Walking with John felt strange, like being side by side with a star about to go supernova. All that potential for destruction, and yet he could move so easily through a crowd of people. Who could brush shoulders with him and think him unremarkable?

"I need to leave my secretary a note." She paused at the desk, sitting down in her assistant's chair and plucking up one of the note pads. Though paper was seriously outdated, Ezra had an appreciation for the elegance of the past – she always had good thick grade paper, which caused the fountain pen to hiss while it carved the words as much as it inked them.

She stopped halfway through, glancing up to see what John was doing. He was starring directly at her.

"I have people who count on my being here. My leaving without a word would draw a lot of attention. My leaving with a note won't be much better, but it's less likely Ezra will notify the authorities. Slightly."

"You aren't capable of controlling those under you?" The idea seemed to surprise him.

"Ezra is a friend." Strangely, his comment stung. She wanted to believe it was simple ego, but something about John thinking less of her than her already saddened her. Worried he'd notice, she went back to writing. "You can't control your friends and keep them. Speaking of…"

She set the note next to the one Ezra had left her, standing and taking the lead toward the elevator. "I assume yours are plenty eager to help you exact revenge on Starfleet – your crew doesn't have any medical staff to do this for you? I doubt you trust me more than them."

"They're gone."

She looked to John, alarmed. He made no attempt to hide the misery it caused him, though grieving looked different on him than most. Not puffy red eyes and shaky breath… his wounds lay in the way the muscles of his body loosened, and the way the ones around his mouth tightened. There was a pit without end expanding in his eyes, threatening to swallow anyone responsible for it.

He had spent the better part of a year allowing her to run medical exams, building machines for a man who repulsed and enraged him. In her final days on the stations, she had learned why John remained. With his advanced intellect she had never truly believed they had a cage capable of containing him against his will. He had seventy two reasons to endure.

A bond like the one John felt for his crew didn't come one sided. They would never leave him.

Which left only on answer: Marcus had destroyed them.

"I'm so sorry." Eve couldn't think what else to say, though it was so colossally inadequate.

"Sincerity." He noted. "I forgot your capacity to shock."

And nothing more was said of it.

The doors drew open, and she released a small breath of relief to find it empty. She stepped in, pressing the last button and waiting as he climbed on. They were silent as the elevator began taking them downward, and she found herself gripping one of the silver rails that lined the large box for support as they went.

She needed to call her sister to say she wasn't coming, but then Lacy would want to talk to her and she couldn't bear to speak to her – especially not in front of him. He already knew her weaknesses, but she didn't intend to showcase them all the same.

Eve flinched as the elevator halted prematurely, attention snapping to the doors as they parted to reveal a middle aged woman, doctor Latish. Evelette found her irksome, but Latish was one of the doctors recruited by request of the board of directors.

She was popular, but impossibly nosey and an endless source of useless aggravating chitchat.

"Doctor Swan! I thought you'd gone home for the day!" Latish beamed as she stepped on, gaze going at once to John, standing too close to Evelette to be a stranger.

"Emergency." Eve forced a smile, leaning forward to urge the elevator shut. "My new patient was feeling apprehensive about his upcoming procedure, so we got together to touch base."

"Ah, this must be he?" Latish made her voice swagger as if to be funny. She thrust out her hand. "Hello, I'm Doctor Batia Latish."

"Daniel Foxx." John's eyes narrowed all but imperceptibly. He kept his hands in the pockets of his coat.

"Mr. Foxx is suffering from immune system damage, has to be careful with coming into contact with germs." Evelett patted Latish's arm to try and smooth the awkwardness. "How's Mr. Davis?"

Latish launched into an epic about her treatment of an elderly man, scraping the edged of doctor patient confidentiality simply for the sake of flare. Her eyes kept going back to John, who quickly stopped listening. It took Eve a moment to realize the other doctor was attempting to impress him. The thought that the other woman was failing put her in a slightly better mood.

"Well best be off. Have a good night Batia." Evelette said to Latish as the elevator opened to ground floor. "Mr. Foxx?"

John nodded, following her out as Latish stood a moment, crestfallen. As they climbed into the building main elevator, Eve allowed herself a small laugh. John looked at her expectantly and she shook her head. "I don't think I've ever seen her snubbed before. I'm sorry, nerves, I'll stop."

She bit her lip, still grinning as they headed down.

After a moment of silence he tilted his head. "She talks excessively."

"She really does." Eve chuckled, looking down at her feet. "She's a good doctor though. I hear she started in training for surgery, even."

"Ah, perhaps I should bring her along instead then is that what you would suggest?"

"Well, she talks too much, you speak only when you have something to say, it seems a pretty fair balance." She confessed. "But then, I don't trust her with my patient. So, where are we going Mr. Foxx? I hope somewhere sunny."

"Relatively. I doubt you'll see much of the weather, however, we'll be underground."

"Like sewer rats. Marvelous." She noticed they were getting lower in numbers on the screen. "We're almost to ground floor. Are we taking my car?"

He held out his hand, and reluctantly she pulled out her keys dropping them into his palm. "So you're driving then."

"Follow me." He said unhelpfully, moving to the front of the door and stepping out the instant they were broad enough. He walked with as fast a pace as could be considered casual, so she could keep up but had to work at it. Trying not to look flustered, she waved to the security at the front desk, though she barely saw them as John exited the building.

She followed him out onto the steps, calling, "Mine's the red one."

He paused at the passenger side as the door swung open. She slowed to a halt beside him, taking one last look up at the building as she shielded her eyes from the rain. "Does anyone know you were here?"

"It's entirely possible." He confessed with little concern.

"So I'll be joining you on the lofty throne of Starfleet's most wanted." She pulled her jacket close, looking down at the seat. "I really can't dr-"

There was a sharp pain in her neck, and in an instant it pulsed through her entire body as if her blood stream had been filled with molten lead. She staggered against John, who's arm went around her side, the other scooping her legs out from under her and loading her into the car. The pain was leaving quickly now as the door shut next to her, her body laying limp in the slightly reclined seat. Everything sounded as if it were coming through a tunnel, her vision starting to blur. She saw his dark shape climb in next to her, tossing an injector onto the floor by her feet.

"Don't be alarmed, Doctor Swan. My blood will fix any of the virus' potentially permanent effects."

She tried to speak but it came out in a groan. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she felt him draw the seatbelt across her body, locking her into place. Time grew thick and stretched like honey left to crystalize in the sun. Her body went through fits of hot and cold, but the car never halted. She managed to pull off her jacket in one of the warm fits, but found it on her later in the midst of shivering. From time to time the pain resurfaced. The only constant was John's silence, which swallowed her as exhaustion finally dragged her under.