The next time Malik wakes up, she's in a bed she vaguely recognizes. She doesn't remember passing out. She must have, to be waking up.

Her head throbs, and she instinctively reaches a hand to put pressure on the ache over her eye-

Hits some gauzy covering and pauses. Lifts her other hand to scrub at the other side.

It's dark, but she's not sure if that's because it's night or because the shades are pulled tight across the window. She reaches for the blanket over her, pulling it off and sliding to the edge of the bed, sitting up. She's wearing a long flannel that smells faintly like metal. Vaclav's, then.

The headache sharpens as she sits up, pounding in time with her heartbeat, she thinks. She wants to lay back down and pass out for another year, but her stomach rumbles, and she's pretty sure the last time she ate was….a sandwich in Poland.

She notices with surprise that her leg has a dark slash through it. Remembers now that she looks that it was broken, but it seems to be mostly working now. A few dark cables strung through the slice as a patch job, but it works wonders for something so hurried.

A soft exhale, and she stands up.

Ah. She'd forgotten about. Well, everything besides the headache. Her side hurts, and the gasp that's drawn from her at that pain makes her ribs hurt.

Food first. Bed forever second. Maybe a trip to the bathroom in between. She'd suffered worse pains, flew with worse. This was nothing.

Malik walks out into the hallway, turns for the kitchen. Notices a chair out of the corner of her eye that hadn't been in the hallway the last time she'd been here-

And promptly trips over it, her right foot catching just under the edge of it, because-

The person in the chair – there was a person in the chair, Adam, she recognizes now – stands swiftly to catch her, dark arms wrapping gently over hers, stopping her fall before it ever really starts.

Malik almost blames the fall on her patched aug leg. She'd forgotten that 'out of the corner of her eye' did not mean 'out of tripping range of her right side'.

"You okay?" he asks, steadying her back upright, hands light and gentle. Almost cautious.

"Toe hurts like a bitch," she grumbles, glaring down at the offending thing.

The assassin makes some choked noise of surprise, halfway to amusement but stalling hard before it gets there. "That's what you're going to complain about?"

"Yeah, fuck," she'd bend over and reach for it to try and ease the pain if she didn't know that would give her hell in the form of ribs and side. Priorities. "Bitch." A little quieter.

He's staring at her in what she thinks must be awe, because his hands are still on her. Maybe he's afraid she's going to fall again.

She's about to say something when her stomach rumbles again, a quiet sound, but the sudden twist in his expression tells her he heard it.

"Please tell me there's something to eat here," she just says. Slowly, almost unwillingly moving out of his light touch, moving for the kitchen again.

"Can't promise anything." His voice is…stiff, and she wonders why that is. Not able to think around the headache enough to try and put pieces together.

"Knowing Vaclav, all he has is instant ramen." Not exactly the most appetizing thing on an empty post-procedure stomach, but it was better than nothing. The other option was whatever whiskey Adam had left behind when he had been here a year ago. Neither she nor Vaclav were huge on the scotch, and she hadn't felt right drinking what was his.

She moves into the kitchen, glancing around. The curtains are pulled here too, and there's a low kitchen light on by the island. Flicking the television on as she passes, she hears Eliza Cassan's infuriatingly flat, calm voice in the face of the horror she's discussing.

Malik has her head in the fridge, contemplating just how old the box of takeout is in there – soggy, a slight stain at the bottom of the plastic, and she half expects there to be mold in it if she opened it – when the news anchor mentions an explosion at Panchaea, the world's most recent attempt to mitigate climate change. She pulls her head out, closes the mostly-empty fridge, and glances at the screen. The loss of this billions of dollars project isn't felt quite so sharply, considering the loss in lives, augmented and natural – of which there appears to be a rough count in the corner of the screen-

Millions.

Millions dead in what was apparently a single night. Malik swallows tight, moves to the screen to get better view. She doesn't notice Adam walking out of the hallway, his hip leaning against the doorframe, not quite paying attention to the quiet drone of Picus News.

He goes rigid when he hears the topic of the hour, of, likely, all the hours lately. Eliza has nothing of note to explain why almost every (but clearly not every single) aug lost control and went on a murderous rampage. There's footage, and Malik would be shocked if she didn't clearly remember, if likely every person on the planet didn't remember.

She wonders how many augs are left. How many more there will be now. If anyone injured in the attacks will want to get augmented, considering.

"At least it's over," she says, flicking the screen off. The sound wasn't helping her headache, and she wasn't sure why she thought it was a good idea in the first place. She wonders how many contacts she'd lost. How many houses she knew of that were suddenly empty.

She wonders why she'd been spared.

Maybe Vaclav has an idea. Though if she could guess, he was sleeping – finally crashed after too long awake. Otherwise she'd hear the sounds of tinkering coming from his side of the house. She doesn't remember much of what he and Pritchard had been saying in the chaos. The burn of gravel on her cheek, the sound of Adam's whining augs, the cold night above. Those are the things she remembers.

He doesn't say anything, and she wonders how much worse it is for him – sure, she lived the horror, but he was trapped by it. He couldn't do anything, couldn't fight it in anything more than will. Notices that he's not wearing his coat, nor his battle armor. He's left in just a sleeveless shirt, looking like the sort of thing she wore under her flightsuit. It has some kind of light debris flecked across it, and that's when she knows she's definitely fixating. Just reaches up and rubs at her eye and makes another attempt at finding something to eat.

"The kid sleeping?" she asks, ignoring how she'd caught herself wondering if that was the same shirt he'd held her into. If he hadn't changed since then. Though she supposes he might not have anything to change into, considering she was in Vaclav's shirt.

"Yeah," he answers, no longer looking comfortable against the doorframe but not moving either.

She'd almost hoped he was awake so she could take more painkillers, but considering she had no clue how long it had been and last time he'd told her she couldn't have more, she figured it was best to wait.

Her pounding head disagreed.

Fuck it. She digs in the cupboard first, reaches for sweet relief in the form of ibuprofen, and she takes it without even digging out a glass of water first. She does that next, chases the dry feeling in her throat. Sets the glass down and registers- looking back in the cupboard. Is that a breakfast bar in the medicine cabinet?

Small miracles. She digs in, ignoring the ache in her ribs as she stretches up for it, and pulls it out. Sealed and everything.

"Holy shit. One actual food item." A startled laugh- ow, and she tears into it. Heading back for her room, and almost doesn't notice the hurry in which Adam gets out of her way. She raises an eyebrow at him, and it takes her a moment to realize the effect is a bit lost with only one eyebrow to refer to. "Gonna sleep for another year." Her words are half-muffled by the bar in her mouth as she walks past him. "You should get some rest too."

He doesn't say anything to that either.

She'd thought about a stop to the bathroom, and while all she really wants is to sleep again, she begrudgingly goes for it. Feels a little better after she's brushed her teeth and washed what parts of her face she could reach and used the toilet.

It's so hard to resist the temptation to just flop onto the bed and pass out, but she manages that too. Sits gingerly, and lowers herself down, curling up under the blanket and the just-barely warm spot she'd left.

The door had closed sometime between when she'd gone into the bathroom and come back out, and she supposes Adam is still out there. Hopes that he'll at least sleep in the chair if he so refuses to do anything else.

The next time she wakes up she feels a lot more human and a lot less zombie. The daylight peeking through the edges of the curtains probably helps, too. She goes to the bathroom first this time, and realizes that while she had been right in that she was wearing Vaclav's shirt, she hadn't noticed that it was all she was wearing. It was long enough that it didn't matter, and far more comfortable than staying in her flightsuit, or, god forbid, wearing one of Vaclav's baggy abominations.

The gauze over her eye looks less white and a little more pink in the light, and she thinks it's due a change. Looks around for a kit in the bathroom, but the only first aid items she finds are all tiny gauze pads, for what she presumes must be papercuts only.

Malik sighs, and heads for the door. Expects to see Adam in the chair again, maybe even sleeping.

No such luck. He is doing something though – pulling a knife in slow measured movements against. A block of wood?

"Wouldn't have pegged you for the type to be into woodcarving," she says softly, curiously. That explains the shavings on his shirt yesterday – earlier today? Whatever.

His hand abruptly stills, almost cutting too deep and just managing to finish the shave off before quickly flipping the knife closed and sliding it into a pocket. The chunk of wood goes into another pocket, and just as suddenly as she'd seen it, he's back to his unflappable self.

He must be tired, to not have noticed her waking up. Makes her think he hasn't slept at all. She wonders if he has augs that keep him running longer, keep him alert and awake long past what she could do. Maybe the Sentinel is capable of that, and more alloy parts than organic should certainly help.

Somehow she gets the feeling that wouldn't be a welcome question to ask him.

"Thought I told you to get some sleep," she says instead, when she sees he's not going to make any note on the woodworking.

"Was that an order?" There's some kind of bite in the back of his words, and she wonders for a moment if this is a dream.

Or, more likely, what she remembers in Vaclav's workshop is the dream and this is the same old Icarus she's known.

"Apparently it should have been." A small smile, like she doesn't notice the cold curl of distance in his tone.

Malik's moving past him for the kitchen, yawning into her hand as she goes. If last meal's breakfast bar was a miracle, she doesn't expect she'll find anything else here to eat. Not even a single egg.

She'll kick Vaclav's ass for not taking better care of himself. As soon as he gets up.

The mechanic himself interrupts the thought, padding into the kitchen and yawning loud. He almost doesn't notice her, until he gently brushes past her hip and then his eyes are wide open.

"Mal! How are you feeling?" Hands on her waist and turning her slow so he can get a look at her, though she doesn't know if he's more interested in her remaining eye or her injury.

"Could be better. Could be worse." Could be a lot worse.

"You can't wear a guy's shirt and tell him that's how you're doing, babe," the nickname saccharine sweet, and he keeps a straight face for all of one instant before he's laughing.

She snorts, and then whacks his arm as the amusement shoves pain through her ribs. "Stop that. No funny shit while it hurts me to laugh."

He holds his hands up in surrender, though he still looks amused. And exhausted. The bags under his eyes don't escape her.

"If you came in here to only make coffee and not anything to eat, so help me-"

"Woah there, mom, I came to eat something too, I promise!"

"And what, in this kitchen full of food, were you going to eat?" She quirks an eyebrow at him and- damn, still not capable of doing that expression.

"My takeout," he almost whines.

She huffs an exasperated breath, but steps aside so he can get to the fridge. She starts a pot of coffee for him in return.

"You up for fixing Jensen's arm today? I took some pain relievers when I last woke up, so I'm off the table for the moment," she says. Quiet enough to maybe go unheard over the sounds of the coffee machine starting up.

Vaclav looks at her sharply as he pulls the soggy box out of the fridge, pausing a moment. "Yeah, don't see why not. You brought me enough parts to be able to patch you two for sure." He scratches at his chin, and Malik is very aware that those eyes are far too calculating for the overeager child he always pretends to be.

She'd seen this in him when she first met him. She wonders if Adam recognizes it too.

"You know," Vaclav says casually, as he pops the box into the microwave and sets the timer, "Jensen called Pritchard after we got him back."

"What." She must have heard wrong. Pritchard had claimed, frustrated, furious, that he couldn't find anything on Icarus.

She'd never referred to him by his first name because she assumed the assassin didn't want anyone else knowing his identity. She'd kept Pritchard's name from her lips too.

She hears footsteps, turns quickly- ow, and is immediately asking, "You know Francis Pritchard?"

Adam, to his credit, looks as surprised as she feels to hear that name. "I…yes. Wait."

She does.

"Ah." He seems to have put something together, if the long-suffering expression over his shades is anything to go by. "Koller and Pritchard were on a call when I patched in." She doesn't know if he's explaining to himself or to her.

She's pissed anyway. "That little fuck. He's lucky he's an ocean away and I don't have a bird or I'd go skin him myself."

"What?" Vaclav looks startled, a little confused. Like maybe he doesn't know what he's just started.

"Two years ago, I asked him to find out anything he could for me about Icarus. He told me there was nothing to be found." A sharp glance at Adam.

"That was true." A pause, and then an almost pained smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. "Because he's the one who erased it all."

"Ohh, he's so dead."

"He told me the Phoenix was a white male, age 34, from Arizona," the assassin supplies. She would be amused, and for a moment she thinks that he'd just been playing by both of their rules in hiding them from each other.

The moment passes, and the thought goes with it.

She turns on her infolink, opens a channel with Adam, and dials Pritchard immediately.

Vaclav perches on the counter, filling a mug with coffee and shoving a fork into his lightly-steaming week-old meal.

It's early evening in the states, probably, and the hacker should be awake. He picks up.

"Mal. You still alive?" He almost sounds concerned. Cute.

"When were you going to tell me you knew Adam Jensen and that he was Icarus?" she's crossing her arms, even though he can't see it.

"Malik-"

"Or me that you knew the Phoenix was Faridah Malik, and not the Arizonian you sent me on a goose chase for?" Adam's rumble sounds far more threatening than her voice, and she wonders if that's a sore spot for him.

"Listen," he almost sounds like he's about to laugh but thinks better of it. "This is exactly why. If I'd told either of you, the other would have come and killed me without a second thought. Client confidentiality is why the both of you worked with me-"

"And you kept the secret to yourself after we started working together to what, have a laugh?" she glances at Adam, and the curved eyebrow peeking over a shade mirrors exactly how she feels.

"Wh-"

She and Adam let him stew in the silence for as long as he needs.

"Listen, I just got done saving the world, and your asses, so if you'd cut me a little slack for sticking to my own rules, I would appreciate that, thank you."

The world? She knew Pritchard had a big ego, but still. "Pritchard-"

"Sorry, who the fuck do you think convinced the President to send missiles on the broadcast station for that insanity-signal?" He snaps, and sounds a little more like the Pritchard she's used to knowing.

"And you didn't stamp your handle all over it? Who are you and what have you done with Pritchard?"

"Ha, ha, very funny. Now, since you don't have anything nice to say, like, perhaps, 'Thank you Pritchard', kindly fuck off."

He hangs up on them.

Malik bursts out laughing, immediately groaning as a hand flies to her side like she can hold her ribs together and make them stop hurting.

"Well, at least Pritchard's doing alright." She sends him an email anyway, just a little 'thank you, asshole' just to make sure he isn't too upset. She'd hate to lose the last thirteen cents in her bank.

"Arizona, huh?" Vaclav asks, stuffing his mouth with a too-large forkful of food. Looking her up and down like that was the last state he'd expected her to be from, and she just looks at him because, no thank you, enough laughing for now.

"Land of the blazing sun, or something." She glances at Adam, who seems to have withdrawn back into himself now that the call is over. "Well, since you're now consuming the last debatably edible thing in this house, someone's going to have to go grocery shopping." She's pouring herself a coffee, and already thinking.

Of the three of them, she's the one who can pass for a natural the most. If she leaves the bloody bandage over her eye, it'll better help sell that she was injured in the Incident. She can limp on her malfunctioning leg – as long as she gets pants for it – and the ribs she doesn't have to fake. Any overly aggressive police officers she ran into should think she was just another natural trying to get back to her life. Hopefully.

Adam and Vaclav both immediately frown at her, like they can see what she's thinking. "Too dangerous," is the assassin's gruff response.

"I would like to eat something that qualifies as food, and I'm fairly certain no one is delivering a day after the Incident."

"Two," Vaclav interjects.

This seems to give Adam more backing for his argument that this was a bad idea.

"Two, whatever." She crosses her arms – carefully, making sure not to put pressure on her aching ribs.

"I'll go." The assassin sounds long-suffering, like he's been given an unpleasant job by a superior, and….she supposes that is kind of what it sounds like.

"No," she starts, "And not you either," immediately looking at Vaclav as he opened his mouth to offer. "Sorry, Mr.'s Augmented-Sunglasses and I-Put-A-Skullplate-In-My-Own-Head-For-Shits-And-Giggles, but neither of you can pass for naturals." She says this with a lilt of fondness, for the both of them. "And in a place like Prague, where no one ever liked us in the first place, I don't imagine the cops will do anything but shoot first and drink later when they see an aug."

"All the more reason you shouldn't go either." He sounds firm on this. And like he plans on fighting her on it.

He could easily drag her back to her room if he was so adamant. She might have to be a little more tactful in her planning.

She raises her hands in surrender. "Alright, alright. I'll see if there's anyone around who's willing to….I guess dead drop some groceries nearby." Reaching down for her coffee and taking a drink. Hoping Vaclav is eager enough to work on Adam once he's finished his breakfast.

Which, judging by the sounds of cardboard on plastic, he's throwing away the box now. Refilling his coffee, and waving the assassin over. "C'mon, Jensen, let me fix your arm while I'm awake and refreshed." A wink over his shoulder, and Malik would almost think he was flirting.

The assassin doesn't move for a moment, watching her. He's entirely too observant. What makes him think she'll go out without wearing pants, anyway? She tops off her coffee and moves to follow Vaclav, raising her eyebrow at him. He seems to give in, stepping forward and across the living room and towards the workshop.

Vaclav is already all over the place, his coffee perching precariously close to the edge of a work table as he's sifting through augmentation parts – he must have upended the crate while she'd been sleeping – and digging for what he thinks he might need. She pushes the mug a little further away from the edge even as the assassin moves for the chair.

"Listen, Jensen, I'm gonna have to put you under and run some system diagnostics. The way Pritchard and I got you out wasn't…exactly the most orthodox, and I'd like to make sure everything's still working like it should under there." Vaclav sounds uncertain, his hands hovering over Adam's shoulders, not quite touching as he speaks.

"Diagnostics, that's it?" The assassin asks.

"Yes- well. Unless I find something. Then I'll fix it, you know." As if Vaclav could ever let a problem before him exist without an attempt at solving it.

Adam considers this for a moment. Malik gets the feeling he's looking over at her in the doorway, though for what reason, she has no idea.

"Fine." It's quiet, but Vaclav is immediately moving to put him under. He could fix the arm easily while he was out too.

Once his breathing has evened out on the monitor to the side, and she waits a few more minutes to make sure he's really out, she sighs. "I don't think he's slept," she just says.

Vaclav doesn't look at her, digging into his arm and reaching for the bullet she'd lodged into it. He hums.

"I'm gonna go get some food while he's out. Let him rest a bit, yeah?"

Vaclav raises an eyebrow aimed at the metal arm, but she knows clearly it's meant for her. "Sly fox, you are," he just says, with a soft smirk.

"You know me," she says airily, leaving the room and going to find herself some actual clothes. She's pretty sure she'd left something here before, considering this was her favorite safehouse, containing her favorite mechanic.

She's right. She finds a pair of jeans, a long sleeve shirt, and a jacket with a fur-lined hood. All that should do. Luckily her neural implant was covered with the strip of tape holding the gauze over her eye, too. Small mercies.

Malik gets dressed, toes her boots on, and grabs a few shopping bags. Heads for the door, locking it behind her and walking out into a world irrevocably changed by the Incident. Nothing would be the same, and she'd have to find out what her place was in it. Later.

Food first.

The air is crisp, a faint taste of smoke drifting through the air, sharp and mirroring all the shattered windows of all the buildings she passes. Scratches in walls. Blood. Bodies.

She's seen worse, but not so much of it at once. Cassan had said millions. Of course there would be bodies in the streets, cars crashed and still smoldering, embers floating out of apartments. She shouldn't be surprised.

She is, regardless.

It's a couple blocks before she even sees anyone. A police car at the end of the street is the first sign of life outside of her house she's encountered. She doesn't act up the pain, but just lets through what she's actually feeling on dulling painkillers. It hurts to breathe deep, it hurts to twist, and her eye is a constant pounding.

She's not so surprised when a police officer gets out of the squad car and comes over to talk to her.

She is surprised that he immediately thinks she's a natural.

"Ma'am, what are you doing outside?" he asks, hands on an automatic rifle strapped to his chest.

"Ran out of food," she answers. "I'd hoped I'd make it a little longer, but I procrastinated my grocery shopping before…" trails off meaningfully.

He takes the hint easily enough. "I'm sorry to hear that. You should be careful out here by yourself. You never know if it's really over and they'll go crazy again."

She is very careful to bite her tongue at that. "Yes, you're right. I'll be quick, thank you, officer."

He lets her pass, and she's silently grateful. Refuses to think it was almost too easy.

The supermarket she gets to, a small corner store with the basic needs a household might have, has the lights off and its doors closed. The glass in the door is shattered though, and she thinks she'd rather not walk any farther, if she was being quite honest with herself.

She steps through the shattered frame of the door, and commences her errand. A few packets of pasta. Eggs. Milk – she opened it to make sure it hadn't gone bad and that the refrigerators were still working. The few remaining vegetables that looked edible, and some frozen meat that had just begun thawing. Enough to last for at least a few days.

Malik leaves a credit chip on the counter on her way out.

The cop that had been on the corner is gone when she makes her way back, arms laden with heavy grocery bags- she'd forgotten how far it was she'd walked on the way over. Still, she wasn't exactly eager to make the trip back so soon, anyway.

She gets the distinct feeling that she's being watched. Doesn't quite know where it comes from though, which certainly makes it a useless feeling.

As she's nearing the house, she hears a strange sound behind her. Something like the rustling wind, but she hadn't felt an answering breeze in her hair or on her face, and she whirls to face it. Sees…Adam? Just as he's about to duck into an alley.

"Jensen?" she asks, incredulously. Hands full of bags. "Are you playing spyboy on me?"

To his credit, he'd stopped trying to make it into the alley once he'd been seen. She'd almost think he looked sheepish. At least his arm looks fixed.

"What am I, a poor natural woman, to do? Being followed by an aug, invisibly, no less." Grinning and holding up one armful of bags so he can at least help carry them, if he's so assed on following her. As if what she'd seen walking there and back hadn't even gotten to her. Why should it? She'd been close to the stink of death before, had seen gore and blood and meat in her own leg shot off. Perhaps it was the knowledge that this had been done by innocents, against their will.

"I told you it was too dangerous," he says, suddenly beside her and close to her ear. He sounds worried, but maybe that's just the anger she hears curling in his throat.

"It was fine. The only police officer I saw thought I was a natural. Naturally."

She'd hoped to elicit at least some sound out of him for that, but he rewards her with stone-cold silence.

Fine.

At least he'd taken the bags in her left hand, letting her redistribute the heavy load in her right to both.

"So your arm's all good? Systems too?" She wonders why he'd gotten up so fast. Had the fix to his arm been so simple? If she'd had her way, he'd have been out and sleeping for at least another hour.

He says nothing, but extends the nanoblade in that arm. She wonders if he's trying to push her away. Wonders why he might be doing that. Any other day, she'd push back, step closer. Right now, she just wants to eat and get some painkillers and sit down for the next ten hours.

She can feel that headache coming back.

"Glad to see it," she just says, as they get back home." You want some real breakfast, then?"