Robyn had never asked Conner how he had got his innumerable scars.

They weren't normal scars, they were thin as wire and criss-crossed every visible part of his body, from the very tips of his fingers to behind the ears. When Robyn brushed his fringe back, the scars seemed to dissapear past his hairline and hide in his shaggy hair. Conner's eyes were wide open, staring into some endless horizon. His chest was sodden with blood from where he had been impaled, his leg practically hanging off by a thread, and the faint glimmer from the remnant of his snapped blade that had impaled his shoulder. From what Robyn could see under his sleeves and the torn remnants of his trouser leg, the scars continued even under his clothes.

So many questions. Questions that he couldn't answer her anymore. If Robyn had any more tears she would have let them out again as she stared down at his body, but she was all dry now.

She felt strange. Not exactly hollow, but feeling a little far away from it all. When she looked at Conner, she saw a man that in only their short time of really talking to each other, they had become friends. Robyn had always had a bad habit of personifying her brother into the men in her life but Conner… Conner had been like an older brother, teasing her, joking with her, including her.

And now he was dead. Just like her real brother.

When Robyn looked down at Conner on the floor, she saw Liam's own broken corpse at the bottom of the valley where he had fallen trying to retrieve that skateboard, limbs twisted and broken.

No matter how hard Robyn tried to keep those most important in her life, they would leave her all alone. First it was Liam, her brother, who had fallen in that valley and left her alone with her borderline abusive parents, and then it was Caleb. Caleb, the person who helped her in her change, helped her find who she truly was, and be comfortable with that. Robyn could still remember standing at Caleb's side when she had gone back to greet her parents after a number of years, with a Y instead of an I in her name. Yet Caleb had left her alone and Robyn's inability with accepting that fact had landed her here in Hearthome, with nothing but her brother's camera. That was gone too now. And Conner who had been so vulnerable when Robyn had first met him properly, who had decided to help without barely a thought, who had fought and sacrificed his own life for something he hadn't even known existed. And he had left her alone in this cold medical bay, kneeling in his drying blood.

And Noah…

With a jolt, Robyn realised that it was the first time she had thought about Noah since Conner had come running to the library, and the warden and that nurse got killed by the sniper. He had slipped away, and John and Cynthia had gone to follow him. Guilt washed over her. Why had she not thought of him? He had been getting progressively worse, pale and sweating, almost physically ill, not to mention whatever was going on inside his head. She knew how bad he was yet the moment Conner had come it was like Noah had left her mind altogether.

And he's not left you yet.

Robyn finally managed to pull herself to her feet, the blood sticking to her knees. She looked down at Conner and tried to gather her nerves, shaking out her fingers and wiping whatever dried tears were left on her cheeks, although this resulted in a smear of blood across the ridge of her nose, not that Robyn realised it.

"I'll be back soon," Robyn muttered, her voice hoarse. She barely remembered how long it had been since Conner's last words, and she had cried and yelled and screamed and mourned. She could feel the remnants of that vocal attack on the back of her throat. It was painful to talk. "I have to find him."

Plumes of black smoke roiled up from the direction of the Rec-Zone. Noah stared at the swirling clouds as they rose high into the air as if reaching for the grey skies. He wasn't certain what had happened, some kind of explosion, perhaps. Was it the List? Were Ollie or Robyn down there? Were they dead?

The question was light on Noah's mind. Whether they were dead or not… he found it hard to care. How could he care for something which might not be real? Those buses and vehicles that were driving into the grounds, there was no guarantee they were actually entering the grounds of Hearthome. That hope of an outside world was just a faulty emotion. How could he feel something that might not be his feelings at all?

He was standing on the top of the administration building having made his way through the usually restricted and locked rooftop access, but it seemed when that van had exploded it had weakened the doorway up a little bit. There were signs of the explosion even from up here, with cracks across the rooftop. Part of Noah knew that it was dangerous, but he didn't particularly worry about that fact that it could break. He wouldn't have to worry about much any more.

It was a long way down, perhaps four or five floors. There was a small possibility that he could survive but if he went flat and ensured he hit the floor with his chest or head, then that should do it. He could imagine the brief flash of pain when he hit but he could also imagine that sweet release of knowing that the strings of this dream would finally be cut.

Hope's words hung over him like an ill omen.

The Crosshatch Club, where he had first experienced what a List was, had been manipulated by her. She had told him that she had made sure people couldn't be saved. People had died because of her, lost their chances because of her. Noah had tried back then, he really had, even though he never understood. Hope had been there and had let him know about the rules, but were they even true? He had thought that the visionary was supposed to get clues on the order of the List but Noah had barely had any clues for the people in Hearthome. For the first few he had, in the guise of dreams, with Hope's face plastered all over them. But then… nothing.

And then Hope had said that she was the cause of the bus crash, of Amelia's death. That she had made Noah think that it was a List. That she had made Noah think it wasn't real. This had carved Noah's soul down to nothing but a little nub of spirit. That crash had been everything that had brought him to Hearthome. His belief on that accident being a vision, his many hard discussions with Doctor Charles Evans, eventually accepting that maybe it wasn't a vision. Not talking to people at Hearthome, keeping to himself, wondering if the days were real. His mind had broken to its near limit. And only recently had Noah starting believing that perhaps he could move on. The irony of a new List bringing back that feeling wasn't lost on him. He had managed to communicate more than he ever had before. Not only with Robyn, but with people like Conner, Penelope, Ollie and his personas, Jason Ryan. Despite the unnatural circumstances, things had started to feel… normal… again.

And that normality was torn away.

His decision was certain in his mind. It wasn't death he sought but rather life. He needed to wake up from this vile nightmare. You always woke up from dreams when you died in them.

"Do you really trust in the words of someone that has been manipulating you from the beginning?"

The words blew across the breeze on top of the administration building. Noah did not turn around and closed his eye. Why did people have to make things so difficult? Especially people that might not be real, who had formed relationships that may not have been true.

John Doe looked at the back of Noah. The wind brushed past his hair, making it look like a guiding flame in the darkening skies. Despite no visible reaction from Noah, he knew the man had heard his words. He slowly took a step forward. He did not want to cause any undue panic or worry in Noah. He had to be delicate. John could already imagine her words at that statement. A little out of your wheelhouse, don't you think, Gerald?

"Will you look at me, Noah?" John called out. Still nothing. "I am not here to make any choices for you. I am not her."

This seemed to finally move Noah. He turned around at the edge of the administrative building and looked down at John. John winced. Noah looked worse that he himself did, and John had half of his face burned off. Noah's skin was pallid and sickly, his one good eye was sad and defeated. The other was still covered by a patch, but the patch was stained with yellows and browns. John wondered if the eye socket underneath was infected. That could explain Noah's appearance and ill health.

"There's no point in you talking to me, John."

"Why not?"

"The words you say are just words that she wants me to hear. The words you say are just inserts. They're not real." There was a flatness to Noah's words. The man was so close to giving up, if he hadn't already.

"Well, I hate to disappoint you, but I am going to speak regardless. If you think they are the words of that girl, then perhaps it is she giving you this message, and not me. But trust me, Noah, these are words coming straight from the mouth of someone who values words very much." John ventured another step forward. "You have been manipulated from the day everything went bad for you, Noah. I understand how much work you put into trying to forge a reality from an existence you were not sure was real. I remember hearing the destruction you did to your room when you had your vision, when you lost a day. That was shortly before I introduced myself to you, you remember. But I want to ask you a question, Noah. You made that choice to continue talking to me. You were scared, I could see it in your eyes, but you decided that you wanted to speak to me and learn what I knew. That was your choice, Noah. Think about the other choices you have made since your vision. Reality lies in the choices we make, in the experiences that happen because of those choices, not regardless of them."

"That's the whole point, John." Noah shook his head. "She's made my choices for me. She's influenced my mind. She can make me think whatever she wants. My choice to speak to you may not have been my choice at all. I just want to wake up. It has been a nightmare. Look at me, John, I had my eye crushed, I've been stabbed in the stomach twice, and yet I'm still here. What reality exists where that would keep me alive?"

"The one we're in right now, Noah. Human bodies can be durable." John pointed to his own face. "I'm living proof of that. I cannot see out of this side of my face, I cannot feel on this side of my face, I can't even taste the way that I used to because of some burns on my tongue. Yet this injury makes me who I am. It means something."

"And yet you hid it away under that beard and that hair. Don't tell me that it means something when you did that."

"I wasn't hiding my injury, Noah, it was a little more than that." John took another step forward. "So tell me, Noah, are you crafting my life?"

This seemed to take Noah off-guard. "What?"

"In this fake reality of yours, the one constructed by Hope, is it she or is it you that has constructed the way my life has gone? Are you telling me that the choices I made are fabricated? Are you telling me that when I was shot in the stomach and nearly died, that that wasn't real?" John could feel the delicacy going now but he couldn't help himself. He was getting angry. "Are you telling me that the choice to have Cyn do this to me wasn't my choice at all, but some ridiculous thing that you or Hope dreamed up?" He pointed to his hair. John took another step forward. "Are you telling me that when the person I loved disappeared on me-" John's voice caught in his throat. For a moment he touched his lips with two fingers. "…Are you telling me that feeling on my lips is not real? That those words I heard were not real?"

"…John…" Noah looked confused.

"And what about the rest?" John asked, suddenly loud. "If this is all a fabrication of reality, then what of the stories of the rest of Hearthome? Of Ollie's struggles with his subconscious, of the excitement of Robyn and the perservance of Conner Shepherd. What of Jason and the DHP? What of those sins, of Pigritia and Penelope, what of them, Noah? Did you create all of them, did you falsify their stories?" Another step forward. He was getting close now. "I understand that you are hurting, I understand that you have been manipulated, I understand how lost you feel, but don't you ever dare to be the author of stories that are not your own!"

Noah looked at John's face. It was thick with emotion, even the burned half of it. He wasn't quite sure what to say, or even how to say it if he did know.

"I know what a disjointed feeling it can be not to know reality from fantasy," John's voice grew quieter now. "I came to Hearthome because I finally wanted some opinions on what the voice in my head truly was. A ghost, a phantom, a figment of my imagination, a simple fragment of a memory that I had for her." John stared at Noah. "It turned out that Lily Talbot was truly real. Or at least real in the sense that I created her in my grief, with these two hands, with some kind of ability I don't understand. And that Lily Talbot was perhaps a different Lily Talbot from the one that had been murdered before but the Lily Talbot that you saw was real, Noah. I will not have you desecrate that by deciding that this reality is false. Neither you or Hope get to make that decision."

Noah could feel doubt creep into his mind now. Doubt on the decision that he had thought he had decided on. What John spoke was the truth. So much had happened away from his own life in Hearthome. What kind of ego would he have to have to assume that everything that had happened was some facsimile of his own consciousness?

"Think of what would happen if you are wrong," John said. "You jump. And you don't wake up. Think of those you leave behind. There are people who care for you in Hearthome. Patients who look up to you. You were here the longest. The occasional time I would slip out of my room, I would hear of the respect that people had for you. And what of Robyn? She's a true friend to you, Noah. Think of her before you decide to think only for yourself."

What was he to do? Noah wanted to ask the question to John but found his words stuck in his mouth. What would be next for him, if he could not wake up? How could he make the best of this situation? How could he survive the List and—

"You don't have to."

Noah's eyes darted to the left of John, where Hope stood, in the form of a woman, smiling sadly. Noah felt a hot surge of anger within him. "Leave me alone! You've done enough damage! Just leave me alone!"

"…Your anguish will soon be over. Or you can let it continue. Gerald Ryoushi is right, I have taken choices from you, so I will leave this choice in yours."

"Why won't you just leave me alone!?" Noah shouted. Hope had chosen not to show herself to John although John knew that she was somewhere beside him. What could he do to interrupt someone he could not see or hear?

"Look below you, Noah. Tell me what you see," Hope said.

"What?"

"Look below," Hope said firmly. "What is there?"

Not wanting to listen to her, but still unable to resist the question, Noah looked down over the edge of the building. Below, he could see a figure on the pathway leading to the administration building, looking around. Finally she looked up, and Noah found himself looking down at Robyn.

"I have an offer for you, Noah Barker. Ollie and Owen Cox are dead. Charlotte Hayes is dead. That leaves one soul for me, and two souls left on the List. I am about to make this building crumble. It is fragile and prone to collapse, and that collapse will happen shortly. You want to make your own choices, then choose, Noah Barker. If you choose to die, then Robyn Wright will survive. If you choose to live, then you will live, and I promise to leave you be. For I have achieved that which I set out to achieve and I can finally be free of this place." Hope smiled. "Choose, Noah Barker, now."

Just like that, Hope was gone. Noah could barely wrap his head around the offer she had just laid out before him.

"What did she tell you, Noah?" John asked. "Do not listen to any more of her manipulations!"

"She gave me a choice…" Noah said absently. "She said that there's one one more death needed. She said that it could be me… or it could be Robyn."

John opened his mouth to reply but the building suddenly shook as if an earthquake had hit it. John staggered back as a great chunk of the ceiling fell inwards. John immediately backed away, his face paling. He didn't have good memories of collapsing buildings. He wasn't certain what to make of what Noah had just told him but it sounded like he had done all he could, and whatever choices were left were for Noah to make himself. "Make whatever choice is right for you!" John shouted as another chunk of the building fell away. "You are in control of your own fate, Noah!"

In control of my own fate? Noah watched some of the building crumble away. It was crumbling down towards Robyn and he could see what was about to happen if he didn't do anything. Some piece of debris would find its way down towards her, and strike her on the head, or crush her, and that would be that. Could he trust in what Hope had said, when all she had done was manipulate him? But she had manipulated for the sake of this List, for these souls that she had spoken. There was truth in this words. Was that a certainty, or was that merely Noah's own naïve hope?

Choices.

Choices were a funny thing. They could lead you down one path, or to the next. Choices created paths and Noah had turned down his fair share of paths. He had chosen to go to the Crosshatch Club that day. He had chosen to believe that the bus crash was a vision. He had chosen to slowly open up to Charles Evans. He had chosen to speak to Robyn about the List, to involve her. He had chosen to keep going, even after his eye had been gouged out by Imogen Banks, even after he had been stabbed by Rebecca Watts, he had chosen to go on.

If Noah had chosen not to talk to Conner Shepherd, then none of this would have happened. Conner Shepherd would have gone to the meeting with Charles Evans. He would have come out afterwards and would have taken the lives of those that Noah had foreseen. If Noah had chosen for this route to have happened, then Conner would have lived up to all that which was said about him. Yet Noah had chosen to speak to Conner, and the resulting effect was that Conner did not kill, and he became an ally, and a friend to Robyn. That choice resulted in saving those lives, if only for a moment. It resulted in the truth about the sins to come out, it resulted in the connection between Penelope and Pigritia to be revealed, it resulted in the change of John Doe, in the change of Conner Shepherd, in the change of himself.

Noah had already chosen for everyone to live once.

The fact that Hope was so adament to collect her souls meant that this truly was a reality, and that certainty brought Noah to action. With one last look at John across the rooftop where it was safe and not crumbling, Noah gathered himself, and dropped straight through the nearest hole.

"What are you doing?" Hope was there in front of him as Noah landed with a thump. He was okay, the drop wasn't far.

"I choose the third option," Noah grunted, finding the next hole and dropping to the next floor. The walls and ceilings were crumbling, but it was slow going and Noah could drop down another floor as well. Hope seemed to follow him in the corner of his vision.

"You cannot escape the inevitable, Noah. I will claim my souls."

"Not without a fight," Noah slipped his way down another hole. He felt something cut into his arm but he didn't care. "I choose both of us to live."

"That is not a choice I gave you,"

"But it's the choice I made!" Noah slipped through the final hole and just like that he was on the bottom floor in the main hallway. Everything was crumbling around him and he knew he had little time to get out and get Robyn out of the way of the rubble. "Robyn!"

Robyn looked sharply down the hallway. It had only been about thirty seconds since she had spotted Noah on top of the rooftop. He eyes widened. "Noah, what are you doing!?"

"I'm saving the both of us!" Noah shouted. In his adrenaline fueled state, he was grinning madly. "I chose to live, Robyn!"

"Get out of there Noah!" Robyn screamed as Noah pushed himself like never before. He had never wanted anything in his life more than he did now. He wanted to reach her, to get her out of harms way, and to get himself out of harm's way. He wanted to hedge his bets of this reality. He wanted to live.

There was a sudden rumble and the entire ceiling broke away above Noah. Noah grit his teeth, pushed harder, and reached out towards Robyn. The doorway was so close. He could do it. He had to do it.

He had made his choice.

Noah opened his eyes. That was the first thing he noticed. Eyes. He tentatively pressed his hand lightly over his right eye. It was there as if it had never left. The next thing Noah noticed was the almost comfortable rumble that echoed around them and it took him a moment to realise that it was the sound of tires on tarmac. He was sitting in some kind of chair, in some kind of vehicle, and Noah looked out of the square window to see buildings and sporadic trees passing by.

He was in a bus. And not just any bus either.

"You've finally woken up. Rub that sleep from your eyes, we're nearly there."

Noah almost didn't want to turn. Didn't want to face the owner of that face. It took a herculean effort but he finally turned in his seat to face her.

"Amelia," Noah choked the name.

"What's wrong?" Amelia smiled that pretty smile of hers, her bright hair gleaming in the sunlight streaming through the window.

"I…" Noah licked his lips. He reached up and touched her cheek, felt the flesh beneath his fingertips. "…I can feel you. See you."

"Of course you can," Amelia chuckled lightly. Her laughter was like windchimes, tinkling with light humor. She reached up and grabbed Noah's hand, clutching in in both of her own. "I'm here, Noah. It's okay. You don't have to let go of me."

Noah glanced out the window again. He didn't recognise the scenery tumbling by anymore. "Where are we going, Amelia?"

"We're going on our trip, don't you remember?"

"No… This isn't where we were going. This isn't London. I don't know where this is." Noah turned back to Amelia. "I feel like… something is wrong. I feel like I'm forgetting something, something important."

"You don't have to remember it. Just experience what is happening now. Everything else doesn't matter anymore, Noah." Amelia's smile was heartwarming. Just like the smile that Noah remembered and yet… there was something not quite right about it. The closer he looked at Amelia, the more he noticed the most miniscule of imperfections. A wrinkle where they hadn't been. The eyebrows at just the wrong angle. A purplish glint in her eyes. Noah pulled his hand away and felt the urge to stand up, but he was glued to his seat.

"Hearthome. I want to go back to Hearthome."

"You don't have to think about Hearthome anymore, Noah. You don't have to struggle anymore. Just let go."

"Take off her face," Noah said firmly. "I do not want your tricks anymore. You are not Amelia."

Shimmering as if seeing a mirage in the desert, Amelia's visage seemed to mold and shine until Hope was sitting in the bus seat next to him, her smile sad, her purple eyes downcast. "I am sorry, Noah. I thought you might have wanted something familiar in the end."

"That's still not who you are," Noah said quietly. "I saw who you were. Through that door. Be who you are, not who you want to be."

Hope frowned and again her image shook to be replaced with her younger self. Her face was sad and downcast. She truly looked a child. "Noah, do you understand what is happening to you?"

Noah looked away from Hope and to the front of the bus. He realised there were no other passengers on this bus. No driver. And ahead of them the road stretched out into a bright eternity. "Yes, I understand. It's a bit more poetic than I was expecting." He turned back to her. "Is this your doing?"

"I just wanted to make you comfortable." Hope said.

"Why?" Noah asked. "This is your fault. This whole thing is your fault." Noah held up his hands. If he focused, he could feel strange pressure on his skin. Could feel the cold of unseen concrete. Closing his eyes and straining his ears, he could hear the faint voice of somebody calling him. Noah opened his eyes again. "Are you true to your word? Will Robyn be okay? Or was that just another lie."

"That List is no more, Noah," Hope said quietly. She was lacing her fingers together, wriggling them back and forth, squirming. "Robyn can live her life without worry."

"That's good, I guess," Noah leaned back in his chair. "So what now? I just… ride this bus to wherever it takes me?"

"…I just want to make you comfortable. I don't want you to be in pain."

"You didn't seem to care all that much about me when you were manipulating me." Noah shook his head. "Why try and comfort me now?"

"Because… because you made a choice I hadn't expected…" Hope said and her voice seemed to break at the last word. When Noah looked at her, he was surprised to see her purple eyes were glossy with tears. "…You were meant to jump. That's what I wanted. It would be quick. I would be free and you wouldn't suffer. Instead you tried to save Robyn. You-You dove headfirst into danger and now… and now you're suffering so much…"

"Tell me," Noah said.

"I-I don't want to," Hope sniffed. Tears were rolling down her dark cheeks now. "I honestly didn't want you to suffer, Noah. I-I know I've used you, I know that, I accept that, and my friends told me it was wrong, but I had to escape, I had to be free, and there was only one way I knew how to do that. I used what I always hated my mother for but it was the only way, Noah!"

"…Tell me," Noah repeated. "I am done with all this lying. Get rid of this bus. Get rid of this road. Let me experience whatever it is that I have to experience. I want my feelings to be true and not altered. Can you do that for me?"

"You'll be in so much pain, Noah. You've… You've been crushed. Your bones are broken. One of your lungs have punctured. It hasn't been quick."

"No, but it will be true." Noah sighed, long and deep. "…that's all I've ever wanted. I don't know why you want to be free. I don't know why you were captured in the first place. I look at you and you're a child. You're crying and I see regret on your face. Yet that was the choice that you made. You inserted yourself into my life and this is the repercussion of that. Child or not, Hope, I want you to live with what you've done. To learn from what you've done. Don't hide behind that adult version of yourself. If you want to grow up, then really grow up, and not pretend." Noah closed his eyes. "If you want me to be comforted, then I want you out of my head."

Hope did not respond. When Noah opened his eye again, he was in complete darkness, and Hope was nowhere to be seen. All of a sudden the pain hit him and it felt like as if his limbs were tearing from him. Sharp pain, deep pains, pain that made him want to cry out and scream. His breathing was erratic and shallow, he could feel damp patches of what must have been blood. His head was thumping, fracturing, roaring at him.

Yet all of this pain, it was real and true. Somewhere within the pain that Noah felt, he knew that this was exactly what he wanted.

He rattled another breath and when he tried to breathe again after that, he found no breath would come. It was strange, the sensation of his body wanting to to what its instincts told it to, but finding that it couldn't. It hurt. Noah so desperately wanted to breath.

In the darkness, alone, but true to the reality of this painful world, Noah's eye grew glossy, just as a piece of rubble was pulled away from his face. His consciousness registered in the last moment that dust-ridden face of Robyn throwing aside the piece of rubble.

A moment of relief. Of knowing that he had done what he had wanted, despite the cost of it.

He had saved her.

When John had made it through the administration building – thankfully the stairway down hadn't been at the front of the building where it had fallen down – he noticed a few things. He noticed a series of long black buses lining up in the open square. There were a few minivans as well, and from these minivans came soldiers dressed in the black garb of the DHP. There were a few people wearing normal clothes as well coming from an SUV. They were splitting into groups, heading into each of the buildings around the Hearthome facility.

John noted all of this yet focused in on the young woman's back at the front entrance of the administration building. As he got closer, he could see that she was on her knees, cradling the unmoving body of Noah Barker on her lap. Her fingers were bloody, her nails split. Judging by the smaller pile of rocks next to the rubble, she must have desperately tried to free Noah.

At John's footsteps, Robyn turned her face towards him. Surprisingly, her face was dry. There was sadness written on her face but there was a strange emptiness to her eyes. John wondered what had happened in the medical bay to make Robyn so alone in her gaze. He could make a grim guess.

John had spoken a little to Robyn the last weeks but didn't know enough to voice any words of comfort that would be meaningful. He suspected very little would be meaningful. Instead he knelt down next to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. A small part of himself found it a very strange thing to do but a larger part that had been brought out by both Cynthia and Lily knew that it was the right thing to do. Something emotional. Something human.

"I've cried too much already." Robyn said. Her voice was painfully hollow. She looked back up at Noah. "I don't want to cry anymore."

John heard footsteps behind them but also heard them fall short. Whoever was approaching them appreciated the weight of the situation.

"Why doesn't loss ever feel easy?" Robyn asked, the hurt in her voice tearing into each syllable.

"…if loss felt easy, then we would lose the things that make us human," John said quietly. He hadn't planned to speak but he could feel something strange deep within him. The things that Lily and Cynthia had both drawn out in him. To be more than Gerald Ryoushi, to be more than Bridge. These emotions were changing him and John had to admit that it wasn't necessarily such a bad thing. Perhaps it was time to be more than John Doe as well. "Noah would be happy to know that he saved you. That was what he wanted."

"…He said that he chose to live. Just before it all came down on him." Robyn was quivering slightly under John's touch. "This isn't choosing to live. This isn't choosing to live at all."

"…It's making the choice to live, that truly made him alive, even in his last moments," John said. It was strange. He could feel his hand on Robyn's shoulder yet he could almost feel a hand on his own shoulder. A slender hand. He felt if he turned his head, he would see her and her cheshire grin. He knew that wouldn't be the case though. "I knew a girl. Loved a girl. Her name was Lily. She died recently… truly died… She was… happy that she got to leave on her own terms. She chose to. That is what Noah did. Noah left on his own terms. Perhaps the result was not what he intended but it is the action which means the most."

"My brother died to get a skateboard…" Robyn's quivering grew worse. "…Conner died to save me… and now Noah has done the same thing… They made their choices… but what about my choices? I wanted them to live. I wanted them to keep going and be happy and… and… be whoever it is they were meant to be. I don't want to be the reason why they're gone. I don't want to have taken their futures. That's not my choice at all. Is that selfish? Does that make me a bad person?" Robyn looked back up at John.

"…It is selfish," John said with thought. "But it is okay to be selfish, in the moment. I didn't want Lily to go. Yet she did. So let us be selfish together, for this moment, and then when we stand, we be proud for the choices those important to us made."

"…You sound… You sound like you're making it up as you go along…" Robyn sniffed. "…But I appreciate the words."

John smiled sadly. "I am making it up as I go along. I'm good at doing that. And one more thing. I've learned… recently… that's it okay to let your emotions out. To let ourselves be who we truly are." I cried when you left me, Lily. I didn't think I could every do it in front of anyone else. Don't laugh too hard when you're watching me from above now…

As Robyn looked up at the often stoic form of John Doe, she saw tears sliding down the healthy side of his face, and he smiled back at her through his tears, unashamed of what he had percieved as weakness for so long.

It was as permission had been granted and Robyn's own tears found their way up to her again. It was extremely hard with the death of Conner bringing back the tough memories of her brother. Seeing Noah on top of the building and then seeing him in the corridor and finally seeing him under the rubble. The anguish was like nothing that Robyn had ever felt before. Crouching over Noah, pressing her face into his chest, allowing her tears to wash over him, she promised herself she would never feel such anguish again.

A/N:- A sad chapter, but an enjoyable one for me to write. Only one more chapter to go after this one - the epilogue will be with us shortly. Let us for a moment allow ourselves to be selfish and angry at the fallen and as the epilogue comes, be grateful for their actions. See you then!