Author’s Note: I actually wrote this sometime around when “Legacy” aired in a fit of adoration for Carter, but didn’t post it because, well, other authors have pretty much already covered the same territory, some of them better. But this is my version. Hope someone enjoys it anyway. 🙂

It’s the craziest thing she’s probably ever done in her life. This isn’t a comic book. There are no superheroes. No Batman, no Spiderman, no goddamned Shadow watching over New York City.

There’s vigilantes a plenty, and she’s run up against enough of them to know they only make things more complicated, and not in a good way. Evidence gets tainted, people get hurt, and in the rush to administer justice outside the confines of the law, mistakes get made. Fatal mistakes, sometimes. The system isn’t perfect–innocent people still get sent to prison–but they’re a hell of a lot less likely to wind up dead. And sometimes the self-righteous bastard with revenge on his mind gets in over his head and winds up ensuring that the guilty party never does face justice.

John and his partner–whose name is almost certainly not Burdett–are no exception. Intentional or no, they’re the reason Elias is still running around. That alone ought to prove that wherever they’re getting their information from, it’s not infallible. It’s why she started trying to track them down in the first place. Because a bunch of gift-wrapped felons don’t do her a bit of good when she hasn’t got a chance in hell of seeing them prosecuted. She’d probably still be hunting John if the CIA hadn’t decided to remind her that sometimes, even after everything she’s seen, she still has too much faith in humanity.

She tells herself that if she can’t lock him up without risking his life, the least she can do is try to keep him on a leash; to at least try to minimize the damage. But the truth is there’s something intoxicating about the ability to be there in time. To save a life instead of just seeking justice for the dead. Homicide detectives like her always come in after the fact. And sure, sometimes they save lives by getting the bad guys off the street, but never before the first time. Somebody has to die, or at least someone has to get hurt, before they have the power to act.

There’s a reason the law works that way, though. No one knows that better than she does. All the more reason why she shouldn’t let herself be tempted by him. Shouldn’t crave that proud little smile she gets from him when she does something he likes or gets drawn a little further into his world. Shouldn’t find it so easy to get lost in those eyes as blue and deep as the Cayman trench, and with shadows in them that she knows all too well.

Because he’s right. The further in she gets, the less her chances of ever getting out. And if her superiors ever found out what the hell she was doing, she’d be out of a job. Maybe even join a few of her old collars behind bars, and what good is she ever going to be able to do then? Worse, what would happen to Taylor? She’s risking everything for a high, just like any other junkie, and she knows it.

That’s the worst part: that she knows what she’s laying on the line but she still does it. Maybe it’s to atone for all those times she didn’t get there in time, going all the way back to Iraq. Maybe it’s because all she’s ever wanted to do with her life was protect the innocent, but all she’s been doing is picking up the pieces after the guilty. Maybe, hard as it is to admit even to herself, it’s because she’s finally started to lose her faith in the system.

But her reasons why don’t really matter any more than the reasons why she shouldn’t. She let herself get caught up in the whirlwind, and there may not be any yellow brick road to lead her home at the end of it.

Right now she’s just got to worry about surviving long enough to find out.