Hi, so here is the final chapter! I am so glad to have this done before New Years! I wish you all a very happy and safe 2019!

I hope I will come back to this fandom soon but in the meantime thank you to all of you who have read this little fanfic-I hope you have enjoyed.

Disclaimer-Nothing is mine.

Please Read and Review.

Gone Maybe Gone

Chapter 5-Never Say Goodbye

Laurel has a decision to make, Pride exacts his revenge, Rebecca puts up one last fight and life begins to slowly return to some semblance of normality. Final Chapter.

Creeping along the corridor there was a pause where he stood there and took a breath. Now was not the time for Dwayne to fall apart. He had a job to do and his daughter was depending on him doing it. She needed him put together not falling apart. This was a fight between him and Rebecca and now it had to end. Laurel had just been cannon fodder to the woman—in the way. In hindsight it could have been any of his team in there. It could have been Rita.

It had not though. It had been his daughter.

And for that Rebecca had to die.

He had chosen this route as the first thing he had seen on the security guards desk. An injured Rebecca would be moving slowly not quick. Her body had not had the chance to rest so she wouldn't want to climb many stairs but she also wouldn't want to use an elevator and get stuck and come face to face with a SWAT team on the other side. She would need the long way—the long routes of this corridor that span all around the place like a great snake and she would move slowly allowing him time to catch up with her.

Then the question when they came face to face was aim and Dwayne liked to think that he was actually a pretty decent shot when it came to aim and could fire well, even now in the mood that he was in.

He turned his phone off. This had started out between him and Rebecca's lover or husband or whoever he had been—this had to finish with him and Rebecca. Both of them blamed the other for losing their loved one. Both of them were prepared to die to avenge or keep that loved one safe. And therefore that was what made this the best of the best of shootouts because they had nothing to loose either way. Because if Laurel were to suddenly flatline…if she was to give up the fight that she had engaged in all this time…

Then he didn't want to live anyway.

There was sudden movement to his left and he had the good sense to throw himself backwards into the side of the wall before the gunshots started. It was her it had to be. Chris or any of the rest of his team would let him know instantly that it was NCIS shooting. Rebecca had no such security.

He waited until there was a pause and then fired back. There was a good amount of dust coming out of the way of the wall and he paused breathing in the smell of gunfire. There was more firing and he fired back reaching for the second clip of bullets he always kept. Sooner or later one of them had to tire out or backup had to arrive. He was hoping for the last option if he was being honest with himself but he was prepared for all or nothing.

And then the moment came to him. It was a clear moment where he saw the flash of blonde step out. Rebecca was forcing the confrontation with him. He saw the bloodied and bruised face of the woman he now hated above all others and he took a breath. There was too much at stake for him to get this wrong. He had to get it right. Laurel's life might depend on him getting this one little shot right.

He loaded up his gun and then went for the shot. He caught her in the arm and then she twisted coming out fully. There was the sound of a bullet whizzing a little too past his head for comfort but then there was another sound, a groan, he kept shooting and he watched as Rebecca's body twisted with the impact of the bullets and then slowly she fell to the ground her hair falling around her blood pouring from her body. And just like that the rivalry between him and the woman who had shot his daughter and tried to fit him up for murder was over.

The door to his left slammed open and Dwayne turned around gun raised to see Christopher coming through the door Tammy running behind him her hair flying her face white. Christopher looked at Rebecca and then back at him again but Tammy didn't even give the woman on the floor a glance, her eyes were on him and suddenly Dwayne had a feeling he was about to enter a new private agony.

"Laurel's flatlining" Tammy said. It was all she had to say.

"Go" Chris said his arms outstretched. "We can take care of—" but he didn't hear the end of that sentence. Instead he was running towards the ward his daughter was in pushing his aching body towards complete collapse so he could get there as fast as he could. He felt like being sick again—everything that he had been feeling in the last few hours was crashing down among him and it was all he could do to keep his feet moving one in front of the other.

Laurel heard the beeping even from where she was still sat. She turned around jumping to her feet and looking around. Her grandmother did not say anything instead she chose to look at her hands but Laurel had a feeling she knew what was coming—she had asked to wait her to think about weather or not she lived or died—not that she had done much thinking about it when she did wonder…and now the decision was taken out of her hands and she was dying.

It was a sobering thought.

And as soon as she thought it she realised that she wanted to go back. Odd. She hadn't felt like this before but now she did. She felt like she had to go back and finish…well…go back and live. Because it was obvious now wasn't it? Of course she wanted to live. She wanted to live and love and learn.

She turned again.

"I need to go back" she said finally after working the words into her throat. "I need to go back…I want to go back…"

Her grandmother nodded her fingers pressed together as if she too had expected this.

Laurel could hear her mother and her father, Rita, Loretta everyone in her head and it hurt…it hurt to listen to it. All she wanted to do was make their pain stop—she had been kidding herself thinking that sitting here was better than making a decision. She had known her decision but had chickened out scared of the pain like some kind of coward. Laurel Pride was no coward. She wanted to live.

"Well then my dear" her grandmother said smoothing down her skirts as she too stood up.

"Until we meet again"

"Eh—Grandma? How do I…?"

"Just run dear…just run"

And Laurel suddenly knew what she had to do. Turning she ran towards the doors of the NCIS New Orleans office pushing open the wooden doors think and heavy. She didn't look behind her to see her dead one more time, she ran towards the living and as soon as she hit open air instead of seeing the street she saw nothing but that bright white light that she had seen on TV and always thought was fake.

And then Laurel didn't think any more.

Because Laurel was gone.

Tammy had been watching her hand over her mouth. Chris had his arm around her side and neither one of them could move. Laurel was still flatling and Tammy might not be a medical expert but she had a feeling that this long without brain function might not be the best. That she thought to herself was a fucking understatement. She bit her bottom lip so hard she felt the skin split and the blood on her lips. She didn't care about the nip of pain.

And then just when she was about to give up there it was. The beep that showed Laurel Pride was still alive. Loretta wrapped Rita in her arms as the two women began to cry. Pride and his ex were intertwined so tightly Tammy couldn't look at them. Chris let out some very shaky swear words and then ran a hand over his face as Sebastian came running down the hallway. Tammy didn't let him even open his mouth—she just threw herself into his arms and allowed him to hug her. Her whole body was shaking as if she had just come over some kind of illness. Her knees felt weak. Chris's arms were around them both and they stood there in some sort of bizarre hug feeling the after effects of this mission that had been the toughest they had felt yet. Tammy would have rather taken ten rounds with Hamilton that take a case like this one again.

But none of that mattered.

Because Laurel Pride was alive.

And they had done their job.

Two Weeks Later.

Laurel was board.

She was still confined to a hospital bed even though she could sit up on her own without her side splitting in two. She had woken up to see everyone around her and after the few disorientating days and the hugs and the tears she found that she was going to live.

Only issue was that she was board out of her mind and everything still hurt.

And that was just the beginning. She had been right in thinking there would be months of physio and retraining and months before she could go back to living an ordinary life. Her mom had gone to grab her some things from her apartment and Rita had sorted things out with her employers so it wasn't like work was an issue either. It was just the lack of anything…anything to do.

And that was before you got to needing someone to help you take a shower. The first time she had in the hospital's small bathroom she had been mortified asking for help. Fortunately Tammy had helped and that had been a godsend because nothing was more embarrassing than asking for help to get in the shower.

But still she was happy. She had at the end of the day chosen to live. Death was easier, the far easier option but she had not taken that one. She had chosen this pain and this confinement to the bed and she had better get used to it.

Or that was what she told herself when she was alone at night with nothing to stare at but the walls of this damn room.

She forced herself to sit up every morning. Her Dad was her only constant visitor and she depended on him for things that the doctor said she wasn't allowed. Important things in the grander scheme of things such as coffee and chocolate and warm cheese rolls.

For the first time in her life—when it came to hospital cooking—she was glad that her father had such profound feelings about food and ingredients that should go in them—otherwise she was pretty sure by now she would have starved.

The door opened to her hospital room and her Dad came in.

"Music major I told you about sitting up by yourself…the doctor said that you'd pull something…" and there he was with the fussing about her stiches and other things. It would have been nice if after the first day it didn't set her teeth on edge.

"I know" she said finally wincing. "Did you bring it?"

"Are you sure you'll alright?"

Laurel rolled her eyes. "Yes Dad, I'm sure. Please can I have it?"

The 'it' she was describing was her coffee and slice of chocolate cake from that place her Dad deemed in the Quarter as 'too expensive to keep open'. But she had been dreaming about this damn thing all day and she would be damned if she let something such as stiches get in the way.

"Your lucky I love you music major" her Dad said fondly pressing a kiss into her hair. Laurel thought about the choices she had and she had made and her smile was sincere when she thought the truth.

"Yeah" she said smiling and blinking back the tears that came so easily (she blamed the painkillers).

"Yeah Dad I am"

And there it is, I hope you have enjoyed and once again thank you all.