AN: Aaaand it's a late V-day fic! I've had this pairing in my head for a bit, and toyed with the idea some. It's a crossover, a genre that I can't seem to stop doing at this point, but I hope that won't annoy anyone. It also winds up being FillmoreIngrid, in an odd twist of fate. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it, and feel free to drop me a line if it was a bit too melancholy or confusing in places. Read on!

She didn't blame him for what happened.

It wasn't his fault. There were some kids, some people that life seemed to spit on. Had anything ever gone right for him? She wished she knew him enough to know. But his family was gone all the time, leaving him in that hellhole of a home wherein all his insanity went untreated. This was how Ingrid defended him: he was insane, and no one had ever stopped to help him. Granted, she could have turned him in and ended the madness, but she didn't. There had always been, beneath the surface, a warm, gentle part of Ingrid that wanted nothing more than to care for people, and occasionally, as it did then, it slipped out.

Did anyone even see him? People never stopped to say hi to him or ask him how his day was. Teachers skipped over him in class. There seemed to be no one in his life. Except, that was, Ingrid. She talked to him. His artistic abilities were jaw dropping, his thoughts intriguing and his jokes dementedly funny. Though the world seemed to move and part around him like he was an object, she didn't ever see him that way.

That was how it had all started.

He was a beautiful boy in his own way, with big, dark brown eyes and lightly tanned skin. His hair was black and shaved off from the ears down, but it was his body that caught her attention. He was beyond thin. He was stick-figure thin, with long legs and arms, looking for all the world like he was starving. His tired eyes had met hers as she stared at him. He'd expected the usual middle school level insult. Instead, she smiled gingerly at him. And though he couldn't explain it, he immediately felt something, a sort of spark within him. That day he decided not to attempt to kill himself for the umpteenth time. That day, Johnny C met Ingrid Third.

What was it, he wondered, that made someone suddenly so important to someone else? What was it that made Ingrid, a Safety Patroller, stop to ask him how his day was every day? What made her sit next to him in Art class? Why didn't she ever comment on the various bruises and bloodstains that inevitably showed up on him day after day, week after week? It was a mystery to him, that she put up with his quiet moodiness and negative ideas. For he was always negative, other than fleeting moments of contentedness that he only had once in a while. Did she sense his depression? Could she feel him sinking into insanity? It seemed she could, for his worst days suddenly were brightened by her presence.

He knew, however, that he was a background character in her life. He was nothing compared to Fillmore or the others. Not that that was anything new in Johnny's life. He was well used to being forgotten. Ingrid was just like any other girl. She would befriend him and leave him abruptly, acting as if she never met him. A horrifying idea, but an old one. People in Johnny's life always did that. They were perfectly normal people, until one day it would happen. They would look over at him as if he was a total stranger, ignore him when he spoke, and get on with their lives. Everyone did it. His friends, his short lived girlfriends – even his parents, repeatedly, acting as if their own son was invisible and mute to them. It was a curse he had long suffered and given up on fighting against, although he had to wonder why it happened. He just knew that it would, and that there was no stopping it.

All it took was seeing her kiss him to realize he was about to be forgotten again. So he did what he always did, looking for a way to kill himself. He didn't want her to find out. He didn't want to hurt her. He just wanted it to stop. Teachers who didn't recognize him brushed past him without a word. Students he'd known all his life looked right through him. Johnny could feel it inside, a kind of silent screeching sound only he could hear. It wasn't really screeching though, it just sounded like it as he fought it. Eventually, he snapped, as he always did, and the voices came.

There was always one telling him his life was worth living. The other was not so kind. The other brought up every bad moment in Johnny's entire life and threw it in his face. All the people who had forgotten him, all the mistakes he'd made, all the lack of meaning in life. The message was clear. Kill yourself, my boy. It's not as if anyone will notice. Johnny responded silently that he'd tried, waiting for the inevitable suggestions. His internal voices were filled with ideas. Then why not jump off the roof? Everyone's at the game, they won't be here to give you cold feet. It made sense enough, he supposed. Ultimately he was too tired to fight against himself with logic and sanity, giving in instead to automatic motions, taking the stairs two at a time.

He was on the roof before he knew it, standing along the edge of the roof. There was no note to find, since no one would remember him enough to want one. There were no second thoughts as he carefully edged along, searching for a spot where he would land on concrete and not hit a balcony or overhang. This was for the better. No one remembered him because, obviously, there was nothing to remember. He felt tears well up and swallowed loudly. He – he was worthless, wasn't he? A sort of coldness washed over him as he stared down at the ground, closing his eyes and breathing in deeply. This was it, then. No more voices and no more pain.

"Johnny!" Ingrid's scream made his eyes snap open. She was down below, staring at him with upturned moss-colored eyes. "Don't do it!"

He froze, his face filled with uncertainty. Do it you little piece of shit! She won't remember it anyway! Johnny took a deep breath, looking at her even as he fought to look away. He wanted to hold her and tell her it was okay, but it wasn't. He wasn't alright, although he had no words to explain himself. Biting his lip, he sighed and responded in a tone of voice only the truly broken have.

"Get out of here Ingrid. I don't want you to see this."

"Let's talk about this!" she shouted back, sounding desperate. "I'll get you help, a therapist or something! You don't have to do this!"

There was a pause, in which he stood there, only thirteen and already a jaded wreck of a human being, and she could feel more than see that Johnny was only holding back because she was there. If she'd left like he wanted her to, he would jump unhesitatingly. He didn't believe her. That much was evident in the way his arms wrapped around himself as he shook his head no. So she stayed rooted to the ground, eyes on him. Folsom could yell at her for missing out on her job at the game later. It didn't matter.

Suddenly Johnny felt himself be yanked back, and he collided roughly with the roof's asphalt. Blinking, he found Officer Fillmore standing above him, expression a mixture of anger and concern. "Boy, you are beyond lucky right now."

Johnny just sighed. "Not really."

There were phone calls to his parents, who didn't answer. Therapists had no room for him. The attempts to help him died within a week. No one remembered him enough to care, except Ingrid. She was forever at his side, checking if he was okay, saying hi to him in the hall, glancing over at him constantly in Art. Sometimes she would take his hand and just smile. In those moments he wondered what it would be like. What would it be like to have someone remember him? She was due any day now to suddenly lose all recollection of him, yet she remained. It was stupid to hope that she would remain where everyone else had left. Stupid hope was all he had left. He squeezed her hand back and smiled. No point in wasting these days while they were here.

But it was all falling apart. He was regressing, as he always did. The voices came back. The anger came back. He hated society, subcultures, advertising, morality – everything was consumed in an all-too well thought out sea of anger. It was hard to keep from snapping now, at everyone. The slightest little comment set him off internally, although he fought to keep it down. Still, all it took was a week of this before he snapped entirely.

No one ever thought to suspect him. The police came, photos were taken, students were duly horrified. X Middle School held a memorial. People cried. People talked. Blame was passed around to the more violent bullies verbally, while legally no one got the blame. Even Ingrid didn't comprehend that Johnny was capable of killing someone. She didn't know the voices, after all, so how could she know what they suggested? Besides, she was readily used to blood being splattered all over him, faded and crisp. It went hand in hand with the bruises and scratches as just being a part of who he was.

The next few murders, however, did not go unnoticed by her. She was astute, leagues ahead of her class. She put it all together, the times and dates. He had no caring family. He could be anywhere after school hours and not be noticed. He could come home bloody and not be suspected. There was nothing stopping him from going off like a bomb on people. She'd seen it in him for a while now. Then there was the most damning evidence.

Everyone he'd killed had hurt her.

So why wasn't she angry? She wanted to be. She hated the idea of what he'd done. It made her sick and twisted up inside. But this wasn't a murderer. This was Johnny. This was him. Somehow that made it different – not right, never right – something she couldn't condemn. He wasn't right in the head. He wasn't thinking clearly. He told her once he thought in pictures, not language, vividly imagining things when others would think the words. It was a jumble somedays, a hurricane he had to bear with. It made his art beautiful and striking. It also made it hard to function.

She had found her way to his run down house, a place with boards nailed over the windows where the smell of alcohol hit her the second she got to the door. The grass was crunchy and dead, the rooms were so filthy and simultaneously barren she wondered how anyone could live here, and Johnny was sprawled out across the couch. There was only one bedroom, she realized dimly. His parents let his sleep on the couch like he wasn't even their kid. Equal parts stunned and uncertain, she sat down beside him on the couch. The only light came from the TV, casting long pale shadows across his face as he turned to talk to her. With a sort of half gasp, she realized the alcohol had been consumed by Johnny – exclusively Johnny, by the look of things.

He wanted to explain himself. It was so natural, he thought, for him to do such horrible things. Like breathing or sleeping, he simply had to pick up that knife. He just had to; the voices had nothing to do with it. They couldn't stop him to save theirs lives. Johnny himself was long used to being picked on and forgotten. But Ingrid wasn't like him. She had a family, a future, a life ahead of her that would dwarf that of those around her. He couldn't let her be picked on like he was. Was that love, the way he felt enraged when she was hurt and anxious when she was sad? Was this odd protectiveness that drove him affection? Attachment? Was he capable of that? He didn't know. All he knew was that he wanted her life to be wonderful. He'd only killed those people because of that.

"I'm sorry," he had whispered softly, and met her eyes unflinchingly. His expression was soft, a fine mix of guilt and love. "I wish the police would catch me one of these days."

"Why wouldn't they?" she asked, tone equally quiet. "Everything points to you, Johnny, and I'm just a rookie detective. Surely the cops can figure this one out."

"They never catch me. They never even think of me. No one does. I – Ingrid, you need to understand something. I can't explain it, but no one can catch me. I can't die. I… I don't know how to say that so it doesn't sound insane. Just trust me that it's true." He looked at her with something akin to sorrow and fondness, all at once. "It's just how I've always been. Everyone forgets me. I can't be caught, not because I'm some kind of genius, but because I don't exist." His eyes closed briefly. "If I could turn myself in, I would."

Somehow she understood even as she knew she should be horrified, and moved closer to him. Laying her head on his shoulder, she whispered back, "I know. You're a good person, Johnny. One day I'll get you help," she added, determinedly. "You'll get better."

He had to bite back a sad laugh at that, wrapping his arms around her gently. "No, you won't. I won't. You'll forget me." He'd smiled nonetheless, cupping his face in his hands before kissing her gently. "But, for whatever it's worth, I think it was worth it to know you."

She fought forgetting him. She had to, because when he kissed her, it didn't turn her blood to fire like it did with Fillmore. It made her complete, utterly so, content and beautiful and at peace all at once. Johnny wasn't someone she could live with forgetting. She wanted him by her side, always. She wanted to know him. To see him grow. To see, someday, him getting some kind of help that would save him from himself. Johnny wasn't some passing friend. He was something far more valuable to her, someone she couldn't live without. She buried herself in him, and they sat there like that, tangled in each other and lost in their thoughts. When she went home she promised she wouldn't let herself forget him.

Six months from their first kiss.

Then she was gone. It happened like it always did, with a blank face and an utter lack of recognition. The past week she had been fighting it so hard, as if she could stop reality from continuing with sheer willpower. She wrote his name in notebooks and had pictures of him in her locker, even going so far as to spend the night at his house, watching TV and laughing alongside him until she fell asleep. Ingrid tried, she really did. She ignored the sudden deaths and 'accidents' all around her for as long as she could. It still happened. It always did. It always would. Johnny couldn't help but sigh as he watched her sink into that sudden sadness that always accompanied it. Without her memories, the last few months would seem dull and tiring, depressing. She would rise out of it, eventually, as they all did. The question now remained what he wanted for her life.

He didn't try to bring her back to him. He could do it, if only briefly. It would be hard, painful, and drive him deeper into insanity, but he could have done it. She could have been his for a few more days, a few more weeks even. Still he refrained, having learned long ago that the more he drew someone to him, the shorter their lives tended to be. The more he made people remember him, the more they died, inexplicably, by his own hands in uncontrollable, robotic apathy that he couldn't fight. The bouts of apathetic, automatic killing scared him more than rage and depression and the voices did. He couldn't control himself. There would be no reasoning behind it. Sometimes he could swear it wasn't even by him directly, just by something akin to demonic telekinesis. They died to love him. That were why he let his parents forget him, for their own sake. His friends were better off without him. His parents had happy if poor lives in their perceived childlessness. Ingrid…

Ingrid had Fillmore, who protected her. Johnny only endangered her. Fillmore was calm and controlled. Johnny was over emotional and like a whirlwind. Fillmore had a full family of people who loved him and his girlfriend. Johnny was all alone in this world. It was for the best, leaving her to him. He would love her, nurture her, and accept her. He would be the kind of boyfriend everyone wanted, who loved her for her mind rather than her looks. It was strange, watching them walk together, knowing what could have been. Johnny knew he should be angry with the boy for stealing his girl or some such nonsense. All he could feel was a pang of jealousy, that Fillmore would have Ingrid for life while Johnny was left only with memories.

She'd defended Johnny's behavior to him. She didn't blame him for all this. She argued insanity, bad upbringing, lack of compassion in his life. She didn't hold him accountable for what he'd done. She knew he'd done it, of his own free will. Ingrid just didn't let that cloud her judgment. If he'd just had someone to love him, she kept saying, it could've all been different. If he'd just had someone to love, it would've kept him sane.

What Johnny didn't tell her until was too late was that he had someone to love.

Her.