When he opened his eyes, it was pitch black. For a brief moment, John almost panicked as he realized he couldn't hear a single thought around him. They had caught him. They had caught him and stripped him of his powers… he knew the cells in ULTRA's headquarter.
He knew about the citadel.
"No!"
It was no nightmare, this time. They had caught him and brought him back – to be executed, no doubt, like Caroline was. The memory filled John with regret and a deeper shock than he'd imagined. It had been so sudden, so definite. Jedikiah had not for a heartbeat considered saving his own mother.
Knowing that it seemed even more ridiculous to ever have assumed he would care for John. Or for his brother.

John's hands – unbound, which was a bad sign when captured by ULTRA-agents – found glass to his sides and in front of him. The cell was about eight feet long and five feet wide; enough to move around but not enough to stay in shape. Prisoners needed to be able to walk, if their physical condition deteriorated too much, they weren't useful for experiments anymore. But of course, walking had to be the hardest physical task they were able to perform. They mustn't fight back, or run. Slowly, John sat down in the middle of his cell, his hands shaking. It was hard to breathe, impossible to think. This was worse than death, worse than hiding for twenty years, worse even, for now, than the memory of John manipulating his hand to pull the trigger. John buried his face in his hands but the tears wouldn't come – he was alone, lonelier than he had ever been and this time, there would be no one to help him, no one to fight with or at least against.
Inside this cell, it was only John and the madness that crept around in this building, destroying every prisoner they made. Sooner or later, the citadel would claim John, too. He would lose his mind piece by piece and then, when he'd have forgotten his wish to escape and the experiments were over, they would kill him.
From outside, John knew it was supposed to be easy. He had never been part of the staff down here, this was the darkest part of ULTRA, a part he had hardly been able to overlook.

"I see you're awake." Jedikiah smirked as his former protégé jerked to the other side of the glass cage as he came closer. "Well, at least you are now. How do you feel?"
"You killed her." John was surprised to hear his own voice, scratchy and hoarse. He must have been screaming a lot to sound like this, but everything that went beyond his waking up in the citadel an hour ago seemed to be erased – until his memory set in again, in that one moment he wanted desperately to forget. And that moment still wasn't the worst thing that had happened lately…
"I didn't kill anyone. I don't know what you've seen, John, or what you've been through but I can assure you I didn't kill anyone." He sounded tired, suddenly, and there was a note in his voice John used to mistake for gentleness.
Not anymore.
"You did." His own voice was powerless as well. "You made me kill Roger, and then you killed your own mother." Tears ran down John's cheeks as soon as he said the name, and he didn't bother wiping them away. "You took everything from me, Jedikiah, what for? What for?"
Jedikiah backed away. He looked as tired and broken as John felt. Good. Maybe the citadel's air was poisonous, and they all would die, John did no longer care. If he was honest, he hadn't cared for weeks. Roger would have been disappointed, but he was gone and would never know John had failed him. Had failed all of them.

"My mother died when I was twelve years old."
John frowned. "No, she didn't."
"Yes, she did!" Jedikiah cried, "I was at her funeral, Roger was crying the whole day, and the days that followed. I was there, I held him, and I fought hard not to cry because I had to be strong for him. I don't know what you've seen in that dream, or how you…"
"Dream?"
Jedikiah took a deep breath. His face showed that talking about Roger had upset him, too, but his voice was as smooth as silk again. "I'm afraid you never really made it out of our eyes."
"What?" The narrow room seemed to spin around. John stared at the man before him, trying to grasp the full meaning. If it was true, if Jedikiah wasn't lying right now – if this wasn't the dream.
"Calm down, John." The familiar voice, loved and hated, sounded as if from far away. "There's no need to panic. Our agents found you close to 23rd street in the underground and brought you here. I don't know what exactly they gave you to make you sleep, or if they induced your dreams to punish you but… here you are. Again. At home. Well, not exactly home, but I'll sort that out. You probably won't be able to be a hunter again for the next years, but I'll make sure we'll find something nice for you."

"You're crazy." It was all John could say. The world around him was still moving too fast. If this was true – and what other chance did he have, right now, than to assume it was – then meeting Astrid had been the last real thing. There was no safety. No Caroline.
But how had his mind come up with such a face, and a name? Why had it felt so familiar?
"What did she look like, my supposed mother?"
"She… she was…" John broke off. Jed had a point. If this was true – and he still was doubting it – how had Caroline's face been so clear? Her voice, her gestures,… he knew her. He had known her.
"Her name was Caroline, wasn't it." Jedikiah sighed. "I'm sorry, John. I really am. You weren't supposed to know, not this way. It seems the serum they gave you mixed up fear and memories… I don't expect you to appreciate it yet, but from a more distant point of view, this is amazing. You've been asleep for barely five hours, and look at…"
"Who was she?" There were a million questions in John's mind right now, questions about Roger and the serum and his flight and his destiny and Astrid (though she probably was better off if he never mentioned her) and why on earth they hadn't killed him already, but somehow this was the one that made it over his lips. The only question he, deep inside, knew the answer to.

Jedikiah sighed again, and for a moment John felt safe in the other's frustration. As long as Jed wanted him to be better, he cared for him.
Wait. That had been before he had ordered John to kill his own brother.

"John, I'm sorry."
"Go to hell."
"Caroline Young wasn't my mother…"
"I don't believe you."
"…she was yours. And yes, she was a mutant and killed by ULTRA, but not by me, I swear it, you have to believe me."
It was the first time John heard Jedikiah pleading.
"I don't."
"I didn't kill her!"
"I won't believe any word you say" John repeated slowly, a plan forming somewhere in his mind. Somewhere in the cold, cruel part of his brain that wasn't aflame right now with the thought of mother – his mother.
The part that ULTRA had created. The part of himself he hated.
It would get John out of here.

"Show me." He looked down, collecting his strength. "Show me your thoughts. I can't trust you anymore, not after all you've made me do."
Jedikiah smiled sadly. "Do you think I'm this stupid, John? After all this time?"
"You made me kill your brother."
"That had nothing to do with you."
"My hands pulled the trigger! It has everything to do with me!"
"I still won't let you run from here!"
"You don't get it, do you?" John shook his head in mock disappointment. "I won't run. You made me go through hell, you and those scientists from the citadel. You're torturing and killing my kind. I will not run from you. I will fight you. No matter how long it takes, no matter what happens to me, I will fight you. And I will win."

Only when he heard his own words John realized he had meant them.

Jedikiah shook his head. "You can't fight ULTRA, John. You will lose. You will die."
"What do you care?"
It was as if Jedikiah hadn't heard him. When John turned back, however, the elder man came closer until he stood right at the door. "I don't have to justify myself. I do what I think is right and I won't let anyone get in my way. You better keep that in mind."
"Sure." John laughed but the laughter died in his throat as he saw Jedikiah unlocking the cell.
"What do…"
"I let them have my brother", Jed murmured, rather to himself and filled with a hatred John had never seen on him before, "I will not let them have you."

The door opened. In the blink of an eye, John was gone.