SERIES/UNIVERSE: ATF
DISCLAIMERS: M7 characters belong to Trilogy, et al. Adriana is mine ... don't mind if you borrow her, just ask first, give her back intact and give credit where credit is due. Mindy belongs to herself and my neighbors, though she still thinks my family and I belong to her.
WARNGINGS: Reference to Sept 11 attacks and some really bad language on Nathan's part.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I said I didn't write deathfics ... I never said anything about not writing potential tearjerkers.
Yesterday concluded the cleanup at the World Trade Center. Where two buildings once stood, there is now nothing. I'm still dealing with my own grief and rage (primarily the former, since I have the rage mostly under control). And that is how I deal with grief and rage ... I write.
This story involves the Seven, primarily Vin and Josiah. There are original characters here, but they're in the background. Adriana, of course, is mine. Continued thanks to Sam, for letting me borrow Cheyenne and Carys. Mac and Sam belong to the producers of MacGyver, just as the Seven belong to Trilogy.
That said, on with the fic.
Nearly nine months earlier, they had all stood in this office, watching as two buildings, and thousands of people, died. Nearly nine months earlier, six of the men watched their seventh, the one least likely to ever react so powerfully if one of his wasn't directly threatened, become an enraged demon. Josiah Sanchez had put his arms around the weeping, distraught man and held onto Nathan Jackson with all of his strength.
Nearly nine months earlier. Almost the time it takes for a child to grow in its mother's womb. And now, as they had all those months earlier, the men of Team Seven watched as the cleanup at Ground Zero finally finished. This time, each man was silent. But as Josiah Sanchez looked around the room at his colleagues, his friends, his brothers, there was some of the old anguish on each face.
Nathan's reaction had been the most unexpected, until you stopped to consider that he was a medic, a healer ... and there was nothing he could do to help. Even if they were in the devastated city, there wasn't much chance Nathan could have helped those in the Twin Towers. They watched as thousands of people died, some jumping from the dying buildings ... right in front of their very eyes. And there wasn't a goddamn thing any of them could do about it. Not Nathan, the medic, the healer. Not Chris and Buck, the two friends who had lost their shared family in a devastatingly familiar way.
Not Josiah, who had spent his life looking for God ... and found only flames in the smoking buildings after the two airplanes plowed into them. Not JD, the young Easterner who had visited both Washington DC and New York City so many times as a boy, who had been inside the Twin Towers when he was just a child growing up in New Jersey. Not Ezra, who watched the entire sickening collapse with a clenched jaw and tears running down his face.
And Vin Tanner? Josiah had wiped his eyes, to see, not out of any foolish pride or fear that his friends would think less of him for his tears. No, on that day, on September 11, 2001, there was absolutely no fear of that. Because the lucky ones were the ones who could cry. Vin Tanner was not among those lucky ones. He watched the devastation, a cold mask slipping onto his face. Cold, until you got to his narrowed blue eyes.
And Josiah knew, because he knew Vin Tanner, that the young man was silently vowing revenge for this atrocity. But his heart shattered, too, at what they all saw. Josiah knew then that the rage would be what carried Vin through the days, weeks, and months to follow.
Vin Tanner would put his grieving on hold, while he avenged those who died and took care of his friends, his family. But a day would come when the dam would burst. Josiah had watched and waited through the months, through the busts, the research to confirm this was, indeed, the work of Osama bin Laden. Through his comforting of each member of Team Seven and Team Eight. The dam had to break. It was just a question of when ... and where ... and how.
Now, as Team Eight slowly filtered into the room to watch the ceremony, Josiah took note of each face. Carys and Angus MacGyver holding hands, the white-haired agent not even bothering to wipe away her tears. Sam MacGyver with Cheyenne, each supporting the other. Rafael Martinez taking up position beside Chris. And filing in last, taking up position beside her brother, was Adriana Wilmington, who had come into the ATF as a consulting archaeologist, but was slowly becoming an agent, due to her skills as a historical detective.
Josiah noticed Buck putting his arm around his sister, and was grateful the man didn't question her place at his side. It wasn't that Buck didn't want his sister to be there ... but Adriana was most often found with Vin. Or Chris. And Josiah saw the concerned looks which the young archaeologist directed toward her longtime friend, but he also saw her keeping her vigil in her brother's arms. Buck put his free arm around JD, who took position on his other side.
All eyes were on the tv screen, and a deeper silence fell within the room. The camera zoomed in on an empty stretcher being carried. An empty stretcher, to symbolize all of the thousands who could not rescued, who could not be recovered. An empty stretcher to symbolize the families who could not bury their son or daughter, wife or husband, brother or sister, mother or father ... because there was nothing to bury.
As the two teams leaned on each other for support, the silence in the room was broken by a sound. Josiah couldn't identify it, not at first. It didn't sound human. And then he looked in the direction of the sound as it echoed again. Vin was staring at the tv as the camera showed first the empty stretcher, then the weeping police officers and firefighters, the families of the victims. His hand was outstretched, as if to touch those people, reach out to them. Help them. Which he could not do.
And Josiah understood, even as that dam shattered. Vin doubled over and fell to his knees, that inhuman sound now recognizable as sobs. Great, heartbreaking, tearing sobs, which sounded as if they should have been ripping Vin into two. The young man who had been so strong for everyone else through the devastating attacks, the aftermath, and the months of healing now gave way to his own grief ... which had been locked up inside of him for all these months. He wept, rocking himself as a child would, trying to comfort himself ... maybe as he had wept after his mother's death, more than twenty years earlier?
But this time, Vin wasn't alone. And while Chris, that young man's older brother, was struggling with his own emotions, Josiah was empty. As empty as that stretcher, because he was cried out, screamed out. He could take this burden from his young friend. As Chris started forward, tears rolling down his cheeks, Josiah shook his head, and Rafael put a stilling hand on Larabee's shoulder. Instead, Josiah knelt beside the shattered agent and drew Vin into his arms. Surprisingly ... or perhaps not so surprisingly ... Vin latched onto him.
There was no pretense ... no denial. Vin no longer had the strength to deny his own grief. Josiah held him tightly, with one hand cupping the back of his head and the other gently stroking Vin's back. He whispered, "Let it go, brother ... let it go. You've carried us for all these months. It's our turn." There was no answer from the sharpshooter, but Vin barely had the lung capacity to cry, much less talk.
Eight and a half months earlier, after the initial shock of hearing Nathan Jackson screaming, "I'll kill every last one of those fucking bastards!" wore off, Vin had helped Josiah calm and comfort the healer. Now, the roles were reversed, as Nathan joined Josiah at Vin's side, tears once more streaming down his face. The irony of it almost took Josiah's breath away. Two moments in time, almost mirror images. But now, it was a moment of healing ... not a moment of destruction, as the rest of Team Seven, and Team Eight, all gathered around Josiah and Vin. To comfort. To heal.
Finis
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