A/N:
Here it is!
Sorry all for the delay, I was in Tahoe with no internet. But here is the first chapter of your sequel, finally! I'm SO excited to bring back all my favorite characters, and a few more.
So. Read. Enjoy. Review!
WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Jason Bourne. I strongly advise you to watch that first, as well as read my first story, The Bourne Rebellion, if you haven't already.
The Bourne Resurgence
Aaron:
I cried the day I found out. We all did. Though I bore the news with a stony face at first, later I found Marta in the back bedroom sobbing, and after taking her in my arms, we both grieved together.
Nikki was dead. Murdered by an elite D-track government assassin after she dug a little too deep in her search for answers.
We had learned the news from Jason himself. After an anxious week of knowing something was up, as every news telecaster in the country couldn't stop squawking about the whirlwind of scandals and conspiracies going on behind Deep Dream, with no word from either Jason or Nikki, the ex-Treadstone agent had suddenly shown up on our doorstep with the news that Parsons had been shot.
Anyone could see he blamed himself. The past year had been rough for him and Nikki, regarding their relationship. Parsons, eager to burn the CIA down to the ground for all of its corruption, sought to press Bourne into joining the fight with her once more to bring to light more than just Byer's dealings with Outcome. Bourne, on the other hand, was sick and tired of playing the spy game. He wanted to fall off the grid, once and for all. To live out a peaceful life. A life he chose for himself.
I couldn't blame him.
After months of constant disagreement, surfacing in more than one area, the two of them separated - Nikki joining a hacktivist group set on exposing the CIA and its programs, and Jason running away to find his solitude and peace of mind in beating the crap out of sweaty workmen.
But when Nikki had approached him that night, claiming to have information on his father, the meet quickly leading to her death, Jason easily felt responsible. Not only had he not been able to protect her, but he had initially left her to operate on her own, with no one to watch her back. He told himself that he should have helped her. He should have protected her. He should have stayed with her.
His only consolation was that he killed the men responsible, and did his part to expose at least some of the corruption behind the CIA, as well as finding out the truth about his father - information Nikki died to give him.
The fact that the Asset was dead was the only reason I stayed in the house long enough to hear out Jason's story. A part of me almost half wished the assassin was still alive - if only to have the satisfaction of being able to kill him myself.
As it was, however, there was nothing left to be done but mourn.
Together, the three of us and little James, now 6, held a small service in honor of Nikki, and afterwards it was arranged that Jason stay at the house for a few days, until he was ready to leave again.
So far, he had spent two nights in the spare bedroom upstairs.
I couldn't imagine it, as I lay in bed staring up at the ceiling, the moonbeams shining through the trees outside and dancing in crazy patterns across the walls. I couldn't imagine losing the one I loved. For they had loved each other. The separation was more to give each other space than to finalize anything.
Beside me, the shadow of Marta's back loomed, her breathing rhythmic, while I could feel the warmth of her body through the sheets - her figure slightly distorted in the darkness, as she was now five months pregnant with our second child.
For a moment I stared, trying to imagine it. Trying to imagine her gone, James motherless, and the life we had built together destroyed.
I couldn't do it. Though the both of us had had our fair share of a troubled past, the life we lived now in a quiet suburban neighborhood - Marta trading in her lab coat to become a fulltime wife and mother, and myself curbing my unique skill set to protect others in the police force - it fit perfectly. Neither of us had any regrets. Any moment where we longed for "the good old days". We were happy. We were at peace. And neither of us could ever imagine having to return to what we were before…
Suddenly, I tensed. It was more of an instinctual response, than a purposeful action.
Something was wrong. And somewhere, deep into my subconscious, my brain knew that - sharpened and fine tuned to react after years of training and living as an operative.
Some habits die hard, or never die at all.
Sitting up in bed, I strained my ears to listen, eyes trying to pierce the darkness with what little light the moon provided.
I could see and hear nothing.
Beside me, Marta stirred and lay a hand on my thigh, waking at my movement and staring up at me blearily. "Another nightmare?" she asked sleepily, curling up against my side.
"I don't know yet…. Did you hear that?" I hissed urgently, ears and eyes once more trying to pick up the whisper of sound I now wondered if I had imagined.
It had been so quiet and subtle I couldn't rightly distinguish what it was. A whisper of wind, or an exhaled breath?
"No, hear what? Aaron, what's going on?" Marta queried, her tone a little more anxious this time, while she propped herself up on her elbow to look at me.
"Shh," I silenced, holding up a hand, and she obediently clamped her mouth tight and looked from me to the darkness of the hallway.
My skin was tingling, every hair on end. It seemed like my very cells were screaming at me that something was wrong, though I couldn't pinpoint what or where.
"Marta, go get James," I ordered in a low, urgent tone, sliding fluidly out of bed and opening my bedside table drawer to produce my Beretta 92Fs, quietly checking to ensure a load was in the chamber.
On the other side of the bed, Marta scrambled out, eyes wide, but dutifully staying quiet and heading straight for the door that joined the bedroom to the nursery. I waited until she disappeared inside, before raising my gun and heading down the hallway.
I moved like a wraith down the hall, eyes fixed behind my sights and moving like one mechanism, one silent, controlled step following another, while every sense was on high alert.
Get out, my instinct screamed at me, you're walking into a trap. But I didn't care. Marta and James were in the bedroom right behind me. I had to ensure that they would be safe.
And all too soon, the trap was sprung.
Sensing movement to my left in a patch of shadow, I spun to face it, but before I could fire off a shot, a dark shape suddenly leapt out and latched onto my wrists, bodily slamming me up against the wall. Glass shattered as picture frames crashed to the floor, my Beretta clattering uselessly down the hall, while in the next instant I was staring down the barrel of a Glock 17, a polished fingernail, made pale in the moonlight, curling over the trigger.
I ducked a millisecond before the shot rang out, cutting it so close the explosion of gas singed my face and fragments of drywall fell into my hair, but didn't waste a moment lashing out in self-defense, delivering two lightning-fast blows to my attacker's kidneys, before using my low position to pick whoever it was up, and toss down the hall into the kitchen table.
A woman, the back part of my brain told my front, thinking back to my glimpse of the slender finger on the trigger. This was confirmed when I picked her up, feeling a lightweight frame and smooth skin - though surprisingly strong, as demonstrated by the amount of force I was slammed into the wall. 126 lbs, lithe, and fast reflexes, I mentally added to the small profile I was building, as I watched her shape curl in the air and land on her back on the table, using the momentum to carry her right off of it and land with a catlike grace.
I had barely enough time to take a few steps toward her, before I caught the tell-tale rasp of steel, and glint in the moonlight - giving me just enough warning to feint to the side as a throwing dagger flashed right by my face. The next second, and the chick used the momentary distraction to leap up on the corner of the table and wrap her thighs around my neck, her momentum flipping us both to the ground.
I fell hard, taking most of the impact and instantly feeling dazed and choked, before my eyes widened as in front of a halo of blonde hair, another blade flashed in the moonlight. My arms instantly came up to defend myself, but before either of us could make a move, I saw her head dart up to focus on something over my head further down the hall, before she made a desperate dive off of me and to the side, landing in a roll right as several shots rang out following her progress, chasing her across the kitchen floor.
Took you long enough, Bourne.
Timing it just right, I sent a targeted kick towards the table leg right as the woman moved to take cover behind it, and the result was the hardwood corner smacked her right in the temple, her head snapping back to hit the tile with an audible smack.
Silence, and both Jason and I scurried around either end of the table, myself catching my fallen Beretta that he tossed to me as we did so, and both of us training our guns on the form sprawled out on the floor.
"Marta!" I called. "Get the lights!"
Neither Jason or I took our eyes off of the woman on the floor, but I could hear Marta scurry out of the bedroom behind me, James in her arms, and a moment later the lights flicked on.
The woman on the floor wasn't moving, a halo of blonde hair wild on the tile, while a trickle of wet, sticky blood was progressing steadily down along the side of her face.
"She's still alive," Jason announced, having crouched down to feel her pulse with two wary fingers, before quickly disarming her of another four blades lining her belt. "You okay, Cross?"
I didn't answer, still fixated on the woman's face, the arm holding my gun going slack with shock.
It was her.
The woman I never thought to see again was bleeding on my kitchen floor.
"Cross! What is it? Who is she?" Jason asked, looking from me to her, alarmed at my reaction.
"It's - It's her," I stammered, still staring.
"Who?! Aaron!"
With an effort I looked up at Jason, still in shock, then over at Marta who by this time had crowded in to see.
"It's her," I said again, speaking to Marta. "It's June Monroe."
A/N:
Dun, dun, duuhhhhh! I'm so excited to pump out this next chapter for all of you guys! But please, leave me a review, and thank you all for earlier ones!
-Hawkward Russian