He went high. Not very high, because he wasn't very good at climbing, but Arno went as high as he could. Up to the roof. He could see a lot from up here, things that were really there and things that weren't yet. From up here they were small, manageable. Arno drank them all in, not just the sights but the feelings as well.

There was a lot to see. Some of it, Arno tucked away in the back of his mind for later. He was looking for ways to help Shay but… there was a lot of suffering in the world. Some of it, maybe Arno could help with. Later. But now…

He almost shouted aloud when he found it, the way out of this whole mess, the way to save Shay once and for all. Not just get him away from Hope, but make him useless to her. It was the perfect solution, and for once there was no down side. Arno could save Shay, and he could do it in a way that was good, in a way that… God. This was something he'd once dreamed of as a child. He'd sat up at night after Hope first took Shay and wished. Dreamed. Prayed, even.

He didn't bother climbing back in the window, but sort of scrambled off the roof onto the single story garage, and from there, tumbled down to the ground with only a few scrapes to show for it. He hesitated, but in the end didn't feel too bad about stealing the car. He really needed it, and he had been waiting months to be able to actually use his license.

He kept to the speed limit only in the parts of the city where his visions told him the police were hanging out. Elsewhere, he pressed down on the gas as hard as he could until he was going at a speed that would have made him crash if he didn't happen to be psychic.

Finally, he arrived. Just in time, because Desmond, Altair, and Malik were about to head out. Arno saw where they were going, and frowned. A funeral parlor. Arno only looked at them for a second, but in that second he saw what the next few hours were going to hold for the three of them. Decisions about the coffin, the headstone, the funeral itself. Anger. Sadness. A loss so deep that just seeing it coming stole Arno's breath away. He couldn't look at Malik just then. Not with that kind of sadness clinging to him.

He hated that his need to save Shay was keeping him from caring about Kadar right now. Kadar had been his best friends since they were chubby little brats running around and getting into trouble. Now he was gone.

Kadar was gone, and there was nothing Arno could do to help him. But he still had a chance with Shay.

"Desmond," he said. "Altair."

"Arno," Desmond said. He looked mildly concerned to see Arno there, and he realized that if he looked half as desperate as he felt, he must look a real mess. "What's wrong?"

"I'm really really sorry about Kadar," Arno blurted. "And I know you don't need me bothering you right now, but I really need your help to save Shay. Both of you."

"It's too late," Altair said tiredly. "I know you don't want to hear it, but Hope won. What are we supposed to do?"

Arno tried to figure out a way to look at him, which was hard when he had his arm around Malik to keep him on his feet, and Arno was still trying really hard not to look at Malik. He figured it out eventually, sort of twisting his head sideways and squinting. "It's not too late," he insisted. "I saw it."

"A vision?" Malik scoffed. But his voice lacked all the sarcastic bite Arno was used to hearing from him. It just sounded flat, like a robot was dubbing over what he'd said. "Where were those visions yesterday, when they could have saved my brother?"

"Malik," Altair scolded.

"No." Arno took a breath and forced himself to focus on Malik. Because yes it was hard, but he needed to see this. Maybe Malik was right. Maybe he should have been able to see this coming and stop it. "It's okay. I—I wish I could have done more. Anything. But just because I can see the future doesn't mean I see everything. I'm psychic, not omniscient. If I'm not looking in the right direction… I don't see stuff." Even now, with his eyes open as far as they could go, Arno was still in constant, paralyzing fear of missing something important. He couldn't afford surprises, but… but, well, there was a sinking feeling in his gut that he was pretty sure was tied to some kind of vision, a feeling that told him an 'oh shit' moment was coming. He just had to hope it wouldn't be too bad.

Malik looked at him, and the normal Malik would have pursued this, insisted on an apology or something to make things better. This Malik just looked at the ground and took a shuddering breath like he was trying not to cry.

"I'm sorry," Arno told him. "But I have to save Shay. And—" he looked back at Altair and Desmond. "I need your help to do that."

"What are we supposed to do?" Desmond asked.

"I need the animus potion."

-/-

Malik watched with a kind of numb detachment as Altair and Desmond bickered with Arno. He didn't care. He just… didn't care. Couldn't care. In the end, Arno won and Desmond went back into the house to get something, and Altair guided Malik into the car. "You okay?" he asked.

"Fine," Malik lied. It didn't matter if he told the truth. Altair had to know there was no way anything was fine, and therefore there was no point in asking. He leaned limply against the side of the car until Desmond came back, passed something onto Arno, and got in next to Altair. There was a brief delay while Arno relayed some breathless message to Desmond, but Malik didn't listen and soon enough Arno was gone. Then they were off as well.

It was a long drive to the funeral home, but felt extremely short. Malik could never later remember anything from the trip, only the way his mind spiraled around and around, down into a dark place. He was trying to figure it out, who to blame for all this. Because he didn't know who had killed Kadar, and the police kept finding new ways to say they didn't have much hope in finding them.

So Malik turned to other places to find blame. He tried himself first, but couldn't live with the feeling. He tried Altair, Desmond, who were supposed to be responsible for Kadar—but they were upset too, and in some respects they were even family. Malik didn't like the way blaming them made him feel, either. Arno would have been a convenient target, because he was psychic, and he claimed to be Kadar's friend, but he hadn't done anything to help. Except Arno wasn't having any of it, and Malik was irritated to find out that it was really hard to blame someone that wasn't willing to take that blame.

And that left nowhere for Malik to focus his anger, and without a target… he was losing himself in that anger, drowning in loss, curling up inside himself so deep he knew there was only one person that would be able to pull him back out.

And Kadar was dead.

Malik didn't notice the car had stopped until Altair came around to his door and helped him out. "Come on," he said. "You should be part of this."

"Is he here?" Malik asked. "Did they—is the body here?"

"I don't know," Altair said. "Maybe. The morgue might not have released him yet."

Malik shuddered, but forced himself to speak. "If he's here, I need to see him."

"It's going to be messy."

"I know. I saw the news."

"It'll be worse in person," Altair said. "I was the one they called to go down and identify the body and I'm telling you. It's worse in person."

"How would you feel if it was Desmond?" Malik hissed, and Altair didn't argue anymore with him after that. In fact, as soon as they met the (to Malik, who wasn't processing things too well at the moment) nameless, faceless man that was supposed to be helping them, Altair insisted Malik be shown Kadar's body.

And so that was where Malik was, while Altair and Desmond dealt with the details of how Kadar was going to be buried. As if it mattered. As if Kadar would be able to enjoy any of it.

There was a room at the back of the building for storing bodies that looked nothing like the morgues Malik had seen on television. Someone asked if he was sure, and Malik managed to nod.

Altair had been right. It was worse in person. Kadar's body was shredded. It had been pulled apart, destroyed by someone that knew exactly what they were doing. Malik wasn't great at biology but he knew there was a lot more space in his brother's carved open chest than there should have been, and that was when he saw the neatly labelled containers next to the body. 'Left Lung,' 'Liver,' 'Small Intestines.'

"That's all his organs," Malik said.

"Well, all but the heart."

Malik glanced at the man. "Who has that?" he asked. "The police?"

The guy just shrugged. "They said it wasn't at the scene with the rest. Whoever killed your brother probably took his heart with them."

Malik's chest was aching as he nodded. "Well, that makes sense," he said. "They took mine, too."

-/-

Shay was relieved when the guards knocked him out before transporting him to Hope. He knew there was little hope of ever waking up… himself… again. Hope would keep him unconscious until she'd finished whatever shitty plan she had ready for him. When he woke up, it would all be over.

But at least unconscious, he could travel to other worlds. There were so many people he would never be able to see or speak with again, but he would be able to spend his last moments with Hope. His Hope, not the monster that had replaced her.

She recognized him the moment he arrived, he could see it in her eyes. And Shay didn't know why his other self was already there visiting her, but he also didn't care. "Hope," he said, and he got up, walked around the table separating them, knelt in front of her chair, and kissed her.

It wasn't the best kiss they'd ever had. She was chained and bolted, and smelled exactly like a woman that had lived on death row for over a decade should smell. And there were cameras watching their every move, which meant a guard or something would probably be by to break them up soon.

But Shay didn't care. His life was over, and there was no longer any reason to hold himself back. So no, that kiss wasn't the best they'd shared. It couldn't hold a candle to their first, under the stars a mile away from the homestead after they'd broken out on a Friday night. It was nowhere near as good as the first time Shay told her he loved her, on the day of their graduation when they were both just slightly tipsy, and ecstatic with the happiness of each other and the untold beauty of their futures. But this kiss had desperation going for it, a passion fueled by the knowledge that it was their first in years, and would be their last.

When they finally stopped, Shay said "I lost my trial."

"I exhausted my last appeal," Hope said glumly.

"I'm being transferred to your custody right now," Shay said. "The other you."

Hope let out a breath and nodded. "I'm going to be executed on Friday."

"Is that what other me came here to tell you?" he asked.

"Yes."

So there they were, the two condemned, and Shay wanted to laugh. "How did we get here?" he asked hopelessly. "What were we supposed to do differently? This isn't the way our story was supposed to end, Hope."

She shook her head, and Shay reached up to wipe away the tears she couldn't take care of herself. Her hands trembled in their chains. "Do you remember what our plans were?" she asked. "When we were still at school, trying to figure out what the future was going to be?"

He nodded; they hadn't been big on plan making back then. It had all been simple. "Happily ever after," he said. "That's all we wanted."

"Happily ever after," she echoed. "Instead we got this."

"I hate this," Shay said. He kissed her again. He couldn't help himself, and she didn't seem to mind. It was easier than thinking about everything that he was about to lose. Hope, of course, but also Arno. Desmond. Gist. All his friends, the family he'd slowly managed to build up around himself over the years.

The kiss didn't end until the guards finally arrived, and even then they didn't stop until they literally pulled Shay away from her. He wanted to sob, but didn't want Hope to see him. It was bad enough hearing her tears, as strong arms pulled him back and away and out of the room. And that was it. That was the last good thing Shay could reasonably expect to see in his life.

-/-

Arno arrived at the hospital and knew he wasn't too late (because of his visions). But that didn't stop the tense feeling in his chest, sending his heart beating a mile a minute and stealing the breath from his lungs. He'd already seen what Hope had brought Shay here for, that vision had been pounding its way through his head all the way up from the lobby. They were going to use enchantments on him that would basically lobotomize him. They were going to kill him. Not his body, but everything that made him… him.

Arno choked back a sob and sped up. In his hand, he clutched the two tiny vials of potion Desmond had handed off to him. Just hard enough to keep from dropping them, not hard enough to break them. If they were lost, then so was everything else.

Hospitals were confusing places, and Arno would have gotten lost half a dozen times if he hadn't had his visions to rely on. As it was, he managed to avoid cameras, nosy nurses, and most importantly Hope, and arrive at Shay's room just as the man on guard went on a coffee break.

He loved being psychic. Right at this moment, despite all the headaches and the hassles that had come from it before, he loved being psychic. Because that, plus the animus potion Desmond had given him, were going to save Shay.

There were three tubes attached to Shay, and Arno tore them out in one quick motion that the unconscious Shay didn't even seem to notice. "Come on," Arno pleaded. He grabbed Shay by the shoulders and shook, hard. "Wake up, Shay, please! You have to wake up!"

And eventually, Shay's eyes opened. Just a crack. "…Arno?"

"Shay, thank God." He almost cried. "I'm going to save you."

"'s too late," Shay mumbled, obviously still fighting back the drugs in his system. "too late…"

"It's not," Arno insisted. "Trust me, Shay, I'm psychic."

Shay didn't say anything, but sort of squinted up at Arno in a curious sort of way. Arno took this as an invitation to explain, and rattled off the quickest summary he could manage. "Remember that potion Desmond and Altair took?" he asked. "The animus potion that made them brothers even though they weren't when they were born? It changes DNA. Combines the genetic information of two separate people, just mashes it up and makes them the same."

"Wha..?"

"Your whole 'universes in your head thing' is tied to your DNA," Arno explained. "You take the potion and I take the potion, and our DNA gets all scrambled up and redistributed. We'll both be half you and half me. As long as you get that one particular gene from me, nothing else matters. " And sure, there was a chance Arno would just end up getting Shay's universes in his head too. Then they would both be screwed, but that was a chance Arno was willing to take. A fifty-fifty chance of saving Shay was better than no chance at all. The risk was worth it, even if there was an equal chance that Arno would be put in the same position as Shay.

At least they would die together.

Shay mumbled something but Arno wasn't listening. They had to take this chance. "It's the only way to get these worlds out of your head," he said bluntly. "And that's the only way to get Hope to stop this. Once you don't have all these worlds in your head, she won't want you anymore!"

"Arno—"

He shook his head and downed the first potion in his hand. "Please."

Shay's eyes were still muddled and confused from whatever they'd given him to knock him out, but Arno managed to get him to open his mouth and drink anyway. And that was it—Desmond had told the story of how he and Altair became brothers half a hundred times, and Arno had never quite believed how easy Desmond said the thing was. But immediately, as soon as they had both finished the potion, Arno felt… something. Like a tingle from the inside out.

"It's going to be okay," he said, stumbling back to sit next to Shay on his bed. His legs were changing under him as his genes drifted closer to Shay's, and his center of balance was suddenly all wrong. But Shay was changing too, and the first moment that Arno could recognize something of himself in Shay's face was the moment Arno let himself relax.

This was going to work. It had to work. And when it was over, as an added bonus…

They were going to be family.

-/-

I'm not usually great at planning my stuff, but this particular part with the animus potions is the whole reason I brought them into the story in the first place. Altair and Desmond wouldn't even be in the fic if I hadn't needed to explain what it did earlier.