A Mother's Love - Chapter Thirty Six
Nov. 28th, 2011 07:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
indigo_angelsBack in the present, on the bench outside in the sunshine, Hannibal found Face still looking at him expectantly, wanting an answer to his query, needing to know if his mother was still alive and he realised that, yet again, he couldn’t say the things that Face really wanted him to.
“She’s alive,” he said instead, watching how Face controlled himself, everything but that tiny softening of his stance that told Hannibal how relieved he was at the news. “But she’s unconscious, and I have no idea of her prognosis; the notes made little sense to me and Eddie wasn’t there to ask.”
Face nodded as he processed that information carefully. It was no surprise to him that Eddie wasn’t around, he hadn’t answered any of the numerous time Hannibal had called him over the last few days either. He rubbed absently at his jaw, wincing as his fingers inadvertently pressed on the bruise from Silas’ gun butt where it stretched down the side of his face and flicked his eyes up to Hannibal’s. “I should have come with you,” he said quietly. “Maybe she would have woken up if she’d heard me there.”
Doing his best to contain his sigh, Hannibal forced out a sad smile. He’d been relieved no end when Face had said he couldn’t bring himself to go to the hospital before they skipped town, Hannibal knew that the kid wasn’t ready, either physically or emotionally, and he himself just couldn’t face sweeping the broken pieces of his boy up off the floor one more time. The last thing he needed now was Face beating himself up over that decision.
“No,” he said, shaking his head, “it wouldn’t have made any difference, they’ve probably got her sedated anyway, and I didn’t get chance to talk to her, she was too close to the nurse’s station.” Again Face nodded but Hannibal could still see the guilt in his eyes. “Don’t worry about it,” he said gently, “if you decide you want to see her again in the next few weeks sometime, then we’ll come back, okay? Maybe when you don't stand out quite so much.” Hannibal was trying to lighten the mood a little, but knew that Face with his sling and the stick and all the bruising around his face was pretty hard to miss at the minute. “This was supposed to be a covert operation remember?”
Face let a wry grin slide through his expression, as Hannibal reached out and gripped his knee firmly. “Anyway, there’s nothing else we can do here,” he fixed Face’s troubled eyes with his own. “We know she’s still fighting this, still hanging on so now we do what we had planned – get you and Murdock back in top form and then go hunting for that bastard Pike, right?”
“Right,” Face agreed fairly unenthusiastically and Hannibal rose to his feet.
“Come on then, kid,” he said firmly, “let’s get this show on the road.”
Taking a deep breath, Face started to rise, leaning heavily on his stick and trying to put as little weight onto his ankle as possible. It wasn’t broken, but it was pretty badly banged up and it was obvious that he shouldn’t even have been on it yet. He’d been pretty insistent on coming on this little trip to the hospital though, and Hannibal sighed, wondering if it had been a mistake even letting him get up out of bed this morning.
Maybe it was because Hannibal was so concerned about Face’s ankle and the damage that he’d done by walking on it so soon, or maybe it was just due to the fact that he didn’t ever dream that Silas would be as bold as to turn up outside a city centre hospital at eleven o’ clock in the morning; but whatever the reason, Hannibal had, uncharacteristically, let his guard down as he watched Face prepare to struggle to his feet, so the gun barrel in his back and the hand on his shoulder came as a very, very unpleasant surprise.
“Well, hello there, old man,” Silas sneered right into his ear, making Hannibal’s toes curl in hatred. “I suggest you stand nice and still and don’t even think about going for your piece, or I aerate your spleen for you right here.”
Hannibal stood stock still as Pike fished his gun out of the waistband of his cords and glanced down at Face who was still on the bench, staring at Silas with a look of complete loathing in his expression. “And you, sweet cheeks,” Silas grinned at him, “I’ve not got hollow points here you know, I could take you both out with the same bullet, no sweat.”
Face’s eyes slid over to Hannibal and then back to Pike, but in that look a whole plan had been conveyed and finalised. It was the same plan they always tended to use in situations like this, and Face found it a depressing reflection of their lives that they even had a ‘one member of the team held at gunpoint’ standard response. Hannibal, being the one that had the barrel in his ribs would be the one to cause the distraction and Face, being the one who was relatively free to move, would do it whatever way he saw fit. Great, Face thought cynically, foolproof...
“Okay then boys,” Silas was being annoyingly chipper at this point in proceedings and Face knew that that didn’t bode at all well for the rest of the day as far as he and Hannibal were concerned. “Let’s get going, I have a car parked just around the corner there, and I think it’s such a nice day we should go for a ride, hey?”
Hannibal clamped his jaw tightly together, despite the temptation, it wasn’t wise to mouth off to someone as clearly unstable as Pike in a situation where he had a loaded gun in his ribs; he’d made the mistake of underestimating him once today, he sure as hell wasn’t going to do that again. His eyes flicked to Face once more as the kid finally heaved himself to his feet and he hoped that his smart mouth would stay closed as well.
“You alright there, then handsome?” Silas sneered at Face. “You’re looking a little peaky. Had a bad week?”
Hannibal held his breath, but Face just responded with a muttered, “Go to hell, Pike,” which had Silas laughing as they turned and made their way towards the alley way where the Cadillac was parked.
As they walked, slowly, with Face trying not to put any weight on his ankle at all, Hannibal forced aside all his self recrimination and concentrated on getting them both out of there in one piece. Face was still in a pretty bad way, he shouldn't even have been walking around out here like this, and there was absolutely no way in heaven or hell that Hannibal was going to let Pike hurt him again. Absolutely not, that was just not going to happen, but he knew he only had minutes to try and put something together.
He knew Face had read the plan from his expression in their one shared glance; it was a tried and tested method of escape that they had used over and over again during the past. However, today had its own added complications, the fact that Face really couldn’t even stand on his own yet and only had the use of one arm being the major difficulties, but the fact that they were out in a public area, people milling around them, oblivious to their plight, only made it more complex; there was no way that Hannibal could be responsible for starting a shoot out in the street on a busy lunch time.
“Come on, Peck,” Silas suddenly snarled, shocking Hannibal back to the here and now with a brutal jab of the gun barrel into his ribs, “Stop being such a fucking Queen and get a move on. I saw you earlier you know, I know you can walk faster than this, now shift.”
Face didn't look around but he did speed up slightly and Hannibal narrowed his eyes. His first thought at Pike’s words were that Face was deliberately walking slowly to give them a little more time to come up with something, but then he noticed the grey tinge to the kid’s face, the way his lips were pressed tightly together, and with a sinking feeling running right through his chest he realised that Face was in pain, in real, soul sucking pain, probably from his ankle and at that realisation, he watched as their chances of escape took an abrupt down turn.
Pike was incorrigible though, whistling happily now as they turned the corner into the alley way and suddenly everything went darker and quieter and Hannibal felt as if they had entered a shady, dangerous tunnel, with only one way in or out.
“Okay!” Pike sing songed as they reached the car. “I want your piece on the ground Peck, nice and slowly. I think you are pissing me at all, then the colonel here gets it. Capiche?”
Face didn't reply, he looked like he was struggling to stay on his feet, but he did reach back and pull his gun out of the waistband of his trousers slowly and carefully, holding Pike’s stare the whole time as he threw it to the ground to land a few feet to the left.
“Good boy,” Silas smiled patronisingly at him. “And now, if you just reach into the back seat of the car there, you will find a roll of duct tape. You need to get it out and you are going to come over here and use it on Smith for me. Off you go.”
For a second Face didn’t move, but then his eyes slid over to Hannibal and at the almost imperceptible nod he saw there, he leaned off the car and tugged the rear door open, bracing himself on the front seat as he reached in to snag the roll of tape.
It was as he straightened up that Hannibal made his move, suddenly sagging slightly against Pike, his head lolling and doing a perfect impersonation of someone on the edge of a faint. “What the fuck!?” Silas exclaimed, staggering as Hannibal leaned on him before rolling himself upright again even as he reeled forward.
“He’s gonna faint,” Face supplied, the fear in his voice real as he couldn’t quite believe that Hannibal was going for such a high risk manoeuvre. He started forward, only to freeze as Silas swung the gun from his pocket with its long suppressor on the barrel and pointed it at Face instead. Then Hannibal staggered again, stumbling into Pike and pushing him towards Face before finally collapsing to the ground in a fully credible impersonation of a dead faint.
For perhaps half a second, Silas was struck dumb, his gun pointing aimlessly in the space between his two captives and his mind undecided. It was within that tiny window of opportunity that Face moved, closing down the part of his brain that recognised pain he stepped forward and, slipping his arm out of its sling, grabbed Pike with both hands, stepping back and pulling him head first into the side of the car with all his strength.
Silas, however, was solidly built, and like BA before him, Face had underestimated that fact. Instead of hitting the car head first with enough force to crack bone, Pike only suffered a glancing blow, enough to hurt and bring up an egg on his forehead, but not enough even to stun. He staggered to his feet and Face, trapped between the open car door and the body of the vehicle itself, automatically lifted a foot to kick the still-poised weapon from Silas’ hand before he recovered enough presence of mind to use it. Unfortunately that meant transferring all his weight onto his damaged ankle, which, even though Face could have bitten down on the pain hard enough to get him through, was simply not strong enough to hold all his weight on its own and collapsed right underneath him.
He dropped like a stone, grabbing at the back seat and the door handle to save his butt from landing on the ground and, fast as lightening, just as Hannibal was launching himself forward, Silas moved. He reached out and grabbed the door, swinging it shut as hard as he could and smartly trapping Face’s head between the edge of the door and the frame of the car. There was a sickening thud and as the door bounced back open with the force of the slam, Face slithered down out of the gap and lay, bleeding from a fresh wound to his head, unconscious at Pike’s feet. Within a second the gun was trained on him and Hannibal froze, breathing hard as he looked at his adversary, who was silently poking at the purpling lump on his forehead, a look of purest loathing on his face.
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Face had no idea how long he had been unconscious. He awoke to a strong smell of petrol and a pounding head, and for a moment he wondered if he were back in the lock-up with Silas determined to give death-by-car-fumes one more go. He listened hard, so well versed in the act of waking up in dodgy situations that he didn’t move, didn’t make a sound, and didn’t even let his eyes flicker to let on that he was awake.
Once the ringing in his ears settled down, he heard voices, no, one voice, and his stomach rolled as he realised it was Silas Pike, and with the smug edge he could hear to it, knew that their escape attempt had failed.
Pike’s voice was behind him, and so far away that Face couldn’t work out anything he was saying. He opened his eyes, but it took a few moments before he could persuade them to focus on anything and then he found that he was still lying where he’d fallen in the filth next to the Cadillac. He couldn’t see Silas or Hannibal, but could still hear Pike’s smug monotone behind him and risked twisting his neck, looking back towards the alley wall. His eyes swam into focus and his stomach clenched in pure fear; Hannibal was laid on the ground in a pile of trash bags and empty cardboard boxes. Face knew it was him as he could see the dark brown cords and camel coloured sweater that he knew he’d been wearing that morning. He could also see the boss’ hands, wrapped up together with duct tape around the wrists and laying loosely over his stomach and he could tell by the way that they were all bruised and marked up that he’d been fighting with Silas.
The man himself was standing over Hannibal, breathing hard and bleeding from more than one place himself and, as Face began to slowly, slowly drag himself to his feet, he raised his gun from his side and pointed it at his prisoner, his words finally loud enough to hear. “You sure you don’t fear me old man?” Even though Face strained to listen, he couldn’t hear Hannibal’s reply at all, but he could hear Silas’ responding laugh. “Well, you should fear me. Peck does, he knows the pain I can inflict on him, the pain I am going to inflict on him once I’m through with you.” Face froze, knowing that he was too far away to get to Hannibal’s side and looking around desperately at the place where he’d thrown his Glock. It wasn’t there, of course it wasn’t there, but then Silas cocked his gun, the sound reverberating around the tight space and Face knew he’d run out of time.
He got to his feet, staggering as his head reeled and feeling the shooting pains in his ankle, his head, his ribs and his arm. He was slightly behind and to the right of Silas, maybe ten feet behind, literally in his blind spot and he knew that he had seconds to get there and knock him off his feet, give Hannibal the chance to get up and come bail him out. No sooner was that thought in his head, however, than Silas cocked his head on one side, considering Hannibal carefully. “You sure?” he prompted and even as Face was making his way over, gritting through the pain and deciding which angle was the best to tackle the bastard from, Silas’ gun spoke. Once, twice, three times, four, five, six... the silenced barrel popped in the alley way, sending shock waves reverberating up and down and Face staggered to a halt, his mind reeling in total disbelief.
Pike was at point blank range, his gun aiming straight to where Hannibal’s chest would be and Face looked over, terrified of what he would see but still only his colonel’s legs were visible, the rest of his body hidden by the boxes and Pike lowered his gun and laughed. That laugh broke through Face’s stunned shock and he literally propelled himself forward, blind, gut wrenching, agonised fury the only thing fuelling him on. He was maybe five steps from Silas now, who was still laughing, the gun held loosely in his hand and as he covered those steps, all he could hear were those pops again, over and over and over again. All he could see in his mind’s eye was Hannibal’s body as it leapt and jumped under the impact of the bullets. All he could imagine was the look of shock and pain on his lover’s face as it registered that he had been shot, that he was dying, that he was never going to get out of here and so neither was Face.
Face knew he was dead, knew that no one, not even the legendary and his most beloved Hannibal Smith could escape being shot like that from so close a range, and because of that – the fact that Hannibal was dead – Face realised that absolutely nothing else on earth mattered anymore; nothing. With that thought in his head, he tackled Pike around the waist even as he finally became aware of Face’s presence and turned, lifting his gun to finish the job. He never had the chance, Face’s grief leant him the strength and fury of a thousand men, and he slammed Silas’ wrists against the wall, spilling the gun from his grasp before following through with a solid right hook to the jaw.
Silas however, was no slouch himself, and even if Face’s rise from the ashes had taken him by surprise, he pulled himself together pretty quickly after that and rolled with Face’s fist, absorbing some of the impact and then bringing his own fist round, smashing into his adversary’s nose, showering them both with tiny droplets of blood as he did. For the second time in an hour, Face dropped like a stone, but this time only stunned, and the sight of Silas’ gun, laid in the garbage right at his finger tips, soon snapped him back into full awareness.
It was in his hand and swinging around even as Silas’ face was starting to cloud with fear. Face didn’t hesitate, his finger squeezed and shot off round after round, his aim automatically altering as Silas jerked back with the impact of the first bullet then started his own slide to the ground, eyes wide and shocked. Face didn’t see that though, through his increasingly blurring vision all he saw was Hannibal as Silas shot him again and again, and it didn’t matter how many times he pulled the trigger himself, that searing pain he felt in every fibre of his existence didn’t diminish in the slightest; so he stopped. He let himself slump down, flat to the ground himself even as Silas mirrored his movements, his eyes wide and unmistakably empty.
For a second there was silence, only the sound of Face’s ragged breathing reached his ears, but then he heard a choking sob, and as he closed his eyes against the welling tears he realised that it came from him but it still didn’t help, nothing would help him now, there was nothing in his life, nothing to love, nothing to cherish – nothing to even breathe for. Of all the things that Adele had stolen from him over the years, his childhood, his father, his home, his innocence – this was by far the worst. Her intervention in his life, leading Silas Pike right to him like this, had cost him Hannibal - his entire reason for living, his only reason to carry on breathing, the centre of his world.
There was no doubt in Face’s mind what he needed to do now. He was sprawled in an alley way with two dead bodies full of bullets, the gun that killed them both still in his hand. Even though the shots had been suppressed Face knew that they would have been heard by someone, and that it wouldn’t be long before the police arrived. So he needed to get up, to move the bodies into the Cadillac, to find some keys on Pike and get the hell out of here.
But he couldn’t, he just... couldn’t. How could he force himself up and look at Hannibal now? Did he want to see what the bullets had done to the man he loved more than anything else in existence? No, of course he didn’t, he didn't want to do that, he didn't want to do anything anymore – nothing mattered. Not Pike or the cops or Adele, or even, God forgive him, Murdock and BA. The only thing there was in his life now was pain, pain he knew just how to get rid of.
Almost in a daze he lifted his arm, Pike’s gun still wrapped tight in his fingers and moved it until he could feel the cool metal of the barrel on his forehead. He didn’t bother opening his eyes but forced himself to breathe deeply, he could do this, all he needed was a moment, a second of calm and he could do it, pull that trigger and it would all be over, every pain he’d ever experienced wouldn’t even be a memory any more.
His finger twitched and he paused, wondering where he would end up, wondering if the teachings from the orphanage were right and he was about to sin, would go straight to hell for what he was about to do. But then he realised he was already in hell anyway, so what did it even matter? He squeezed the trigger.
Next
“She’s alive,” he said instead, watching how Face controlled himself, everything but that tiny softening of his stance that told Hannibal how relieved he was at the news. “But she’s unconscious, and I have no idea of her prognosis; the notes made little sense to me and Eddie wasn’t there to ask.”
Face nodded as he processed that information carefully. It was no surprise to him that Eddie wasn’t around, he hadn’t answered any of the numerous time Hannibal had called him over the last few days either. He rubbed absently at his jaw, wincing as his fingers inadvertently pressed on the bruise from Silas’ gun butt where it stretched down the side of his face and flicked his eyes up to Hannibal’s. “I should have come with you,” he said quietly. “Maybe she would have woken up if she’d heard me there.”
Doing his best to contain his sigh, Hannibal forced out a sad smile. He’d been relieved no end when Face had said he couldn’t bring himself to go to the hospital before they skipped town, Hannibal knew that the kid wasn’t ready, either physically or emotionally, and he himself just couldn’t face sweeping the broken pieces of his boy up off the floor one more time. The last thing he needed now was Face beating himself up over that decision.
“No,” he said, shaking his head, “it wouldn’t have made any difference, they’ve probably got her sedated anyway, and I didn’t get chance to talk to her, she was too close to the nurse’s station.” Again Face nodded but Hannibal could still see the guilt in his eyes. “Don’t worry about it,” he said gently, “if you decide you want to see her again in the next few weeks sometime, then we’ll come back, okay? Maybe when you don't stand out quite so much.” Hannibal was trying to lighten the mood a little, but knew that Face with his sling and the stick and all the bruising around his face was pretty hard to miss at the minute. “This was supposed to be a covert operation remember?”
Face let a wry grin slide through his expression, as Hannibal reached out and gripped his knee firmly. “Anyway, there’s nothing else we can do here,” he fixed Face’s troubled eyes with his own. “We know she’s still fighting this, still hanging on so now we do what we had planned – get you and Murdock back in top form and then go hunting for that bastard Pike, right?”
“Right,” Face agreed fairly unenthusiastically and Hannibal rose to his feet.
“Come on then, kid,” he said firmly, “let’s get this show on the road.”
Taking a deep breath, Face started to rise, leaning heavily on his stick and trying to put as little weight onto his ankle as possible. It wasn’t broken, but it was pretty badly banged up and it was obvious that he shouldn’t even have been on it yet. He’d been pretty insistent on coming on this little trip to the hospital though, and Hannibal sighed, wondering if it had been a mistake even letting him get up out of bed this morning.
Maybe it was because Hannibal was so concerned about Face’s ankle and the damage that he’d done by walking on it so soon, or maybe it was just due to the fact that he didn’t ever dream that Silas would be as bold as to turn up outside a city centre hospital at eleven o’ clock in the morning; but whatever the reason, Hannibal had, uncharacteristically, let his guard down as he watched Face prepare to struggle to his feet, so the gun barrel in his back and the hand on his shoulder came as a very, very unpleasant surprise.
“Well, hello there, old man,” Silas sneered right into his ear, making Hannibal’s toes curl in hatred. “I suggest you stand nice and still and don’t even think about going for your piece, or I aerate your spleen for you right here.”
Hannibal stood stock still as Pike fished his gun out of the waistband of his cords and glanced down at Face who was still on the bench, staring at Silas with a look of complete loathing in his expression. “And you, sweet cheeks,” Silas grinned at him, “I’ve not got hollow points here you know, I could take you both out with the same bullet, no sweat.”
Face’s eyes slid over to Hannibal and then back to Pike, but in that look a whole plan had been conveyed and finalised. It was the same plan they always tended to use in situations like this, and Face found it a depressing reflection of their lives that they even had a ‘one member of the team held at gunpoint’ standard response. Hannibal, being the one that had the barrel in his ribs would be the one to cause the distraction and Face, being the one who was relatively free to move, would do it whatever way he saw fit. Great, Face thought cynically, foolproof...
“Okay then boys,” Silas was being annoyingly chipper at this point in proceedings and Face knew that that didn’t bode at all well for the rest of the day as far as he and Hannibal were concerned. “Let’s get going, I have a car parked just around the corner there, and I think it’s such a nice day we should go for a ride, hey?”
Hannibal clamped his jaw tightly together, despite the temptation, it wasn’t wise to mouth off to someone as clearly unstable as Pike in a situation where he had a loaded gun in his ribs; he’d made the mistake of underestimating him once today, he sure as hell wasn’t going to do that again. His eyes flicked to Face once more as the kid finally heaved himself to his feet and he hoped that his smart mouth would stay closed as well.
“You alright there, then handsome?” Silas sneered at Face. “You’re looking a little peaky. Had a bad week?”
Hannibal held his breath, but Face just responded with a muttered, “Go to hell, Pike,” which had Silas laughing as they turned and made their way towards the alley way where the Cadillac was parked.
As they walked, slowly, with Face trying not to put any weight on his ankle at all, Hannibal forced aside all his self recrimination and concentrated on getting them both out of there in one piece. Face was still in a pretty bad way, he shouldn't even have been walking around out here like this, and there was absolutely no way in heaven or hell that Hannibal was going to let Pike hurt him again. Absolutely not, that was just not going to happen, but he knew he only had minutes to try and put something together.
He knew Face had read the plan from his expression in their one shared glance; it was a tried and tested method of escape that they had used over and over again during the past. However, today had its own added complications, the fact that Face really couldn’t even stand on his own yet and only had the use of one arm being the major difficulties, but the fact that they were out in a public area, people milling around them, oblivious to their plight, only made it more complex; there was no way that Hannibal could be responsible for starting a shoot out in the street on a busy lunch time.
“Come on, Peck,” Silas suddenly snarled, shocking Hannibal back to the here and now with a brutal jab of the gun barrel into his ribs, “Stop being such a fucking Queen and get a move on. I saw you earlier you know, I know you can walk faster than this, now shift.”
Face didn't look around but he did speed up slightly and Hannibal narrowed his eyes. His first thought at Pike’s words were that Face was deliberately walking slowly to give them a little more time to come up with something, but then he noticed the grey tinge to the kid’s face, the way his lips were pressed tightly together, and with a sinking feeling running right through his chest he realised that Face was in pain, in real, soul sucking pain, probably from his ankle and at that realisation, he watched as their chances of escape took an abrupt down turn.
Pike was incorrigible though, whistling happily now as they turned the corner into the alley way and suddenly everything went darker and quieter and Hannibal felt as if they had entered a shady, dangerous tunnel, with only one way in or out.
“Okay!” Pike sing songed as they reached the car. “I want your piece on the ground Peck, nice and slowly. I think you are pissing me at all, then the colonel here gets it. Capiche?”
Face didn't reply, he looked like he was struggling to stay on his feet, but he did reach back and pull his gun out of the waistband of his trousers slowly and carefully, holding Pike’s stare the whole time as he threw it to the ground to land a few feet to the left.
“Good boy,” Silas smiled patronisingly at him. “And now, if you just reach into the back seat of the car there, you will find a roll of duct tape. You need to get it out and you are going to come over here and use it on Smith for me. Off you go.”
For a second Face didn’t move, but then his eyes slid over to Hannibal and at the almost imperceptible nod he saw there, he leaned off the car and tugged the rear door open, bracing himself on the front seat as he reached in to snag the roll of tape.
It was as he straightened up that Hannibal made his move, suddenly sagging slightly against Pike, his head lolling and doing a perfect impersonation of someone on the edge of a faint. “What the fuck!?” Silas exclaimed, staggering as Hannibal leaned on him before rolling himself upright again even as he reeled forward.
“He’s gonna faint,” Face supplied, the fear in his voice real as he couldn’t quite believe that Hannibal was going for such a high risk manoeuvre. He started forward, only to freeze as Silas swung the gun from his pocket with its long suppressor on the barrel and pointed it at Face instead. Then Hannibal staggered again, stumbling into Pike and pushing him towards Face before finally collapsing to the ground in a fully credible impersonation of a dead faint.
For perhaps half a second, Silas was struck dumb, his gun pointing aimlessly in the space between his two captives and his mind undecided. It was within that tiny window of opportunity that Face moved, closing down the part of his brain that recognised pain he stepped forward and, slipping his arm out of its sling, grabbed Pike with both hands, stepping back and pulling him head first into the side of the car with all his strength.
Silas, however, was solidly built, and like BA before him, Face had underestimated that fact. Instead of hitting the car head first with enough force to crack bone, Pike only suffered a glancing blow, enough to hurt and bring up an egg on his forehead, but not enough even to stun. He staggered to his feet and Face, trapped between the open car door and the body of the vehicle itself, automatically lifted a foot to kick the still-poised weapon from Silas’ hand before he recovered enough presence of mind to use it. Unfortunately that meant transferring all his weight onto his damaged ankle, which, even though Face could have bitten down on the pain hard enough to get him through, was simply not strong enough to hold all his weight on its own and collapsed right underneath him.
He dropped like a stone, grabbing at the back seat and the door handle to save his butt from landing on the ground and, fast as lightening, just as Hannibal was launching himself forward, Silas moved. He reached out and grabbed the door, swinging it shut as hard as he could and smartly trapping Face’s head between the edge of the door and the frame of the car. There was a sickening thud and as the door bounced back open with the force of the slam, Face slithered down out of the gap and lay, bleeding from a fresh wound to his head, unconscious at Pike’s feet. Within a second the gun was trained on him and Hannibal froze, breathing hard as he looked at his adversary, who was silently poking at the purpling lump on his forehead, a look of purest loathing on his face.
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Face had no idea how long he had been unconscious. He awoke to a strong smell of petrol and a pounding head, and for a moment he wondered if he were back in the lock-up with Silas determined to give death-by-car-fumes one more go. He listened hard, so well versed in the act of waking up in dodgy situations that he didn’t move, didn’t make a sound, and didn’t even let his eyes flicker to let on that he was awake.
Once the ringing in his ears settled down, he heard voices, no, one voice, and his stomach rolled as he realised it was Silas Pike, and with the smug edge he could hear to it, knew that their escape attempt had failed.
Pike’s voice was behind him, and so far away that Face couldn’t work out anything he was saying. He opened his eyes, but it took a few moments before he could persuade them to focus on anything and then he found that he was still lying where he’d fallen in the filth next to the Cadillac. He couldn’t see Silas or Hannibal, but could still hear Pike’s smug monotone behind him and risked twisting his neck, looking back towards the alley wall. His eyes swam into focus and his stomach clenched in pure fear; Hannibal was laid on the ground in a pile of trash bags and empty cardboard boxes. Face knew it was him as he could see the dark brown cords and camel coloured sweater that he knew he’d been wearing that morning. He could also see the boss’ hands, wrapped up together with duct tape around the wrists and laying loosely over his stomach and he could tell by the way that they were all bruised and marked up that he’d been fighting with Silas.
The man himself was standing over Hannibal, breathing hard and bleeding from more than one place himself and, as Face began to slowly, slowly drag himself to his feet, he raised his gun from his side and pointed it at his prisoner, his words finally loud enough to hear. “You sure you don’t fear me old man?” Even though Face strained to listen, he couldn’t hear Hannibal’s reply at all, but he could hear Silas’ responding laugh. “Well, you should fear me. Peck does, he knows the pain I can inflict on him, the pain I am going to inflict on him once I’m through with you.” Face froze, knowing that he was too far away to get to Hannibal’s side and looking around desperately at the place where he’d thrown his Glock. It wasn’t there, of course it wasn’t there, but then Silas cocked his gun, the sound reverberating around the tight space and Face knew he’d run out of time.
He got to his feet, staggering as his head reeled and feeling the shooting pains in his ankle, his head, his ribs and his arm. He was slightly behind and to the right of Silas, maybe ten feet behind, literally in his blind spot and he knew that he had seconds to get there and knock him off his feet, give Hannibal the chance to get up and come bail him out. No sooner was that thought in his head, however, than Silas cocked his head on one side, considering Hannibal carefully. “You sure?” he prompted and even as Face was making his way over, gritting through the pain and deciding which angle was the best to tackle the bastard from, Silas’ gun spoke. Once, twice, three times, four, five, six... the silenced barrel popped in the alley way, sending shock waves reverberating up and down and Face staggered to a halt, his mind reeling in total disbelief.
Pike was at point blank range, his gun aiming straight to where Hannibal’s chest would be and Face looked over, terrified of what he would see but still only his colonel’s legs were visible, the rest of his body hidden by the boxes and Pike lowered his gun and laughed. That laugh broke through Face’s stunned shock and he literally propelled himself forward, blind, gut wrenching, agonised fury the only thing fuelling him on. He was maybe five steps from Silas now, who was still laughing, the gun held loosely in his hand and as he covered those steps, all he could hear were those pops again, over and over and over again. All he could see in his mind’s eye was Hannibal’s body as it leapt and jumped under the impact of the bullets. All he could imagine was the look of shock and pain on his lover’s face as it registered that he had been shot, that he was dying, that he was never going to get out of here and so neither was Face.
Face knew he was dead, knew that no one, not even the legendary and his most beloved Hannibal Smith could escape being shot like that from so close a range, and because of that – the fact that Hannibal was dead – Face realised that absolutely nothing else on earth mattered anymore; nothing. With that thought in his head, he tackled Pike around the waist even as he finally became aware of Face’s presence and turned, lifting his gun to finish the job. He never had the chance, Face’s grief leant him the strength and fury of a thousand men, and he slammed Silas’ wrists against the wall, spilling the gun from his grasp before following through with a solid right hook to the jaw.
Silas however, was no slouch himself, and even if Face’s rise from the ashes had taken him by surprise, he pulled himself together pretty quickly after that and rolled with Face’s fist, absorbing some of the impact and then bringing his own fist round, smashing into his adversary’s nose, showering them both with tiny droplets of blood as he did. For the second time in an hour, Face dropped like a stone, but this time only stunned, and the sight of Silas’ gun, laid in the garbage right at his finger tips, soon snapped him back into full awareness.
It was in his hand and swinging around even as Silas’ face was starting to cloud with fear. Face didn’t hesitate, his finger squeezed and shot off round after round, his aim automatically altering as Silas jerked back with the impact of the first bullet then started his own slide to the ground, eyes wide and shocked. Face didn’t see that though, through his increasingly blurring vision all he saw was Hannibal as Silas shot him again and again, and it didn’t matter how many times he pulled the trigger himself, that searing pain he felt in every fibre of his existence didn’t diminish in the slightest; so he stopped. He let himself slump down, flat to the ground himself even as Silas mirrored his movements, his eyes wide and unmistakably empty.
For a second there was silence, only the sound of Face’s ragged breathing reached his ears, but then he heard a choking sob, and as he closed his eyes against the welling tears he realised that it came from him but it still didn’t help, nothing would help him now, there was nothing in his life, nothing to love, nothing to cherish – nothing to even breathe for. Of all the things that Adele had stolen from him over the years, his childhood, his father, his home, his innocence – this was by far the worst. Her intervention in his life, leading Silas Pike right to him like this, had cost him Hannibal - his entire reason for living, his only reason to carry on breathing, the centre of his world.
There was no doubt in Face’s mind what he needed to do now. He was sprawled in an alley way with two dead bodies full of bullets, the gun that killed them both still in his hand. Even though the shots had been suppressed Face knew that they would have been heard by someone, and that it wouldn’t be long before the police arrived. So he needed to get up, to move the bodies into the Cadillac, to find some keys on Pike and get the hell out of here.
But he couldn’t, he just... couldn’t. How could he force himself up and look at Hannibal now? Did he want to see what the bullets had done to the man he loved more than anything else in existence? No, of course he didn’t, he didn't want to do that, he didn't want to do anything anymore – nothing mattered. Not Pike or the cops or Adele, or even, God forgive him, Murdock and BA. The only thing there was in his life now was pain, pain he knew just how to get rid of.
Almost in a daze he lifted his arm, Pike’s gun still wrapped tight in his fingers and moved it until he could feel the cool metal of the barrel on his forehead. He didn’t bother opening his eyes but forced himself to breathe deeply, he could do this, all he needed was a moment, a second of calm and he could do it, pull that trigger and it would all be over, every pain he’d ever experienced wouldn’t even be a memory any more.
His finger twitched and he paused, wondering where he would end up, wondering if the teachings from the orphanage were right and he was about to sin, would go straight to hell for what he was about to do. But then he realised he was already in hell anyway, so what did it even matter? He squeezed the trigger.
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