DISCLAIMER: Scrubs is owned by the fantastic Bill Lawrence and the ABC Network (as of Season 8). I own nothing, especially not the characters of this story, who've all decided that they're going to overthrow the system and write ridiculously long interludes with massive syllable-elongation and bitch-sessions about Barbie Reid. (Yep. I'm looking to you, Perry).

AUTHORS NOTE: Honestly. It's just my luck that the one thing I'd hoped to avoid ends up happening anyway. I'm sorry about the long read, guys, but I just didn't want to dissapoint you again by breaking it up into a third part. Still. I am super-excited about this update, because it just rocks my socks. I hope you enjoy it too, as well as the extras at the bottom there. That's all I have to say, except maybe that I'm sorry about keeping you waiting so long. I had to get this perfect before I posted it. It's an author thing. Or maybe it's a me thing. Enjoy!

INTERLUDE II, PART II

I'm one of those people whose reputation precedes them. I say that with a lot of honesty and very little arrogance, though most people don't seem to notice the difference. That's what reputations do, in a nutshell—they change the way people think about you before they've even met you. It doesn't matter whether or not what is said is true, or if people believe it or not, either way—you've made a name for yourself. No matter how much someone disregards gossip about someone else, they always remember it, and eventually become bias towards the person being talked about. It's not something you can help, it just happens. The people who don't choose their reputations are almost always dragged down by it, despite whether what is being said is good or bad. If it's bad, well, that one's obvious. Nobody wants news spread about them, especially about something they said or did that they might regret. If it's good, that one's a little trickier. Sometimes people rise to the occasion, no matter if the rumour is true or false, but more often than not they become burdened by the weight of other people's expectations.

I was never one of those people.

I chose my reputation, I demanded the attention and I enforced the rules. I didn't do it because I was an egotistical maniac—well, partly—but because it was the only way I knew how to protect myself. If you didn't make a name for yourself, people made one for you. I just couldn't have that. Things had to happen my way, or no way at all.

It began in high school, where I was known as the resident menace, one who truly believed he was gracing the halls with his presence. Needless to say, this didn't change much when I became a doctor—after the initial bought of terror that every intern experienced, I settled in, and so did my ego. The difference between the two was that, as a doctor, I was actually making a difference. In high school, I was just annoying. My reputation for being an obnoxious bastard was coupled with the fact that I was undeniably brilliant. I knew it, my teachers knew it, the other students knew it and, eventually, Sacred Heart knew it, too.

It didn't stop there. When the world went to hell with the rise of the Collective, I knew it was impossible to play the part of best doctor anymore. All of the hospitals were being raided. Those who stood up to the barrage were cut down without a second thought, and those who didn't fight were taken to work in conjunction with the enemy. Bobcat helped us to escape when they finally came to Sacred Heart, but he couldn't help us escape what we were. There were only two choices—kill, or be killed. Many of my colleagues, Barbie included, didn't take to the change well. They were doctors, not soldiers. But though I was the most rebellious of the group, I also knew what needed to be done. Being a pacifistic doctor just wouldn't cut it anymore. I didn't believe in bloodshed and I sure as hell didn't believe in war, but when the alternative was death for me and everyone I ever knew, the choice was made clear.

I set out to make a new reputation for myself. A new name, and a new face.

Not all of my plans were pulled off that flawlessly.

"You have no idea how to get out of here, do you?"

I was slowly starting to remember why I'd never liked Barbie Reid in the first place, but I kept my mouth shut. It was less than an hour ago that I had proclaimed my intentions of breaking her out of here, and she definitely did na-hot seem receptive to the idea. According to her, my expertise only extended to medical procedures and throwing the occasional well-aimed punch, not prison breaks. Of course, now that she'd said that, I was going to have to do everything I could to prove her wrong. Lucky for the both of us, this worked in conjunction to the original idea.

Barbie seemed to want an answer to her question. I managed to restrain myself from growling at her, but it was a close one. "I'll think of something," I said wryly, and she let the subject drop.

For about five minutes, at least.

I eventually droned out her incessant babbling by surveying the guard rotation outside the cell. I had no idea what I would do with the information once I had it, but that was where the planning part of the escape came into it—something that Barbie didn't seem to understand if her constant objections were any indication. I shook my head, distracting myself from my irritation while fixing my eyes on the figures stationed outside the door. There's only one guard directly outside here, I thought, commentating to myself what I would probably tell my partner in the event that I was placed with someone who actually did have a brain that they used once in awhile, but his gal-pals are probably waiting down the hall...

A-haand this information is useless, I thought, scowling. Without knowing where the other guards are stationed, we're screwed either way.

Resignedly, I turned around and put my head in my hands, trying to think of the logical way to go about this. I came up empty. Barbie seemed to realise what was happening and stopped speaking, fixing her gaze on my face when I finally lifted my head to look around the room. The brief moment of quietude didn't last long. "I'm glad you're here, Doctor Cox," she said, playing with the sleeve of her faded blue shirt. I stared at her incredulously. After all, I sure wasn't glad that I was there. She was quick to realise the mistake, and added sheepishly: "Company-wise, I mean."

A moment of silence passed between us before she sighed. "But I don't think even you can find a way out of this place without some help."

I simply stared at her in response, unable to conjure even the most simplest of wit. She faltered.

"Help me to help you, remember?" asked Barbie, her voice small.

I did remember. I also remembered that I had a voice, too. "And how will you manage that, Barbaroo? If you didn't notice, you're in exactly the same situation I am."

She turned her head to the side and, for the first time since I'd told her what I planned to do, was completely subdued. Before I could begin to ponder the change and the reasons for it, however, she seemed to gather up the courage to speak again. Her voice, though barely audible, still managed to ring against the walls of the small cell as she spoke. "They post a solitary guard outside every occupied cell. Lucky for us, there are probably only a few other people in this place right now. The guards outside the cell rotate twice every three hours and, for the two standing at each hallway exit, once every three hours. This is a big place, though, so occasionally when something big is going down, like your infiltration mission, we'll be only left with the cell guards, who are mostly distracted by one another anyway."

"And you know that how?" I asked. Mockery bled into the question from every angle, my automatic defence mechanism whenever something put me completely off guard.

Barbie shrugged, attempting to appear nonchalant, but I could tell I'd hit a sore spot. For some reason, knowing that didn't give me the same satisfaction as it used to. Newbie's gone and made you soft, that rat-bastard, a voice in the back of my head said to me, sounding disapproving. I shook it off, knowing that it had more merit than anything else I'd thought about today. I regained myself to see Barbie looking at me, an unidentifiable look on her face.

"It's not like I've had much else to do for the last six months besides staring out that crack and getting beaten."

I sighed, realising at once where this was all going.

"Listen, Barbie. I emphasise with you, I really do, and you know how hard that is for me. But there's not much point sitting there feeling sorry for yourself—it's not going to get us out of here." I paused, looking down at her wide-eyed expression. "You do want to get out of here, don't you, Barberella?"

Her reply was barely audible, yet I heard it like she was screaming at me. "More than anything," she whispered. I nodded.

"Then it's time to start planning."

I crouched beside the door, peering out into the small window of perspective it provided of the hallway beyond it. I saw the guard to our cell standing on the right, and only two more guards down the hall that I could see. It still wasn't enough to get a significant idea of what we were up against but, with Barbie's information, it helped. Unfortunately, she didn't seem to think so. Despite what progress I thought we'd made, she seemed to slip right back into her first mindset. Which was, of course, to grossly undermining my abilities. Especially when I got annoyed, like I was then.

"I need to know how, Doctor Cox," she said, exasperatedly, like it was the most tiring thing in the world. "Even if we plan, how are we going to get out of here?"

This time, I couldn't stop myself from rolling my eyes. "I don't know how we're getting out of here, Barbaroo, that's why we plan these things. You know, through that small little thing people sometimes do called thinking?"

I turned to garner her reaction, only to see that she was looking down at her hands with a strange look on her face. I followed her gaze to see the red-purple bruises on her knuckles. My annoyance faded immediately, replaced by something that—to my absolute horror—seemed to represent concern.

"Did they—?"

She cut me off immediately. "No. They didn't give me these." She smiled sadly as she stroked the bruises with her fingertips. "I got these from fighting back."

"Barbie: a fighter? Who'd have thought?" I hadn't realised I'd said that aloud until she looked at me. Her eyes narrowed slightly, but there was a smile on her face.

A moment later, she said: "You don't have to be such a bastard about it."

I smirked. "Would I really be me if I wasn't?"

She offered a small smile in return, only for it to fade into seriousness a moment later. I didn't say anything—there was no point of asking her if she was okay when she clearly wasn't. Not that I would have, even if that fact didn't apply. Instead, I waited 'til she was comfortable to speak again. Considering the fact that this was Doctor Barbie I was cell-buddies with, it didn't take long.

"I know why you want to get out of here so badly, Doctor Cox," she said softly, eyes still fixated on the place where her hands rested in her lap.

I raised an eyebrow in her direction, almost convinced that I hadn't heard her right. "You mean, other than the fact that this place is dark, damn and smells like a sewerage pipe?"

She nodded, looking extremely put out. "That man—the one with the accent—he told me things. Things about me... and about you as well."

What she said didn't surprise me in the least. This was Adrian D'Arques we were talking about, after all. To her, I said: "You do know that you're generally not supposed to take the word of the guy who's responsible for you being here, right?" I was sure the words would come off sarcastic, as my remarks often did, but I was honestly worried for Barbie in that moment. How much had Adrian D'Arques told her that she actually took seriously—or, worse, believed?

She just shook her head at me.

"I know when he's taunting me. He's never serious when he does, and I know you know that. But this... this was different. He was completely serious about this—I could see it in his eyes."

"What did he say?"

Barbie took a deep breath, only to shiver from whatever memory she was drawing upon. "He said he had plans for me," she began, softly, but couldn't manage to say anything more. I waited for her, calling upon some of my previously untapped patience that I usually reserved for play-dates with my children and general interaction with Newbie. Finally, after a pregnant silence, she lifted her eyes to meet mine. "He also said he has plans for your daughter."

That caught my attention. I immediately recalled the conversation I'd had with D'Arques before he so abruptly disposed of me into this cell. It didn't help my calm any, thinking about it.

"What plans?" I asked.

She didn't respond. Almost desperately—I say almost, because if there's one thing I'm not, it's desperate—I crawled my way over to her, placing my hands on her shoulders and forcing her to look at me. "What plans, Barbie?"

"I don't know. He wouldn't tell me." She looked up at me, eyes searching, scanning my face for some sort of sign. Whatever she found, it sure as hell wasn't what she expected. Her hands flew to her mouth. "Ohmigod!" She gasped, the words blurring into one another as her neurotic tendency to talk inhumanly fast managed to kick in. "You know—don't you?"

I shook my head, still feeling the cold pit of dread freezing my insides. "D'Arques—that's the bastard's name—told me that Jennifer was infected. With the Juvenile virus."

I have to hand it to Barbie—she's a pretty emphatic human being, especially when it came to other's suffrage. Upon hearing what D'Arques had told me, her hands moved to grip my own, which were still resting on her shoulders. Her wide, blue eyes filled with tears. When she spoke, it was a single word, but one that had so much pent-up sadness behind it she managed to stir an actual emotion to my chest. "No..."

I averted my eyes, unable to deal with the turmoil resting behind my own cold, hard facade. To see Barbie crumble threatened to unravel the gigantic ball of tangled, garbled fear I kept safely behind the mask of adrenaline and anger that was keeping me going. I couldn't have that. I couldn't come apart—not yet, and most certainly not here. Only until I had my family safe in my arms would I allow myself to let loose. Anything else would be strictly out of character for me, and would play directly into the Collective's hands. I couldn't give them that satisfaction. So I schooled my features, and gave Barbie the rest of the story.

"It gets worse. He said that she was a carrier—that when she dies, she'll spread the virus to hundreds, maybe thousands more people." Before Barbie could get a chance to react, I continued. "But that's not, I repeat, not going to happen—not if we come up with a way out of here. And we will, Elliot." Saying her name again had the desired effect. Her hands, which had risen to her face, slowly dropped to her sides.

I fixed her with my best, most arrogant Cox smirk.

"Whaddaya say?"

Barbie looked up at me then. Her eyes, while still gleaming with unshed tears, were hardening before my eyes. With strength. She nodded curtly. "Let's do this."

I'd like to say that I was the mastermind behind our little escape attempt, but I wasn't. We got out on dumb luck. That doesn't mean I didn't try—or, more specifically, that we didn't try. When it came down to it, though, there was only one thing shy of another infiltration that could get us out of that cell and to safety. That one thing—our only hope—was to have an inside man.

Lucky for us, that's exactly what we got.

Our first inclination that all hope wasn't lost came in the form of a message, scrawled hastily on the inside of a food tray that was dumped unceremoniously through the narrow slit in the door. I averted my eyes from the tray of food to Barbie, who nodded at me to say that it was alright. It wasn't until after the meal—which consisted of half a glass of water and a bowl of cold oatmeal that resembled sludge more than it did any edible food—that we—or, rather, I—noticed the words printed on the metallic underside of the tray. I beckoned Barbie over to take a look at the words as I lifted the tray towards the small slither of light that the slit provided.

"Ever noticed this before?" I asked her. I felt rather than saw the shake of her head as we both glued our eyes to the messy scrawl before us.

The writing, though barely legible, should have made sense to us in the minutes that followed. But it didn't. The sequence was utterly random, the letters put together in such a way that they could spell out no accurate word or sentence no matter which way or order they were placed in. They were a mixture of consonants with an occasional vowel in a completely inappropriate place. The writer, whoever they were, also seemed to favour those letters barely used in most colloquial words, such as X, Q and Z. Even with my own sharp intellect and Barbie's admittedly functioning brain, we couldn't figure out what those letters meant. It was only until we shifted to the bottom of the tray that we recognised three words that actually made sense in some way, shape or form. Barely.

It was Barbie who broke the sudden silence that had flooded the cell, asking the exact same thing I was thinking.

"'Year of outbreak'?"

I glared at the three words, sceptical of their meaning. "The year of the Juvenile outbreak was 2010, but what the hell does that have to do anything?" The words came out as a growl. I turned my head to watch Barbie as she read and re-read the only the legible words at the bottom of the tray with a scrutinising glance. Her features softened a little as she lifted her head from the small spillage of light at the door and turned to face me.

A moment later, she spoke again, this time thoughtfully.

"What if this isn't as coincidental as it looks? The date obviously means something, and so does the fact that it's the only thing on this tray we can read."

While I already suspected everything she had just said, something in Barbie's words struck out at me. After a moment of processing the information, it occurred to me. I lifted my head, matching Barbie's still rather bewildered stare with a wicked smirk. "I know what this is," I said, unable to keep the pride from seeping into my voice. And who could blame me, either? This was the first good thing to happen to me in hours. "Code-breaking 101. This is a cipher; a date-shift cipher, to be exact."

Barbie's eyes widened in recognition. "Do you think we can figure it out without a pen and paper?"

"I know we can," I replied, levelling my eyes to meet her gaze head on. "I'll convert the letters if you can remember what we've done so far."

Barbie nodded curtly. Without further hesitation, we began.

From what I remembered being taught, the date-shift cipher involved decoding a mixture of seemingly random letters into a message, using a date—in this case, the year of the Juvenile outbreak—to decipher it. The words were placed next to each other with no line breaks or spaces in between, which made the message more secure, and each letter shifted to the left depending on the numerical value given to the letter. The first letter, a G, was supposed to be shifted twice to the left, according to the idea that the letters would move in an anti-clockwise direction when shifted, which made it an I. This meant that the letters on one side of the cipher wheel would look like they were moving to the right, while others would look like they were moving to the left. Once I explained this to Barbie, we made quick work of the first line, which roughly read: . When using 2010 as the code-breaker, the message was properly decoded into an equally long string of letters. While the individual letters remained pushed together, it wasn't at all hard to read the message they spelled out. By some stretch of imagination, the first line of the inscription on the tray actually said: I AM THE HARBINGER. I AM HERE TO HELP YOU ON JOHN DORIAN'S ORDERS. Enthused by our initial success, it took less than a half an hour for us to decode the rest of it.

In its entirety, the letter read:

"I am the Harbinger. I am here to help you on John Dorian's orders. Escape to commence at midnight with fake alarm to divert guard attention. Must get out as soon as possible. Further information at dinner."

"Looks like we really are getting out of here tonight," I said with a low whistle. Barbie looked up at me, her eyes widening as realisation set in. I smirked in response, unable to keep the expression off my face. When Barbie beamed brightly in response, however, the smirk faded into a genuine smile. I wrote off my moment of weakness as an inevitable side-effect of working with Newbie.

Unfortunately, the anticipation that swelled in my gut during the hours that followed was all on me, especially when 'dinner' finally approached. Though I'd nee-hever admit it, it quickly got to the point where Barbie was in a calmer state than I was, despite her tendency to be a gigantic ball of crazy when she was nervous. Neither of us said anything about it. It shocked me, really, as of all the times Barbie could have sought revenge for the hell I'd put her through during our time at Sacred Heart, this would have been the one that would have gotten to me the most. If I were in her position, I sure as hell would have said something, but Barbie's snide remark never came. When I turned to her, all I saw was a sad kind of understanding in Barbie's too-blue eyes. And, for some reason, that got to me more than any insult ever could.

I had no time to ponder the strange position I found myself in right then as in the moments that followed, a food tray—identical to the one we'd received earlier—slid through the slit in the door. Barbie and I scrambled towards it, moving faster than we had in hours. Barbie took the plate of food off the tray as I held it up into the light to glimpse at the hidden message underneath. I didn't know what I expected, but whatever it was, it wasn't what saw.

The message was clear—too clear, perhaps. But as I stared at it, I realised that the two words written on the tray would mean nothing to anybody else who picked it up. There was no need to use the date-shift cipher or any type of code or translation. It was too straight forward for that. In big, bold black letters, scrawled in the precise middle of the tray, the message consisted of two words.

STAND BACK.

It was like something out of a movie. Barbie and I locked eyes with one another, achingly slow. When she spoke, her voice was low, anxiety laced in every syllable of every word. "You don't think its midnight yet, do you?" She asked, still clutching the tray tightly in her hands. I grimaced at her, unable to stop the irritation I felt from bubbling to the surface and promptly overflowing, flooding me with the emotion.

"How the hell am I supposed to—"

I never finished my sentence, because in that moment, an ear-splitting sound erupted in the air around us. I recognised the sound of the alarm from when it sounded when our team breached the outward defences. This time, however, we both knew it was a hoax. What wasn't was the message written on the tray. Heeding our mysterious messenger's warning, Barbie and I staggered to our feet and pressed ourselves against the opposing wall of the cell, focusing on becoming as small as possible to avoid the coming explosion. I lifted my arms to shelter Barbie's head as we waited, my shoulders encompassing her smaller frame to shield her from what was to come.

Our messenger didn't disappoint.

The door exploded violently inwards, smacking against one of the side walls with a devastating crack. When the debris fell and we found ourselves still intact, I lowered my hands from Barbie's face. We turned in unison, both blinking against the sudden light that flooded the cell, and the shadowy figure that appeared in the threshold of the door, now blown off of its hinges. I turned to Barbie, who was still blinking rapidly against the light overhead, and grinned.

"Looks like we got our answer."

The three of us ran down the deserted hallways of the prison ward, stopping whenever we saw an unconscious guard lying in front of a cell. The man responsible for freeing us—who immediately revealed that he wasn't the Harbinger, but a close associate—threw open each door with an amazing display of ability. Freeing the rebel agents still captive within their cells took time, but it was well worth it. We found six people in total, two to a cell, who seemed to be the only prisoners left out of the hundreds that Barbie described going in and out of the place. I quickly realised why. The base we found ourselves in was one of the smaller ones, designed to hold prisoners only on a temporary basis. It acted more as a rendezvous point, a place to refuel—though the amount of soldiers that were in a base of this little importance was startling. The Collective had definitely been doing some recruiting work. Lucky for us, the rebels had, too.

We didn't encounter any trouble until we reached the base's inner circle. It seemed about then that the guards realised there was no obvious threat and began to return to their posts. Of course, when they saw a rag-tag bunch of dirty, sweaty people running away from them, it was akin to having a neon sign on top of our heads saying: We've Just Escaped, Come Catch Us.

It only went downhill from there.

The guards chasing after us radioed in to the rest of the base, revealing the true cause of the alarm. All at once, we were seriously outnumbered. We weren't getting any quicker, either. Most of the prisoners, Barbie included, hadn't done any physical exercise in months. That, coupled with pure exhaustion and malnutrition from the rations they'd been given for food, slowed us down considerably. While Barbie managed to keep her cool despite the weight that was resting against her, many of the other prisoners didn't. One of them, a girl who couldn't have been more than Jack's age, slipped and fell. The rest of the prisoners—including her cell mate, a boy equally as young—continued on without her, either not noticing or not caring about whether she was following them or not. In some ways I could understand it, especially when thinking of the desperation I myself felt to get the hell out of here. But mostly, it just sickened me.

Which is why I turned and ran back.

Tear tracks marked the girl's dirt-smeared face as she clutched her ankle with a look of barely concealed anguish. She looked up at me pleadingly as I drew in closer to her, her eyes begging me to help her. I couldn't do anything for her injury, but I was strong enough to carry the both of us. I had only been in this hell-hole for a day or so, after all, and hell—I was Perry Cox. I could do this, I knew I could. I scooped her up in a single movement and carried her, bridal-style, down the hall. There was no way we'd catch up to Barbie and the others now, not if they remained at a consistent pace, but I had studied the plans and I knew which route they were taking. We followed behind, the girl clinging to me like I was her life-line.

Every footfall jostled her ankle, and I felt my heart go out to her despite the lack of emotion present on my face. In order to keep her—and, in some ways, me—distracted from the ever-present fear that accompanied our situation, I asked: "What's your name?" From the corner of my eye, I saw her blink, clearly confused by the question. A moment later, she answered, her voice small and shaking.

"K-Kara."

We shot down the hall, the walls on either side a blur as we moved. Kara's grip around my neck tightened as I turned a sharp right, heading for a door at the end of the corridor. We were almost there, I realised. Almost to safety.

I threw open the door to see the other group, Barbie included, waiting by a gigantic bulkhead door. I frowned. I'd forgotten about that. When we infiltrated the base, we'd made certain to steer clear of those doors. They took at least a half an hour to open—unless, I realised, you were lucky enough to have someone on the inside working with you. Our rescuer was busy typing in the five-digit exit code that would open the door to the bulkhead and to our freedom. A moment later, the lock relented and the door swung slowly open. The group bolted through the threshold of the door, running as fast as their legs would take them. I followed, Kara still held tightly in my arms.

There was an ear-splitting crack from behind me. I kept running, my grip on Kara tightening.

A haze of red erupted across my field of vision. My legs continued to pump beneath me, never wavering.

Pain erupted through my body, blanketed only by the overwhelming shock that took me right then. Despite my determination, I faltered. The rest of the group began to grow smaller in the distance as I fell to my knees, unable to stop the wave of nausea that seized my stomach. Kara whimpered, and all at once I was reminded of her presence. I staggered to my feet, just to see Barbie stop and turn around, a look of pure terror flitting across her features.

The pain increased tenfold as the initial shock faded. And that was when I realised.

I wasn't getting out of here. Not alive, at least.

I turned and swung the bulkhead door shut behind me. It wouldn't buy us a lot of time, not with the guards' knowledge of the exit-code, but it was something. I set Kara on the ground, grunting as the movement tugged on the entry wound of the bullet now embedded in my shoulder. "Go," I urged her, voice hoarse. "I know it hurts, but you have to run. Get to Barbie, the blonde one over there, and she'll help you."

Kara just looked at me, eyes wide. She shook her head.

"GO!"

Something in my voice must have reached out to her, because she staggered backwards, a look of barely disguised pain flitting across her face as she rested on her bad ankle. Despite the agony, she turned and ran as fast as she could to where Barbie was waiting. The blonde-haired doctor remained rooted to the ground, staring at me in abject horror as Kara hobbled over to her.

"Get the hell out of here, Barbie!" I growled, just as the door behind me was wrenched open. I turned around to face my attackers, hoping that my own feeble defence would provide Barbie and Kara the precious time they needed to get away. In the distance, I heard the sound of footsteps pounding against the asphalt, growing less and less audible. I didn't turn around to see if they had made it. I couldn't, because it was then that my aching body finally decided it had had enough. I knew quite well what awaited me inside those walls, but in that moment, I couldn't muster up the strength to care. After the beating, the running, and the shooting, I was exhausted.

It was over.

They had won.

I didn't move. I couldn't. One of the guards, clad in military fatigues, grabbed a hold of me by looping his hands under my armpits. His fingers dug into my flesh, and he jostled the ghastly flesh wound on my shoulder as he dragged me along the concrete floor of the warehouse. I cried out, feeling not unlike something was puncturing my shoulder through to the bone. I wasn't far off. I knew what that feeling was—the bullet was still lodged in there, and damn did it hurt. It splinted on impact, cutting through my flesh more than once. I had seen these wounds, knew what they did to the people who couldn't get into surgery quickly enough.

The darkness swallowed me whole, a cold, numbing reprieve to the pain that threatened to overwhelm me. It didn't last nearly long enough. I resurfaced to the feeling of the guards dragging me back into the base, heading towards the middle of it, where I knew Adrian D'Arques waited for me. I swallowed. I had provoked him, while being fully aware of the consequences...

But I had never anticipated this.

The pain I felt then was only a precursor to the agony that followed. I drifted in and out of consciousness, but I still heard his voice loud and clear in my head as I was thrown unceremoniously onto a table in the middle of the room.

"You will PAY for your indiscretions, Perry," D'Arques said, his voice full of barely concealed anger as he approached me. Three armed guards held me down as I flailed around desperately, my injured shoulder colliding painfully with the table's surface. I didn't care about the pain right then, because I knew it would be nothing compared to the agony I was about to experience. I was completely helpless, unable to do anything to save myself from the horror Adrian D'Arques was about to commit. He knew this, and he revelled in it. He pressed his palm against the fragmented wound in my shoulder. I howled with pain, unable to keep my screams to myself as he pressed against the unstoppable ache.

When D'Arques next spoke, his tone was reprimanding, as if he was speaking to a child who had just said a bad word. "Elliot Reid was to play a very important part in our plans. You have ruined that now by aiding in her escape." His voice hardened until it was completely cold, emotionless. "For this, I will carry out my previous threat. Goodbye, Perry Cox. You will never see me again."

I bit back a scream as a needle sunk deep into the crook of my elbow, releasing toxins that I knew would sooner kill me than relieve the pain I was in. The nodes they attached to my head didn't feel any better—they were like bullets to the brain, and they hurt just as much. My legs ached from the strain of my escape and their collision with the ground as I had fallen, and the heavy weight of the guard's hands pressing down on my knees didn't help the muscles any. Coils of plastic tubing, hastily attached, connected me to a machine behind me. I didn't know how it functioned or what it looked like; I could only hear the slow whirring of its fan as it was switched on. Electric blue liquid flowed down through the tubing and into my arms, entering my body like an IV. I could feel the trickling sensation of it being entered into my blood stream. It felt like acid, running through my veins, corroding every surface it came into contact with.

The pain was excruciating.

A dark figure loomed above me, the glint of a razor in his hands. It was D'Arques, his face blocking out the lights swinging overhead, casting his face into shadow. Though my entire body was contorting in pain and the world was spinning before me as the drug took effect, my mind managed to register the image perfectly. It was burnt into my brain, a permanent reminder that I, Perry Cox, was stupid enough to allow himself to be captured—stupid enough to care. As if the scars weren't enough, every time I would close my eyes from then on, I would see that image.

Probably because it was the last one I had.

I'd always thought I knew fear more than most people. My childhood was never exactly a walk in the park—most days saw my father drink himself into a fit of alcoholic rage and proceed to throw leather belts and broken beer bottles at my head. It's a common misconception, one that I don't even bother trying to correct anymore, that this was the time in my life where my innocence was stolen from me. I was, after all, only a small and vulnerable child. But that wasn't it. The truth of the matter was that I was too young to contemplate or even remember most of what happened in that house. The trauma stole the fear from my mind and, when my father died, those memories died with him. I buried them the day I buried him, and what I did remember only made me stronger. Most people believe that the apathy I felt towards my father from then on—the same apathy I feel now—was a facade for the deep-seeded betrayal I truly felt. But that wasn't it either. I don't hate him. He's not worthy of my hate. No, the one thing I knew would have destroyed him had he still been alive was my indifference. God only knows that if there's one thing I'm good at, it's destroying.

So I grew up the emotionally-crippled young boy who refused to be forgotten, but I didn't grow up without my innocence. I didn't grow up with the fear.

No, when I say that I knew fear more than most people, it was what had happened after my childhood, my teenage years and my adolescence that I believed gave me that experience. It was what happened when I became a doctor—what happens to most people when they become doctors. Suddenly, the world seems far too real a place—and not a good one, either. People kill for greed, money, lust and sometimes for no reason at all. It's human nature, the art of survival.

I always thought the most terrifying feeling in the world was that feeling—to open your eyes and suddenly see everything so completely wrong with society.

I was wrong.

The most terrifying feeling in the world is to open your eyes and suddenly see nothing.

My remaining memories of that night are few and far between. The drug I had been given, whatever it was, rid me of the pain of the experience, forcing me into a different level of consciousness where it somehow became bearable. The emotions I had felt so strongly earlier—the fear, the anticipation, the dread—had all disappeared alongside the physical ache. I saw nothing. I felt nothing. The only thing that remained was the void.

I didn't have the luxury of unconsciousness, or even sleep. I don't know how long I stayed like that, drifting. Somewhere amongst the minutes, hours and days the pain returned and I curled into myself in hope that it would somehow relieve the brutal agony I was experiencing. It didn't. I never screamed, spoke or whimpered. I never made a sound. It was the one thing I had control over, and if I lost that, I would lose myself. For once in my entire life, my ability to be a complete control freak worked in my favour. It kept me strong. It kept me alive, when I didn't know how to live...

Somewhere along the line, the emotions I had tried so hard to suppress returned as well. The shock faded quickly, but I was far from acceptance. After god knows how long I spent half-comatose in that state, I had finally woken.

The results weren't pretty.

Darkness flooded every available surface. The sickening feeling of dread pooled in my stomach as I turned my head every which way, trying to get a glimpse of anything but shadow. There was nothing. I couldn't even be sure if my eyes were closed or open, or if I even had eyes anymore. A thick wetness dribbled down my face, and I raised my hands to touch it. The wounds on my face were jagged and open, exposed to the thick air around me—exposed to the blackness. I couldn't tell if the pulp that slid down my face was flesh, blood, or a mixture of both, but I knew I had to find out. I had to find out if there was any way I could still see.

It was absolute agony, but I lifted the torn flesh of my eyelids and sought purchase in the blackness.

There was nothing.

I began to shake—out of shock, fear, sadness or anger, I'm not sure, but once it began it wouldn't stop. My breathing grew heavier as I attempted to stagger to my feet, but I was unable to tell whether or not I was successful. There was no sense of direction in the void; I couldn't tell what way was left, right, up or down.

It was absolutely petrifying.

My mind was in a state similar to that of my body; complete chaos. The mesh of emotions I currently wore on my sleeve began to blur the lines between sanity and psychosis as I slipped further in. There was no escaping the realisations that waited there for me, but I held onto my denial like a vice. This wasn't possible. This could not happen. Not when I had been so close to getting out of here. Not when I had been so close to saving Jenny.

I shook harder at the thought. God, Jenny. Thinking of what D'Arques had done to her—what he planned to do—made me sick to my stomach.

"There's no escape."

The macabre echo of Adrian D'Arques' voice crashed against my ears, calling out to me from a trajectory I couldn't see, luring me into this endless maze of confusion, chaos and death. I couldn't do this. Not again. This couldn't happen.

This wasn't supposed to happen, damn it!

Perry Cox was the best of the best. He wasn't supposed to be broken down, beaten—blind.

It couldn't end like this. I couldn't—

With nothing to focus on, no sense of direction, my legs fell out from under me. The next thing I knew, my face was pressed against the cold floor, my cheek throbbing with a dull ache from the collision. I revelled in the sensation, a welcome reminder that I could still feel amidst the black, that I was still human. But in thinking of Adrian D'Arques and all the horrors he had committed—not only against me, but my daughter and my colleagues—I realised I didn't want to be human anymore. I wanted to be more than that. I wanted to rise above the National Guard's—and anybody else's—control. I wanted to be a whole new category of threat, with my own agenda. I wanted to be distinguished, renowned; like I had made sure I was for my entire life. I wanted to strike fear into the hearts of people like Adrian D'Arques, and inspire hope in people like Barbie, Jenny, and that child, Kara. I wanted to be someone unrecognisable.

I wanted to become a stranger.

The time that passed between that instant and my next moment of lucidity felt nothing short of a life-time, but I knew better. If it were weeks, or even days, I would have already been dead. The blood poured from my wounds all too quickly, seeping through my clothes into the cold floor below. No, this could only have been hours—a day, perhaps. I don't believe D'Arques ever intended for me to die there, if the ease in which the extraction team breached the main gates was any indication. It's almost like he wanted them to find me. Perhaps it was all part of his plan—his next move in the sick and twisted game he believed we were playing together. Maybe it was something else entirely. I don't know, and I sure as hell don't care. If we ever meet again—which I'm sure we will—I'll put a bullet in his brain with absolutely no hesitation. The world's a big place, Adrian, but you'll always be sure to run into a stranger out there.

And what about Jenny, you ask?

I wasn't there to save her.

It turns out I didn't need to be.

Of all the things I have learnt over the years, of everything I have adapted to, lived by and, admittedly, ranted at, there is one lesson so far ingrained in my knowledge that it has become second nature to me. That lesson? The enemy is not infallible. They were right about one thing, though. Jennifer Dylan—my beautiful, baby girl—was the second. Not to die, not to carry the virus on to others as the Collective had planned, but to survive.

The first was her saviour.

JD.

AUTHORS NOTE II: Forgive me for the lack of detail in regards to the end of this. I was faced with the ultimate choice while writing it—I could either continue going on with the story, but have this interlude cut into yet another part, or I could finish it off quickly here and maybe explore the events of after in JD's point of view when we finally get up to his interlude. A couple of things will be wrapped up next chapter, wherein JD asks the questions that are on everyone's minds. In saying that, I have to ask: What do you want to know? Is there anything in particular you're confused about, or absolutely have to know the answer to? I'd happily incorporate any questions into the next chapter, if I don't have plans to reveal them at any other given time. That's all from me for now. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and if you have the time, perhaps you could drop in a review? Perry would definitely appreciate it. ;)

EXTRA—PERRY'S PLAYLIST: Hand-picked from yours truly.

1. The Velorium Camper I: Faint of Hearts by Coheed and Cambria.
"If there was nothing you could do to stop it, why'd you try? The ground starts parting through the silence as you woke up the dead. Everything here dies alone . . ."

2. When Angels Fly Away by Cold.
"I'll make a soldier's decision to fly away—load my gun, paint my face, call me misery. I can see the sky light up and the ground explode."

3. Going In Blind by Payable on Death.
"Time after time, I walk the fine line, but something keeps bringing me back. Time after time, I'm going in blind, I don't know which way I need to go."

4. Swallow People Whole by The Receiving End of Sirens.
"Within me is a gaping hole, it seems I'm last to know—no one, or thing, can fill this empty space that I've been pacing in. I fell in love with an empty place, I want change, but I won't change."

5. Blind by Placebo.
"If I could tear you from the ceiling, I'd freeze us both in time—find a brand new way of seeing, your eyes forever glued to mine. Don't go and leave me, and please don't drive me blind."

-- Exangeline.