Manipulation - Final Chapter - Original Ending

[indigo_angels]

AN: This ending has situations that some readers WILL find upsetting - read on at your peril. 
 
This wasn’t the ending I had planned, but I actually dreamed it and the only way I could get the pictures out of my head was to write them down; so now you all have to suffer along with me!
 
If you’d rather not take the risk, there is a safer version posted and linked at the bottom of this one.
 
You have been warned!! 
 
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Murdock and BA stood on the edge of the trees and stared into their dark depths. “They obviously came in here,” Murdock said, his voice quiet as he stared at the trampled vegetation. BA didn’t answer; he hadn’t spoken since they had seen the wooden T frame in the middle of the field which he had smashed into firewood with his bare hands. They were waiting for Hannibal, each looking like they were off to war, laden with weapons and ammo as they were.
 
“If no one has come out then that’s good, right?” he asked BA hesitantly, “I mean that could mean that Face has got away, right?”
 
Hannibal’s running feet caught their attention and they turned as the boss caught them up. “Right,” he said eyes determined as he took the supplies from his men, “You know the drill. Ten dangerous men, well versed in guerrilla warfare in there, plus Face, and you both know what he can do. We take them down and count them off, one by one. Stay in contact and watch your backs. Questions?” They both shook their heads. “Okay then, let’s go get our lieutenant back boys.”
 
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It took them mere minutes to find the first body. Taz, stripped of clothes and weapons in a bush and the sight gladdened them all. “Okay, so now we know he’s armed and warm, but twice as dangerous. He’s doesn’t know we are here, guys so remember that. If he doesn’t see who we are, he’ll take us out in a second. Be on your guard.”
 
Tense nods answered his words and with three bumped fists the men set off in opposite directions, melting silently into the woods in seconds.
 
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Hannibal glanced at his watch; fifty seven minutes had gone by since they had first found Taz. He clipped his radio back on his belt and stepped over the body he had just found. That brought their total up to eight now, Face sure had been busy.
 
Crouching in the bushes, Hannibal put his hand out to touch the blood smeared across a leaf frond and frowned. Wet, fresh. He shook his head; blood at every kill scene, Face was obviously injured, bleeding badly but somewhere nearby. Two combatants left, one of them Yousafzai who Taylor wanted alive. The CIA man had been quite happy for Hannibal and his men to go into the trees, he knew that none of his men had the skills to survive in that environment, but only agreed as long as Hannibal promised to bring Yousafzai out alive.
 
Of course Hannibal had promised, he would have promised anything if it meant saving Face, but whether Yousafzai made it out with a heart beat or not was down to the man himself. And Face of course. Sliding into the bushes, Hannibal continued his search.
 
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Ten minutes later, Murdock radioed in with news of yet another body, not Face and not Yousafzai. That meant just the boss man left and Hannibal paused to consider his options.
 
He knew bleeding the way he was, Face would be weakening. Yousafzai was obviously skilled in moving through terrain like this, and definitely had the motivation to keep stalking Face, so he quickly came to a decision. The time for stealth was off, it was time Face knew he had some backup, and then maybe they could get this thing over and done with sooner rather than later.
 
He lifted his radio to his mouth and was just about to call the others when a shout caught his attention, he froze, listening hard, and jerked into action when he realised it wasn’t any of his men. Instantly he was on the move, dropping his radio by accident as he covered the thick terrain as fast as he could, as quietly as he could, zeroing in on that shout all the time, and then he saw them.
 
Face was slumped against the trunk of a tree and Hannibal winced at the state he was in, beaten, bloody, pale and exhausted, it was obvious that the kid was right at the end of his rope. Yousafzai was partly hidden by a tree, but Hannibal could see they both had their guns up, were in a standoff, one that he could finish off pretty damn quickly once he got into a good place for a shot.
 
Dropping to his haunches he moved silently, around to the right, counting his steps, knowing that he wouldn’t have chance for a good look before he needed to put his shot in. He stopped as soon as he felt he’d gone far enough and immediately rose up through the bushes. Yousafzai was there, right in front of him, gun still pointing at Face and Hannibal took careful aim and squeezed.
 
The second his finger touched his trigger, before the shot had even been taken, the silence of the forest was ripped apart by gunfire. Yousafzai went down, Hannibal saw his shoulder shot blooming like a red flower in the gloom, but he also noted the head shot and Yousafzai was obviously dead even as he fell, Taylor would not be happy, Hannibal thought as he spun on his feet to turn to Face and froze.
 
Face was staring at him, wide blue eyes looking right at Hannibal as they had done almost every day for the last seventeen years. But not like this, never like this. Hannibal took a step in, his feet almost on autopilot but then he stopped again and stared, his eyes taking everything in, everything, but his brain just refusing to process any of it.
 
Those quick blue eyes looked at the too large clothes with trouser legs rolled up and blood stains all over his them, they took in the clumsy, swollen fingers, obviously been tied too tight and still trying to recover, they took in the bruised and swollen face, cut above his right eye, left eye almost swollen shut, they took in the neat round bullet hole just to the left of his forehead, and that’s when everything just stopped working.
 
With a thud, Hannibal fell to his knees.
 
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Murdock and BA paced frustratedly up and down the field, their silent radios in their hands, eyes on the tree line all the time.    
 
“Where the hell is Smith?” Taylor seethed. “I need to get Yousafzai into interrogation as soon as possible. Who knows which other rats are running for the woodwork while we wait here?”
 
He didn’t get an answer. Neither Murdock or BA had been able to raise Hannibal on the radio since they had heard the shots echoing around the far side of the wood. They’d already decided to give it five more minutes before going in and looking for him.
 
“At last!” Taylor seethed and the two men swung on their heels to see Hannibal appear from the woods much further down and in his arms he was carrying...
 
“Face!” Murdock yelled and started off running. BA took a step to follow him and then stopped dead, in front of him Murdock also froze as Hannibal strode towards them.
 
Like Hannibal before him, Murdock’s eyes took everything in, one piece of information at a time, Hannibal’s expression, blank and frighteningly empty, tear tracks through the dirt on his cheeks, Face’s dead weight heavy in his arms, head lolling loosely over Hannibal’s arm, blood, so much blood on his leg, his chest... his head. And like Hannibal before him, his knees hit the ground with a thud.
 
A thin, high pitched wailing, deafening in its intensity, suddenly started up and Murdock clamped his hands over his ears to try and block it out. It was only when his throat started to tear that he realised it was the sound of his own scream.
 
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Seven days later Hannibal stood at the head of the cliff, staring out at the wide blue ocean and the white breakers far below. In his hands was a plain white box, a smooth white cube, lid sealed in place with an ordinary looking silver catch; all that remained of a far from ordinary person.
 
He still felt as if this was all quite surreal, the walk from the woods with Face’s body after he’d closed those beautiful blue eyes for the last time and held him until his tears ran dry; Murdock’s trauma and BA’s impotent rage. The medics that were already stationed at the ranch looking him over, telling Hannibal there was nothing they could do, as if he’d thought for one second that there might be. The woman from the CIA, family liaison or something, who took Hannibal’s hand and told him how it was okay, how death had been instantaneous, how Face wouldn’t have had time to be scared or to suffer, and Hannibal had just looked at her because he’d had two days hadn’t he? To be very scared and to suffer greatly. When BA took Murdock to be checked into a clinic, private, courtesy of the CIA, just until he was ready to cope.
 
And then there was the funeral, again arranged by the CIA, very private, just him and BA, he threw Samantha out, if that was even her real name, when she tried to come in with her black clothes and false condolences. Going back to the warehouse, finding Face’s Mustang delivered there ready and waiting for him, leather seats still smelling of his aftershave.
 
Hannibal had got through all of that, remembered it all perfectly, but he didn’t feel any of it, it was like he wasn’t even there, just like he was watching it from a sterile bubble. But now he was here, about to scatter Face’s ashes to the wind and he knew he wouldn’t be able to hold that wall of pain back any longer, that as soon as he opened the little shiny silver catch it would all run out of him like a flood and he wondered if he was strong enough to survive it, if he even wanted to any more.
 
He looked down at the white box, stroked it and thought about what might have been, how this might have ended if only he’d been a bit quicker, if only he’d ever let Face talk to him, if only he’d bothered listening to what the kid was already saying. If only. The two most painful words in the English language.
 
Face was in love with him, that’s what Murdock had hinted at, that’s what Samantha had said, and that’s what Hannibal finally accepted, now it was far too late to do anything about it. He closed his eyes and wondered if that was the worst thing about all of this, that Face had died without knowing what he felt back for him. But no, the worst thing was that Face had obviously suffered so much on his own in the two days before he escaped, and now of course Hannibal would never know just how bad that time had been. Or maybe that was the best thing, that Hannibal would never know? Maybe if he knew, if he could hear and see the pain and suffering, then maybe he wouldn’t be able to go on. But then again, maybe that was a good thing, not going on...
 
He sighed and turned the catch, keeping the lid on tight for now. I love you he said in his head, I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you, didn’t show you, but I do. And then he opened the box and watched as the fine dust picked up the wind and blew away, out to sea, free in a way that Face never was.
 
Eventually it had all gone, the box was empty, as empty as Hannibal felt, and that wall of grief and anger and guilt and frustration hit him just as hard as he had expected it would. He sank to his knees, just like he had done in the forest that day with Face’s empty eyes looking right at him, but this time was different, this time he had nothing to get back up for.
 
Too angsty? Click here for alternative ending!