[Timeloop] Thread 2

[knowthyexits]

Her hands still have blood on them.

The house is in one piece, the bomb in the Jeep was dismantled in time, and she has blood on her hands from Sarkissian's body and his henchman. She had been waiting for them. She had known they would be there and instead of letting them chain her up and beat John, she'd been waiting for them with a weapon and all the rage of a mother protecting her child.

And now, she has blood on her hands and she stares down at the stain, unable to process anything around her. Not John, not Derek, not even the men from the island who are impossibly there. She just can't...

She can't process this. Not yet. She's done a lot of things, but this is the first time she has blood on her hands from a direct kill. It's her first.

And it hadn't even been the machines.

She has human blood on her hands and she's not sure if she's done the right thing.

Comments

[defected.livejournal.com]

"So what? We shoot first, ask questions later?" From the tone of his voice, it was evident that he didn't consider this as wildly ridiculous a plan as the words themselves might suggest. He knew now from firsthand experience how dangerous this situation could get, and they were at a disadvantage, with no way of knowing what had happened, let alone how or why.

[knowthyexits]

She looks around and tries to put this all together so it makes sense in her mind, but it doesn't. "Yes," she bites out, hand on her gun and hating that they have to do this again. "John was supposed to kill Sarkissian and it changed him. I stopped that, I changed it, so why am I doing this again!"

[defected.livejournal.com]

Practical a man though he was, Bryce had to admit that the answer seemed clear enough, however unlikely. Fate and destiny held little water with him, he wasn't one who believed there was a reason for all things; if there was, he wouldn't have dedicated so much of his life to changing the world, to preventing bad men from doing bad things. But months and months spend on Tabula Rasa had a way of changing a man's perspective, his very belief system, and if they were indeed but pieces in another game being played, here, the island set the rules.

"What happens if you let him do it, this time?"

[knowthyexits]

"Then I lose my son. Effectively," she says, trying to ignore the bite that comes with such a statement, the way that it hurts her to the core. Cromartie and Sarkissian and Riley. All these factors driving John away from her. "He's all I have."

[defected.livejournal.com]

It changed a person. Bryce Larkin was the last man to argue that killing changed a person, hardened him, but it didn't seem as thought they had choice. Still, although he didn't know much of John at all, he might argue that although the boy might not be the same, he would still be his mother's son. Sarah's influence was far from forgettable, and if anything, he would need that love to hold on to.

There was, however, something else they could try: "And if I do it?"

[knowthyexits]

Her gaze turns critical and thoughtful at his suggestion and she thinks about it for a long moment. She sometimes scares herself because she knows it would be blood on Bruce's hands, but there's a part of her that so fervently wants it -- to take the culpability off of his own hands.

"Yes," she says, gets it out before she can think twice.

[defected.livejournal.com]

He both could not and would not pretend that it meant nothing, that it was easy, because it never was, not matter how simple spies made it look. That was their job, after all, to make the difficult seem effortless, the impossible possible. Perhaps there was a reason he was here, and that reason was to pull the trigger.

"Then we'll try it that way," he gave a firm nod, already determined. Better him than John, in the end.