It was the biggest scene of organized chaos that Bethseda Naval Hospital had seen in a long time. In their biggest operating room, surgeons came and left in procedural shifts as they worked on Master Sergeant Jacklyn Singer. She had come in with torture injuries, but the investigators that had come in with her had given no story bout how she had gotten those injuries. But at this moment, none of the doctors cared about that. Their goal was to save the woman lying on the operating table.

Captain Johnson shook his head as he removed her spleen. Five other surgeons had shifted in and out as they worked on all of the breaks; more iron rods and screws went into her than any other procedure ever done before. There wasn't anything to be done for her toes, but she could learn to live without them. Her ribs were now screwed into place, her diaphragm stitched up. They were almost done, but this was only a part of the battle. She had coded on them twice as she was transported here, twice in the emergency room, and once again here in the OR. She was holding on to something, but it was unclear as to what it was. "Come on, Jack. Fight this, dammit!" He swore under his breath as he helped her back to life.

All the while, the NCIS team and the hunters were waiting outside. Bobby was comatose after his breakdown; not even the cup of coffee in his hands was recognized as being there. Dean and Sam couldn't stop moving and pacing. Abby was weeping on Ducky's shoulder. Tony was waiting, Ziva's hand in his, as they kept looking up at the clock. McGee looked worried as he kept writing things down on a notepad; case notes, maybe? Gibbs... Gibbs looked out the window, not wanting to think about what he had seen, not wanting to think about what Jack had gone through. None of them wanted to voice what was on their minds: was Jack going to make it out of this?

It was strange... she looked around at where she was and saw that she was in Bethesda. What was stranger was that she was whole: none of the injuries that Alastair had given her were on her. To compound it, no one acknowledged her. Even as she shouted in the ears of the people passing her by, not a one saw that she was here. "What's going on? Why won't you help me?" Her hand was going through objects and people alike. Was she a ghost? What the hell was going on?

"Hello, Jacklyn." She turned around so fast that she should have given herself whiplash. Looking down the hallway, she saw a woman in a white dress walking towards her. As she got closer, she noted the straight brown-black hair, the clear green eyes, and the bare feet. That lady definitely was not a patient in the hospital. "Don't be afraid. My name is Tessa."

"Where am I? Who are you?" She hated to admit it, but she was scared shitless about what was happening to her.

The lady that called herself 'Tessa' stopped before her. "Your instincts are right, Jacklyn. Listen to what they are telling you."

Jack stopped for a moment, running her hands through her hair. Listen to her instincts? Almost at once, the puzzle pieces fell into place. She looked at Tessa, and she nodded. "I'm in the place between life and death. I'm not ready to move on. And you're a reaper, come to take my soul." Tessa nodded, confirming all that she had said. "What happened to me?"

Without words, Tessa simply guided her through the crowded hallways to the operating room. Jack saw for herself just how bad she was: she knew that she was going to be unable to live like this, even if she managed to make it through the surgeries. But if a reaper was here, then that meant that she wasn't going to pull through it. Jack turned back to Tessa, tears falling down her spirit face as she made to leave. She ran until she found an empty patient bed just to sit on to catch her breath. Tessa came and sat down next to her as she tried not to hyperventilate.

Jack looked at the reaper, pleading in her eyes. "I guess that you've heard all of the begging, right? That I'm not ready to go? That I still have so much to do? That I can't put my family and friends through that?" Tessa nodded. Jack tried to come to terms with this, but she was having a hard time of doing that.

"Jacky." She looked over and saw Caleb and Pastor Jim standing in the doorway. They had come to her again and sat close to her. "It's okay. What you would live as... no one should live like that.

"But isn't this suicide?" All three of them shook their heads, but Pastor Jim gave the answer that she needed to hear. "This is not suicide, Jacklyn Singer. This is accepting that everyone has to die at their time. This is your time."

Jack looked at them all, the next words out of her mouth sounding like a scared child. "Will it hurt?"

Pastor Jim took her hand as Caleb wrapped his arm around her shoulders. "No. It's more of a relief. Everything is finished. You don't have to hunt anymore; you don't have to worry."

She looked at Tessa, but all that Tessa would say was, "It's your choice, Jacklyn. You can move on, or you can stay here as a ghost forever. What do you choose?"

It had been eight hours since they had rescued Jack from the Memorial Amphitheater. Vance had sent another team to process the crime scene; for once, he had left Gibbs and his team alone to wait in the hospital. But it had been eight long and agonizing hours... four hundred and eighty minutes... twenty eight thousand, eight hundred seconds... There was no news, until now.

The doctor from before, Captain Johnson, came out; the sheer amount of blood on his scrubs was morbid, knowing that all of it was from Jack. Dean very nearly rushed him, but Sam held him back, but just barely. He came forward and stopped before the group. There was a look on his face that spelled out nothing but doom. "I'm so sorry, but we tried everything. She coded for a sixth time, and we were not able to bring her back. We tried everything." Everyone saw the tears coming down his face; they had all forgotten that this man was Jack's commanding officer and the man that watched her back for six years overseas. "But she died."

No one rushed him as he wiped a hand across his face and got rid of the tears. Not a one person moved. Everyone was in shock. A nurse came out and took over for the captain, standing before them with a sad look on her face but a steel in her spine that came only from experience. "We're just cleaning her up now, but you guys can come see her, and say goodbye."

Dean helped Bobby to his feet as he and Sam helped Jack's father walk into the OR. Gibbs stopped his team from following them; this was their time right now. Their time would come later. Right now, he took over the paperwork for the case. It was time to fill out a time and cause of death.

Dean walked past the steels doors of the OR entrance, past the desk where a unit clerk was typing away with a sombre expression on his face. It was like a funeral march as they walked past the orderlies as they showed them the way to the theatre, and past the nurses that were huddled away and talking in muted tones. It took all of his strength to open the glass doors and walk into the room where Jack- Jack's body- was resting.

The nurse was right: they had cleaned her up good. Most of the blood had been mopped away, the garbage placed in biohazard bags and taken away. The machines were silent. There were trays of bloodied instruments, but they had been pushed against the wall and covered as to not frighten the hunters. He helped Bobby walk to the table, and saw his girlfriend laying there. They had covered her body up in a sheet up to her collar bones. He could still see the injuries to her face, but her muscles were so relaxed. It wasn't like her arm was hanging limp from the table, but it was like she was still for the first time in a long eyes, her beautiful hazel-brown eyes, were closed for good. It looked almost like she was sleeping, but there was no breathing movements from her torso.

Bobby let go of the boys' arm and placed a shaking hand on her cheek, feeling her cold skin. There was no life left; there was none of the spunk and the jazz that made her his daughter. This was just a shell, but she couldn't be gone, not yet. His shaky hand made its way down to her throat; he wanted to make sure. It hadn't truly sunk in yet. His baby girl couldn't be dead, not yet, not like this. When there was no response, no gentle pulse against his fingertips, he keened as his knees gave out from under him and he cursed every living thing in sight. This was not the stalwart hunter-scholar-father that had helped out the brothers after John died. This was not their drinking buddy and friend that had called them 'idjits' for every gray hair on his head. This was a father that had lost his only child, the only thing he had left that was part of him. It was unnatural for a child to die before their parents, even in this life where it was almost guaranteed that you would die before long. What was left for Bobby now?

Sam remained out of the way, letting the tears fall silently down his cheeks. The images flashed in his mind in no set order of time or reason: the time when he had crashed her house party and demanded answers... that time when Jack helped them out of that squeeze in Los Angeles... when she was there with him when Dean was killed... the smile on her face when she helped them solve their problems... the way her face would soften when she would look at his brother's promise ring... that first time when they were in her house and she made pancakes for them. That would never happen again.

Dean just stood there. It was sinking in that Jack was gone, but he was empty. There were no more tears left to be shed; he was dry. Why couldn't he feel anything? He helped Bobby up to his feet, mindless of Bobby's fighting him to bring him back to his baby girl, and they left the macabre room. Bobby stopped his fighting soon after, but the tears never stopped falling.

Jack was gone... and she wasn't coming back this time.

The church was filled to the brim on the day of Jack's memorial service. The remaining members of her company were there with their families, remembering the then-gunnery sergeant that tried her best to make sure that they got to come home to their families. Capt. Johnson was there, his wife holding his gloved hand as he refused to break down in front of all gathered. Cpl. Damon Werth was standing as honor guard next to her remains, the epitome of a stoic Marine. The friends that she had made during SERE training were sprinkled in the crowd, all in their dress uniforms: the Deltas, the Rangers, and the SEALs that made sure that she came back in one piece, and she them. NCIS was represented by Gibbs, Tony, McGee, Abby, Ziva, Vance, Callen, Hetty, Sam Hanna, Kensi, Nate, and Eric. Dean, Sam, Bobby, Missouri, and Rufus were seated in the front row as they listened to the stories shared.

Amelia helped Dean and Bobby to arrange the funeral plans; in fact, she did it all as the boys were way out of their league. They had talked to the funeral home to make sure that she was cremated; Dean made personally sure that she was burned with plenty of salt. In the front of the church, there was a simple bronze urn filled with her ashes. Behind the urn, amidst the massive poppy wreaths, were blown-up pictures of her in various stages of her life: there was her formal portrait when she graduated Parris Island a full-blood Corporal; there were two candids of her with her NCIS teams; there was one of her with Dean, Bobby, and Sam. In front of the vase, rested her pentacle necklace, her dog-tags, her ring, and her folded up dress uniform displaying her ribbons.

The day before the funeral was to take place, Gibbs informed Dean and Sam of something that would have made them celebrate if it were not for the sombre occasion. The paperwork had come through. Jack's promotion had been pushed through posthumously in a record time. She was going to be buried as Master Gunnery Sergeant Jacklyn Singer, the highest rank that was possible for her to attain. In addition, she was posthumously granted several medals: The Navy Cross, for her selfless service overseas; the Navy Distinguished Service Medal, for her service with NCIS; and the Good Conduct Medal.

Dean, dressed in the new suit that he had gotten especially for this occasion, stood up and walked the few steps to the lecturn. He had listened to the stories of some of her platoon members from Iraq as she saved their collective asses more times than they could count. He had sat quietly as Callen relayed a description of her from when she was stationed in Los Angeles, when she would joke and patch him and Sam up, even if she was injured herself. He had begun to fidget when Gibbs stood up and told everyone about the crazy Marine that watched out for her team and for her family, who was a stalwart friend but also a caring person that put everyone else before herself. Now, it was his turn.

He took a deep breath as he took out the papers and began to read what he felt was important about his friend and lover. "We all know that Jack Singer, Gunny, Doc, Wolf, whatever you knew her as, was a caring person, a laugh and a joy to hang out with, and a person to have at your back in a fight. She was the one in the background, always making sure that we were all right to continue doing our jobs, even at her own expense. But she was so much more then that. Jack Singer, my Jacky, loved to drive fast. She hated waiting around as she healed or as she worked through her own pain, because it took time away from her job and from us. If you took one look inside of her life, past all of the guards and defenses that she kept up in order to do her job, it would tell us about someone that was devoted to everything she did. When she agreed to wear my ring, that was the happiest day of my life. Every time I saw her was like an affirmation about why I was still here.

"Most of us have dangerous jobs; we don't know if we'll come home or not, whether or not if we'll see tomorrow, whether or not our friends will be the ones to tell our family that we won't be coming back. Jack would always try her damnedest to make sure that we would come home, so that we could continue living. She would probably call us all 'idjits' for mourning her like this. She would probably prefer a drink at a bar and a wake, and not all these long faces. But she would understand." He choked back the tears that he had tried so hard to contain. Sam made to get up, in case Dean needed him for moral support, but Dean motioned for him to sit. "Jacklyn Singer was loyal to us, as a friend, as a worker, as a Marine, and as a medic. She was a bright light on a dark day, even on her own dark days." At that moment, a picture on the slide show behind him showed the memorial tattoo that she had gotten for all the hunters that trained her. "She would tell us to mourn for her today, pick up the pieces tomorrow, and think about her from time to time.

"I don't know what else to say. But, damn, I'm going to miss her." By now the tears were coming down his face as he looked up at the crowd and walked down, tripping only once and so small that very few people noticed. The priest finished the mass, and Cpl. Damon Werth stood next to the urn. Dean, Gibbs, Callen, Sam, Bobby, and Capt. Johnson stood up with him and helped carry out the urn and the trappings around the memorial out to the car that would take her back to Arlington.

Gibbs stood in the crowd as Dean took the ashes and placed them in the ground underneath the headstone that read: "Master Gunnery Sergeant Jacklyn Singer: Carpe Diem, Quam Minimum Credula Postero. Born April 21, 1974. Died July 19, 2009." Every person took a small hand of dirt and placed it over the jar, salt water mixing in the consecrated earth. Abby had taken a bouquet of her signature black roses and placed them against her tombstone. Capt. Johnson gave the order for the honor guard to perform the twenty-one gun salute. Everything was all official, all pompous. Jack would have laughed at it all, but she would have appreciated it.

He was empty as he walked away and found the place where his Shannon and Kelly laid in the ground. They were waiting for him, but his time wasn't now. It wasn't her time either, but he couldn't bring her back. All that was left to do was to go back to work. He didn't know that she had a will or not, but he doubted that he would be in it.

She was gone. After all that she had gone through, she was gone. Man, he was gonna miss her.

It was five days after Jack's funeral, but they were all together again. A stodgy-looking lawyer was in front of them all as the team, Dean, Sam, Bobby, Missouri, Abby, and Ducky were gathered once more. Jack's will and final testament was needing to be read.

With a slight clearing of the throat, the balding little man began. "I, Jacklyn Singer, being of sound mind and body, do declare this to be my last will and testament. This supersedes all other documents. This is my final wish. I hope that I died in combat, or surrounded by you guys. Now that the official stuff is out of the way, let's get down to it.

"Guys, I know that you are hurting. Gibbs, you guys might think that you're guilty for forgetting me. Truthfully, you guys made me remember what I was. Dean, Sam, take care of Dad for me. Help him remember that others are going to need his help. I'll always be watching over you guys.

"To Robert Singer, I leave all of my books and a quarter of my estate, coming to $50,000. Daddy, I'll always be your little girl, and I want you to keep fighting, okay? Don't stop because of me. It's going to be hard, but I'm with Mom now. Remember that I always loved you.

"To Missouri Mosley, I leave you all my protection pieces around the house, and my books as well, to share with Dad. Please help him out. You were like the mom that I never had, and I love you for it.

"To Dean and Samuel Winchester, I leave all of the equipment in the basement panic room, all of my journals, as well as a quarter of my estate. Guys, watch out for each other. Cas is a dick, but he was right. With the Apocalypse and all, keep fighting.

"To Abigail Scuito, I leave my house. I know that you always liked it, and so it's yours. The paperwork's being all done, and should be ready. Never forget, Abby, to love life like you always do. Don't forget me, but don't mourn me. I'm all right now.

"To Dr. Donald Mallard, I leave my original copy of "Harrison's Internal Medicine", as well as all of my medical equipment. Ducky, you were an awesome friend. Never forget your stories, and maybe tell mine one of these days.

"To Timothy McGee, I give you permission to use my name and life in one of your books. Never forget, Tim, that you are just as good an agent as Tony. Don't let push you around too much.

"To Ziva David and Antony DiNozzo, I leave my motorcycle and Camaro. You guys are perfect for each other, and don't let my death stop that.

"To L. Jethro Gibbs, I leave my wood-working tools in the garage. I know that you have your own, but keep them or sell them. I leave that to you, Boss.

"As for the rest of my estate, I wish that one half goes to the Semper Fi Fund, and the other half goes to Parris Island Marine Corps Training Depot.

"As a parting statement, guys, remember that today is just one day, and that tomorrow is a new day with new opportunities. Never take those opportunities to help others for granted. That is the best thing that you guys can do if you want to remember me. Never stop helping those that need help. This is Jack Singer, signing out. Semper Fi, and Good Luck."

The room was quiet. Everyone was tired of crying now. No one noticed the four ghosts in the corner. Jack looked to Caleb, Pastor Jim, and John with a sad smile on her face. She didn't want to leave. Three more joined their little group, no words spoken among them. Gibbs' Shannon placed a hand on her shoulder, while Kelly grabbed her hand. Her mom placed a hand on her other shoulder as all seven of them slowly disappeared.

Dean turned and faced the now-empty corner. He looked to Sam, who cracked a small smile and watched as Bobby and Missouri left together. Gibbs and the team headed back to work, knowing that there was still work to be done. After all, it was what Jack would have wanted.

AN: And that, loyal readers, is the end of 'Gunnery Sergeant Jacklyn Singer'. It was awesome being on this crazy journey, but I must ask one last time for you guys to review. I mean, you guys came this far. I write this in remembrance of all the soldiers overseas: may we never forget what they do, and what they give.