Once again, I'm sorry...


The time between realising you were probably going to die and actually facing your own mortality always seemed stretched. It was over in the blink of an eye and yet lasted forever, proving ample opportunity to question which life choices had led to this point, ponder regrets, wish you'd said more to the people who deserved to hear it, and long for the moments you were going to miss. Admittedly, the world was ending, so certain elements which had once been guarantees were now missing – setting a new speed limit on One was technically still within the parameters of possibility but seeing Alan graduate college had become questionable – but there were instances of fleeting happiness which he wanted to grab onto with both hands and never let go. Losing his life meant losing his family.

Also, it just sort of sucked. Because come on. Of all the ways to go, dying in a swimming pool wasn't exactly the thing of legends. And it was just so… pointless? At least on rescue his death would have held meaning. But no, here he was, facing death via zombie and/or drowning, and it was all for nothing, because it was a goddamn accident.

There'd been a question passed around a booth in a rundown bar post mission once, back during his USAF days, when everything had gone right but that in itself was cause for sombre reflection because it meant the guys on the other side of the fight were now mourning their own losses.

'How d'you reckon you'll go out?' Some guy had asked, with a mundane callsign which Scott could never recall and felt he could be forgiven for as they'd never flown together and had only shared the same base for a week at that point.

Responses varied from joking to serious. The question ran its path through the remaining officers until it found Scott where he'd tucked himself into the corner trying for once in his life to avoid being noticed.

"C'mon, Tracy. You must have some idea."

He picked up his bottle to avoid answering for another few seconds. "It's a pretty morbid question, isn't it?"

"That's the point, man."

He took another sip of his drink.

"In a blaze of glory," he offered at last, with a cocky smirk and a wink for good measure, earning a series of whoops around the table and a call for another round.

It had, of course, been complete bullshit. He'd tried to avoid thinking about death completely until it came calling for him and only his sheer talent in the skies had kept him away from its clutches, at which point confronting his own mortality became a game, a trick, a new rush to soothe his inner adrenaline junkie. He had a complicated relationship with death – one which concerned those around him and sometimes even scared him too. If you couldn't handle losing the people around you, the only solution was to lose yourself first. So, with the exception of a few set occasions, he taunted death without ever truly intending to meet it, but if it did end up taking him then hey, no big deal.

Until now.

Because it turned out that he did not want to die. Actually, he really, really wanted to live.

Huh.

Wasn't that a shocker?

He didn't have time to reflect on this epiphany as every second counted. He had a zombie about to turn him into its personal five-course meal and the need for air was becoming urgent. So. What to do? He had no weapons, with the rifle still stuck on the poolside and the axe somewhere out of reach.

The infected curled ragged nails around his ankles and attempted to haul him deeper, rabid snarls audible even through the roaring water. He lashed out, giving into the panic, because primal instincts had kept humans alive for this long, so they had to be worth something. His heel connected with something hard which gave way beneath his boot in a horrifically bone-shattering manner. The surface was too far away. The creature tightened its grip. Strips of flesh were floating around its arm. There was more blood in the water. He blinked spots away, but they kept spilling into his vision. The pressure to breathe threatened to overwhelm the knowledge not to let any water in.

The water clouded with something else, thicker, darker – rotten bodily fluid. The infected thrashed, howling, turning the water to froth with its fury. Heavy-soled boots slammed into the cursed creature's chest. Bone concaved. Scott twisted and kicked away. Someone grabbed his arm and hauled him upright. Light was blinding. The infected was still right there and then-

It wasn't. It was sinking beneath the surface. Its face was no longer recognisable as human, just a mess of ruined flesh. Bullet holes littered the remaining half of its skull, before it vanished, wrapped up in the tattered remains of the pool cover like a shroud.

Gordon lowered the rifle. He was still standing on the very edge of the pool, looming over the water so far that he was at very real risk of joining the dead rotter.

"Holy shit," he gasped, eyes wide with residual panic. His hands were shaking on the rifle. It was still faintly smoking. "Did I get either of you? Tell me I didn't hit you. Can someone say something?"

Scott, sprawled on his back, still gulping in air like a goldfish outta water, very eloquently summed up his experience with one word. "Fuck."

He rolled onto his front in time to bring up half a lungful of dirty water, choking down air as soon as he'd finished heaving. There were hands on his back, carefully avoiding all injuries, keeping him from faceplanting onto concrete but also checking for serious harm at the same time. It dawned on him very slowly that Virgil was also drenched, meaning he had been the one to plunge into the pool and therefore had also been the one to take an axe to the infected.

"You…" Scott flailed a hand and hoped Virgil got the message. "Shit, Virg."

Virgil slumped against the decking.

"Yeah," he choked out. "I did."

There was rotten blood dripping from Virgil's boots, but it was nowhere near as vibrant as the crimson trickling over the poolside. Scott lifted a hand and witnessed red splash onto the ground from his fingertips. All of a sudden, the light-headedness returned with a vengeance.

"Oh my god, oh my god," Alan kept repeating in that high-pitched, frantic voice. "That's a lot of blood. That's- Oh my god. Why are you bleeding so much? Virgil, do something!"

The rifle clattered to the ground. Gordon scrambled to his knees at their side. Virgil flinched away from him, but Gordon knew better than to take it personally.

"Virg? Hey, don't check out on me now. You did a fantastic job of saving Scott's ass from that rotter but now you've got to stay in the moment. Ground yourself, you know the drill." He lowered his voice to whisper to John. "Those shots will bring 'em running from miles away. We've gotta move."

The urgency of his tone knocked something back into kilter in Scott's head. Maybe it was the part of him which was ex-military and still considered an order unquestionable. He braced himself against the pain and then pushed into a sitting position. Despite steeling himself, a pained whine still escaped past gritted teeth. There was more blood gushing down his left bicep and the front of his suit was soaked in it. Well, shit. That wasn't ideal.

"Here." John tore strips off the hem of his shirt. "It's a temporary fix, I know, but we need to leave and quickly. Apply pressure." He peeled the frayed suit away from the wounds and attempted to school his expression into something neutral, which wasn't particularly reassuring given Scott had already spied the horror in his eyes.

"You know," Scott attempted to joke, "I'm beginning to think – ow, son-of-a-fucking-bitch – that maybe – ow, oh my god – it's just your suits. You got attacked. Now I'm wearing your uniform and I'm the one who nearly gets eaten."

John winced. "Don't joke about that." He tightened the final makeshift bandage and wiped his hands against the tiles. "Jesus, Scott," he whispered while no one else was listening, tipping forwards on his heels to press their foreheads together for a split second. "I nearly got you killed. I was so goddamn confident that I could predict their movements and-"

"Still here," Scott confirmed, somewhat breathless. His own pulse was pounding so fiercely that he could hear it in his ears, a constant reminder that he was still alive. "Thank God I'm immune, huh?"

John looked physically sick. "Oh, Christ. What if it's- You could be another carrier now."

"One problem at a time."

John exhaled slowly. "Never ever do that to me again."

"I promise to never again get dragged into a swimming pool by a zombie. Not intentionally, anyway. Wasn't a fun time. Don't recommend it. Also, these bites hurt like a bitch."

John offered him a hand and hauled him upright. Scott staggered, legs threatening to give out for a second before an arm looped around his middle and kept him standing.

"I've gotcha," Alan promised.

Distant chaos was growing louder. The infected flooded through the houses, across walls and broken fences, swarming en-mass. Scott hadn't seen so many since Jerusalem. Even Gordon looked shell-shocked, for approximately two seconds before he smacked Virgil's bicep and urged them all into a frantic sprint. The bikes were left discarded by the poolside. Scott revelled in the new adrenaline rush as his body threw pain onto the backburner and focussed on getting him the hell away from the pack of infected on his heels.

Gordon turned to fire wildly into the horde, taking down the closest creatures before breaking into a faster sprint. They refused to give up on the first food source they'd seen in days. There was a desperation about them which Scott hadn't seen before. They looked rabid, falling over one another in their eagerness to reach the front.

The street came to a dead-end in the form of a massive pileup. Finch hurtled sideways, bolting down another side road, barking frantically. Alan nearly skidded on slick tarmac where a mostly decomposed rotter had leaked its innards. There was another dead-end coming up fast in the form of a chain-link fence and the swarm were still gaining ground.

"Oh fuck, oh fuck," Alan chanted under his breath.

Gordon continued full pelt. "Climb the fence!"

"What do you mean climb the fence?" Virgil yelled. "There's barbed wire along the top!"

"I don't care! Screw the barbed wire!" Gordon slammed into the metal loops and used his momentum to scale several metres in mere seconds. "Just climb the goddamn fence, they're coming!"

Virgil swept Finch into his arms and shoved the dog over his shoulders. "This is a terrible idea!"

"Just start climbing!" Gordon shouted down at him.

"Oh my god," John exclaimed, halfway up the fence. "This is how we die."


They did not, in fact, die. The majority of the infected were too decomposed to make the climb. They flung themselves at the fence over-and-over, clawing at the metal links, poking rotten fingers through the gaps and snarling. Drool and rotten matter dripped onto the cracked tarmac on the far side. Those at the front of the swarm were crushed as rotters at the back crowded closer. The sight was gory enough to imprint on the subconscious – nightmare material for future reference.

In the aftermath of the attack, adrenaline began to ebb. With this crash came the shell-shocking realisation of just how close they had come to death. Scott was nursing a healthy desire to live for the first time in a long while and it was an epiphany he had yet to truly mull over, let alone comprehend. Human survival instinct went a long way towards fighting, but he hadn't experienced that desperation in years – wanting to cling onto life with both hands until it took a grim reaper physically dragging him down to the depths and even then he would make the job difficult.

He was trying not to contemplate any of these thoughts in great detail. Mainly because overthinking dulled senses and there was still the risk of an infected lurching out of a shadowy alley or a crooked house or rusted car at any given moment, so he had to be on red alert. Gordon still had hold of the rifle, but the axe was lost to the swimming pool. It had become snared in bone, trapped between the rotter's ribs so that wrenching it free would have been near impossible. This left Scott with exactly no weapons, save for Virgil's gun, which his brother had wordlessly passed him a couple of miles back.

Adrenaline continued to drain away. The high ebbed into a significant crash. With it came the awareness of pain – and it hurt badly. Each step brought a new wave. Fiery. Enough to leave him breathless. The bites throbbed like a second heartbeat. His pulse was thunderous in his ears. He could hear his own blood dripping against the tarmac. The world spun, steadying just in time to prevent a nose-dive onto the sidewalk.

History proved he was no stranger to blood loss. Yet somehow he always forgot just how much it sucked. Seriously. Cold sweat, elevated pulse, overwhelming anxiety as his body tried to scream at him, hey, something's wrong, please fix it, as if the soaked bandages around his bicep and stomach weren't enough of a warning. He slowed to a halt as gravity threatened to twist upside down. Balance took all of his concentration. He blinked blurriness out of his vision as hands gripped his shoulders to steady him.

"-need to get off the road," Gordon was saying in the background, sounding more distant than he actually was. He was gripping that rifle like a lifeline, tugging anxiously at his dog-tags with his other hand, traipsing back-and-forth in the space between parked cars like a caged tiger. "Fresh blood is like throwing up a neon sign. Here we are, rotters, come and find us."

Virgil promptly ignored him, because Gordon had a habit of rambling whenever stressed, or just in general no matter what the situation and right now it wasn't helpful. Night was fast approaching and they were all very conscious that they needed to find a safehouse within the next hour. That being said, passing out from blood loss was a more pressing concern.

"Let's sit down," Virgil murmured, although Scott only caught the tail-end of it.

It was probably worrying just how out of it he was, but he threw that concern to the wind because oh god, moving hurt. He got halfway to the ground before collapsing like a house of cards. The impact was jarring, despite Virgil's attempt to catch him, and his vision whited out for a moment. Alan hovered in front of him, unwilling to get in the way but also looking notably pale with panic. Which, to be fair, was probably an appropriate reaction given that was a lot of blood.

"Fuck," John whispered faintly, sinking to his knees in the gutter so that he could support Scott's other side. He lifted a hand, hesitating as he moved to pry the bandage away from bite wounds while Virgil focussed on the lacerations. "These need stitches."

"I know," Virgil snapped, voice breaking on the final word. "But I don't have access to anything and even if I did – field surgery out here? Without a way to sterilise anything? That's basically an invitation for sepsis."

Alan clamped a hand to his mouth to stifle a frightened, feral sound. A short distance away, standing sentinel with the rifle primed and ready, Gordon flinched.

John didn't say anything for a long minute. There was blood smeared across the sleeve of his jacket and Scott attempted to wipe it away, only the action was clumsy and seemed out of his control.

John guided his hand away with a pained frown. "Leave it."

"Sorry."

"You're not the one who should be apologising," John remarked quietly, laser-focussed on the bite mark so as to avoid multiple questioning looks. He eased the edge of the bandage away, coaxing fused fabric away from skin. His physical recoil at the revealed injury spoke measures.

Scott examined it through blurry vision. Huh, that's not pretty. Tattered flesh still gushed blood. He could feel warmth trickling down his bicep, splashing onto his knees. When he lifted a hand, it dripped from his fingertips. He wasn't squeamish but was overcome with another wave of dizziness at the sight. He gave into the battle against gravity and listed heavily to the side. Suddenly holding his own head up was impossible.

The sky was right there. Bright and vast and wrong. Where was the blue? Poisonous orange stung his eyes. He focussed on breathing while pain writhed around his bicep. The rational part of his brain observed that lying flat on his back in the centre of the road wasn't going to help matters. The instinctive, fearful side of his mind was too caught up with the fear of dying. He reached blindly for a grip on reality and found a hand to hold onto.

"Easy," Virgil whispered, squeezing tightly so that Scott could feel his brother's pulse too, frantic like a hunted rabbit. "You're okay."

"Am I?" he ground out, sounding hysterical even to his own ears. The sky seemed too wide, choking on dust, and he was struck by the uncanny thought that if he let go, he would by engulfed by those dark clouds. He clenched his jaw to cage the words. An icy chill was steadily creeping up his spine, leaving him shivering. "Why's it so cold?"

"Because you went for a swim in March," John replied, as if they couldn't all hear the silent truth – that Scott was losing too much blood far too fast and unlike back in October they had no medical equipment and no defib at hand just in case. "Here." He slipped out of his jacket and tucked it around Scott's shoulders. "It's not much, but it'll help a little."

The jacket helped a lot. It was still warm from John's body heat. Scott fumbled for the worn leather and tugged it closer, closing his eyes against the new wave of pain radiating across his stomach where the infected had clawed him.

"Hey," Virgil barked, sharper than usual, urgent. "Keep your eyes open."

"Nah," Scott decided, slurring the word slightly. Who the hell wanted to see a dying sky? It was no longer his home and facing it was just more pain.

John took the less tactile approach and slapped him. "Keep your eyes open. That's a goddamn order."

Scott glowered at him. "Not my boss." That strange, sluggish daze returned. He curled his fingertips around the collar of John's jacket. "Sorry," he mumbled. "Getting blood on it."

"That's okay," John assured, softer this time. He carded a hand through Scott's hair and in the dimming light his fingers were trembling. "I'm sure I'll forgive you eventually. Hey, uh, remember our pact? I want you to keep your end of the bargain. No checking out on me now, okay?"

Somewhere, in the vaguely hazy edges of his awareness, Scott could hear a distinct call – howling and hungry. The safety of a gun clicked.

"Oh Christ," Gordon breathed. "This is- What do we do? We've got to go."

There was a choked silence.

"No," John said quietly, regretful and afraid all at once. "I've got to go. I can lead them away. Distract them. Give you guys a chance to get Scott somewhere safe."

Gordon dropped the gun without care for the clatter. "Are you fucking serious right now?"

"Yes." John didn't turn to look at him, even as he stalked closer. "I am very serious. We don't know if- There's a chance they can track me, right? If there's a hive mind and I've got part of the parasite then surely… I could be leading them to us without knowing. Or maybe they're just drawn by blood, I don't know, but the point is that I can do this."

"They'll kill you."

"Not necessarily. The GDF had a theory about the hive mind – I found a research paper on it back in the bunker. There's a strong chance that the infected won't touch me. I can lead them away and if they catch up to me, I'll probably be alright."

"It's a theory," Gordon ground out, faltering. "It's just a theory, Johnny. What if it's wrong? What if…? I can't lose you again. And I know I've been acting mad at you recently, giving you a hard time, but that- It doesn't mean shit. I need you to stay." He took a deep breath. "Please."

"Wait, you're going?" Scott tried to filter through the murky conversation. Words were tricky in the face of fire. Or something. There was dust falling again and it looked as though the sky were bleeding. He made a clumsy flail for John's hand. "No, no, no, don't go. It's not safe. You've gotta- be safe, John, I promised."

Virgil's grip was strong enough to keep him from lurching upright, but it was a near thing. John looked torn, glancing over at something out of sight with a dark frown. He leant down, braced against bloodied tarmac, voice dropping to a whisper.

"I'm gonna do my best to make it back, okay? But just in case…" He hesitated, gaze faintly pleading but set with that grim resignation which told Scott there was no hope of convincing him to stay. "I need one more promise. If I don't make it back, live for me. Promise me, Scott. I want you to swear to me."

Scott caught his hand and held on tightly. "You're gonna make it back."

"Obviously," John agreed with a faint smile. "I'm a Tracy."

He scrambled upright before Scott could attempt to emotionally manipulate him into staying – because hey, all cards were on the table in the name of saving loved ones – and took the rifle from Gordon.

"I could come with you?" Gordon offered, voice strangled. He had his arms wrapped around himself in a feeble hug. John just looked at him. "Yeah. I guessed you wouldn't go for that." He ducked his head. "You were always supposed to be the safe one, you know?"

"I'm testing a hypothesis." John pulled him into a fierce hug. "It's in the name of science," he whispered, allowing Gordon to cling to him for another few seconds before gently pushing him away. "Virgil, you've got flares from Two, right? Send one up but do it two blocks away from your actual safehouse. I'll find you. Give me twenty-four hours. If I'm not there by then, leave."

Alan untied Finch's leash. "Take her with you."

"Alan…"

"She can help. She can warn you when they're getting too close and then she can help you find us again afterwards a-and..."

"Thanks, Allie," John murmured, "but she belongs with you." He scuffed his sneakers in the gutter, reaching for words that refused to come. "Uh… Virgil…"

"This isn't October," Virgil stated firmly. "We're not going to have a repeat."

"No."

"Good. Just… try to be careful. Please. At least try."

The howls were getting closer. John shouldered the rifle. "FAB, Virg, I will try my best." He hesitated a moment more. "I love you. All of you. I know I'm shit at expressing feelings, but I really do."


Snapshots. Reality torn into fragments. Disjointed moments as consciousness remained fleeting. Scott seized those brief instances with both hands and held on tightly until darkness crept up on him again. He tried to fix the puzzle, got a vague idea of the picture based off little details and bigger pieces. Gordon tearing through a trio of rotters with the sort of venom only ever forged from personal pain. Alan trying to hold back tears, hands stained red, expression ruined by the fear of a nightmare come true.

Also, Virgil. Virgil, who had compromised his own morals and grasp of his soul, had killed a (sorta) living thing to save Scott. The greatest tragedy of life was the cost of keeping it. Scott hated the fact that others had been forced to pay that price on his behalf. But mostly he just let his vision fade on a ruined sky and considered the fact that yeah, maybe being carried by his brother would have been embarrassing in another life, but in this one he was content to just let it happen.

Something no one ever talked about was just how painful it was to be bitten. This presumably had never cropped up in conversation as a bite was usually a death sentence and the only person with immunity Scott knew to have been bitten was John, who had very pointedly avoided describing or discussing the October Incident in any shape or form, not even daring to hint at it in the vulnerable early hours. There had been whispers in the bunker of those who had survived via amputation or through various other horrific field surgeries, but he'd never come across those victims in the flesh. Besides, the GDF would never have let them step foot in the bunker, so those poor souls would have been condemned to the surface world and any traces of survivors had long since been lost to the dust.

The point was pain. He had a high tolerance. It was sort of a necessity when your job involved heading into danger zones on a daily basis – he was probably a neurologist's nightmare given the number of concussions he'd tallied over the years – but somehow none of those past experiences had ever come close to this. It was outside the realm of physical comparisons, leaving theoretical musings of what it must be like to plunge into lava or maybe surf across the sun whilst feeling the deepest chill at heart; the type of inhuman ice found in the depths of space or sea where light was a mere fantasy. Injuries burnt while blood loss was the type of cold that ached.

Reality was split into a chaotic blur, like a cassette dipped in acid and rewinding too fast for any of the lyrics to make sense. Words, phrases, details which should have been as clear as day were lost in the haze, much like layers of sky had been blended into sluggish dust. Familiarity; a forgotten relic.

His only tangible grip on the waking world was the brief moments when his nervous system seemed to practically shut down, sorta nope out of the situation so that everything felt numb for the few seconds it took for his body to remember hold on a moment, we've got a problem here, at which point the fire returned with a vengeance.

How the hell John had managed to stay upright and talking was beyond belief. Scott could barely remain conscious. There were some uncanny comparisons between the October Incident and his current situation which didn't bear consideration but continued to play on his mind regardless. The only blessing was the knowledge of immunity – parasitic infection wasn't a concern here, but blood loss was a substantial threat. What was worse was knowing which symptoms to look out for and understanding exactly how bad this was, such as when shivering gave way to numbness – not the sort that came between waves of pain but the icy, shallow breathing kind.

It was plausible that he was losing time. Okay, so he was definitely losing time, but admitting that to himself seemed as good as flat-out accepting that he was dying. The thought was jarring. Chilling, except he was already so cold, so it didn't make much difference.

Surroundings shifted without recognition of the journey – suburban houses melting into lonely skyscrapers, storefronts with broken bones and shuttered eyes smeared with old blood. Chain-link fences with metal rungs which rattled. The crunch of glass under heels. Dripping. Whispered voices. A sky which slipped from glaring orange to silent darkness, threatening and starless. There were snatches of bright blue, blurry and marred with ugly crimson, fine lines of orange which would once have been lit by otherworldly technology (or, you know, Thunderbird Five's integrated systems, but otherworldly sounded cooler and John would probably have welcomed the description).

Occasionally, logic would stir within the confines of his mind. Observations would dawn on him, to be accompanied by memories. Dying in action resulted in recalled regrets but dying slowly enabled the classic stereotype of seeing your life flash before your eyes. Hence, the memories whenever logic reared its head. For example, the suit was saturated with his own blood, far more than it was healthy to lose. It jolted him back in time to an instant early on in International Rescue's history, shortly after their identities had been revealed, but slightly before the collapse of his last relationship – which was an embarrassingly long time ago come to think of it, not that it mattered now.

Anyway. Picture the scene – two weeks after a hospital stay which had been bad enough to freak out his family let alone his then-girlfriend. A kitchen on a Tuesday morning fraught by tension and unspoken fears. Sunlight streaming through the window. Uneaten breakfast on the table. A tabby cat perched on the countertop. Her house. His apology. Tears on both sides, but his hidden as opposed to her open emotions. Another ending, another loss, another inevitability. Venomous words, designed to hurt, collapsing into a black hole of exhaustion and realisation and acceptance.

"You're going to die in that uniform," she'd whispered, sinking into a chair, voice threaded with unbearable truth. "One of these days you're going to get yourself killed and I refuse to watch it happen."

She'd been right, just not quite in the manner either of them had imagined – having both pictured a rescue rather than the rise of the walking dead. But here he was, in IR blues – not even his own, for Chrissake – all these years later, life dripping from the suit to seep into the cracks between the concrete, restoring colour to a world of grey at a cost unknowable to the only living things around to witness it – those crows circling through the night stillness, scrawny stray cats, a few ants and strands of stubborn grass bursting free of crooked paving slabs.

There were other memories, too – see? Life flashing before eyes, much? – which were more welcome. Glimpses of everything beautiful in life. Snatches of the moments which had mattered then and were worth even more now. As real and vivid as if they were happening in real time.

Sand and surf, towering waves rushing beneath a damp board, salt drying on skin and in hair, palm fronds tossing their heads above a rock-ringed campfire with overloaded sticks of marshmallows leaking sugar into the flames as a family evening on the beach bid farewell to a day of sea and sun. Before, aviation fuel clinging to the fibres of everything he owned, the adrenaline in his veins forming an incurable addiction, engines roaring in his ears. Then, the metal of a car hood hot against his spine through his shirt, still warm from the drive, the desert still and silent around him and the night sky too vast to comprehend no matter how much John tried to explain it all to him. Dad, in many frames: a mixtape of emotions from angry to worried to sad to happy to proud. Grandma, much the same. Faint memories of Mom made idyllic by the nostalgic light of childhood.

Conversations with words, without words, associating red plaid with trust and ridiculous Hawaiian prints with jokes and light-hearted surfing sessions. Moments spent with a friend who made dreams come true but never took credit for it because that just wasn't who Brains was. A sister with a lightning quick temper to match his own, daring one another to go beyond the limits but following close behind with open arms just in case something were to go wrong. Penelope, sophisticated grace in glamorous dresses but also sharp wit and gentle reassurance dressed in stolen clothes, tucked against his side, safe beneath a ratty blanket while rain tapped against the windows. Even Parker, quietly fond in the shadows. And, of course, Alan.

What words can ever truly convey the depth of feeling which is love?

It was too late to say goodbye. It had been for a while now. He'd been aware of this for the past hour, or perhaps thirty minutes, or maybe two hours – time was an illusion. Words were a concept beyond his control. All that remained was simply drifting. Not in a bad way. It was mostly like falling asleep. But much like he were a little kid again, he just didn't want to. He wanted to hold onto life with both hands and go down fighting. But if that weren't an option, then he just didn't want to be alone. Was that selfish? Probably. He really wished John hadn't left. He also really wished he'd just said the words for a final time when he'd had the chance, but at least he could relax in the knowledge that his family already knew he loved them.

The air tasted of dust and decay and stinging iron. Nothing was okay. It never would be again.

Keep your eyes open, and God, he was trying, really, can't you see I'm trying my best?

Heaviness. Ice. A sense of sinking and the sinking of all sense. The world was dark and quiet and nothing stood between him and that whispered urge to just let go.

Hell no.

He scrambled for a scrap of memory amid the fog. Some miscellaneous move night. Popcorn lathered in too much butter. Alan and Kayo discussing dragons. Parker asleep, tipped back in an armchair with his mouth ajar. John grudgingly agreeing to braid Penelope's hair. Gordon sprawled over a beanbag, Grandma tucking a blanket around his shoulders. Scott himself in charge of the TV remote, pressing pause while waiting for Brains to return from the kitchen, Virgil asleep on his shoulder. Family. He held onto the moment and thought, over and over and over, I love you, I love all of you so much…