Chapter 25: Mortality.

"All this talk of blood and slaying has put me off my tea."

-Linda Woolverton, Alice in Wonderland (2010 movie)

"Daddy?"

John rolled over, muttering something inaudible. He had barely gotten any sleep last night, and had no intention of getting up yet. Small hands touched his face, cold fingers tracing the worry lines that creased his forehead.

"Daddy, wake up."

John's eyes flew open as Sammy's voice registered, and he found himself staring into her smiling face. He pushed himself up and pulled her into a tight hug. She laughed and pushed against him for a second, but put her arms around him anyways. "I missed you," she said once he let her go.

"I missed you too," John said whole-heartedly. He hadn't seen her since his moving-in party, which had been a full month ago, and hadn't expected to see her for two more weeks. Jim had insisted that it was time for her to be sent on a longer job, and John couldn't refuse. "How have you been?"

"Good. It's cold outside, and some days I can't wear a coat, but aside from that, it's been awesome! I miss you a lot, though."

"Oh, it's just my cooking." Sammy giggled and shook her head. "It's my stories, then," John said firmly.

"No, I miss you, silly. Stop being funny!" she laughed, hitting the side of his head gently.

"Alright, fine. How's the leg and the belly?"

"They don't hurt anymore. Only when I jump from ten feet-ish. You're a really good doctor." John smiled, but it must have looked slightly strained, because Sammy's eyebrows pressed downwards. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," John answered, shaking his head. He swung his legs over the side of the bed so that they were facing away from each other, then lifted himself to standing. He turned and gave Sammy a pointed look, and she covered her eyes gravely, so that he could change out of his PJs. There was no more sleeping in his pants, not when he got called out of bed every second night to tend to some injury or other. Most of the incidents happened at night, which twisted John's sleep cycle to no end, and left him perpetually tired.

"That's not true," Sammy said. "I know it isn't. Why lie to me?" It was a good question, elegantly crafted, hitting him exactly where it needed to, making him realize he was being unfair. But he couldn't tell such a young child. It was bad enough that Leo was working in the Medica, as the Misfits had nicknamed the in-building hospital. He didn't want another child burdened.

"Because there are some things that kids shouldn't be thinking about yet," John answered carefully. "You can open your eyes now," he added.

"What shouldn't I be thinking about?" Sammy asked. John gave her a narrow look. This sort of questioning wasn't unusual for her, curious child that she was, but the way she was doing it was wrong. It was too pointed, targeted, as though she already knew the answer she wanted. In fact, now that John considered it, she probably did.

"You already know what's going on. M told you, didn't he? He pulled you off the job so that I could have someone else to talk to." Sammy didn't say anything, but her silence was an answer in itself. John sat down on the edge of the bed, unsure whether to take the gesture as troubling or sweet. "It's just… that… it's very busy in here, lately. Someone's been going after Moriarty's men, the snipers, all over London. And I haven't been able to save all of them."

It had been very hard on John, losing so many men over the last few weeks. It was difficult not to blame himself for their deaths. He knew it was worse for Jim, though. Night after night, the two men stayed up together, John listening as Moriarty paced around, evaluating what they knew of the killer, trying to figure out who had infiltrated his web, never getting anywhere. He was becoming frustrated, and a frustrated Jim was a destructive one; John had the cut along one arm to prove it. He had tried to calm Jim down, and Jim had thrown a knife at him. John knew that if the criminal mastermind had intended to maim or kill him, the knife would have been on target.

"But that's not your fault," Sammy said, cutting into John's memories.

"In some ways, it is. I'm the doctor here, I'm supposed to save them. Maybe if I were better, or faster, they would still be alive."

"If they were better men, they wouldn't have gotten shot," Sammy said, much too flippantly for the situation.

"Hey, no, that's not okay to say. It wasn't their fault, they just didn't know. It could happen to anyone, it's got nothing to do with how good they are, it was beyond their control."

"And the same is for you," Sammy said, dropping into seriousness again. John realized that he'd been tricked by a seven-year-old, and looked at his feet. She did have a point. But it was different. Sammy put one hand on his cheek, and he looked over at her. "It wasn't your fault that you couldn't help them. You're a good doctor, you saved me. If you could have saved them, you would, and if you couldn't, no one could."

"I know all of that," John said, too sharply. He softened his tone. "I've been told before. By Kathy, and Leo, and Jim. It's just hard to believe."

"I know," Sammy said, and her tone wasn't pitying, it was sincere.

"How did you get to be so smart?" John asked out loud. All of the Misfits occasionally came up with these bright gems of truth, that always caught him off guard.

"M," Sammy answered, and then her eyes widened slightly. "Here, I have a text that you should read." She pulled out her iPhone and tapped and scrolled, the screen hidden from John. "It's from a long time ago, I was only six…" she said as she searched. Finally, she let out a cry of success, and handed the phone to John. He read the words on the screen slowly.

I got your report on your mission. You did very well. Wendy's death was not your fault. There was no way you could have carried her far enough. There was nothing you could do. Think about the situation as though someone else were in it. Think of Leo. Leo wouldn't have been able to carry her, either. Would you blame him for it? No. Don't blame yourself, it isn't fair. I'll send you your next job tomorrow. -M

John stared at the screen, trying to understand. It wasn't like Moriarty at all, to send that sort of thing. It sounded almost… caring. But he had to keep the Misfits trusting him and liking him. This text had almost certainly won the absolute loyalty of Sammy… It fascinated him, the way it managed to be still so Jim and not-Jim, as did so many other things that didn't fit in with John's image of him.

"What happened?" he finally asked, looking up at the girl who had been his stand-in daughter for several months. She bit her lip, and looked away, but spoke anyways.

"It was one of my first jobs, and I was with an older girl named Wendy. We were stupid, I think. I don't really know what happened, I was very young. But we were seen. And Wendy… was shot. We ran, and she fell, and I didn't know what to do. I tried to pick her up, but she was too heavy, I couldn't carry her. So I ran, I left her and I hid, I left her there. And later, I came back and." She stopped suddenly, eyes shiny, but not crying. John could see what Jim had meant; Sammy didn't look like a child any more. She was older inside, and it was obvious in every line of her face. "I saw her body and I ran again, all the way back to Brewers. It was so unreal, it was a movie, but it wasn't."

She was shaking slightly, and John held out his arms, allowed her to climb into them. It was the most basic comfort one human could give another, the comfort of being held close, of being murmured to, which stretched back through each era of human history. When there were slaves, when there were knights in shining armor, when there were wars fought with spears, when there were saber tooth tigers, humans were still holding each other, against the troubles of the world, against the sorrows of their lives, just holding on to each other and waiting. Waiting for the tears to stop.

"And then I got the message from M," Sammy said, and John let her go, allowed her to sit beside him, "and I realized what I had to do. I had to help him, because he was the first person to tell me anything that meant something." She offered him a little smile, but he barely noticed that, because her last words had hit him like a physical force.

"Sammy, you've got the answer!"

"What?" Sammy looked at him as though he'd gone crazy. John was too busy fitting the pieces together in his head to notice.

"The first person to tell me anything that meant something. It's perfect, there's my answer, god how did I not realize?" He smiled at nothing in particular, just a strange sense of victory.

"Daddy?" Sammy said, the word itself a question, and John snapped his head up, remembering where he was.

"M asked me a question, a long time ago, and I've been looking for the answer ever since. You just gave it to me. Thank you," John explained, and sat back down.

"You're welcome?" her voice went up at the end, making it clear that she was still confused.

"He asked me why I came to meet him, if I hated him so much for killing- Lock," John said carefully, cutting off the first name he had almost said. "It's for that very reason, and now I can give him his answer. He was the first person who told me something that meant something."

"What did he tell you?" Sammy asked curiously. John smiled a far-away smile, eyes focused on memories.

"Lots of things," he answered, and his mind drifted to the evening, so long ago that it could have been a different lifetime.

A/N: I'll give you my usual spiel later. Right now, look! There's another chapter!