Author's Note:
I was disappointed in how quickly Reckoners 3 ended. I especially wanted to see how Prof interacted with the other Reckoners now that he was saved from the darkness. To my dismay, it does not seem likely that Brandon Sanderson will continue the series, so here is my attempt at continuing the story (and finding closure). It is written in third-person because it feels weird to voice someone else's character. David is in every scene so it could be modified to be first-person. This is my first time sharing fanfiction, please don't leave mean comments.

Bonus: Prof's song

"Good Intentions" -Dappy

CW: implied suicide (first chapter only)

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Chapter One: Haunted Hero

Two hours later, Megan and David still sat in each other's arms, soaking in the feeling of calm after the storm. While they waited for rescue, exhaustion pushed away complicated thoughts of parallel universes and a world still in danger. Obliteration had given them a deadline. Obliteration, who hadn't been saved when Calamity left. David let out a deep breath. Strangely, the threat of a city being wiped off the map sometime in the near future didn't overly concern him. He had come face to face with what basically amounted to a god and had scolded him like a child- and lived to tell about it! He had caught a space station as it hurtled towards Earth with the powers of the epic who killed his father. Then he had met his father in another universe! And his father had Steelheart's powers too! Megan could now use her powers as much as she wanted without fear of corruption. Megan was safe. David looked at the woman he loved and smiled.

"Hey," he said. Megan turned her head to look at him. "I just realized something. I've got to make a file on myself now, for my notes on epics. And I have to update my file on you."

Megan rolled her eyes. "Nerd," she said, and looked to the east. The hill Prof had been sitting on was empty. When the three of them had crashed, or "landed" as David insisted, Prof had simply said, "Good job kid," nodded at Megan, and quietly slipped away while the two of them called the other Reckoners on their mobiles. Megan looked around the unfamiliar Australian landscape but she couldn't see Prof anywhere.

"Hey David," she said. "Prof's gone." David looked at the hill. He frowned slightly.

"Huh. I wonder where he went," he said.

Megan shrugged and looked away. "He needs space. I know what it's like to come out from under the darkness."

David heard the pain in her voice and wished he knew what to say. He had experienced some of the darkness from Calamity but hadn't become fully corrupted. After a moment of thought David sighed and said, "Cantaloupe."

Megan turned back to look at him. "What?"

"It's an expression, you know, instead of 'Calamity.' "

Megan raised an eyebrow. "Cantaloupe?"

"Yeah!" David said, brightening up. "It's a good replacement because it still starts with C-A so it will be easy to remember. And it's got three syllables, can-ta-loupe."

"If you say so, Knees." Megan looked out at the sky then checked her mobile. "Transport is twenty minutes out. We should probably get Prof."

David nodded. "I wonder how he's going to take it…meeting everyone again."

Megan was silent for a moment. "I don't know, David. Sparks, it's going to be a mess when we get back. Can you reach Prof by mobile? Ask Knighthawk to connect it?"

David groaned internally. He'd been purposefully avoiding the barrage of communications Dean had been sending him for the last four hours. Knighthawk, with no drones in the area, evidently felt left out. David opened his chat with Dean and noticed that the obscenity filter had been hard at work.

Dean: go ahead, ignore me

Dean: it's not like I just helped you save the world or anything, napkin-eater

Dean: I want that motivator, you rubber-duckie cloud bush

Dean: you are a grade A Slontze, you know that?

Dean: cupcake bathtub

Dean: aardvark

David sighed and typed a reply.

David: I promise I'll tell you everything later

David: I need you to connect me to Prof's mobile

Dean: oh NOW you talk to me, now that you need something

Dean: you ungrateful sack of armadillo

David: Dean, please patch me into Prof's mobile

Dean: shrimp you

...

…

Dean: can't see it, it must be offline

David: ah Cantaloupe

David: well thanks for checking

Dean: what?

David closed the chat and turned back to Megan. "No luck. We need to find him." A smile crept onto David's face. "I'll fly around. It will be easier to see him from the air."

Megan looked uncertain. "You… You have Steelheart's impervious skin, right? Not just flying?"

David nodded. "Won't need it, though. Dad showed me how to do it and I'm a pro now."

"Alright," Megan said. "It's probably best if you talk to him alone, anyway. I'll be here if you need me."

She gave him a kiss and sat back down in the grass. David struck a cool pose, winked at Megan, then launched himself straight up into an overhanging tree. He punched through the canopy but the unexpected resistance threw him off balance and he spiraled in an arc, landing on his back thirty feet away. He groaned, getting up and dusting himself off. Megan was in hysterics, laughing uncontrollably. David felt his face flush red. He took off again, this time without any showy moves.

Staying high in the air was easier than moving near the ground. David quickly passed over the hill where he'd last seen prof. He wasn't there. He wasn't on the hill next to it, either. David made a leisurely loop back around and noticed something dark on the ground near a natural rock formation. He dropped, stumbling in the dust as he landed next to it. Dad makes it look so easy, he thought as he shook dirt off his legs. Next to him, Prof's black lab coat lay folded neatly on the ground. His goggles were on top. David noticed that one of the lenses was missing. He had no idea when that had happened. Footprints led toward where a large stone overhang met some boulders, forming a half sheltered natural cave. David followed them and found Prof standing in the cave, facing the wall. He didn't notice David.

"Hey Prof-" David started to say, but just then, Prof held his hands out to the cave wall, disintegrating it completely. No longer supported, the overhanging stone crashed down on top of him, crushing Prof into the ground.

"Prof!" David screamed. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. He ran to the stone and pushed on it. The stone moved slightly, but it was much too heavy for David to lift.

"Calami- I mean, Cantaloupe!" He shouted. Steelheart would have been able to pick this thing up no problem! Why can't I do it? David strained against the rock again, feet lifting off the ground with his effort. He had to get Prof out. His healing powers would let him survive the impact but David wasn't sure Prof could survive without air. David stepped back from the rock and held out his hand, concentrating on the unfamiliar song of his new powers. He released the pressure, sending out an energy beam that blasted the rock apart. A chunk flew back and bounced off David's head, doing no damage to his impervious skin. He paid it no mind. David threw pieces of the overhang out of the way as he searched for where Prof had been standing. He rolled a chunk of stone over and found Prof beneath, his body pushed almost completely under the dirt. David easily picked him up and set him down next to his lab coat and goggles. He looked to make sure he was healing. To David's relief, Prof's bones started snapping into place. His crushed torso expanded as ribs grew back. His face changed shape, nose and cheekbones reverting to normal. A few seconds later, Prof opened his eyes.

"...What…" he said, gathering his bearings. Then he saw David standing over him. Prof's face contorted with anger. David was startled by the hatred in his eyes, like when he had been corrupted by the darkness. "You!" Prof snarled, jumping to his feet and swinging a fist at David's head. His hand crunched as it met David's invulnerable face, bones snapping audibly. Prof cursed, shaking his injured hand even as it healed. "Damn you, David!" he shouted. David was taken aback.

"Sparks, Prof! What's wrong with you?!"

"You couldn't let me die, could you!? You always get in the way!" Prof threw another punch but David was ready this time. He grabbed Prof's arms, pinning them together and forcing the man to hold still.

"What in Cantaloupe is wrong with you, Prof? You weren't like this before, when we landed." A dawning realization formed in David's mind. "Wait, were you trying to kill yourself? With that rock?"

"Of course I was," Prof snapped. "You Slontzes should have killed me back in Ildithia!" He fought to get his arms free but David was inhumanly strong. It was David's turn to be angry.

"After everything we went through to save you, you want to throw it all away?!"

"Save me?" Prof said. "Do you think what you've done is a kindness? Tell me David Charleston, if it had been you, do you think I would have let you wake up and see what you'd done?"

David couldn't think of anything to say. When the Reckoners had decided to save Prof, Abraham had predicted that he would be angry afterwards. He had been right.

Prof closed his eyes. He took a deep breath, calming himself. When he spoke, all the anger had left his voice, replaced by a great weariness. "I'm sorry, David. I'm sorry for everything. You can let go of me now." David watched him for a moment and let go. Prof turned away, rubbing his arms where David had gripped them. Slowly, he walked over to his lab coat. He picked it up and held it out in front of him, staring at the costume he had worn as Limelight.

"Prof…" David said, trying to think of something to say. "We saved you because you didn't deserve to die. You didn't deserve any of this."

"Deserve?" Prof said, still facing away. "No. I don't deserve it. I deserve far worse."

"Prof, you didn't choose to become an epic! Calamity did this to you. He made you into something you're not."

"No, David," Prof said. He turned and faced him. "Calamity only changes emotions. He didn't control me. I'm the one who chose to kill." Prof turned back around and sat down, holding the lab coat crumpled on his lap. He spoke quietly. "Val and Excel and dozens of Reckoners you didn't even know are dead because I wanted to kill them. It was enjoyable." Prof's voice caught on the last words and David realized he was crying. Sparks, he thought. I guess what Megan said was true. The epics remember everything when they wake up.

"Prof...that's in the past. You're good now. You don't want to hurt anyone," David said. Prof said nothing, quietly letting the tears come.

It twisted David's stomach to see Prof crying again. This man was Jonathan Phaedrus, founder of the Reckoners and leader of humanity's last resistance against the epics. A man who feared nothing and gave no quarter. David's childhood hero and the person he most looked up to in the world. While fighting to save Prof, David had tried everything he could to hurt him. He had used the tensor suit as much as possible, putting Prof in pain by using motivators made from his cells. He and Megan had activated Prof's weakness by confronting him with his failure. They had reduced him to tears, screaming at him that he had failed humanity, failed the Reckoners, failed himself, and failed Tia. When David teleported to Calamity's space station with Obliteration, Prof was an impotent mass on the floor. David knew it had been the only way to save him but that didn't change what they had done to the man. Prof was his friend and he knew how to make him hurt. The words could not be taken back. Considering this, it was incredible that ten minutes later, Prof had managed to reclaim his powers from Calamity and teleport to help David. That was the real Prof, David thought. He confronted his weakness and saved me. Even after everything we did to him. Even after Larc- Calamity took his powers and left him stunned.

"Prof, what happened after I left? I mean when Obliteration showed up and we teleported away. How did you get the tensor suit with your brain all sucked out by Calamity?"

Prof made a quiet scoffing noise. "It doesn't feel like getting your brain sucked out, kid. It actually feels much more like somebody's using your entire body as a motivator. You know the pain isn't real but you still can't move. You feel like you can't even think."

"But you fought it," David said.

"Not voluntarily. When you got sucked away, Megan panicked. She shouted at me to wake up, to help her. When I didn't move, she pulled a stun baton from a dimension where they had ' woke me up."

"She electrified you?"

"Pretty much. It's an effective way to realize what pain is real. I'd forgotten what it felt like not to heal immediately."

"Why'd Megan put the tensor suit on you instead of herself?"

"She didn't think it would work on her."

"Even with the motivators?"

Prof shrugged. "Apparently."

"And then you used the Obliteration teleporter to get to the space station," David said. He furrowed his eyebrows. "By the way, how did you know where I was?"

"Mizzy told us about your conversation with Obliteration. She sent us the picture. I remembered that I still had the teleporter while Megan was looking for an alternate universe Obliteration. In hindsight, I should have taken Megan with me."

"You left Megan?"

"Yeah. I should probably apologize for that. Add it to the list."

Prof had stopped crying, but he still sat on the ground, facing away from David. David took a deep breath, then stepped forward and gently put his hand on Prof's shoulder. "You saved the world, you know. You stopped the epics. I mean, yeah, you didn't kill them, but I think it's better that way. The Faithful finally have the good epics they were waiting for." David paused, thinking. "We need you. You're like an uncooked hotdog with chocolate sauce."

Prof was silent for a moment. "You know what, I'm not gonna ask."

David grinned and walked around to face him. He held out his hand. "C'mon Prof, the helicopter's gonna be here soon." Prof grabbed David's hand and let David help him up. The two looked at each other. In the older man's eyes, David saw his friend and mentor. Prof was still in there. He wasn't the same man but in time, maybe he could recover. The stress of recent events and the introduction to his dad had put David in a huggy mood. He grabbed Prof in his arms and held him tight. Prof was caught off guard, but after a moment, he returned the embrace.

"I'm so happy you're back, Prof," David said, still hugging.

"Thank you, David," Prof said quietly. "You're a good man. A better man than I ever was."

After an uncomfortably long time, David let Prof go. The two of them flew back to the hill Megan was on, Prof riding on his forcefield and David wavering precariously in the air.

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End of Chapter One