Jaguar & Falcon - Atlanta

"Green light. Repeat - green light."

I took a deep breath, released it slowly, and watched the man's head settle into the crosshairs. His hand with the pistol left the girl's head to wave in the air, and I felt my body relax as my unconscious took over.

-----------------------------------------

It's true, that age old sniper joke. The first thing a sniper feels when shooting a man is the recoil of her rifle. It wasn't until I realized that the red splattered across the pavement was the inside of his head that a wave of nausea hit. I scrambled away from my gun, made it across to the trashcan, and then vomited.

"Falcon?" Jag's voice in my ear slowed the spinning of my head. "You okay?"

I took a deep breath, weighing my options. "Peachy," I admitted.

"Sweet," he answered. I'm on my way up, is what he meant.

It took him only a couple minutes to make it up to the room where I was stationed. I had already packed up, but was sitting against the wall, head in my hands, attempting to make the room stop its sickening dance. Jag dropped down beside me and removed his earpiece, letting it dangle over his shoulder like mine was.

"I didn't want them to call you."

I shook my head. "I didn't want them to call me either."

His arm slid around my shoulders and I leaned into him easily, allowing his strong frame to support my weakened body for a few minutes. Silence fell between us, only broken by the whine of chatter from our earpieces and the faint hum of traffic on the highway a mile to the east. Finally, I stood up and replaced my earpiece. I felt Jaguar's eyes follow me as I brushed myself off, making sure that I was actually alright. When he finally determined that I was okay, Jaguar hauled himself up and also replaced his earpiece.

"Ready?"

"Affirmative."

He smiled without humor and swung my bag over his shoulder. I picked up my gun case. We looked at each other for a brief moment before he led the way into the stairwell and back down into the fray.