[past addiction & drug cravings, PTSD, unhealthy eating behavior, blood & injuries, canonical death, mentions of vomiting]

New chapter! This isn't the Thunderblink fluff we all need after the last episode. This story honestly gets darker with every chapter, and that's not about to end. But there's that Lorna/John discussion!


"Are we here to discuss politics?" Clarice asks, her voice dripping sarcasm. "Because if we are, I might as well remove myself from this conversation right now."

Marcos shares a look with Lorna. He expected Clarice's resistance, coming down there. This is her territory now, and they're invading it. But he hoped he could get through to her, get her to see why they need her.

Maybe he should have just started with the end of the story. But now that he's started, he feels like he can't stop. All the events of the last few weeks are stumbling over each other in his mind. Chaos. Maybe telling it all in order will help him make sense of all of it.

"You're right," he says, not arguing any further with Clarice. "We're here to tell you a story."


John doesn't know for sure how he dragged himself and Zingo back to the apartment, but day has turned to night when someone knocks on the door, and he's a mess. He's been hovering for hours in that strange state of exhaustion where his body is too wired to go to sleep, but too tired to do anything else.

That's probably why, when he answers the door, his brain hasn't yet computed who's behind it. Marcos is the one who knocked, but he's not alone.

Lorna? John blinks, barely able to tell if she's actually there or not. He opens his mouth, but no words come out.

They stare at each other for a while, John tired and stumbling and overwhelmed and Lorna hesitant, tentative, the opposite of her usual confidence. In the end, Marcos grumbles and pushes past John into the apartment. Lorna follows suit, carefully stepping around John without touching him, never meeting his eyes.

"What are you doing here?" John finally asks, once they've invaded his living room and taken over the couch.

"I wanted to talk to you," Lorna says.

John sighs and leans against the closed door. "Okay," he says.

"No. I wanted to talk to you, but you're obviously not in any state to talk." Lorna stands up from the couch and crosses the room, approaching him like she would a wounded animal.

John hates that his first instinct is to recoil. He crosses his arms over his chest instead. It doesn't quite give off the message he wants to pass−I'm fine, leave me alone−because Lorna comes even closer, until she's nearly touching him.

"John−"

"You don't get to come here after nine months and pretend you care," John growls. It doesn't sound anywhere as threatening as he wishes it did. But anger is better than all the other feelings he wants to stamp onto.

Lorna freezes before she can touch his arm. She lets her arm fall back to her side.

"You're right, I don't," she says, swallowing. "Though I do care. But I'll go if you want me to."

John wants, really wants, to run away right now. She's too close, too present, and Marcos looks at them with worry from the other end of the room and it's too much, and the apartment still overwhelmingly smells like Clarice and it's too much. He can't deal with all that at once, he can't deal with anything right now.

But Lorna's here. More here than she's been in so long. In front of him. Talking to him. And God, his chest feels too tight and the air around him feels solid and nothing else feels solid and he runs. Not far, he pushes Lorna away as gently as he can right now and stumbles and ends up in the bathroom again, on his knees heaving into the toilet. There's nothing in his stomach to come up, so he coughs violently instead.

This time Lorna gives up all attempt to leave him space. She runs after him and holds his hair away from his face, though it's useless, and hugs him tightly when he finally stops coughing. John almost involuntarily buries his face in her shoulder, until her hair blocks out the glare of the light and the smell of Clarice's shampoo and the noise of the fridge. For the first time in over a day, he breathes.

Breathing hurts.

"Come on," Lorna whispers, tugging on his arm. John lets her drag him to his feet−she uses his belt buckle to help, because he's far to heavy for her−and guide him to his bedroom. His and Clarice's. His.

Clarice is gone.

John sits down on the bed, and brings his legs up to put his arms around them, despite how much any pressure on his chest hurts. Pressure is good. Physical pain is good.

He closes his eyes in shame when confronted with Marcos's helpless look, with Lorna's shining eyes. He can barely believe himself how far he's fallen. He used to be so self-disciplined, so controlled. Once upon a time, he would never have allowed anyone to see him in this state.

When did the burden on his shoulders become too heavy to hide? Yesterday, when Clarice kissed him and said goodbye? Three days ago, when Turner made him stare down the barrel of a shotgun and wait for the end? Or three months ago, when Evangeline hammered home the truth he'd tried so hard to hide from?

Or was it the day Lorna left, taking with her what was left of his hope and of his home? The day they hit the Trask labs, and Sonya didn't come back? The day he held Gus's hand as he died?

Last time it became too much…

The thought comes unbidden and surprises John in its strength. Last time he found a way out. A way to quiet the pain and his mind and to hide from the guilt. He's been through this before.

The doctor, the one who first wrote him a prescription, called it survivor's guilt. But John doesn't feel guilty for surviving. Surviving is what he does.

He feels guilty for getting everyone else killed.

"John?"

John twitches. His thoughts have taken him down the usual path of guilt, pain, self-hatred, need. Need. It hurts physically, like the first day.

The day Evangeline flushed his pills down the toilet and chained him to a bed.

But Evangeline is gone, too.

John groans and bites, hard, on his finger. It's not painful enough to work. He goes to push on his injured chest−it might as well be good for something−but something provides resistance.

John opens his eyes, blinking. It's Lorna's hand on his, pushing hard against his strength.

"Raise your arms," she says, and John obeys without thinking. Lorna pulls his shirt over his head. She doesn't say anything else, but she knows where his mind is. She always knows. Knew.

"You've bled through," she says. "I'm just gonna cut the bandages, it will be easier."

Marcos comes into John's field of vision then, carrying medical supplies. "Shouldn't Caitlin do this?" he asks.

"Do you want Caitlin to do this?" Lorna asks John. John can barely remember the argument he had with the Struckers this morning−was it even this morning?−but he shakes his head. He can't handle Caitlin. Even Lorna and Marcos are too much.

Or maybe they're okay as long as he doesn't think about it too hard.

Lorna cleans his wounds and dresses them again, telling him about every step in detail. John feels her falter slightly at the sight of his chest−she saw it before, when she came close to him just long enough to take the lead pellets out of his skin, but she was focused on something else then−but he doesn't react. He doesn't flinch at the pain. His mind is too far gone for that.

He welcomes it, instead.

Once she's done, even cleaning the myriad of small cuts on his hands and arms from ripping cars apart all night, she guides him gently into lying down on his back.

"John," she whispers to get his attention.

John tiredly focuses on her.

"You're here," he murmurs.

Lorna doesn't quip about how she's been here for nearly an hour. She would have, once.

"I can't stay for long," she says instead.

John looks away.

"But I can stay for a while more," she adds. "You need to sleep."

That's how John finds himself sandwiched between Lorna and Marcos on his bed. He doesn't know why he lets them. It's probably the first time they've been in the same bed since Lorna left, and yet they're giving him that.

They've done it before, once. After they thought Pulse had died, when John didn't sleep for days and worked himself into a migraine so bad the pain made him scream.

Today Lorna hangs onto his arm and buries her face against his shoulder and Marcos awkwardly holds his neck and John falls asleep, finally.


He wakes up screaming.

That's another thing he hasn't done in a while. He woke Clarice up a handful of times with his nightmares, but he's long learned to muffle the noise. He couldn't afford waking everyone else, back at the bank. Even if everyone else woke him, a hundred times a night.

But this dream was almost as much a flashback as a dream. It had Evangeline and his Marine brothers and Clarice and Lorna and everything exploded and he couldn't protect them. John would already be huddling in a corner if it wasn't for Marcos holding him back.

Lorna is gone.

John wonders if she was ever here.

It takes him a long time, longer than usual, to get his breathing under control. The nightmares that mix the different parts of his life, the different traumas, are always the worse. They feel real, so real. Every time he blinks, all he can see is Lorna kneeling in front of him, blood gushing out of her chest.

"She had to go back before anyone noticed she was gone," Marcos says, and John realizes he's said Lorna's name aloud. "But she'll be by again later."

John just nods and lies back. He doesn't want to go back to sleep, but his whole body hurts. That night in the junkyard didn't do it any good.

"John−"

John turns his head to look at Marcos, but the openness, the vulnerability in his expression is painful. He looks away.

"I don't know how to help," Marcos says, and he somehow manages not to make it sound like a question. "But I'm not going to leave."

"She said that too," John mutters. "And then she left."

"Clarice?"

John shrugs. "I told her I was scared of losing her. The other day. I never told her that before."

Marcos sighs.

"Lorna...she used to say that we'd always make it, as long as we were together. I think...it was always obvious to us that you were included in it."

"But she left, too," John says.

He's been beating around the bush with Marcos for nine months, trying to help his friend and swallowing his own feelings in the process. He doesn't have the strength to do that anymore.

"But she left," Marcos repeats.

"And now?"

"I don't know."

"We're a mess, aren't we?"

Marcos laughs, bitterly.

Neither of them goes back to sleep, though it's the middle of the night. They lie side by side, as if waiting for something.

John aches for Clarice, for Lorna, for Gus and Sonya. Worse, he aches for the relief of drugs in his system. It superposes on the still vivid images of his friends, of death and explosions and pain. So much pain. It could take it all away.

He aches, almost as much, for the pain itself. The pain he deserves.


Lorna knocks on his door again in the morning, this time not bothering to wait for him to answer. Marcos has gone back to his apartment to take a shower, but John has barely moved.

He hasn't slept a wink more, and he feels, if possible, even worse than last night. The cravings haven't gone away, strong enough that he can barely think about anything else, and when he does, his mind just circles back to the explosion. Or to Clarice. Neither of which he wants to think about.

Lorna marches into the room.

"Alright, get up," she orders.

She apparently remembers enough about him not to try to open the blinds on the windows. John sluggishly turns toward her, making no move to sit up.

"John, you can't stay like this. We have work to do."

"Do we?"

John himself hates the hopelessness in his voice. She's right, he knows she is. There may not be much left of the Underground to salvage, but they have to try. He's usually the first to push everyone to act.

Except it's Lorna saying that, here in his bedroom, after she abandoned them.

"John−"

"Don't you get it, Lorna? Everything we built, it's all gone!" John explodes, sitting up brutally. The world becomes a kaleidoscope of blurry, moving colors, but he blinks it away.

Lorna stares at him for a long time in silence.

"That's what I thought, when I left," she says slowly. "But I didn't understand something. This was never about the station, or about the Underground."

"What do you mean?"

"We are still here. As long as this goes on, as long as we're alive, we can fight. That's not gone. We can rebuild."

John looks at her in incredulity, then he laughs. It's like a bark, rough and hoarse and bitter. It hurts his cracked rib, and his throat, and his heart.

"As long as we're together, uh?" he croaks out in between coughs.

Lorna's face falls.

"There is no Underground anymore," John hammers in. "There is no 'us'. We made sure of that, fighting each other."

"John...I know we need to talk, and we will, but thinking like this isn't going to bring us anywhere. We have to fight what the Inner Circle is planning, we have to fight back against the Purifiers. That's why I'm here."

"So just because you suddenly changed your mind and came grovelling back to Marcos, everything is suddenly fine? You're the one who's wanted nothing to do with us for months!"

"I came back to get you out of the Purifier's compound! A situation you put yourself into all on your own!"

"You came because Marcos begged you to," John growls. "And you couldn't even look at me."

He's not even angry. He's long past that, now. What Lorna thinks of him doesn't matter, not really. Yes, it hurts that she didn't even stay long enough to talk to him, but she's right.

He's dug his own grave.

He wants to throw up again. The hole inside him feels like it's growing, digging deeper into his insides with every movement he makes. It smells of ashes.

"John−"

He looks away, and pushes himself up to stand. He sways, his head immediately swimming.

"John, what's wrong?"

Lorna is at his side again, holding him up. John shakes his head, and regrets it.

"When was the last time you ate?"

John blinks, and tries to remember. That would be the soup Clarice made, three nights ago. His instincts were tugging at him too hard to eat the next morning, before they left for the meeting. No wonder he's not feeling well.

"A while," he mutters.

"Come on."

Lorna supports him until he drops onto a chair at the table, and he lets her.

"Let's make some breakfast," she says.

No one has gone shopping in a while, and John isn't much of a cook in any case−though he still beats Clarice by a mile, given that last time she managed to burn pasta under his supervision−so there isn't much food around. But Lorna still manages to find some eggs, and minutes later she has a full plate in front of John.

John chokes it down the best he can, looking anywhere but at Lorna, who's sat in front of him.

"I couldn't look at you because I was too ashamed," she says softly when he puts his fork down. "I failed you. You were my best friend, and we swore to always be there for each other, and I let my stupid failed dreams come between us."

"You didn't fail me," John murmurs. "I'm the one who failed. I'm the one who couldn't be what you needed. What everyone needed."

Lorna lets out a sob. For an instant, it's like they're back at the beginning of all of this, two battle-weary people with an impossible task in front of them.

John stands up brutally, and flees. Lorna angrily dries her tears and folds in on herself.

The moment has passed, and maybe there's too much standing between them now to start again.


As always, thanks for reading and tell me what you think!