Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The authors are in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended. Portions of dialogue from the Season 2 episode “Sedition” were used in this story, though I think we’ve managed to give it our own spin and fill in some missing components. Credit for some dialogue goes to Carol Barbee, Matthew Federman, and Stephen Scaia.
Part Two
“No way! Hamburgers?” If not for the lack of space and physical dexterity, Bill Kohler was certain he would have done back flips when Heather Lisinski set a cardboard box on a table. The box was filled with wrapped, lukewarm sandwiches. The canned food to which the fugitive Rangers had been relegated to eating sustained them but lacked in the flavor department entirely. “I could kiss you…or cry…or…”
Heather waved her hand dismissively. “I’m not the hero. I’m just the delivery girl. You can thank Mary when you see her.”
Eric Green joined the gathering group of hungry fugitives who, with the exception of Stanley Richmond, eagerly reached into the box to retrieve a burger. “And no kisses, Bill,” Eric warned, semi-jokingly.
Bill replied, but Heather could not tell what he was saying, for his mouth was stuffed with food. Around the room she looked, amazed to see the moods of the inhabitants of the warehouse were improved with the help of a creature comfort—or was there something else?
“Have you heard anything from Jake?” Emily asked retrieving two burgers from the box.
The way the taller woman’s eyes fell upon her made Heather feel as though she should seek cover. She wanted to hide the darkness that ringed her eyes from lack of sleep. She wanted to hide the fact that her heart beat quickly anytime Jake’s name was mentioned, the fact that she felt like she was going to come apart at the seams over the thought of him being somewhere out there—somewhere unreachable. Always unreachable, actually. He shouldn’t be her concern, yet he was. She felt utterly stupid for it. Stupid for doing too much. Stupid for doing too little. Just stupid.
Heather shook her head, her façade securely in place. “Just that he’s still in custody. I can’t get any more details than that.”
Emily appeared to be on the cusp of saying something, thought better of it, and pursed her lips before walking toward Stanley. Heather’s eyes followed Emily, and she watched the slender blonde cajole Stanley to eat, to no avail. Heather’s heart sank. Stanley stared straight ahead, barely acknowledging Emily. As much as Heather abhorred the thought of Jake being held prisoner, she couldn’t help but admire the sacrifice that he was willing to make for his friend. Stanley, in his present state, wouldn’t have lasted an hour in custody.
“Major Beck has men watching Mary, watching, well, most everyone except me, I guess.”
“He trusts you. That can work to our advantage,” Eric asserted.
For the couple of months that she had worked closely with the Army major, the two had grown to respect one another and, she thought, trust each other’s judgment. And then there were times that she thought maybe that rapport between them extended beyond the confines of their roles. They never openly acknowledged it, which was fine by Heather, as she hadn’t quite sorted her feelings toward a certain brash sheriff, either, but it was there.
And now? She couldn’t entirely wrap her mind around what was happening—had happened—so quickly. She was disappointed in Beck, felt sickened by the turn of events, actually; yet he was so doggedly certain that his approach to handling Jericho was right, and no matter what she said, he seemed determined to cling to that belief. But there had to be something, some way that she could convince him. That was one of the only reasons she stayed in her job when all she wanted to do was put as much distance between herself and the Army headquarters as she possibly could. Heather sighed, the one small outward sign of the defeat she felt. “Beck’s so certain that he’s right.”
“Well, maybe now that we’ve gone all A-Team on his ass, he’ll start to see things differently,” Bill added, the pride of the earlier ambush on the Army supplies convoy evident in both his tone and expression.
Heather jerked her head toward Eric, a sick feeling knotting its way into her stomach. “What happened?”
Emily strode toward them, answering for Eric. “We intercepted the Army’s supply lines. We’ll trade the supplies for Jake.”
Heather swallowed hard. ‘And so begins the escalation. They push. Beck will push back. It’s going to spiral out of control, and no one will win.’
Eric studied Heather’s reaction, though the young woman was obviously trying to keep a handle on her feelings. He’d spent enough time with her in New Bern to know when she was covering, and he’d be lying if he didn’t admit—at least to himself—that he’d hoped her reaction would’ve been positive instead of so deafeningly silent. “It’s not exactly the way I wanted to handle this, but what leverage do I have? Beck sure as hell can’t keep Jake, and we can’t give him Stanley.”
Heather still said nothing, and Emily, sensing the other woman’s disapproval, looked at her pointedly. “Do you have a better idea?”
“Beck won’t deal,” Heather replied simply.
“He has to.” The way Emily spoke suggested that her mere statement would make it so.
Heather cupped her face, rubbed her eyes, and, letting her hands drop to her sides, fought to keep her voice calm. “No, he doesn’t. I’m not…,” she hesitated, “I’m not trying to be the voice of doom, but…”
Eric motioned for Heather to follow. She did, along with Emily.
Once outside of the warehouse, their conversation continued. “We have to try,” Eric insisted.
“I understand what you’re trying to do. Not just for Jake but for this town and its independence. But Eric, I know Edward Beck. He’s not going to back down over guerrilla tactics. He feels like he has the higher moral ground here.” Heather heard Emily snort softly. “He thinks he’s the horse and you’re the fly.”
Eric’s brows furrowed. “Come again.”
“You’re a pest to him, a problem, but in the end, the fly doesn’t take the horse down.”
“Ever been bitten by a horse fly?” Emily asked. “They sting like hell.”
“I know Beck. He’s not going to negotiate with you like this, and if you continue to cause problems for him, more troops will be sent in and people will die.”
“We are not surrendering,” Emily insisted. “That’s not an option. Look what happened to Jake.”
“No one said anything about surrendering,” Eric interjected. “And we will get Jake back. He didn’t leave me behind in New Bern, and I’m not leaving him behind.”
Heather swallowed hard. “But you’re going to have to think of something else. I can keep trying to appeal to Beck and hope that maybe—maybe—I can change his mind or find out something to help.”
Emily crossed her arms. “You may have turned riding the fence into an art form, but we’re running out of time. Jake’s running out time. And us? We’ve put our asses on the line! And there you are, safe little Heather, thinking that talking is going to make this situation better.”
“Emily, I don’t think,” Eric began, but Heather interrupted.
“No, it’s okay, Eric,” Heather replied, holding up her hand before turning to stand toe-to-toe with the woman who had at one point been her best friend. “Let’s get it all out. This has been a long time in coming anyway.”
“No. I am done,” Emily threw up her hands. “You are weak, and I’m done with you.” Emily looked to Eric. “Whatever we do, don’t plan on Heather being part of the solution. Not this time.”
Anger coursed through Heather. She was usually able to keep a handle on her emotions, but hearing Emily’s indictment of her had Heather seeing red. “You don’t know half the things I’ve done for this town, things I’ve done for you! On more than one occasion, I’ve put your happiness above my own because you were my friend.” She chuckled humorlessly. “You’re done with me? Thanks for the favor.”
“Look, Heather, Emily, this is going to get us nowhere. We need to work together or we’ll come apart at the seams.”
Heather looked to Eric. “I’ll do what I can, keep my ears open.”
Eric nodded. “If we can find out where he is, maybe we can get him out of there.”
“Let us know how all that talking works out for you.” With that, Emily headed inside.
Eric looked at Heather ruefully. “Emily’s just worried about Jake. Don’t take what she says to heart.”
But as Heather walked from the warehouse to her truck, her feet crunching in the gravel, another idea began to take form. Maybe she wasn’t the one who needed to do the talking.
In a perfect world, it would have been easy to get hold of Robert Hawkins. A telephone operator would have been able to connect her. A simple drop-by at his house would have solved the problem. But as Heather Lisinski was well aware, she didn’t live in a perfect world, and Mr. Hawkins was decidedly elusive.
It was quite fitting, actually. Even before she knew about Robert Hawkins’s role in the conspiracy behind the attacks, she’d known him to be enigmatic—and that was putting it mildly. Now she found herself wondering what angle he was playing, as well as what exactly Jake had pulled her into. But after securing the paper from the binder in Major Beck’s office that showed the coordinates of the nuclear bomb that tied the Cheyenne government to the attacks, she’d not heard anything else. Certainly nothing from Beck, who continued to take his orders from Cheyenne, blissfully ignorant of the rot that lay beneath the surface. Perhaps if Mr. Hawkins could provide the evidence he had tying Cheyenne to the attacks, that would open the major’s eyes to what was going on around him, or at the very least put it into perspective. For some, their defiance was bigger than Jake, bigger than Stanley.
Returning to the center of town, filled with disappointment, anger, and a whole host of other conflicting emotions, Heather was stunned to find chaos. Throngs of people were being ushered down the street. Roadblocks were being erected. Yellow notices were being posted on businesses. Windows and door were boarded.
She spotted Lieutenant Jones, one of the friendlier officers she knew. After pulling her truck off the road and parking, she quickly made her way toward him.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Lisinski, but you need to go home. I want you to stay safe, and it could get ugly out here.”
“What’s going on?” Heather uttered, almost afraid to hear his answer.
“Jericho’s being shut down.”
Heather grabbed one of his notices and felt the blood whoosh in her ears. This was what she had feared, what she had hoped to avoid. She rushed from the young lieutenant, but instead of heading toward home, maneuvered her way through the crowd to get to town hall. Sentries were posted outside all the entry points, but she was easily recognizable to them, and thus, they allowed her access.
She was a woman on a mission, forced into action by her outrage. No one tried to hinder her. After all, she was trusted.
Heather stormed into Major Beck’s office, a yellow notice in her hand, stopping in front of the desk behind which he sat. She angrily slammed down the notice. “What is this?”
Beck looked at her and spoke evenly. “I think it’s pretty self-explanatory. No power. No water. No food. A full embargo if those men aren’t in my custody tonight.” Her pained expression felt like a punch in the gut, but he couldn’t allow himself the luxury of second-guessing himself or assuaging her concerns when they were at cross purposes. His assignment had to come first.
“I’ve been defending you to everyone. I’ve tried to tell them that you are not a bad person, that you’re not the enemy…”
He couldn’t listen to her disappointment, not when it was misdirected, and not when he fought against his own disappointment that the situation had come to this, as well. Beck interrupted, “How long or how much this town suffers is up to its citizens. Somebody knows where those men are.”
Heather placed her hands on the edge of his desk and leaned forward. “The Rangers were saving lines back when you couldn’t find Jericho on a map. They kept order, fought off raiders, organized the fight against New Bern. People won’t just give them up.”
“Whatever their reasons, this government will not tolerate insurrection.”
Heather straightened. “Do you remember the question you asked when you asked me to take this job and I didn’t want it? You asked me if I couldn’t tell the difference between you and Phil Constantino.” She paused before adding, “Right now, I can’t.” She couldn’t bear his harsh gaze anymore and averted her eyes, seeing his helmet on his desk for the first time and the picture tucked inside it. A woman and a child. His family. Though he didn’t say so, she believed he counted them among the dead. Yet they were still his family. How could he do this to other families?
Beck noticed her staring and turned the helmet over, obscuring her view of the picture. “Then help me. Talk to Jake yourself. Get him to realize what he’s doing to this town.”
Jake. Her heart raced at Beck’s suggestion. She longed to see him, but not like this, not as a pawn against him.
Heather shook her head slightly. “You’ve had him in custody three days. He’s not doing this. You are. And I—I can’t keep defending you.”
Light.
It surrounded him. He was starting to think it was all he knew, all he would ever know.
But then the brightness faded to the mere glow of a sunny day. He was on Main Street, where he’d been countless times. Heather was giving him advice on how to handle her truck, and he could feel anxiety emanating from her, almost in waves.
She looked so luminous in the sun. Did she know?
“Maybe you should take a horse.”
No, she didn’t know.
This moment. Why this moment? The thought was fleeting as he studied her—the concern in her voice, the way her blue eyes stood out from her dark lashes—as they were next to the old red truck she called Charlotte, and he felt the familiar tug that he had tried repeatedly to suppress.
“A horse won’t get me there as fast,” he found himself replying automatically, the same words he had once used.
“A horse is less likely to blow up.” The pitch of her voice rose, an elevation which he recognized mirrored her increased fear for him. Knowing her as he did, he knew she was running through multiple worst case scenarios in her mind, imagining every problem that could occur and trying to solve those problems, whether they were real or imagined.
And then Jake found himself chuckling. His amusement only served to make her frown deepen. “What’s so funny?”
Jake gestured around them, the flurry of activity on Main Street. “This. We’ve done it before.” He touched the truck, his fingers leaving an imprint in the dirt that coated it.
“Come again?”
“You’re about to warn me about not getting shot at on the left side. And then you’re going to kiss me.”
“What?!? No.” Her cheeks colored.
“Why are we back at this point?” A part of him wanted to brush aside the question, wanted to simply relive that brief moment when she clung to him, that moment when their lives intersected so perfectly and so unexpectedly.
Her voice quivered. “Are you sure you should go to Rogue River? I mean, you’re not acting like yourself. If you got there and fell ill…”
“Eric went—is going—with me.”
“Oh. That’s good to know.” She paused. “Jake, I’m serious. You sound really strange. I don’t think you should go.”
“If I don’t, my father will die.” Then his words hit him. “He’s going to die anyway.”
Heather, misunderstanding the meaning behind his words, tried to offer words of encouragement. “Don’t talk like that. Your dad is strong. His body just needs a little help.”
But he remembered all too well seeing his father, pale, bleeding, lying on the table of the Richmond farm house. How he breathed his last breaths, but not before saying those words Jake had longed to hear: “I’m proud of you.”
The honking of a horn interrupted them. Jake’s heart leapt a bit when he saw his old Road Runner. He’d had to leave it behind in New Bern when he went for Eric, but this moment was before then.
Jake watched, expecting Emily to emerge as she once had, but instead, it was Chris. And then silence. Stillness. Everything else except the two men stopped, the people walking, the sounds of the town around them. Even Heather was frozen, a look of worry etched onto her delicate features.
“You again.” At one point, Jake would have been overjoyed to see Chris Prowse, but now it seemed the blond man brought with him a sense of foreboding.
“Making up for lost time,” Chris replied as he circled Heather. His fingers ran along the hem of her red sweater. “She’s pretty. A little wholesome for you, don’t you think?”
Jake’s eyes narrowed. “What is this? Groundhog Day meets Dickens? Purgatory?”
“Dickens?” Chris repeated with a smile that did not quite reach his eyes. “No. Though I guess you could argue it’s a purgatory of your own making. Well, with a little help from your friends, as the song goes.”
It was then that Jake zeroed in on the dice hanging on the rear-view mirror of the car.
He swallowed hard. “I’m still in that room.” And the realization brought back memories that crept along the edge of his consciousness.
“Yeah, but I don’t think you want to go back right now.”
“Why would Heather be part of this? And why this moment?”
“Bad memory?” Chris asked.
The right corner of Jake’s mouth turned up. “Not exactly.”
“Who is Heather to you?”
Jake considered Chris’s question. In another time, another world, maybe things would have been different. Hell, so much would’ve been different. Probably not this. Heather deserved better than him. “A friend.”
“Never anything more?”
Jake shook his head. “I wouldn’t let myself go there. She didn’t need my baggage.”
Chris nearly snorted. “There is plenty of that. She’s tied to you anyway. You brought her into your fight with Beck.”
“I needed her help. I didn’t have a choice.” But even as he said the words, they sounded hollow to him.
“Look at her. At this moment, she’s so innocent of what’s to come. All she has right now is hope. You gave her the wrong end of the deal. And as much as I hate to say it, so did Em.”
“How do you know…” Jake stopped short as Chris raised his eyebrows, and with a flash of light, wordlessly disappeared. The flurry of activity that had stopped on its tracks resumed.
“Wow! Where did that come from?” Heather asked, immediately spotting the blue Plymouth.
“That’s mine,” Jake replied.
“She’s a beauty,” Heather murmured as she moved closer to the vehicle to get a better look. “She’ll get you there faster than Charlotte,” she added, Jake thought, a little wistfully. “I don’t know why I was even thinking of sending you in that old truck when you have this.”
Guilt washed over Jake. Of course, she didn’t know about the car. Hell, he hadn’t known about the car until Emily had shown up with it, begged off her father. But it hadn’t been Emily this time, and a part of him was glad for that, glad to have this moment with the young woman who stood before him, even if it wasn’t entirely real.
“Heather.”
She turned her attention from the car back to him. “Can you think of anything else you need?”
“Yeah, I can.” And then he reached out, his hands moving to her hips, and pulled her toward him. She gasped in surprise, but any reticence she may have had quickly dissipated, and she rested her hands against his chest.
It seemed to happen so slowly, as though time itself crept achingly along. Their eyes met, and Jake knew he should let her go, leave this memory behind. To continue to want what he could not have would not serve either of them well. Yet he couldn’t let go. Not yet. His hand trailed up the small of her back, drawing her even closer. And then their lips touched.
It was just as he remembered. She tasted sweet, a tantalizing hint of what could have come if circumstances had been different. Her body felt supple against his, and he was amazed at how well they fit one another.
His kiss deepened. He wanted to consume her and be consumed by her. He couldn’t get close enough to her, and he knew it was about more than this moment. It was every bit of pent up frustration, every ounce of longing he’d felt, from all those times he glanced across the room at town hall to find her a polite stranger, to those quiet moments when they’d shared stale coffee and conversations that masked what he really wanted to say to her. The kiss was an apology and, he thought, a resolution. But if anything, he felt less settled.
Finally, he broke the kiss. Her ivory cheeks were flushed, her breathing shallow. He leaned his forehead against hers, still holding her close. “I promise to come back in one piece.”
“Good,” she managed to say.
“And to watch out for giant irradiated ants.”
The corners of her mouth curled into a smile, despite the worry he knew she felt.
“Ah hell, Jake, what are you doing?” Chris’s voice coming from behind him cut into the moment. “Do you need a reminder of what things are really like between you?”
Main Street faded from view, almost as though in a blur around him. He kept Heather in his sight for as long as he could, and then even she faded away, oblivious to the change around them. And then Jake was home, or more specifically, outside his parents’ house. It was night, but the sky held an eerie glow.
And then he and Chris were inside the house, though they had not actually entered through the door. “What’s—“
A knocking on the door interrupted Jake’s question to Chris. “You going to answer that?”
“What are you?” Jake asked. “My imagination? Am I so far gone I’m dreaming you up?”
Chris shrugged, his eternally youthful face marred by a smirk. “Earlier you thought I was a ghost. Take your pick.” He cleared his throat, much like Jake remembered he used to do. “Now, aren’t you going to answer that? You really should see this through.”
Jake grabbed the doorknob and turned it, pulling the door open, just as Heather was about to knock again. She narrowly missed knocking him in the face. And then when he saw the expression on her face, he wondered if she didn’t wish that she had hit him.
“It’s you.” The harshness of her voice was unmistakable, but it was tinged with something else not easily identifiable.
Jake swallowed hard and looked back to Chris who sat on the second step on the staircase, observing the scene with keenest interest. He turned back to Heather. “I do live here,” he found himself reminding her, just as he had done about two weeks earlier.
He watched as Heather shifted from one foot to the other. “Emily sent a message that she was having some kind of oven crisis, but if you’re here, she doesn’t really need me, so…” Heather’s voice trailed off.
Jake tried to ignore Chris’s chuckle. As Jake recalled, Emily’s oven crisis hadn’t been much of a crisis; it had been more of a self-imposed panic brought on by a power surge that had tripped the circuit breaker needed to power the oven/stove top combination.
“You don’t have to rush off.”
Heather shook her head slightly. “I can’t stay.”
She turned to walk away, and Jake, feeling her slipping from his grasp, made one last-ditch plea. “Heather, wait.”
She paused, turned around, and sighed, “I can’t.” With that simple statement, she resumed her short trek down the front steps.
Jake jumped as he realized that Chris was suddenly peering over his shoulder and offering commentary. “Hmmm, she doesn’t look quite as fresh-faced and hopeful as she did before, does she? And just like that, she’s out of reach.”
Jake’s teeth grazed his bottom lip. Chris had a point; Heather looked as though she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders. Between planting her smack in the middle of the simmering conflict between Beck and himself, as well as their constant emotional tug-of-war, Jake knew he had hefted the weight on her. “This is exactly what happened. She left, and I let her go.”
“You’ve perfected that move to a science,” Chris commented. “You let me go on that job. Got myself killed.”
“I couldn’t have stopped you. You said so yourself.”
Chris persisted. “You let Em go when I died.”
Jake swallowed hard, the memories of those moments coming at him hard and fast: Emily’s tears, her screaming, her blame, her fists beating against his chest. “She threw me out.”
“She was hurting,” Chris shot back. “I might’ve been a hell raiser, but I was the only little brother she had. That we know of,” he added. “She needed you, and you ran.”
Jake’s eyes followed Heather as she continued walking down the sidewalk, her outline getting smaller and smaller the further away we got. The source of Jake’s attention was not lost on Chris. “Guess you and Em are doomed to rinse and repeat. If this little show proves nothing else, you’re going to leave her behind again. Assuming you get out of here, of course.”
“What’s the point of all this?” Jake demanded. “Trying to show me where I’ve failed? Believe me, I know my shortcomings.”
“So what are you going to do about them, Jake? Are you going to run from what has to be done?”
“Get him up,” the brusque voice of Major Beck seemed to filter through on the night wind.
Jake looked to Chris who faded from view, along with the familiarity of the house. Instead, he was back in confinement. The light, his constant companion, was directed into his eyes by an unseen soldier after he was pulled into a wooden chair and the binds on his hands were tightened behind him.
“I came to tell you that I’m shutting Jericho down.” Beck’s voice held no satisfaction, no hint of gloating. He spoke without emotion.
Jake’s eyes, dry and weary, struggled to focus on the Army major. He said nothing.
“Do you really want to see how far I will take this?” Beck asked. “Tell me where the Rangers are.”
“What are you going to do? You going to run from this?” Chris’s voice filled his mind, and Jake blinked, the motion painful as his eyes burned from their dryness. “You letting the Rangers go, too?”
His lips were chapped, his throat was parched, but with the all the strength and conviction he could muster, Jake gave Beck his answer. “Go to hell.”