." he relayed to Flack, his eyes darting past the other man to the archway of Boiler Room.

"He's in there." Flack stated, his voice devoid of emotion.

His eyes met Danny's as he came to a halt at the top of the stairs. There was a moment between them that frightened Danny. He saw a desolate waste ground in his friend's eyes, a bleakness he had never acknowledged up until this point.

"You alright?" he asked, unable to hide the concern in his tone.

There was a second where Danny could see Flack searching inside himself for the answer.

"I'm fine." Flack dismissed before stepping past Danny with single minded purpose.

His cellphone was in his pocket trouser pocket, Flack waited until he was out of sight before his hand snaked inside and pulled it out. His heart began to beat little faster in his chest as he reviewed the details on the tiny screen. He was starting to feel sick as the avenues of his future stretched before him.

Three missed calls from Adam and one voice mail message.

His finger was automatically running over the familiar number for his voice mail service. His thumb hovered over the call button for a second as he tried to steady the tremble of his hand. He couldn't take any more today, that much was evident. This was the last thing he had to do, the last responsibility he had right now. The next few minutes would come shape the path he would walk for the remainder of his life.

He hit the call button and listened with a nauseating sense of dread as the phone connected him to the voice mail service. He could hear Adam's bated breath on the other end of the line as he blurted out the two words Flack had been waiting for all day.

"She's awake."