When Fred grabbed him, wrapping her arms around him, John embraced her tightly, burying his face against her neck and hair as tears rolled down his cheeks. He could feel her warmth and smell strawberries. She really was alive.
"He said he had killed you," he whispered against her skin. "I thought I had lost you both."
When she pulled away and cupped her hands to his face, he reached up to fold his hand over hers. He had missed. The fucking bastard had missed but had still let him think that he had murdered the most important person in John's life. He still wanted to kill him for what he had done, for tearing his heart out. But she was fine. She was fine and so was the baby. He let his hand rest on her abdomen, over their daughter, until the noise behind Fred made him jump. Before he knew what was going on, Mark was on the floor, a bullet in his brain.
As everyone realized that it was finally over, John looked over at Fred and gathered her into his arms again, closing his eyes. His stomach was still clenched, and his body was starting to tremble a bit as he came down off the adrenaline he had been running on since attacking Harris on the planet.
"I'll be all right. I'm just glad that you're alive," he told her softly. He wondered what had happened there in the lab. Why had Mark threatened to kill Fred but hadn't? What had he really wanted? And why in the hell had Harris - a respected general in the Pentagon - agreed to go along with it?
"All of this over a couple of crystals?" he said. "I don't understand - why did he want to destroy us over crystals?"