CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

The helicopter lifted into the sky, bearing the body of the killer. They still didn't know his name. When Faith had overcome her queasiness enough to search him for identification, she'd found nothing. Wyatt hadn't recognized him, and Kelly still wasn't lucid enough to talk about what had happened.

She had been evacuated twenty minutes ago. She was still conscious, but barely. Faith asked if she would survive, and the EMT had shaken her head and said, "We'll do our best."

Now Faith, Michael and Turk waited for Wyatt to arrive. He had told them over the phone that he was forty minutes out.

Faith was beginning to succumb to the cold. Her blood had frozen over her right side, and the holes in her parka let in far too much of the frosty air. The EMT had examined her wound and told her it wasn't serious. He'd offered to take Faith with her, but Faith didn't want to leave Michael and Turk behind.

The wound wasn't serious, but the cold was. She was no longer surviving off of the adrenaline from her fight, and the wilderness now reminded her how truly dangerous it was.

Michael built a fire while Turk huddled close to her, sharing his body heat to keep her warm until then. She watched Michael stack the logs and start the fire, and a sense of longing came over her. She wished she could know for sure if that longing was for him or just for safety. Not physical safety, although that would be nice. Emotional safety. A knowledge that everything would be okay, no matter what. It had been a long time since she'd felt that way.

Once the fire was started, Michael sat opposite Faith and sighed. He stared at the fire for a minute, then looked at Faith. "Okay, Faith. We can have that talk now."

"Now? Right now?"

"Well… I guess not right now. Sorry. We'll wait until you're recovered."

She sighed. "No, that's all right. I guess we have to talk about it sometime, and it might as well be right now. It's not like waiting is going to change anything."

She took a deep breath and stared at the fire so she wouldn't have to see Michael's face as she talked. "You're right. I have a very difficult time handling change. I think I've never really gotten over the fact that the world as I know it was shattered when Trammell hurt me."

Michael nodded. "Yeah, I know. I can see it. You've been grabbing for something to hold onto, and… it seems like you can't find it."

Hearing her thoughts coming from Michael's mouth brought tears to Faith's eyes. "Yes. Exactly. Anyway, I feel like for the past two years, I've come close to finding that thing that will be a new constant, but each time I find it, it gets taken away. I had your partnership, but now you're married to Ellie, and our partnership isn't the most important thing in your life anymore. I had West, but… well, we know how that worked out. I have my job, but now it looks like I might not have it for much longer. I have Turk, but he might get put out to pasture soon, and then I don't think there's even a point to me keeping my job. I've gotten used to it being the three of us, and with no Turk, there's… I don't know."

She poked at the fire. Michael waited patiently for her to finish. That was another thing to love about him. "And… I thought I was in love with David. I mean, I still think I'm in love with him. But he doesn't understand me. It's not his fault. He loves me. He tries really hard. He wants to be there for me, but…" she shrugged. "He's a civilian. A normie."

She chuckled, and Michael smiled a little. Faith sighed and continued. "It's true what they say. You can't understand our job unless you work it. I just saw a guy's head get crushed by a bear trap. That's… how do you talk about that? How does David comfort me? How does he help me deal with that image? He doesn't. Because he's never seen anything like that. He's never seen dead people. He's never talked to serial killers. He doesn't go to work every morning wondering what new brand of human psychopathy is going to rear its ugly head in front of his face. He didn't choose a career that not only has to witness that ugliness but has to dissect it, dwell on it, examine it and form conclusions about it. You know that old saying that if you stare too long into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you?"

"I've heard it."

"Well, it's true. And at some point, I guess you learn to live with it." She shook her head. "That's not right. You don't live with it like you become okay with it. You just… I guess in a way you do accept it. You understand that it's a part of life."

He smiled slightly. "Things like that just happen in the wilderness."

"Exactly." A lump formed in her throat. "And that's why I miss you. That's right there. In one sentence, you just summed up my feelings. You know how to talk to me because you work the same job. You know what it's like to see the shit we see every day, do the shit we do every day and have to somehow not turn into basket cases. I can talk to you. I can't talk to anyone else. It's…"

She poked at the fire again. She was getting fidgety now that she was approaching the point of what she had to say. "I just need you. I need to talk to you. It's not even about being in love with you. I just need to have you around. I have no one else. No one who can talk to me about all the crap in my life. I don't think it's even change that I'm afraid of. It's losing you specifically. Because if I lose you, I have no one to help me make sense of the world I'm forced to live in. I have Turk, and he's wonderful, but I need someone who can speak English."

He chuckled a little at that, and Faith did as well. She sighed, and her shoulders slumped. "I'm not asking you to leave Ellie for me. I would never ask that. I just…" she lifted her hands and let them drop. "I don't know. I don't know how to deal with the fact that you're pulling away, and I'm… moving on, I guess? Or not. Or… I don't know. I just feel really alone, and I really need you, and I don't know how to deal with that."

She fell silent. Michael didn't respond for a long while. She stared at the fire while she waited for him to reply, not wanting to meet his eyes. Turk sensed her tension and laid his head in her lap. It helped, but only a little.

Finally, Michael took a deep breath. "Wow. That's a lot to unpack."

She chuckled, and the lump in her throat tightened. "Yeah."

After another moment, he said, "There's really nothing I can say that's going to be very encouraging. So, I'll just apologize in advance for the hurt and be blunt.

"First and foremost, you're right. I won't leave Ellie. She is my first priority. She's my wife, and I love her very much. I plan to spend the rest of my life with her, and yes, one day that will mean leaving the FBI. Probably not in the near future, but probably not in the far future either."

The lump constricted further. Faith only nodded, not trusting herself to speak without the pain showing in her voice.

"Second, and I know I'm beating a dead horse here, but change is unavoidable. I know it sucks that a lot of things are changing in your life, but that's just the way it is. I am married to Ellie. Turk is getting older. Your career is in jeopardy because, frankly, you're good enough at your job to earn the notice of the wider world, including the latest wacko who's obsessed with you. Does this all suck? Yes. Is there anything you can do about it? No. You can leave your career, but that's the only way you can affect anything I've just mentioned. The rest comes along with the territory.

"And that leads to the first thing you can control. You haven't been forced to live this life, Faith. You haven't had this job thrust upon you. You can leave." She started to protest, and he lifted his hand. "Before you start protesting, let me say this. You love your job, but you also hate it. Maybe you don't see it, or maybe you aren't ready to admit it, but you do. You used to be happy when we worked cases. Not happy that people were getting murdered, but you liked doing this kind of work. It fulfilled you. Lately, though, it's more of an obsession. You have to find these killers, and until you do, you're under so much stress, it seems like you're going to have a heart attack. You're irritable and anxious and exhausted. You can't handle media attention at all. The thought of Turk retiring terrifies you. Each time you see a victim, you die a little inside. You're working yourself into an early grave, and I'll be honest, a part of me hopes you are forced out of the field because maybe then you'll give yourself a chance to heal instead of picking at old wounds every few weeks."

She looked back at the fire. A lot of what he said was true, but especially the part about work being an obsession. She just blocked out the thought of not being a field agent. The idea that she might not be doing what she'd done for the past eleven years was inconceivable.

But did she still want it? Or was it just the only thing she knew how to do? Was losing this what terrified her, or was she just afraid to step into a new future?

"I won't tell you to leave," he said. "You wouldn't listen even if I did. But I will tell you to stop acting like this is happening to you. You can choose to stop this at any time."

He shifted to face her. "Now, as for your feelings for me and David. I can't tell you if you're in love with David or not. It's up to you to decide what kind of future you want with him. As for me, I can promise you one thing. We will always be friends, and I will be there for you when you need to talk. I'm married to Ellie, and I still met you for donuts at ten-thirty at night so you could vent to me."

"Yeah. Thank you for that, by the way."

"You're welcome, but let me finish. If what you need from me is a friend who knows what it's like to be the janitor who cleans up after murderers, then you have that. That won't change just because I go home to another woman.

"But I am going home to another woman. And the part of you that thinks we need to be lovers to be friends needs to die. I know that's harsh, but it's reality. It's one of the things you can't control but also one of the things you can. You can't control that I'm unavailable as a romantic partner, but you can control the fact that you're conflating your fear of losing me as a friend into a belief that you're meant to be with me instead of David."

He sighed. "Final piece of advice, and this one you can take or leave because I'm talking a little bit out of turn. I think you need to tell David everything you just told me."

Her eyes snapped to him. "What? Are you serious?"

"I am. It's not fair to him to think that you're ready to take a huge step forward in your relationship when you're struggling with whether or not you're in love with another man." He cocked his head. "Maybe not everything you just told me. We still need to be partners, and Ellie and I nearly broke up because she thought I still had feelings for you. But tell him that you're unsure about your future."

"The last time I told him that, he nearly broke up with me."

"I know. And he might break up with you this time. But you owe it to him, to be honest. You might not see a future with him, but he sees one with you. If that future doesn't exist, he deserves to know."

Faith lowered her eyes again. Once more, Michael was right. Damn it, why couldn't one thing in her life be easy?

She heard footfalls, and a moment later, Wyatt and seven other police officers walked into the clearing. They moved carefully to avoid any traps and rendezvoused with the three agents.

They left the forest together. Behind them, the first grays of dawn shone through the branches. Light wouldn't come for a while yet, and when it came, it would last only briefly.

But it would be enough for them to find their way out of the wilderness.