The end of a mission

Disclaimers: No money being made, no characters are mine.

Summary: We all know Ethan and his team are specialists for impossible missions. But not all missions are as fast and deadly as the ones we've seen in the movies. Some are more, well, routine. That doesn't mean they can't turn deadly on a dime...

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The loud reverberation of a single shot, closely followed by another, came totally unexpected.

Jane had been sitting on a comfortable sofa outside the adjacent room that Ethan and his contact had gone into only minutes before. This being just a simple meet and greet, he'd gone in by himself, no wire needed. Hell, they hadn't even come with a full team. The fact that Jane was here at all, was because she had been in the area and had volunteered to accompany him.

But as Jane jumped up from her seat, she was suddenly overcome with a sinking feeling that something had gone terribly wrong.

Within seconds she was at the door that separated her from the next room. With her gun at the ready she stepped quickly inside. And what she found made her blood freeze.

It looked like a scene from her worst nightmare. Their informant – the man was lying in a bloody pool on the floor beside the piano. His throat torn apart by a single shot that had then travelled upwards through his head, killing him instantly. Her pulse began to race even faster when she saw a gun laying only two feet away from the man's hand, where it had fallen down from now lifeless fingers. The gun had obviously been fired. Not that the man had lived long enough to see what had become of the shot.

No five feet across from the man, near the window, she then saw Ethan.

His own gun still in hand, and he was….

"Oh my God…"

Without wasting even a thought on checking for further threats in the room, Jane rushed across the room, where Ethan was on the ground, lying on his back, and writhing in pain. Somehow he was still holding on to his gun, but he didn't even appear to be aware of it. Instead he seemed to be trying to get off his back and onto his side, his face twisted with pain every time he tried move.

But what made fear creep into Jane's heart was when she saw Ethan's right hand, the one not holding the gun. It was pressed shakily against his side – and his entire side was drenched in red.

"J-a…ane?" Ethan's voice was merely a whisper. It was almost inaudible, like he wasn't sure she was really there. His eyes were searching to focus on her, as if it was barely more than his instinctual reaction that told him she was not another hostile.

But as she kneeled down next to him, she could see his eyes refocus and become aware of her presence. Although she didn't know how he was even still conscious. He had been shot in the stomach, right below the ribcage. And judging by the size of the wound and the amount of blood he had already lost, it had been at point-blank range.

The fingers of his hand covering the wound were shaking, like they were subconsciously drawn to the hole in his stomach but just couldn't find the strength to actually stem the bleeding. Adding her hands to his, she immediately took over the task of trying to keep his lifeblood inside of him.

"Don't move, Ethan. Alright? Whatever you do, don't move." Jane begged him, watching with growing panic how the pool of blood beneath Ethan's back was slowly spreading. She knew it was important that he stayed still… conserve his energy…And damnit, they needed an ambulance, now!

"You gonna be fine, Ethan, you hear me?" Jane frantically tried to get him to respond to her. His gaze was glassy, and she was almost certain he was drifting into shock. She had to keep him awake.

"Ethan, tell me what happened. Do you remember? I need you to tell me what happened," she tried to coax him into talking, anything to keep him aware.

The truth was, she already had a pretty clear image of what must have happened. Their would-be informant had become a hostile. He had obviously attempted to kill Ethan and fired the first shot at an opportune moment. Ethan must have been taken by surprise – and too close in range to avoid the bullet – but somehow Ethan had managed to retaliate and terminate the threat with deadly accuracy despite his own injury.

She knew all that. But in order to keep Ethan from slipping off into unconsciousness, she needed him to tell her. Keep him focused. Keep him awake.

At first, he didn't seem to appear to understand what she was saying. But then it was like he suddenly recalled the weight of something solid in his hand. She saw his gaze sluggishly move from her blood-smeared hands on his stomach to his own outstretched arm, which was still holding on to his gun.

She felt his breathing deepen for a moment, as if the memory of what had happened was hitting him again like a physically aftershock, before she saw him swallow with difficulty in an attempt to speak.

"D..di'nt ….. t'slow…" he pressed the words out, hoping to make her understand.

There was blood on his lips now, too.

She didn't try to think of what that meant. But she knew. Every agent who ever went through basic training did. When a bullet hits a lung, blood will ultimately fill the lung and drown a person from the inside out. There were countless medical books depicting the whole thing. But this wasn't class. This wasn't training. This was real.

She noticed how his eyes travelled further over to the dead man a few feet away from them. He appeared to be looking for the other man's gun.

"It's okay, Ethan, we're safe," she tried to soothe him, "You took care of the threat, everything's safe now." A tear was threatening to well up in her eye, and she had to fight against the lump in her throat to keep her voice steady.

"T-….te..'..m…" Ethan's voice was nothing but a whisper now.

She could see he was having more and more trouble breathing through the blood that was seeping from his mouth. But she understood what he was asking.

"Your team is safe. We're all safe, Ethan." Jane told him, now no longer fighting the tears in her eyes.

She could see the gratitude in his eyes as he blinked once, and then, with relief, let his eyes slide half-closed once more. His breathing, which had slowed noticeably during the past minute, was already no longer deep enough to keep what little blood he had left pulsing through his body. Another moment later, it evened out completely.

When Jane looked from Ethan's now still chest back to his eyes, she saw that they had fallen closed.

"No….."

Silent tears burned hot on her face.

She didn't know how long she sat like this, holding Ethan's still body in her arms. But there came a moment where she was brutally brought back to reality by the ringing of her cell phone.

It was probably shell-shock that made her automatically reach for the phone. Not even registering the action, she took it from her pocket, laid it on the ground beside her and hit the 'speaker' button to accept the call.

"Hey Jane, how is Spain on this wonderfully sunny morning?" Brandt's voice greeted her happily and went right on talking, "Are you already at the beach or did Ethan get you to accompany him to that super-boring meeting he was talking about the other day?" Brandt's words were accompanied by friendly laughter.

She could also hear Benji in the background joking about how Ethan should really be old enough to find his way to a meet on his own, or better yet, that he should just cancel that low-key meet and greet and come visit them in France instead, where they were currently doing a little vacationing themselves.

None of the words that came through the phone really got through to Jane. Her only reaction – one that she probably wouldn't even fully remember later – was to slowly pick up the phone, her eyes never leaving Ethan's still form. She then spoke two words, barely audible:

"Mission… failed."

Her voice didn't carry any strength. It was a shadow of herself.

And it was met with an equal state of shock thousands of miles north of her, where former analyst William Brandt realized that there was only one way Ethan would fail a mission. The sudden change in expression on Brandt's face made a still smiling Benji come to a halt across from him and ask, 'what happened?'.

It was a full minute before Brandt managed to answer him.

To tell him.

That Ethan Hunt was dead.

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