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Acrid smoke filled the sky, making it difficult to breathe. Coughing, Jack fought to pull air into his lungs. When he couldn't, panic suffocated him further. Training ticked away the back of his mind, trying to calm the fear so that he could assess the situation. Each inhale stabbed through his chest like a knife. When he gasped in a shallow, insufficient amount of air, some part of him recognized that he could, in fact, breathe. It was too little, not enough to expand his chest fully. Collapsed lung, his mind suggested distantly.
Jack couldn't focus on the soft voice through the coughing fit that gripped him. Head lolling to one side, he spit blood and grit from his lips. When it passed, the man struggled toward a sitting position and ignored the waves of nausea that rolled through his stomach. Frothy bile gagged him, and something warm glued his shirt to his side. Jack reached toward the heat, and his fingers came away stained crimson. If he'd had enough breath to spare, he would have cursed.
Blue sky peeked through the columns of black and grey smoke overhead. Jack couldn't make sense of his surroundings no matter how much he tried. Alarms blared nearby. He should probably do something about that. Reaching for his hip, Jack's fingers brushing an empty holster. He frowned, wondering where his sidearm had gone. A vague memory of drawing the weapon pressed to the forefront of his mind.
Jack had been standing in his office, reaching for the gun when-when what? How had he gotten outside? Pain lanced through Jack's temple when he tried to force images to surface. His blurred vision focused on the rubble beside him, recognizing the frame of his information wall, glass shattered and broken scenes flickering fitfully in the gloom. Dizzying recollection flooded through him; he was lying in the remains of his office. Jack peered through the rapidly darkening smoke and realized that it wasn't just his office. It looked like the wreckage of the entire Swiss headquarters.
Smoke swirled to Jack's left, coalescing into deeper shadow. A ghost stepped through the broken bits of building, gliding closer. Only the crunch of glass beneath boots warned Jack that it wasn't some apparition coming to punish him for his sins. The figure paused, and a pale mask swiveled toward Jack's prone form. Flames danced across the ivory surface, before disappearing in soulless black eyes. As the form took on the shape of familiarity, fear and fury soured in the pit of Jack's stomach. The emotion escaped his lips in a low growl.
"There you are," a disembodied voice taunted, arrogance dripping from every word. The man leaped over a fragment of the command table. "I didn't think you'd die that easily."
"Sorry to disappoint," Jack answered. He poured every ounce of sarcasm and anger into the words, but they rasped out barely above a whisper.
Though Jack didn't know what the man looked like behind the mask, he was certain that he smirked at the comment. The shadow towered over Jack without fear or remorse. A boot came to rest on the center of Jack's chest. His pain doubled, tripled, until blackness ate the edges of his vision. Even the shallow breaths that he'd managed earlier seemed beyond his body's power now.
Jack sagged against the masonry where he'd been thrown during the explosion. Explosion? A fragmented memory of searing heat and weightlessness threatened to swallow him, but he pushed it away. Jack ran his tongue over his lips, hoping to impart enough moisture to curse the man who had taunted him for years. "Reaper," he spat the name like venom. The terrorist had dogged Jack's every movement, striking when least expected. He'd nearly dragged the organization to its knees, nearly. "You can kill me, but it won't kill Overwatch. They will find you-"
"Care to wager on that?" Reaper raised one gun to rest on his shoulder. Jack stared at the inky coating, wondering why it looked so familiar, but he couldn't place it. The second nestled against Jack's chest, muzzle over his heart. "Not that it matters, you won't be around to see it either way."
"Overwatch is bigger than me," Jack wheezed, ignoring the dizziness that triplicated Reaper above him. The man's images swayed, meshed together, then broke apart again. Even if Jack had access to a weapon, he wouldn't know which to shoot.
Reaper laughed, a sound that set chills racing down Jack's spine, and holstered one of his weapons. The other remained steadfast on Jack's chest. There was no getting out of this one; it was really over. Reaper scoffed under his breath. "You still don't understand do you? Overwatch will burn. Too bad you won't be around to see it, Boyscout."
Reality cracked, splintering down the center. The breath in Jack's lungs froze as pieces fell into place with deafening clarity. Suddenly, he understood why Reaper's stance looked so familiar, why the way he walked recalled a tingle on the tip of Jack's tongue. He saw it in the spread of the man's shoulders, the arrogant saunter, and the way he handled the weapon. How had he not noticed until now?
Nausea squeezed Jack's stomach until he wanted to bring up every meal that he'd ever eaten. He wrapped a hand around the leg that pressed him to the ground and levered himself closer to the man he'd once trusted. Blood coated his tongue, making it difficult to speak, but he had to know. "Why, Gabe?"
The weapon nearly crushed Jack's chest when Gabe leaned into it, using his free hand to remove the bloodless mask that covered his once familiar face. The man tossed it aside like an afterthought and leaned closer. "It was you or me." Reaper's jaw clenched, then his finger moved to the trigger. "It has to end this way; choose your last words carefully, Strike Commander."
Jack swallowed around the betrayal that threatened to choke him. Without the mask, he couldn't reconcile his one time lover with the notorious Reaper. He'd known Gabe for the better part of thirty years, allowing him closer than anyone else. Jack had been a miserable, homesick farm boy until Gabe took him under his wing. They'd lived through the hell of SEP together, surviving inexplicable odds a dozen times over. Then, Overwatch. And, Jack didn't need to close his eyes to remember the sweaty nights spent wrapped around each other. He saw it all in Gabe's face.
Maybe this fight was as inevitable as Gabe thought. Every decision that Jack had made over the years pushed them toward this point. He'd distanced himself from Gabe after Blackwatch fell from grace. Would it have made a difference if Jack opened up more? Could he have changed the outcome?
Swallowing blood with his regrets, Jack lifted his head. He searched the wild brown eyes above for a sliver of the man that he knew. There was nothing left. I did that, he realized. Now that it had slipped through his fingers, Jack ached for the time he'd wasted. He could curse Gabe for everything that happened, or focus on the parts he wanted to remember.
Hope swelled in Jack's chest, the warmth temporarily smothering his pain. Maybe it wasn't too late to change things; he knew what he needed to say. Jack forced himself to smile despite the blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. "I love yo-"
Pain obliterated Jack's world and darkness swallowed him.