A/N: Well, this is it. Managed to knock out two chapters this week, so keep in mind: Chapter 5 was not the end. This is the end. The end-end. Jackson may be all out of blood, and I am certainly all out of words. (And there was much rejoicing--! --for the latter part of that statement if not the first. Ahem.) Thanks for reading!

*****

*****

Cynthia saw the woman and felt surprise, a pang of guilt. During the evacuation, the hotel's security people must have missed her on their sweep from the top floor down: she was elderly, and she looked like she needed a walker. She might have missed the evacuation altogether. She was hunched, head down, her right arm crabbed against her side. She was wearing a long gray raincoat and shorts, and she had a scarf clumsily tied around her head, covering her hair. She was as much as scuttling across the lobby, angling toward the desk from the direction of the north stairwell door.

Cynthia stepped to leave the desk, to assist her, when the phone rang. Mr. Cleary was with a customer; Lisa was talking to a detective from the Miami police, a broad-faced, friendly younger man named Jeremy Laufer, who, while not as traditionally good-looking as Jeff Anderson, and definitely not as ethereally, exotically handsome as Jackson Rippner, certainly crossed the line to a sandy-haired "cute." Cynthia answered the phone. Security, reporting in: no further ground-level alarms; all the fire doors were re-closed and re-set. As Cynthia listened, the elderly woman neared the desk.

Lisa and Detective Laufer were beginning to move away; Laufer had likely suggested that they retreat to a quieter spot, maybe the coffee bar, where Lisa could give her statement away from the continuing commotion in the lobby. With one eye on the bustle in front of the desk and one eye on her computer monitor-- yes, the fire doors were now green-lit all across the ground floor-- Cynthia wondered why the woman was approaching the desk without looking like she intended to stop.

Then she realized the woman wasn't heading for the desk.

She was heading for Lisa. With intent in her movement and something clutched half-hidden behind the left sleeve of her raincoat.

Something slender, dark, and sharp-looking.

Her heart suddenly pounding, her breath catching in her throat, Cynthia stepped from behind the desk.

*****

He was ready to go. Where, he wasn't certain. But he felt no fear. Rippner looked back one last time at his body lying pale and beaten on the operating table.

Only--

"She might--" An ache, then, a small one, beneath his sternum. A certainty, now: doubt. He frowned; he looked at his father, realizing-- "She'll miss me."

If she's alive.

In these few variable seconds, he had moved beyond want. He had shed himself of desire with the shedding of his body. With his body had gone corporal feeling. All that remained of his connection to the physical world was a simple fact:

"She needs me. I need her."

James Rippner laid a hand on his son's shoulder. His eyes were affectionate. "Go on back, Jackson."

*****

"Hey."

To her right. Just passing the reception desk, with Lisa Reisert a mere ten feet away, Rosemary Wheeler looked-- and a woman's fist, small and bird-boned in its delicacy but extremely well-placed, collided squarely with her nose.

She would tell herself later that the shot wouldn't have been enough on its own. But Rosemary had been stabbed, and her arm was broken, and between the mounting blood loss and the pain, her brain said, "Enough--!", and she went over backwards. She landed flat on her back, and all the wind went out of her. Above her head, the art deco chandeliers swam in a sea of stars.

Then Lisa Reisert was standing over her, looking down at Rosemary less with surprise than with cool and weary contempt. "Detective Laufer," she said, "meet Rosemary Wheeler."

"That's Rosemary Wheeler--?" This from the owner of the fist, the red-haired girl who'd been behind the desk.

"The one and only," Rosemary heard herself mumble. Lisa Reisert hugged that flame-headed nit, and Rosemary added nausea to her current list of ailments. She thought that perhaps she should throw Jackson's knife away-- only she couldn't quite remember which hand it was in. The bulldog detective was kind enough to help her: he flicked it out of her left hand with the toe of his shoe. He seemed to flick several of her fingers off in the process.

"You let pain and ego cloud your judgment, didn't you, Rosemary?" Lisa was looking down at her again. "It didn't take a genius to tell you that this was a very bad idea."

A stab of hatred. The bitch was looking down at her. Rosemary went to get up--

And three things happened:

Her left hand, the hand attached to her unbroken left arm, and the floor seemed to repel one another. She couldn't even get squarely to her knees.

Bulldog Drummond casually unsnapped the leather strap holding his service revolver in its side holster. In doing so, he seemed to multiply. Rosemary suddenly found herself in a circle of cops.

And Lisa Reisert's carrot-topped cohort chimed in with: "Yeah. Kind of like grocery shopping when you're really hungry."

From beyond the tiny cloud of pain centered on her nose-- her freshly broken nose-- Rosemary looked up at her incredulously. "You vapid, shallow, empty-headed twa--"

"Rosemary Wheeler," said Reisert's mutt of a detective, "you are under arrest."

*****

*****

*****

Rippner opened his eyes.

"Well, hello."

A woman's voice, to his right. Rippner was looking at the ceiling. Speckled white tiles. Lights, far too bright. He was lying on dense foam. Rough cotton weave pressed between his shoulder blades. His torso felt as though it had swollen to three times its normal size and been wrapped in casing, like a sausage. He might have been on Jupiter: he doubted he could move his head. It weighed hundreds of pounds.

The voice continued: "You certainly took your time waking up."

His incision felt distantly itchy. The rest of him felt

"Cold." His voice was a dry whisper.

"I'll get you an extra blanket, honey."

He saw her as she stood. She'd been sitting beside his cot. Mid-forties, peppered short hair, wearing maroon scrubs under a floral smock. He read her name tag as she tucked another looseweave light hospital blanket around him: Pamela Tucker, R.N. Her forearms and hands looked capable and strong, and she was careful of his incision.

"Can you tell me your name?" she asked.

"Jackson. Jackson Rippner." He spoke more clearly, though with effort. He was very tired.

"What city are you from, Jackson?"

Rippner's eyelids seemed to be gaining mass in proportion to his leaden skull. He felt warmer, though. The extra blanket was working. "Chicago, Illinois."

"Where are you now?"

"Miami, Florida."

She was asking, he knew, because he had died. He had died on the operating table, and the surgical team had brought him back, and now it was her job to find out what, if anything, his mind had lost when his brain had been starved of oxygen. He wanted to sleep. Surely her training dictated that she know that, too.

"Is there anyone we can contact, Jackson? You've been talking to your dad, off and on."

"He died in nineteen eighty-six."

"I'm sorry." Her hazel eyes conveyed genuine compassion. The information didn't seem to surprise her, though. No doubt she'd heard her share of semi-delirious post-op confessions. "Anyone else? Family? Friends in the area?"

The hospital personnel would have found his wallet in his pants; they had his insurance information. They had a legitimate address for him. He was otherwise invisible: Paul Miller had seen to it when Rippner had left the federal penal system following the Keefe affair. Rippner was clean, the records of his arrest, his trial documents, expunged. He'd make nary a blip on the Miami law-enforcement radar.

Nor would he make a blip anywhere else. No contact information in his wallet. Nurse Tucker was asking out of genuine, if professional, concern.

"She'll turn up," he said. His voice sounded thick; consciousness seemed to leak out of him with the words. He wondered how he'd managed to remember his anonymity. Sleep was crowding the thoughts from his head. Drugs, likely. On top of the blood loss. He liked drugs.

"Who, Jackson?"

Rippner looked at Nurse Tucker and smiled.

*****

The rain was falling in driving patches when Lisa finally left the Lux. She reached the hospital at eleven p.m. She knew that visiting hours were over: there was little to no chance that she'd be allowed in to see Jackson, wherever he might be. She didn't know. First, she hadn't had time to call, following the extra-bonus riot of Rosemary Wheeler materializing in the lobby and Cynthia laying her flat; then, she hadn't been able to bring herself to call. An ugly, honest truth: if Jackson was dead, she wanted to hear the news in person, not over the phone.

The information desk was still staffed. She was given directions to the post-op intensive care unit. The hospital's corridor lighting was night-dim; she had the elevator to herself. On the fourth floor, she passed through double doors, approached a central island. Near-silence. The hiss of oxygen, the quiet beeping of a monitor or an IV in need of tending. The air conditioning turned up a little too high.

One nurse, a muscular thirtyish man in merlot-colored scrubs, was up making the rounds. Two women, one in her late twenties or early thirties, the other a few years older, were seated behind the curving desktop of the island, working behind flat-screen computer monitors. The second woman looked up and said, as Lisa approached: "Mrs. Rippner?"

Lisa tried not to sound shocked: "Yes--?"

The woman smiled. Lisa, nearing, could see her name tag on her floral smock: Pamela Tucker, R.N. "Your husband said you'd be coming. He got out of recovery a little over an hour ago; they've just moved him to the ward."

"Can I see him?"

"He's likely asleep--"

Lisa's heart was pounding. A mix of elements blending to unreality: the day itself, the fact that she was very tired and very wound up, all at the same time. The bruises on her body, the throbbing in her head (fading now, though, finally, with the promise of blessed painlessness, almost like a vacation, to come). Jackson's ruse, and her shock at it. (Her primal elation at it, too, and a whole different source of shock there.) Of all these things, though, only one certainty, one single thing, mattered: he was alive.

She returned Nurse Tucker's smile, a little beseechingly. "Just for a minute--?"

Pamela Tucker pushed away from her paperwork and stood. "Sure, honey. Right this way."

*****

He was in an alcove to the left of the island, and he was unconscious. Deeply asleep. The centerpiece of a branching of tubes and wires, a stockade of wheeled monitors and drips. He lay on his back, with his right forearm, bare below the short white-and-dots sleeve of his hospital gown, resting across his belly. A plastic bracelet circled his slender wrist. He was more vulnerable, more exposed, than Lisa had ever seen him. Even after having shared a bed with him, a bathtub, a shower. Like all his outer layers, his energy, his defenses and projections, had been stripped away and just the core of him remained. Lisa nuzzled his cheek, kissed his forehead, his lips. She pulled in a round-backed steel-and-laminate chair and sat for a few minutes beside him, knitting her fingers with his, his hand and hers resting on his belly. Sensing him, the delicate strength of his bones, the warmth of his skin. She wondered if Nurse Tucker had noticed that neither she nor Jackson was wearing a wedding ring.

*****

Fifteen minutes later, leaving Jackson and Nurse Tucker, ten yards from the entrance to the ICU, in the nightshift illumination of the corridor, Lisa slowed.

A man was approaching from the direction of the elevators. In the reduced lighting, he was ominously large and dark. Spots of rainwater glimmered on his jacket, and he carried something in his right hand. Only when Lisa recognized him did she relax. And then only partly.

It was John Carter. Jackson's boss.

"Hello, Lisa," he said, quietly. The object in his hand was a gray plastic bag. JC Penney. Carter's expression, as Lisa spotted it, was, if anything, sheepish. It wasn't the first time she'd caught him doing Jackson's shopping. "I brought him some clean clothes."

There was a waiting room for patients' families down a corridor to the right. Empty at this hour. The wall-mounted television, tuned to CNN, was at minimum volume. Lisa reached up and turned it off anyway. Then she turned to Carter and asked: "Is he in trouble, John?"

Carter gestured toward the forest-green sofa. Lisa remained standing, so he did, too. "I think that's for you to decide," he said.

"He just prevented Rosemary Wheeler from blowing up my hotel."

Carter frowned, though not unreasonably. "He came here to hurt you."

"He came here to find out what was going on. Someone compromised his phone and his computer. Mine, too. Our messages weren't getting through--"

"Which makes this alright." He touched her face, gently, where the bruises were forming, where Jackson and then Rosemary Wheeler had hit her. "At the very least, he placed you in danger."

"Please don't judge him until you know the facts."

"I'm judging the situation as I presently understand it, Lisa."

"Rosemary Wheeler is responsible for what happened at the hotel. She's responsible for what happened to me and to Jackson. And she probably had help--"

"Paul Miller is looking in to that."

"And who's looking in to Paul?"

Carter paused. Looked at her with cool admiration, carefully concealed surprise. "I am."

"Hurting me was part of the ruse, John. He was trying to save me. Why are you so eager to kill him?"

"Of course I'm not eager to kill him. Christ, Lisa--"

"You'd have to kill me first. Do you understand?"

"Yes." He risked the barest beginning of a smile. "That bad, is it?"

"You should know. You went through the same thing with Claire, didn't you?"

Claire, Carter's wife. Rangy, tall, tousle-headed Claire. Sparks from the fire lighting her sharp blue eyes as she and Lisa sat listening to the boys-- Jackson, Carter, Claire's brother, Richie-- musically butcher and not quite butcher and then sing and play an old, crack-finished six-string Kay guitar quite beautifully indeed on a beach on the west coast of Scotland. Carter was nearly as much a bass in his singing voice as he was in speech; Jackson found within himself a lilting baritone that spoke of open wind-swept space beneath a clear night sky, not just this night but all nights like it, Lisa thought, with the final lingering copper-rose of sunset over the black western water and the stars perfectly white and sharp above. "Ship to Spain" was the song; Claire had suggested it. She and Carter and Lisa and Jackson had shared an adventure in London, the very adventure that left Rosemary Wheeler with a broken nose and placed Lisa, consequently, very much on Rosemary's bad side; now, a week later, on a beach near Mulvern, Lisa felt herself among friends. Looking at Claire and John, she felt comforted, comfortably optimistic. Years ago, Claire had told her, John had been a situations manager, much like Jackson was now.

As Lisa understood it, those years back, Claire had been John's killswitch. She'd been his sponsor en route to a less-murderous life. Had he threatened her, harmed her, she had only to issue a single-word command to the man who was then John's boss, and John's boss would have had him killed.

Put down like an animal that couldn't shed its aggression, its bloodthirsty ways.

For three months now, give or take, Lisa had been Jackson's killswitch. Simply, Carter was here to ask her if Jackson had failed in his transition to civilization. He was here to ask Lisa if Jackson had harmed her or, without reason, others.

He was here to ask if Jackson needed to die.

John Carter watched her for a handful of seconds, not speaking. He was a very tall man, six-foot-three or better, and powerfully built. Lisa had no doubt that, if Carter wanted, he could tear through her as if she weren't even there, no matter what Jackson had done to boost her skills in fighting and defense, no matter the determination in her heart. He had brown eyes so dark as to be nearly black. Lisa could imagine how terrifying those eyes would have been to those who had known Carter, briefly and oh-so-fatally, in his old life.

Those same eyes were thoughtful now. Gentle, even. "You're very perceptive, Miss Reisert," Carter said.

"Being a people person pays off, Mr. Carter." Lisa exhaled slowly. Without realizing it, she'd been holding her breath. She softened her expression without quite smiling. "He needs his sleep. Don't disturb him, okay?"

"I won't."

Carter breathed out, his shoulders relaxing. Lisa hadn't been the only one worried here. She gave Carter a quick hug, leaned up to kiss his cheek. He smiled in surprise, hugged her back, let her go. Lisa left the hospital.

*****

Home to her apartment. Half a dozen messages on the machine. All from her dad. More worried than angry, of course, but nevertheless earfuls of doting hell in thirty-second bites. Call me when you get a chance, Lisa. It's been all over the news--

He had to be asleep by now, and if he wasn't he ought to be. The affectionate worry cut both ways: she didn't want to encourage his insomniac tendencies. She'd call in the morning. She turned on the television. Nothing on but late-night drivel, the hypnotic wee-hours suggestive-sell. Ninja swords and wet vacs, ripped abs, real estate. The CNN cycle was parked on sports. Lisa woke her iMac.

On the front pages of the websites for the Miami Herald, WSVN 7: History nearly repeats at Miami hotel.

A picture of the Lux. A stock photo of Charles Keefe. Cynthia, a picture from tonight, wide-eyed, beaming for the camera.

Heroic receptionist foils terrorist plot.

Lisa smiled. Good for you, Cynthia.

Then she went still. A chill ran through her. She scanned those articles, and a dozen more besides, for mention of Jackson. Searched his name, frantically, on Google News--

Nothing.

She felt almost more of a chill then.

The 2005 bombing of the Lux was universally ascribed to a terrorist cell with possible connections to the Russian mob. Tonight's scare was the handiwork of a right-wing fundamentalist group, possibly to protest the national law-enforcement convention being held in Miami. Rosemary Wheeler wasn't mentioned by name. Jackson wasn't mentioned at all.

He was the invisible man.

The apartment suddenly seemed more empty than usual. Lisa hadn't eaten, but she wasn't hungry. She showered and went to bed, and in the dark she contemplated the difference between being lonely and being alone. If no one sees us, she thought, do we even exist?

*****

As the cherry on top of a perfect maelstrom of a night, she forgot to set her alarm, and she overslept. The next day, Robert Cleary stayed on hand, partly filling in for Julie Weber, his wounded chief of security, and partly helping at the reception desk, settling nerves, listening to customer complaints, offering refunds and comps. Virgil Carr and Roy Prudhomme refused theirs, politely and with old-fashioned gentlemanly grace, saying that they were just happy to be of assistance. Cleary simply neglected to bill them for the weekend, then dared them to complain. The four women staying in suite 1039 claimed to have been robbed. Among the items missing were a scarf, a belt, and a gray raincoat. They found blood and dirty boot tracks on the carpeting leading in from the balcony. In from the balcony. A balcony on the tenth floor. Lisa, the people-pleaser, didn't point out how ludicrous their claims sounded. Anyway, she knew better. Both she and the Lux would be more than happy to compensate them for Rosemary Wheeler's disguise.

After lunch, finally, she had a chance to call the hospital. Information transferred her to the nurse's island in the ICU. Pamela Tucker did not take the call. The woman who did answer told her, after a long, fact-checking pause, and Lisa was stunned at the words: "He discharged himself." Lisa said, "Thank you," and hung up. The police had recovered her phone from among Rosemary Wheeler's belongings. Jackson hadn't called it from the hospital. Nor had he called her at the Lux. He'd checked out and left, and that was all. Angry and numb, Lisa went back to work.

*****

She got home just after eight. A follow-up hell of a day. One of the messages on her answering machine was not from her father: I can't get comfortable in a hospital bed, Jackson said. His voice sounded tired, a little flatter than usual. Hope you understand.

"I understand that you left without saying goodbye, you asshole," she told the machine. She kicked off her shoes on the way to her bedroom.

*****

Jackson was in her bed. On it, really. Sprawled, asleep, on the comforter, wearing the light ash t-shirt and the khakis that Carter must have bought for him. He was pale and peaceful and angelic. Stubble was already darkening his cheeks.

He had the handset to the bedside phone cradled to his chest.

Lisa walked over to the bed, leaned down, kissed the corner of his mouth. Jackson opened his eyes. For a moment, he looked disoriented. But he didn't react with violence. Didn't lash out, didn't grab her--

He focused up at her. "I was going to call you at work—I just wanted to close my eyes for a minute." He frowned muzzily, propped himself up on his elbows. Cautiously, mindful of his incision. "What time is it--?"

"Eight thirty." She thought of him, running on drugs and instinct, discharging himself, leaving the hospital; she thought how that instinct had led him home.

To her.

She added, more softly, her tone no-nonsense but forgiving: "Please tell me you didn't drive here."

"No. I took a cab."

They were both numb, exhausted. Likely equally bruised. It had been a more-than-unreal two days. At least her head no longer hurt. Lisa undressed, took a shower. Put on a t-shirt, a pair of loose lounging pants. Jackson had both of the bed's pillows. She smoothly yanked hers out from under his head and stretched out beside him.

They lay beside one another for nearly a minute, simply breathing.

"Something's troubling you," he said.

She didn't ask, Do you want the full list, or just the highlights? Rosemary Wheeler, the danger to the hotel, piano aerodynamics, not even How many of your psychotic exes can I expect to meet, Jackson?

She simply said: "You'd die for me."

"Yes."

Lisa looked away.

"That frightens you." Jackson slipped his fingers gently down her right wrist, took and held her hand. "Why?"

As if the idea that he would give his life for her was the most obvious truth in the world. As if it were absolutely elemental. And it was. Moreover, Lisa knew, it was absolutely mutual: she would die for him, too. That's what made it frightening. Wonderful and frightening.

She settled closer to him. "Maybe because I'm trying to be mad. 'Mrs. Rippner'?"

"For all of-- what? Fifteen minutes?"

"You were awake?"

"Just enough to know you were with me."

"Jackson, Rosemary might have walked in and said she was 'Mrs. Rippner.'"

"No, she wouldn't. She might kick me when I'm down, but not when I'm that down. She has her pride."

"She won't be kicking anything for some time. We caught her at the Lux last night. No, Cynthia did, actually: Cynthia caught her."

"Good for Cynthia," Jackson said. Lisa could hear his grin.

"Good for Cynthia, bad for Rosemary's nose." Lisa smiled, too, with a hint of self-satisfied malice. "Cynthia said I'm having an effect on her."

"Wonder Woman. Women. I like that. You're a good influence, Reisert." Jackson shifted closer, tipped his head to hers. "So, fifteen minutes of being Mrs. Rippner: forgiven?"

"Sure."

"Unless you'd care to make it longer--?" He thatched his fingers on his midriff, looked casually up at the ceiling.

Equally nonchalant, Lisa replied: "Maybe."

"Maybe someday?"

"Maybe." Lisa rolled onto her side and kissed him, slowly. A debate-ending kiss. For now. "You need to get some rest. I need to get some rest."

Jackson said, his voice a soft rumble, as she touched him: "We might want to take it easy tonight, Lise."

"I know." Her voice was just as soft. Things weren't yet settled: that she knew. She and Jackson had yet to find out who had helped Rosemary Wheeler to block their communications with one another. More practically, he needed to share with her the followup regimen for his incision. All of which could wait until morning. For now, for tonight, she reached to turn off the bedside lamp.

"Lie still," she whispered. "Trust me."

*****

*****

EPILOGUE:

Five days later, in a windowless room in a high-security Miami detention facility, Rosemary Wheeler, dressed in prison orange, her right arm in a sling, a bandage covering her nosebridge, nonetheless managed to look smugly at John Carter from across a steel-topped table.

"You're going to help me leave this place, John," she said.

"And why is that, Rosemary?"

"Three words--"

Carter watched her expectantly. Peaked his fingertips, his elbows on the table.

"-- I have Claire," Rosemary said.

Carter went pale. His hands collapsed slowly to the cold tabletop. "That's against the rules. You know that."

"Fuck the rules, Carter. Get me out of here, or she dies."

"I need proof."

"Give me your phone."

He handed her his cell. She dialed a number, handed the phone back to him.

Carter held the phone to his ear. "I want to speak to Claire Carter," he said. He listened. Then he offered the phone to Rosemary.

"She wants to speak to you," he said, smiling slightly.

Rosemary felt herself blanch. She took the phone. "Yes--?"

Only three? Three to take me? You need to ask yourself something, Wheeler--

"What's that, Mrs. Carter?"

Would you rather deal with my husband angry, or with me insulted?

The rest was moderately profane. Rosemary listened to all of it, and then she numbly handed the phone back to Carter.

"It's me--" he said. "Right, love. See you soon." He ended the call and put the phone back in his pocket, stood, straightened his suit jacket.

"Don't worry, Rosemary," he said. "It's a common mistake. Sort of a sexist misconception, and one, I must confess, that Claire and I have done little to discourage. Everyone thinks I was the manager. The truth is, my wife was-- and still is-- a magnificently dangerous woman."

He smiled for her and stepped around the table, en route to the door. As he did, he reached down and planted a hearty pat on the shoulder of Rosemary's broken arm. "Enjoy your stay, Miss Wheeler."

Rosemary Wheeler didn't reply. She remained where she was, watching the steel tabletop, while the pain from her arm sparked in fireworks flashes before her eyes.

THE END