AN: LISTEN.

WHEN I SAID I WAS GOING TO FINISH THIS, I MEANT IT.
(granted i had really hoped I was going to be done with this literal years ago)
No one is ready this, or waiting on this update, but I thought I'd do this for myself kind of just to prove I can?
Also this chapter has been written for two years. Just...just sittin' in the word file hanging out. And for some reason I wouldn't pull the trigger and post this.
So that's why it's so short I guess.

0-0-0-0

The sun was just beginning to rise. The front of the museum was blocked in by ambulances and police cars; there were only a few pedestrians out and about so far, the majority of the looky-loo's having not risen from bed just yet. Jack went out the side door and maneuvered down a moist alleyway, avoiding the homeless population and Scotland Yard with ease. A number of blocks away she encountered a street devoid of all traffic. She took a moment to stop and lean against a full bin set out on the curb to try and put her thoughts in order.

The sun, just barely peeking out from the night sky, cast the street around her in a vivid blue. The air was brisk enough that she rubbed at her arms with her hands. She was acutely aware of the figure at the other end of the block with their hands in their pockets, staring at her. Jack stared back.

Jack pressed her fingers firmly into the flocculent spheres of her eyes, maintaining pressure until pain and fireworks bloomed in her vision and calmed her racing mind.

Then she opened her eyes, looked down the street to where Megan stood waiting, and pointed her gun.

Megan didn't even have the decency to flinch, or look surprised, or give any second of thought to the fact that Jack was pointing a loaded firearm at her. Jack slowly advanced, each second that passed broiling her emotions until even she wasn't sure if she was going to fire or not. Megan didn't move, just kept looking at Jack's face without blinking.

Jack came close enough to touch Megan's chest with the barrel of the pistol, to feel it give beneath the weapon. Still Megan didn't stir. The two girls regarded each other, silent and still, each utterly unreadable to the other. For the span of a breath, Megan considered that she might be about to die.

And then Jack's chin wobbled.

"Why," Jack whispered, dropping her hand and letting the weapon fall slack against her leg. "Dammit, why?"

0-0-0

Megan took her into a nearby empty house to talk. Jack didn't recognize it, so it wasn't any of the Company's resting places. For all Jack knew, it was Megan's. She didn't like being in an environment she didn't recognize, not when she was as agitated as she was.

Megan was talking. "So tell me, which part of 'stay inside and recover' did you choose to pretend not to understand, the 'stay inside' or 'recover' bit?"

"There was no time. Why are you even here?"

"To put an end to the bullshit. I let you get away with it when it was just you. But you went too far, Jack."

Jack glared. "I don't know what that's supposed to-"

"You pulled rank," Megan snapped from where she stood behind the couch, arms behind her back. "You pulled rank and had three of my agents looking into the Black Lotus situation. I let you get away with it because it was a Company-sanctioned endeavor, and it was important for you to get the information you needed. Then you gave Elise the sub-task of running a background check on someone named Kat Banks."

Jack paused in her pacing. "I'm her superior. It was within my right-"

Megan glared. "Let's get something straight – you have no right to endanger the lives of your subordinates in an effort to obtain information the Company doesn't want you to have. None, do you hear me?"

Jack bowed her head, her body language admitting her guilt but her face utterly unrepentant as her mind whirled. If Megan knew about Elise's secondary mission, it would be because Elise had reached out for some reason, either for more instructions or to report what she'd found. Either way, it was data, and Jack salivated for it. "Did she tell you?"

The look Megan gave Jack was cool and dangerous. "Did you tell her not to?"

"God, no," Jack snapped. "I'm not an idiot. I know better than that."

"Thank God for small miracles."

Jack made a frustrated noise. "So this was what, punishment? You stopped watching Soo Lin to spite me for using one of your operatives?"

"I stopped watching Soo Lin days ago," Megan said evenly. "Punishment was me sending Zhi Zhu to the museum."

Jack felt her blood go cold. "I shot her because of you," Jack said dumbly.

"If that woman had had half a brain in her head, she wouldn't have needed watching. She knew Zhi Zhu was in the area, she knew he was after her, and she knew she wouldn't stay protected if she left the sanctuary you'd put her in. She refused to think." Megan had worked herself up to shouting. "A person who refuses to think is worth neither my time nor the time of my subordinates. That includes you."

Jack violently rubbed her hair with her hands and set back to pacing. "It was part of my mission."

"It wasn't. It really wasn't. You wanted Soo Lin because of your obsession with information you can't have. And it stops now."

"Fine," Jack snapped. "Give me what Elise has and I'll pick it up myself."

"No," Megan said. "It all stops now. You're not going to continue this madness. You're not going to endanger your position and break all Company rules like you have the right to do so. It. Stops. Now."

Jack just stared. "I have to find that woman," she whispered. "I need to talk to her."

"If it was something you truly needed, the Company would bring her to you. They haven't, so you don't."

"Megan."

"No."

The two girls stared each other down mutinously.

"I'll ask Elise," Jack warned. "I'll find out what she found."

"Not unless you can un-burn memory sticks, you won't," Megan said quietly.

"You're unbelievable," Jack said after a moment of stunned and betrayed silence. "You don't even understand how completely they have you under their thumb. They tell you what they want you to believe and you follow it like holy writ."

"They made us," Megan said simply. "They own us."

"No," Jack said. "They didn't make us; someone paid for us to be made. There's a difference. And finding out who did it and why is the one piece of information we were told we were never allowed to have. Don't you think, for even a second, that's because that's the piece of information that will change everything?"

"Stand down," Megan said through gritted teeth. "I am the Vice Tressor of Zone 1, and I have given you an order. No more of this."

"I don't care. Report me. Send me away. Let them come for me. I'm not going to stop pursing this because I know it's important. This will be the thing that undoes it all."

"Stand down." Megan's muscled arms were rigid with the effort of not lashing out.

"After everything they've done to us, how can you still be loyal to them? After what they did to Lula-"

"Stand down, 217!" Megan shouted.

Jack stilled. Megan glared, a deep thrum of satisfaction running through her, before her brain caught up to what she'd just done. "No, I-"

But Jack was already gathering her jacket and pistol, shoving the gun into the waist of her pants and storming out the front door.

0-0-0

When Jack came back into the flat, she immediately kicked over a pile of books that was settled against the wall. She blinked at it slowly, owlishly, and then looked up the stairs to see a small pile of books on every single step leading up into the flat. She took the stairs slowly and opened the door only to knock it into two more piles of books.

Sherlock and John were on the floor of the flat, completely surrounded by books stacks at various heights. They were both looking through all of the books, comparing them to papers in their hands, but John looked up when Jack came in.

He did a double take. "Oi," he said. "Where have you been?"

Jack opened her mouth, tried to speak, and gave up and let if fall closed once more. She was having trouble coming up with a decent lie in the moment. John's brow furrowed. "Jack?"

"School," she said. "I met my friend to get notes for what I missed today."

Sherlock made a humming noise but didn't look up from his work. John, who had expected Sherlock to at least look up when his missing sick child came in, sighed and put the book in his hand off to the side. John labored to his feet, joints creaking, and came to Jack's side.

Sherlock looked up. "What are you doing?"

"Making sure your daughter gets back to bed," John said with a hint of reproach in his tone. He took Jack gently by the elbow and nudged her back out the door. Jack let him lead her back up the stairs and into her room. Sparrow nosed at her from the roof of her cage where she had been left a few hours ago.

John nudged her once more toward her bed. "You still look awful," he told her gently. "You need to get back to sleep. Have you eaten?"

She shook her head as she lowered herself onto the bed. "I have no appetite," she said, her entire body going completely limp as it slid into the mattress.

"Note-taking went that badly?" John joked lamely.

Jack toed off her tennis shoes and pulled the pillow further underneath her head. "I may fail," she said with a tired sigh. "I've done my best, but I don't think it's going to be enough."

She made no move to take the rest of her clothes off or crawl underneath the duvet. John manhandled her out of the jacket took care to cover her entirely with a blanket he grabbed off the back of her desk chair.

"Doctor's orders," he said mock-sternly as he moved toward the door. "Stay in bed for the rest of the night, at least. If the fever hasn't broken by the morning, we can try some medication."

Jack made a murmuring noise, and John quirked his lip in amusement and closed the door behind himself.

Jack let a long, tired sigh escape her body and slowly deflate her into the mattress. God, she was tired. She had rarely every been so mentally exhausted. She pulled the blanket tighter around her neck and decided to take John's advice. Sleep for a night. Or hell, she'd sleep for a week if she could.

Jack might have fallen asleep too if her phone, pressed into her back pocket, hadn't buzzed and startled her out of her liminal sleep. Without opening her eyes, she reached back and pulled it out of her pocket. She squinted through the darkness at the over-bright screen. It was an email from an address she didn't recognize, entirely blank but for the body.

Her name is Kate Schessler.

She's still alive.

0-0-0

Jack didn't sleep.