Failure/?Failure

A/N: In ambulance shorthand putting a '?' before something means 'query', for example ?# LL means query fracture left leg- I think their leg is broken but I'm not sure. I thought it was appropriate considering John's thought processes here.

"John."

Floating in the womb-like dark of the deactivated central sphere of Five, John half smiled at the tone of expectation with a slight hint of rebuke. It was so much like what his mother would have said to him in a moment like this. "Yes, Doctor?" He asked, a Rubix cube clicking in his hands as he randomly scrambled the faces. It was pitch black here, there was no way he could tell what the colours were, it just gave him something to occupy his hands with. Their conversation was voice only, he was more comfortable with that right now.

"I can see you've added new entries to your memorial files." John let the words wash over him, more attentive to her tones and the emotions they carried. He knew what she was going to say, they'd had this conversation several times before. "I haven't read them, but I can see the latest addition was two days ago." Doctor June's voice was understanding, but saddened. Not disappointed though.

"New Mexico." John replied quietly. "Three teens on one last adventure before college. They'd gotten accepted to MIT, partial scholarships. We got there too late." He pushed aside the memories of panicked voices and frantic gasps that filtered over the scratchy connection, the silence as he continued talking to them in his all but patented and trademarked 'Anti-panic voice' as his family had dubbed it, the background noise of shifting boulders and Virgil's Medic mode voice as he scanned each victim and clinically reported "Three patients, all status zero, rescus not appropriate."

"John, we've talked about this. I know you've found it helpful in the past, but researching and creating these memorials for the lost isn't helping you in the long term." June patiently explained. "I know you make these out of guilt, but you have no guilt to carry here."

"We failed them, Doctor. I failed them." He could almost recite this conversation by rote, the number of times they'd talked about the digital memorials he created for those they didn't get to in time- creating archives of hopes, dreams, favourite music or art or sports, curating records of lives unfairly cut short. It was his self assigned penance for failure, each one carefully created over the course of a few days from the vast source of information that is the internet. When completed, each one was encrypted and filed away in a specific archive that he'd ordered EOS to stay out of and no one else could even view on Five's systems. He'd mentioned it to Doctor June when she'd asked him about his coping mechanisms, at her request he'd given her access and to his knowledge she'd only read the files themselves three times. She used her access to watch for new additions and used that as a cue to proactively call him for a debrief because he very rarely would initiate the conversation himself.

"You didn't fail. You gave them hope and comfort. They called out for help and they were heard." Was the patient response from the doctor.

"But we didn't save them, we didn't get there in time, I didn't pick up the distress call soon enough." The words came automatically as the cube clicked, the traditional reply to her response.

"John, if International Rescue didn't exist, they would have died anyway, right?"

He blinked and the cube stopped clicking. This was new, a deviation from the script. He searched for a reply and could only come up with one. "...yes." The word was quiet, almost hesitant.

"I was talking to a friend of mine the other day, she works in a hospice as a counsellor for the patients, their families and the staff." Doctor Hayley began, her voice calm and soothing in her own 'Anti-panic' tone. "You know what the biggest fear is of the patients? That they're going to die alone. Those people in New Mexico, they had you there with them, talking to them, reassuring them, listening to them. You were there for them in their darkest, scariest moment and you gave them comfort. Yes, they died, and their friends and family are grieving now, but in their last moments they weren't alone. If International Rescue didn't exist, they would have had to face it alone. But you were there. You're The Voice Who Answers, and you answered them when they called for help. I know they were grateful for that."

The cube clicked absently in his hands as he processed the statement, spinning the same face over and over. One corner of his mind thought of it as his own personal 'loading' screen. It seemed a rather apt analogy as he tried to make sense of this new perspective, slotting the information into his mind and seeing what new conclusions and questions would come of it.

"...can we pause it there?" John asked at last. "I have to think about this." He needed Scott, coffee and stars to stare at while he assimilated this revelation that maybe, possibly, they didn't fail, at least not in the way that he'd thought they did. The need to tolerate gravity to attain these things was an acceptable trade off.

"Of course John." Hayley's voice was warm. "Just make an appointment when you're ready to talk about this again."