We sat side by side against the wall, our shoulders nearly touching. The sandwich sat between us on the floor. We were picking at it, our bodies still craving food though our minds didn't care. I, for one, felt as though my body had been filled with concrete. It felt heavy. I felt numb; far too much to think, breathe, or feel. Reality was no longer antagonizing me or tearing me apart; rather, it had now rendered me helpless. I didn't know what to do with myself. I didn't know what to do at all.

I looked to the side, where Fenton was sitting with the photographs face down in his lap. He had been playing with them for hours now, though he hadn't turned them over to look at them. He alternated between having them sitting stationary in his lap or fanning them apart and bringing them back together, like one might do with a deck of cards. As I watched him pick up the pictures, I wondered if I should say something to him, but I had no idea what I would say, even if I felt comfortable taking such an opportunity. In the end, it was he who spoke first.

"What he said about Tucker and Jazz …" Fenton swallowed, before continuing. "Was it true? Were they seeing each other?"

"Yeah," I confirmed, seeing no reason to omit anything at this point. "I found out about it after I returned to Amity. They wanted to tell you, but they didn't know how, especially in the aftermath of our break-up."

"I … Were they happy together, Sam? That," his voice caught and he forced out the last few words, "That's all that really matters now."

"Yeah," I repeated. "They really loved each other. I can promise you that."

"Good," Fenton murmured. Then, he tapped the photos against his palm once more. "Will you look with me?"

I nodded, moving the half-eaten sandwich to my other side. Fenton scooted closer to me. His knee grazed mine and goose bumps erupted along my flesh from the sudden chill. I had forgotten just how cold his physical touch was. I reached down; pushing is knee away from mine.

"Careful," I warned. "You're far too cold for that."

"Right, sorry."

We both looked down at the pictures in his hands.

"Ready?" I asked.

After a breathless moment, Fenton flipped the photos over. He whimpered as we took in the image, but I was incapable of making a sound.

It was a photo of Jazz and, based on how she looked, it was probably one of the last ones ever taken of her alive, if not the very last. She was stretched out in a hospital bed, tubes running from everywhere: under the blankets; from her hands; her nose; and her mouth. She looked faded, the yellowish bruises on her face only adding to the effect. She was more than pale; even the red of her hair seemed far more muted than it should have been. I felt sick just looking at her. Jazz should have lived to make it out of the hospital and there was nothing else to it.

"Jazz," Fenton whispered, his thumb hovering over his sister's face. "I'm so fuckin' sorry. I should have been a better brother."

I didn't know if he was ready to view the next picture, but I couldn't sit there and stare at Jazz's closed eyes anymore. I kept expecting them to open. I also expected her lips to part and for her to, in all of her infinite wisdom, give us directions on how to save ourselves, because God knows how Fenton and I were incapable of doing it on our own. But she couldn't do any of that, so I flipped to the next photo.

Jazz's headstone.

She had died on the 22nd of August.

"Holy fuck," was all Danny said on the matter, before he flipped to the next one.

Maddie and Jack, dressed in mourning clothing, standing by a coffin. Fenton brought that particular photo close to his face, studying their destroyed expressions. And though I was completely sympathetic toward him along with the agony on Jack and Maddie's faces, I couldn't help but feel envious as well. I wanted to look upon the faces of my parents more than anything.

We moved to the next one. It was a shot of the church the funeral must have taken place in, as the pews were full of people in black clothing. Maddie and Jack were at the forefront; Vlad and Elliot were at their side. I think it was this fact that caused Fenton to dismiss the photo so quickly, and I almost followed suit, but, as Fenton was twisting the photo so that it would sit face down, my eyes locked on something. There was a flash of red; a shade I had grown up with. I had been able to recognize that lipstick before my own name.

I snatched the photo back. Behind Maddie and Jack, over to the left, were my parents. They were small and they were blurry, but that was Mother and that was Dad. I curled and bent the photo in half so that I could see my parents and the Fentons, but not the secretive smirk Vlad sported or the sneer that Elliot was trying to conceal. I then clutched the photo close to my chest, the best hug I could offer at this moment. To my surprise, I found that tears were bubbling to my eyes. I wondered when I would see them again; if I would ever see them again.

Fenton slowly placed a hand on my arm, one finger at a time. I appreciated the gesture; the comfort a touch could bring (even Fenton's touch) was amazing.

"It's not fair," I breathed, tears dripping down my cheeks to my chin. "None of this is."

But Fenton, who had a picture of Jazz in her coffin, spread out on his lap, likely knew this better than I did.

He never answered. Instead he just put the picture of Jazz down, and moved to the next one, going quickly now. I watched as he slid past her death certificate; his parents by Jazz's hospital bed, heads bowed in prayers, hands clutching one another. There was a collection of family photos following, heart-breaking reminds of all that was and never would be again. There were all four Fentons, gathered on the front steps of Casper High, a blue tassel caught mid-swing in front of Fenton's forehead. There was Jazz, small in size, ballet shoes on her feet, holding a swaddled babe sporting a shock of black hair; her newborn baby brother. A professional photo this time, the family years younger, dressed in coordinated outfits with smiles broad as they all firmly declared 'cheese'.

As Fenton flipped to another recent one – he and Jazz in Santa hats, covered in tinsel and surrounded by wrapping paper – another seed of jealousy sprouted within me, building in my stomach and spreading into my veins. Here was concrete proof that his family had loved one another deeply. He could hold these family photos and use them to hoard memories. Though I knew my envy was irrational – his sister was dead – I couldn't help but feel it. My family didn't even take professional photos together, let alone candid shots. I wished I had felt the love emanating from these photographs when I was a child.

I was still thinking this when Fenton flipped to the next photograph and then those emotions washed away, replaced with regret and nausea. I thought I was going to be sick from the brutality of the photo. Danny did become sick, dropping the photo to the ground as he raced for the toilet hole, shoving his head inside. As much as I wanted to look away, I couldn't.

Jazz, lying in the hospital bed, had been scary, with her fading bruises and tubes; blankets covering everything but her face. This Jazz was much, much worse. This was Jazz, lying limp on a dimly lit street, right after her attack. I could clearly see the blood that stained her ripped sundress and the awful angles her limbs were arranged in. I could look into her blue eyes, half open and unaware. I couldn't take my eyes off of her gaze. Was this her last conscious moment? Who was on her mind? What was she thinking?

I couldn't look anymore. I flipped the photo over, hoping that the next one would be a snapshot of Jazz in happier times, so that I could try to forget I'd ever seen her otherwise. But the next picture was not of a happier Jazz. In fact, it was not Jazz at all.

"Tucker!" I exclaimed, my heart-wrenching.

He, like Jazz had been, was in a hospital bed. But unlike Jazz, Tucker didn't appear faded. The deep tones of his skin; the bloody gashes on his face; even the pink of his lips, all appeared bright and vivid. As though there was still life in him waiting to be awakened. But, Tucker looked blank. There was nothing Tucker in his appearance. This was just a body, and I had to wonder, where my friend had really been in the moment this photo was taken.

Fenton crept back to my side.

"Holy mother of fuck," he cursed.

I put the picture down. Fenton already had the next one in his hand: Tucker's headstone.

As I looked, I kept thinking there was something off about the headstone, but I couldn't put my finger on it. It wasn't an out of the ordinary stone; it was a narrow, reflective black stone, with his full name carved into it, his birth date and death date – a terrifyingly short lifetime settled between them.

And then: "Oh my god!"

"What?" Fenton looked at me.

His death date; the way the cemetery looked in the background.

"He died October 1st," I pointed out, my eyes locked on the trees visible in the background of Tucker's gravestone. They were flush with colour; the change of summer to fall.

We had been in here far longer than I'd estimated.

"We're never getting out!" I shrieked, feeling panic begin to shackle me.

"Yes, we are," Fenton said firmly. "We're going to be okay, Sam. Vlad can't get away with everything. He's going to pay for everything he's done."

"But why is he doing all of this?" I cried. "Why go to such extreme lengths? What is it he wants?"

"I have no idea," Fenton admitted, regret filling his tone. "But he will pay."

He pulled the next two photos off the stack – Tucker's parents and the crowd of mourners at his funeral. No one in those photos deserved to be grieving; the boy in the coffin hadn't deserved to die. They all deserved justice of some sort, and I knew by the look on Fenton's face, that he was making a vow to avenge his sister and his best friend; that he was going to avenge everyone that Vlad had caused to suffer.

With shaking hands, I reached for the next photo in the stack. I was hoping for a happy glimpse into Tucker's life, like the ones we had seen with Jazz. I desperately needed to remind myself what a smile looked like right now; what happiness and hope, untainted, looked like.

In my hands, I held a picture of Tucker in his coffin; dark face contrasting with the white satin pillow around him. I promptly put it face down on the pile of photos we had already looked at and Fenton tossed the next one on top before I could even see it.

"Death certificate," Fenton said briefly.

The next photo presented me with the wide smiles I had been hoping to see. Tucker was standing in a bedroom that I didn't recognize, drawn to his full height. He was beaming, though he wasn't looking into the camera, at whoever had taken the photo. He was looking down at Jazz, who was cradled bridal-style in his arms. Though, judging by the blur of her limbs and the surprised (but elated) look on her face, he had just scooped her up. I was mesmerized by the wide split of their grins, of the way they were holding onto one another. I could feel their love for one another, by looking into this little snapshot that wasn't inherently romantic. It was beautiful.

"I would have loved to have been able to be there for them," Fenton sighed. "I want … I want to go back."

"We all want to go back," I muttered grimly, speaking to him and to Tucker's parents, who were leaning over their son's hospital bed, in the new photo Fenton had just picked up.

"Yeah," Fenton agreed, putting the photo to the side. He pinched the next picture between his fingers and flipped it over. "Going back to about here would be nice."

I looked down at the picture. It was Fenton and Tucker. They looked similar enough to the way they did now that the photo couldn't have been that old, but there were little things in the picture that were telling me that this photo wasn't from the past year, either. For one thing, Tucker didn't look nearly as tall as he did the first time I had met him, pestering me as he did in the halls of Casper High. And, for that matter, Fenton looked lankier, less muscular than he does in present day. They were both dressed in clothes that would have been deemed uncool by the popular crowd at Casper High. Fenton was in loose blue jeans and a white shirt that had a bright red circle in the middle. Tucker was wearing green cargo pants a yellow sweater, of all things, but he had topped it off with a red beret.

Boys, I thought with as much humour as I could manage.

"What's so special about here?" I asked Fenton.

He glanced at me, as though he were checking if I really wanted to know. I nodded at him.

"This was taken just before we lost our geek status. This is from when it was just the two of us. There was no Paullina to fuck around with me. There was no Dash that I felt I needed to impress. I wasn't trying so damn hard to retain a status I didn't even need. We would have just been talking about the popular life like it was glamorous, back before we realized it was a fuck load of work that would cost us our personalities; our friendship; and then so much more. If I could go back there, to that time, knowing what I did now, so many things would be different."

"Like what?"

"I would be so much smarter. I mean, I am so far beyond a fucking idiot it's probably really hard to imagine me holding on to any intelligence, but bear with me. I would know to stay away from the popular crowd; that they didn't mean anything. If Tucker and I were still losers when you came to Amity, we would have all been able to become friends the right way. And our relationship would have progressed the right way; I would know not to hurt you because you are worth so much more than anything I could ever offer you. I wouldn't have hurt Mikey, who I cast aside far before I realized I was even doing so. And Jazz and Tucker would still be alive because I wouldn't have learned how to be an unforgiving, conceited asshole. In short, everything would have gone right for me if I had realized that Paullina and her crew would never really be there for me and that they weren't worth what I thought they were." He laughed bitterly. "It's all too hard."

He busied himself with picking up the next photo with one hand, though he brushed tears out of his eyes with the back of his other one. I didn't know what to say, but then he laughed wildly again – a little crazily.

"Here," he sniffed, and I could hear tears in his voice. "Talk about little dorks."

The picture fell onto my lap and I had to laugh, despite everything. An old conversation came back to me; one I'd had with Phantom when I had first arrived in Amity.

"Most embarrassing Halloween costume?"

"The ass end of a horse," Phantom rolled his eyes.

"Let me guess, your friend was the front end?"

And here, in my hands, was the proof of that very costume. A preteen Tucker was holding the horse's cartoony looking head in his hand, his own face visible, though the rest of his body was hidden in the sandy coloured horse's neck and front legs. He was beaming, despite the fact that sweat was beading on his forehead. Fenton looked far more disgruntled. He was holding a multi-coloured blanket in one hand, the other was being used to keep the costume up around his body. I could see the horse's tail falling between his legs, which were also the horse's hind legs.

"The Christmas after that Halloween," Fenton told me, "I gave him the ass end for Christmas."

"And what did he do?" I snickered.

"He gave it back for my birthday."

"And did you admit defeat?" I asked.

"Of course not," Fenton sniffed. "He just got it back for his eighteenth. I was expecting to see it again in December."

"Boys," I mumbled under my breath.

I reached for the next one picture. I wanted to keep Fenton talking, and hopefully I would be able to insert a few anecdotes of my own. It felt good, right, to sit next to one another and talk about Tucker's life, rather than sit on opposite sides of the cell and get stuck on the word 'dead'. I wanted to keep talking, because it made the whole thing feel a little easier to bear.

The next photo made me suck in my breath. There was Phantom. He was hovering in the air though not high off the ground, a genie-esque tail that I had never seen on him replaced his legs. He looked incredibly young here; as though he had just gotten his powers, however his face was narrowed in concentration. A bit in front of Phantom, though certainly lower, was Tucker, sporting the red beret I had spotted in the earlier photo. He was caught in a half-lunge, a grey-ish container in his hands that had a bright blue beam coming from it. At the end of the beam, I could see bright green eyes framed by thick eyeliner.

"About eight months after I got my powers. You can tell because it's Jazz taking the photo," Fenton explained, pointing to where I could see a black flat in the corner of the picture. "And she didn't find out until about then. Of course, when she did find out, she was right there next to me, completely supporting me."

Of course, I repeated in my head, because that's the kind of person Jazz was.

Fenton put the picture down and we both stared at the next one; it was also the last one. I think we both knew what the photo would show us. It would show us Tucker; beaten, like Jazz had been in her last picture.

"I have to see it," Fenton explained, voice barely audible.

"I understand."

He paused for a moment, but I stayed rock still. I had to see this too. It would be disloyal to Tucker to not drink in every last image I had access to of him. I felt a compulsion to look upon his image and feel his pain.

Fenton flipped it over.

Tucker was almost unrecognizable. The nearly-healed gashes that had been spotted in Tucker's hospital photo had obviously been given a long time to reach that point. In the picture, Tucker's face was completely obscured by swelling and blood. I couldn't take my eyes off his face, trying to find some trace of the child in the horse's costume; the boy in the red beret; the young man in love; my friend. There was none to be found.

I looked away.

It all hurt too much.

I don't own anything recognizable. Thanks to my betas: Forever Sky.

~TLL~