And this is the last chapter (that I had written years ago). Thank you all who have stuck with me for the last 8 years with this story. I still regret that this last part took me so long to finish. Please let me know what you think. I have other stories up in a poll ready to vote. Please let me know what you want to see next.

Fun side note… 2 years ago I worked in a Veterans center. I met my husband who was a Marine… I was his boss… and our supervisor wasn't happy with us…. Sound familiar? Funny how things like that happen, considering I've been working on this specific story since 2010.

It had taken a couple hours to throw the remaining bodies in the parking lot into the fire of the mall. But finally John and I were done.

He had told me that after they had separated us that he was interrogated like I had been. They were getting ready to transport him to another establishment when the attack had happened. He explained what they had needed to do, and how to defeat the monsters, but they didn't listen. They were dead in a matter of moments leaving him with his arms around his back. He had managed to pop his shoulders out of their sockets and get his hands in front of him to defend himself before they had attacked him.

He fought and eventually succeeded, he was about to come back into the building for me when it blew. Knocking him to the ground, damaging his head. By all rights John should be dead, the blood from the laceration still evident on his head proved as much. But the C24 in his system kept him alive.

When he had awoken later he tried to piece things together as I had. Which then led him to the mall, saving me from the truck sized monster.

We had been walking for what seemed like hours, off into the California desert. We had taken a car but it broke down where the desert meets the city. The sand was warm and soft. There was no traffic on the abandoned highway, making us wonder if we were too late in killing the creatures or if California was abandoned completely for the time being.

Around us was the never ending sweltering desert. We both agreed to walk to a known gas station a couple miles away to hopefully either steal another car or hitch a ride to our destination. Back to Mary Ann and the babies. From there we could call Sam and seek her whereabouts.

But we had survived, not only the missions we had gone on with the RRTS but with the last two similar chaos missions involving the monsters and Olduvai. We had grown closer in a time of darkness. Our need to survive and protect trumping everything else.

Sarge may have gone nuts before we left him to die on Olduvai months ago but he was thinking in terms of survival. Not only for himself but for all of humanity.

None of our team deserved the fate they were dealt. All of them deserved to be here walking with us in the desert. We all should be back together in our quarters on base talking about the good times, past missions, hell even the new scars we had acquired.

Nevertheless, it was just John and I walking the world alone side by side. With all we knew and with all we had gone through, I was just happy to have him there with me.

John's hand grasped mine in a hold as we continued walking in silence. Content with watching the sunset on the horizon. I let out a content sigh and closed my eyes breathing in the hot fresh air. If I imagined hard enough I could hear the voices of our lost teammates around us. Walking with us with the joy and humor we all shared.

If I dreamed hard enough I could see them all playing with our children, bouncing them on their laps, smiling as they cooed in happiness at the men. A small tear fell down my face at the thought of them.

"You know, out of all the shit we have been through together, I am glad we had each other through all of it." John broke the silence.

"We always made a pretty good team." I said looking up at the man I had given my heart to. He looked so different than he had when I first met him. It comes with the stress of the job though. "And exceptionally lovers. Amazing partners." John let out a snort as he cracked a smile.

After all that had happened we were finally at peace with it. Content that we had saved the world and nothing, nothing else from this mission could come back to haunt us. Our children would be able to live in a world without Oldavai and without the monsters.

The only problem was….

We all have monsters inside of us.