"I told them you were gonna wake up!"

Zaeed looked around in confusion at the sound of the familiar voice. His one good eye finally spotted Bex sitting cross-legged in a chair across the room. There was a cut going through her left eyebrow and extending up a couple of inches to her forehead, but she looked much better than he'd expected after everything that had happened at the warehouse. He was honestly surprised she was even still alive.

"Hey half-pint," he said hoarsely. "How long you been sitting there?"

She slowly counted off on her fingers, muttering to herself, before she said, "Off 'n' mostly on for about three days."

"And who's they?" He looked around again as he gingerly sat up and immediately recognized the room. "You're with Noah?"

She nodded. "And um... John."

"Your old man John?" She nodded again and he frowned. "I fucking knew it. I'm dead, aren't I?"

"Nope, not dead. Not yet anyway."

"So how'd I, we, get here?"

She came over to sit beside him on the bed. "Started out at a vet clinic not all that far from the warehouse –"

"Where you just happened to run into your long-lost dad?"

She shrugged. "Of all the vet clinics in all the worlds..."

Zaeed groaned. "You're cut off from watching Casablanca ever again."

Bex rolled her eyes. "Anyway..."

"Hey, good to see you awake," said a voice from the doorway. "How are you feeling, Zaeed?"

"A little groggy and pretty goddamn sore, but all right," he said as he slowly turned his head to see the man who was crossing the room. He was just barely starting to go gray, but John really hadn't changed much in six years. "Can't believe I got patched up by a bloody vet."

John laughed. "Don't worry; most of that's Noah's handiwork."

"So, he knows you invaded his safe house?"

"Of course. It was his idea."

"A couple of Vido's idiots came by the vet clinic, so we had to get out," Bex said.

"Anything since then?" Zaeed asked.

She shook her head. "But Noah went back to the warehouse. Figured Vido would get suspicious if he stayed away too long."

"Bex, you've been sitting in here long enough," John said. "Go down to the kitchen and get something to eat, okay? You skipped lunch."

She pouted for a moment but finally got up and left, grumbling to herself as she went.

Zaeed sighed. "Still not eating much, then?"

"No. Not sleeping much either," John said as he did a few scans. "She's spent about 95% of the last three days in that chair."

"Doesn't mean she's not sleeping though. Didn't Noah tell you? She only sleeps in chairs or in the corner on the floor."

"Matron at the orphanage told me the same thing. So that wasn't just a quirk or something? She still does that all the time?"

Zaeed nodded. "She told me, years ago, it's the only way she feels safe, that no one can sneak up on her."

"Shit." John pulled the chair across the room and sat by the bed. "I'm glad she had you looking out for her, Zaeed."

"You're bloody joking, right? You call this looking out for her?"

"You seem to have gotten the worst of it."

Zaeed clenched his jaw. "Vido pushed her down the stairs, John."

"I knew she was lying when she said she'd tripped. 'Course, we were still... strangers then." John frowned. "Mostly still are, really."

"It's just gonna take her awhile to trust you."

"Why wouldn't she trust me? I'm her father."

Zaeed shook his head. "Biologically, yes. But for now, at best, you're just someone who helped her when trusting the unknown was safer than trusting the known. And at worst, you're the man who, in her eyes, lied to her and then bloody abandoned her."

John looked stunned. "Abandoned... I didn't... And when the hell did I ever lie to her?"

"You said you'd 'be back before I knew it.' But you didn't come back at all," Bex said quietly, standing in the doorway. "I figured you just didn't want me anymore."

"So you didn't even believe your grandfather when he said I was dead?"

She shook her head.

"Why not?"

"We didn't have a memorial like we had for Momma after the war. So I figured he was lying too."

Zaeed shifted uncomfortably on the bed as the room filled with silence. He'd give anything to have not heard that conversation.

Finally, John got up and knelt in front of Bex. "I'm not going anywhere," he said, brushing tears from her face. "I promise."

She didn't look like she really believed him but nodded slowly before she walked over to the bed and sat next to Zaeed again. "What about you?"

He frowned. "What about me?"

"Are you gonna stay?"

"Of course I am. I'd only leave if I had a damn good reason, like to keep you safe, or to go hunt down Vido." His gaze flicked to John for a moment before he looked back at Bex. "And if I did, you'd know that's why I was leaving."

John rolled his eyes. "Thanks for that."

Zaeed shrugged but said nothing. He knew it was a bit of a cheap shot, but he wasn't going to apologize for the truth.

Bex frowned as she looked back and forth between them. "I'm just gonna go," she said as she got off the bed.

John shook his head and stood up. "You stay, I'll go." When Bex started to protest, he added, "I'm just going downstairs, see if I can get hold of Noah. It's been awhile since he checked in."

"You okay, half-pint?" Zaeed asked as Bex settled back on one side of the bed again.

She shrugged. "Guess so."

"Don't be too hard on John."

"But you just – why do I have to be nice to him and you don't?"

"Who said I'm not being nice to him?" Zaeed gave her as stern a look as he was capable of at the moment. "Were you eavesdropping?"

She looked down at her hands and mumbled, "Maybe."

"So you never went to the kitchen to get food?"

She shook her head. "I did," she said as she pulled a half-eaten energy bar from the pocket of her hoodie.

"When's the last time you ate any real food?"

"This morning."

"Really?"

She nodded. "I ate six waffles."

"Glad to hear it." He put a finger under her chin to raise her head so she was looking at him. "Pike is dead, and Vido's... we're not going to let Vido hurt you anymore, okay?"

She looked doubtful but nodded slightly before she looked back down at her hands. "'K."

"And Bex?"

"Hm?"

"Give John a chance. He's trying."

"I know." She glanced up at Zaeed again. "If I have to be nice to him, so do you."

He chuckled. "Deal."

From: Noah Payne

To: John Shepard

Subj: re: Check-In

I'm fine, for now. If Vido's suspicious, he hasn't said, or done, anything yet. Might be a good idea to get Zaeed and Bex out of London, now he's awake.

As for Bex, I don't know what to tell you, John. I think you're just gonna have to give it some time. And don't let Zaeed get to you. He's very protective of her, and probably still feels guilty about getting her involved in this shit in the first place.

I'll try to check in again in a few hours. Don't know when I'll be able to get back to the safe house. Could be awhile yet.

-Noah