Eliot could feel a presence in his mind. Somebody was here. Penny again? He willed a door into existence. After all this time trapped inside his own mind, he had learned how to control the world around him efficiently.

The door swung open. The person who stepped through wasn't Penny.

Eliot froze while his brain tried to comprehend what his eyes saw.

Q.

"Eliot?" Q seemed just as incapable of processing the situation.

"You're not … Memory-Q", Eliot more asked than stated.

Q look confused. "No… At least I don't think."

Q. Eliot felt tears rise in him. He took a step forward to pull Quentin in close. They held on to each other as tightly as they could, Quentin buried his face in Eliot's neck. But just a moment later he pulled free, his hands still lingering on Eliot's arms.

"We don't have time for that", he mumbled. "Not now. Listen. Alice has found a way to separate you from the monster."

Eliot swallowed hard. Could that be it? Finally?

"How?"

"You need to go through your door again." Quentin spoke quickly. The monster could notice his presence any time now. "You know, the one hidden in your worst memory. You need to go through, and when you are in possession of your body, Alice will cast a spell from the outside, I will cast it from the inside, and we'll … well, we'll split you in two."

"Oh, good."

Eliot turned away from Quentin. His mind was racing.

"Look, I know how that sounds", Quentin whispered. "But if everything goes well, the monster will be trapped in the mirror world inside a version of your body and you will have yours to yourself again."

"Yay!" Eliot sat down on the stairs. "Except, small problem: The memory we need to to get to my door … There are monsters now. A lot of them."

Quentin bit his lower lip. "There must be a way to deal with them."

"There is. But it's still dangerous. You could get hurt, Q."

"That doesn't matter."

"Well, it does to me!"

"Look." Quentin took a seat next to Eliot, as close to him as he could. "I need you to come back to me, okay? Please."

Eliot leaned his head against Quentin's. "Oh, Q … I missed you. You and your enthusiasm."

"Then let us be together again in the real world. Let me fight for you."
Eliot knew this look on Quentin's face, knew that when he was this determined, no force between heaven and earth could stop him.

He nodded, albeit reluctantly. "Okay, fine. Let's do this." He stood up, stretched out his hand for Quentin to grab it and tightly held on to him.

"This way, please", he said while he pulled Quentin along. "Right through daddy issues and then a sharp left turn past traumatic childhood experience number 2."

With all the practice he had Eliot could summon his memory squad on the fly. Memory Quentin, Margo and Fen suddenly walked next to them.

"What the fuck?" Real Quentin almost fell over his own feet as they appeared out of nowhere. Eliot kept pulling him along.

"They are memories. They protect me, while I snoop around in my … his … our mind." He turned to them. "Listen, guys, I need you to draw the monsters away from the memory. You know the one. With the door." All three of them nodded sternly and were gone in a flash.

"They won't take long", Eliot explained. "They have done it a hundred times by now. Hurry!"

When they stood outside the Fillorian court room, Eliot hesitated. He didn't want to live through that again. More importantly, he didn't want Q to see. He let go of his hand.

"I'll go through. You wait here."

Quentin looked confused. "Is that the door? What's the memory?"

"Well, the memory is inside that door and so is the door, but …"

"I need to go in with you. I need to see you go through that door. Alice and I need to be in sync."

Eliot squirmed uncomfortably. "Q …"

But Quentin put on his don't-you-dare-fuck-with-me-face. "Do you want to be rescued or not?"

Eliot closed his eyes and surrendered. He opened the door and stepped through, followed by Quentin. There they both sat on the steps, just returned from Fillory, from the past, from a whole life lived together.

Eliot could see real Quentin's face drop. "It's not what you think!", he explained, but Q didn't listen. He pointed at the back of the room. "Go through the door. Hurry."
"Q …"

They heard noise coming from the outside, cries, steel clashing on steel.

"Now!"

"Fuck." Eliot sprinted through the room, up the stairs, opened the door. When he turned around, Quentin stood in fighting stance, his hands at the ready. He turned and went through.

When Eliot came to, he needed a moment to make out his surroundings. Was that the Brakebills lab? What the hell?

"Eliot?"

Was that Margo?

"Did it work? Please tell me it worked!"

Eliot tried to sit up. His head hurt. "Bambi?", he breathed.

"Eliot!"

Margo dropped down on the floor next to him, cradled him in her arms, hugged him close. "You're back. Oh god. I thought, I'd lost you forever. You're back!"

Alice came into Eliot's view. She looked relieved, but also a bit sad, he thought. "It worked", she sighed. "We really did it."

They helped Eliot up. His vision became clearer, even though his head still ached. There was a large mirror, in front of him. In it, he could see himself, except it wasn't himself. It was an angry, screaming version of himself with flaming eyes. The creature that wasn't him clawed at the mirror from the inside.

"It can't hurt you", Alice reassured him. "It's trapped in there. Nothing ever gets out of the mirror dimension. You're free."

Eliot's eyes already scanned the room. "Where's Q?"

"He's in his room in the cottage", Margo explained. "We didn't think it would be a good idea to have his unconscious body here in case something would have gone wrong and the monster would have been … angry."

"No, yeah, good call."

Julia and Penny were sitting next to Quentin, who still seemed somewhat dazed from his trip to someone else's mind. When Eliot entered the room, all three of them stared at him like deer caught in the headlights.

"Don't worry, guys, it's me."

Julia broke out in a relieved smile and Penny pumped his fist in the air. Quentin remained silent.

"Can I talk to Q for a second, please?"

Julia and Penny got up. On their way out, Julia hugged Eliot. "Good to have you back." Penny just gave him a slap on the shoulder, but it was heartfelt.

After they had closed the door behind them, Eliot went over to the bed and sat down next to Quentin, keeping a slight distance between them.

"Look, Q …"
Immediately, Quentin put his hands up defensively. "You don't have to apologise. Your most traumatic memory is the moment when I wanted us to be together. It's okay. I understand when I'm not wanted."

Eliot felt like crying. "Q, how could you think that?"

"I saw it." He wasn't angry, Eliot realised, he was just so, so sad. That made it a million times worse.

"That is not why it is my most traumatic memory", he insisted. "It's traumatic because I turned you down."

Quentin blinked, confused. "What?"

Eliot resisted the urge to get up and run away. He badly wanted to shove it all down and pretend it never happened. But he looked at Q and realised that he had gotten a second chance and if he let that slide, there wouldn't be a next one. So he coughed and tried to convince his mouth to speak. "The thing is … Every relationship I had so far ended in a disaster. In the end, all … participants were hurt. Or dead." He swallowed. "I was afraid that would happen to us. And if I ever hurt you, Q, I would never be able to forgive myself. And honestly, I don't think I could handle it if you …" He choked.

Quentin gently took his hand. "We had fifty years together. Fifty beautiful, wonderful years. Why do you think that would happen to us?"

Eliot cleared his throat laboriously. "This isn't Fillory, Q. You have a choice here."

"What makes you think I wouldn't choose you?" Eliot's eyes filled with tears. "I can't promise I will never hurt you", Quentin admitted. "No one who enters a relationship can. But we can try."

Eliot sniffed and nodded. "Yeah, I can do that", he whispered.

Quentin smiled. He leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss to Eliot's mouth.

"That's good enough for me."