Trigger warnings (implied/referenced suicide, panic attacks, more to be specified next week) apply for the next four chapters - nothing which hasn't already been covered in this fic, but keep yourselves safe. Also, hey, hi, I'd just like to remind everyone that Scott is a really unreliable narrator. Like, seriously. Someone give Virgil a hug, he doesn't deserve this.


At some point between the hazy hours of too late and too early when even the distant hiss of recycled oxygen had stilled, Scott fell asleep. He wasn't aware of drifting off, so exhausted that his brain was too foggy to register that he'd shut his eyes.

The next thing he knew, he was reclined across the sofa with his head pillowed in the crook of his arm and a hastily thrown blanket over him. His feet were in someone's lap. There was a hand resting on his ankles, icily cold on the exposed skin where his socks had ridden down. He blinked to bring the room into focus. His mind was still groggy, and it took him a few seconds to make sense of his surroundings.

The last conscious memory he had was of Gordon and John talking in rapid, hushed voices. He'd been too tired to make sense of it by that point, so it had flown over his head. Now, Gordon was gone, leaving a crumpled blanket on the carpet where he'd been sitting.

The TV was playing some documentary on black holes, the volume turned down to a considerate whisper. Scott stared at the screen for a few moments while his brain decided to reboot and actually wake up. He swore he could smell pancakes. Clearly he'd finally lost it. All those concussions must have come back to enact their vengeance.

The bunker was chilly at this time in the morning. Scott peered at the nearest holo-projector to establish that it was roughly seven-AM. The recycled air had a distinct bite to it which sapped every trace of warmth from his skin. He propped himself up on one elbow, snatching the blanket close to his chin as it threatened to fall away.

The hand on his ankles squeezed slightly.

"You can sleep for a while longer. Breakfast isn't ready yet. You could do with as much sleep as you can get. You might have forgotten that you're still recovering from blood loss, but the rest of us haven't."

"That was nearly two weeks ago," Scott grumbled, voice still rough with sleep. He scrubbed his hands through his hair. "I'm fine."

John looked distinctly unimpressed.

"If you'd lost that much blood a year ago, you'd have had a transfusion. Hell, I had one back in October. For obvious reasons, it hasn't been an option, but that doesn't mean you aren't still suffering the effects."

"I'm fine," Scott muttered. It came out sharper than he'd intended. He cast a guilty look at John, who, as ever, looked entirely unperturbed by his brother's antics.

"You have nearly all the symptoms of anaemia. Have you realised that?"

"I just haven't been sleeping well, that's all."

"Scott," John sighed, fondly exasperated. He shook his head. "I'd ask you to take care of yourself, but that's a non-starter, so at least accept help when it's offered. Please."

It was that final, soft word which caught Scott's attention. He took a second look at his brother, properly this time, not just a quick glance. It wasn't only the harsh lighting which washed John out, but emotional exhaustion too. His eyes were bright with worry.

Now that Scott had noticed it, he couldn't stop seeing the signs. John didn't wear his heart on his sleeve like Gordon or Virgil, but he did have some significant tells when he was concerned and right now he was showing all of them.

Scott went to drag his hands down his face and ended up burying his head in them instead. He inhaled deeply. His heart was doing strange tricks again. He'd gotten used to his own pulse tripping over itself for the past few days, but it was still disconcerting. He peered at John through the gaps between his fingers, swallowing as his voice threatened to crack.

"Okay, I'll try."

John didn't look away. He remained perfectly motionless for a minute, studying Scott with those piercing blue eyes. It seemed strange to remember a time when he wouldn't be seen without green irises. His stare wasn't soul-searching, but close enough, faintly bloodshot and bright. He gave Scott's ankles another squeeze, then shoved Scott's legs off his lap.

"Rude," Scott complained, flopping onto his back without any attempt to get up. "Where're you going?"

"You're awake, I don't need to monitor you anymore."

"Monitor me?" Scott bolted upright, spluttering indignantly. He found himself gripping the back of the sofa to fight off a wave of dizziness. "I'm not gonna drop dead, John."

John froze in the doorway. "That's not what I was monitoring for."

He physically shook himself out of the memories of last night.

"Alan and Marisa are making pancakes. There was a box of dry mix in the cupboard apparently. Go sit in the kitchen with them if you want some company, but don't try to help – we've only just arrived and I don't want you setting the place on fire quite yet."

"I'm not that bad."

"Microwave-"

"-Incident, yeah, I know, none of you ever let me forget."

John ignored that last comment.

"No fires," he called over his shoulder, leaving Scott alone with that quietened space documentary on TV – an old, downloaded episode given the lack of working cable anymore. John had probably seen it enough times to have the entire thing memorised, so Scott switched it off entirely rather than just hitting pause.

The lounge was carpeted which was a blessing, but the hallway had floorboards while the kitchen boasted marble tiles and neither of those were kind on already-cold feet. The logical step would be to hunt down some shoes, only that would require effort and Scott really couldn't be bothered.

He ended up sliding along the corridor, biting back curses as the 'boards felt like they were striking ice into his bones. It was made worse by the knowledge that it wasn't actually that cold at all – at least not according to the temperature reading above a holo-projector – so maybe John had a point about still being in recovery after all.

The kitchen wasn't in total chaos. Given this was Alan, this was a minor miracle. Scott attributed the semi-orderly arrangement of ingredients to Marisa. The pair seemed to have everything under control, so he propped himself in the doorway and waited to be noticed, unwilling to interrupt.

Coconut oil was heating up in a frying pan. It hissed and spat froth over the rim to burn up on the hotplate below. No one appeared concerned by this possible fire risk.

Alan was perched on the countertop, attacking a bowl of pancake mix with a whisk. Half of it had sloshed over the sides and now decorated his PJ pants, but he didn't seem bothered, chattering away to Marisa as if they had known each other for years. Marisa, for her part, was wiping down spilled flour from the counter, gaze warm and openly fond as she listened intently. The domesticity was haunting in the manner of every precious moment which could never be revisited without the taint of nostalgia.

"You're not bad at this," Marisa commented as Alan finally managed to remove the last clumps from the batter and tilted it towards her for inspection. "Who taught you how to cook?"

Alan shrugged.

"I kinda just picked stuff up from watching my brothers. Virgil and John are good at cooking. Gordon is too because he had to learn a bunch of nutrition stuff when he started swimming competitively. Our Grandma is terrible, and everyone jokes that Scott takes after her because he accidentally exploded the microwave this one time, but he's not that bad really, he's just always rushing because he never has enough time, so stuff goes wrong. It's funnier pretending he's officially banned from the kitchen though."

Marisa held out a tiny bottle of vanilla extract.

"Add some of this. My mom always put it in her secret pancake recipe, swore by it." She rifled through the cutlery drawer for a teaspoon. "So, you learnt through examples, huh?"

"Sort of." Alan stared into the bowl of pancake batter, before admitting, quietly, "It used to be my thing with Kayo. She's our adopted sister. She, uh- She's missing. And it kinda feels like maybe we won't ever find her. The world's so big and- We've lost a lot of people over the years, even before Z-Day, so I guess I don't really believe in happy endings anymore. There's just reality and a lot of the time that sucks."

Marisa paused. "Alan." Her voice was soft. "That's…"

"No, no, it's fine. Well, it's not fine, but I'm used to it, right? Besides, if anyone is going to survive the zombie apocalypse then it would be Kayo. She's the biggest badass I know. That just doesn't necessarily extend to cooking, so we had this pact that we were gonna learn together and then one day we'd make some super fancy dinner and impress everyone. We used to test recipes on Sundays if neither of us were on duty for International Rescue."

Marisa was quiet for a moment. She wiped the final traces of splashed batter from the counter and dropped the cloth in the sink, turning back to Alan with an encouraging smile.

"She sounds pretty cool."

"Kayo?" Alan slid down from the counter. "Yeah, she's awesome. Scary, but awesome. You'd like her. I feel like you two would really get along. It kinda sucks because everyone just takes her at face value and don't bother to look past the mask she puts on, but there's so much more to her than that. People have layers, right? Well, Kayo's got a lot. So yeah, she's this total badass, but also… she's really funny and she secretly likes poetry… She steals hoodies from Virgil all the time but always denies it. She's banned from playing monopoly because she gets too competitive and- I dunno… There's certain stuff that I can't really talk to my brothers about, but I can talk to Kayo about it and I just- I really miss her."

"What are you doing?" Virgil whispered and Scott nearly had a heart attack. He spun around, gripping the doorway to keep himself from instinctively landing a hit. Virgil levelled him with a faintly amused stare. "Are you eavesdropping?"

"No." Scott coughed. "Absolutely not. I'm actually offended that you think I'd do something like that."

"Uh huh," Virgil deadpanned, and pushed him bodily into the kitchen.

It was actually concerning just how good Alan was at covering at emotions. He plastered a convincing smile on his face and was pouring pancake batter into the frying pan with steady hands as if he hadn't been on the verge of tears less than a minute earlier. Scott made a mental note to keep a closer eye on him.

"Pancakes?" Virgil queried, peering over Alan's shoulder. He tousled his brother's hair, hiding a grin behind the door of a cupboard as he searched for a clean glass.

Alan batted him away with a low growl. "Quit that." He prodded the forming edge of the pancake. "But yeah, pancakes. I found a mix and Marisa offered to help me out."

Scott caught Marisa's eye and mouthed, thanks.

She smiled and lifted her hands, as in, anytime.

Virgil retrieved the empty box of mix and examined the ingredients list. "Don't eat too many, okay? Your body isn't used to rich foods anymore – you'll make yourself sick."

"They're pancakes," Alan protested. "It's not like I'm eating an entire jar of Nutella."

"The fact you used that as an example makes me concerned that you've done it before," Scott pointed out, sinking into a chair around the kitchen table.

Alan flapped a hand in Scott's general direction. "Shh."

"Alan."

"It was a very long time ago and I was eating my feelings, so don't judge me. Anyway, back to the point – are pancakes really gonna make me puke? I don't think so."

"Scott had, like, two handfuls of Goldfish crackers last night and nearly threw up," Gordon reported cheerfully, stretching as he wandered into the kitchen, earning a grimace from Virgil when his back clicked. "Aw, hell yeah, pancakes! I knew there was a reason we kept you around, Al."

Virgil dropped the box into the trash and whirled around to face Scott. "The nausea came back?"

"Only for a little while." Scott kicked out a chair for Gordon to sit down. "It's not a medical concern, relax." He dropped the easy-going tone. "Virgil, I'm serious. It's unrelated to anything physical."

He wasn't about to list the details of how every thought of the infected or the hivemind was enough to have the room spinning around him. He was fully aware that it was the physical manifestation of a very psychological issue. Virgil read between the lines and mercifully let the matter drop, for once.


With the exception of that night at the apartment, it had been weeks – months – since they'd last eaten proper cooked food. It wasn't from scratch, admittedly, but packet mixes were still a very welcome luxury. Scott imagined that it wouldn't be hard to trick oneself into believing that this was ordinary life. Spend enough time down here with every need met and whim catered for, and it would become easy to forget about the horrors above the surface.

Virgil set the limit at one pancake each, despite complaints and glares. He also point-blank refused to let anyone add any toppings.

Gordon stabbed his pancake sulkily. "Look at this. It's sad, Virg. Where's the sugar? I can't believe you've got me eating a naked pancake, as if life isn't depressing enough already."

Jasmin, sat with her chin propped in one palm at dangerous risk of sliding out of her hand to smack against the table, jolted awake again, blinking as she tried to process what she'd just heard. Theo, substantially more of a morning person than Jasmin, openly sniggered.

"Naked pancake," Alan echoed, grinning like a hyena.

John raised an unimpressed brow. "How old are you again?"

"Emotionally, spiritually or physically?" Gordon quipped. "No one ever believes my physical age because my entire spine cracks like a frickin' glowstick as if I'm ancient."

"Do not demonstrate," Virgil snapped, just as Gordon twisted in his chair.

"Ew." Jasmin startled awake. "Dude, that's grim."

Gordon gave a solemn nod. "I'm a medical wonder, Jazz."

"A medical nightmare more like," Virgil muttered.

Gordon proceeded to crack his knuckles, beaming the entire while. Virgil's protests went as ignored as complaints about pancake limitations. Alan stuffed the rest of his pancake into his mouth so that his cheeks bulged like a hamster and watched the chaos play out with genuine laughter in his eyes.

Scott watched them and tried to convince himself that it didn't hurt. Nothing good ever lasted. He was beginning to believe that a single happy moment was an open invitation for the universe to use them as a target. As a child, he'd thought that every instance of joy would last forever. They never did. They were only ever followed by pain. Now, all these years later, happiness scared him. He feared what would come next.

He was aware that it was all in his head which was why he never said anything, but it didn't keep anxiety from forming a pit in his stomach. Every time he felt good it was immediately chased away by dread.

It wasn't sustainable – it was exhausting, and he couldn't continue to live in such a way, especially when he could no longer find any solace in sleep - but what choice did he have? So, he buried the fear beneath a smile and some lame joke that had Alan groaning and Gordon kicking him under the table.

The pancake turned to ash on his tongue. He chased it down with water, fighting to maintain a smile when all he wanted to do was rest his head on the cool table and just stop. It didn't matter how much sleep he got – he was always tired these days. Once again, he didn't have a choice. He slid the remainder of his breakfast onto Virgil's plate, earning a concerned glance.

"Not used to eating this much," he explained, which wasn't exactly a lie, yet he still felt guilty for misleading his brother.

Virgil didn't look fully convinced, expression pinched with worry. "Do we know if they have medical facilities here?"

"They must do." Scott sat back in his chair, resisting the urge to close his eyes. "They've got a spa, for Chrissake. If they don't have a clinic, I'll be very surprised." He frowned. "Why, do you want to check on Alan again?"

Virgil looked at him for a long moment without saying anything.

"What?" Scott muttered self-consciously.

"Nothing."

A ghost of sadness flitted across Virgil's face. He slid his empty plate underneath Scott's and pushed his chair back to carry them into the kitchen.

"Yes, I want to check on Alan, but mostly I want to check on you." He leant closer to whisper, "If you dare claim to be fine then I swear I will call you out right here and now, in front of the kids, which is something neither of us want, so I suggest making it easier and just agreeing to a few medical tests."

Scott glanced over at Alan and Gordon, currently in the middle of debate about which Thunderbird was the coolest with Theo and Jasmin on opposing teams.

"You know," he mentioned faux-casually, "You really need to stop hanging out with John. You're picking up all of his manipulation tactics."

"Is that a yes?"

"Do I get a choice?"

"No." Virgil patted him on the shoulder. "Great talk, Scotty."

"This is bullying."

"As someone who actually experienced that in middle school, I can assure you it isn't." Virgil picked up the stack of plates. "You gonna help with the washing up?"

"Is that a hint?"

Virgil just looked at him.

Scott stood up with a sigh. "God, fine."

The kitchen was far enough away that they could talk in peace without fear of being overheard but was sufficiently close to the dining room for them to catch snatches of laughter and muted conversation. It was warmer too, as smaller spaces always were – not that it could be described as small, but it lacked the echo of the dining room.

Last minute reflexes saved Scott from taking a towel to the face as Virgil tossed it at him. They fell into a similar rhythm as they had done a few nights ago at the apartment. Technically, they could have used the dishwasher, but they both needed the grounding which came with working with one's hands. At least this time the soap was higher quality and so didn't leave chapped knuckles and dry skin. Also, it smelt of fresh cotton, which was another bonus.

Another laugh echoed from the dining room. Scott was slightly too slow in repressing his flinch, which, of course, Virgil picked up on. Suddenly, the situation felt very much like a trap designed to catch him out. There were several conversations hanging unspoken between them which he had been avoiding for days and it appeared that Virgil's seemingly infinite patience had finally run out.

It just so happened that Scott's had also.

He tossed the towel onto the counter. "Let's hear it."

Virgil dedicated far more attention to scraping dried batter off the sides of the mixing bowl than the task warranted. He didn't look up. "Hear what?"

"Any one of the questions you've been dying to ask me."

Virgil stared at the bowl for a long moment, then plunged his hands into hot water until soap suds gathered around his wrists.

"You're doing it again," he said quietly, still unable to look up. "Snapping at me."

Scott checked his tone and silently cursed himself because Virgil was right. He abandoned the drying up and sat down at the table, more falling into the chair than anything else thanks to the weakness in his legs which he refused to acknowledge.

"Sorry." He buried his head in his hands and inhaled deeply. "I'm trying."

He didn't need to clarify further. Trying to do so much. It applied to numerous things. He didn't lift his head from his hands, but he heard water splash onto the floor followed by a rustle of fabric as hands were dried roughly on that damp towel.

"Scott."

A supportive hand landed on his shoulder.

"Yeah?" he mumbled without looking up.

There was a lengthy pause. He peered through his fingers to glimpse cold marble tiles glistening with spilled water, his own navy-blue socks versus Virgil's grey ones. Gordon's voice drifted through the open door, words indistinguishable but forcibly upbeat, yet another lie. So many to keep track of.

God, Scott was tired. It was different to how it had been before. He wasn't at risk of floating away, but sinking, which was worse. He let his head fall through his hands to land on the table with a dull thud which knocked colours fizzing behind his eyes.

"Ow."

"Idiot," Virgil whispered softly, sounding distinctly off. Wood scraped over stone as he pulled out a chair. His grip on Scott's shoulder tightened slightly. "How are you doing?"

Scott considered. "You might want to be more specific."

The hard surface was doing nothing for his headache which disrupted sleep had only worsened since their arrival. He folded his arms and propped his head on top, focussing on steady breathing. Virgil's hand was warm, and it took concentration not to lean into him. His chest ached. There was a heavy pressure behind his eyes.

That was happening more and more lately – gentle touches put him on the verge of tears, made him feel small, like a child again. Kindness invited vulnerability and he couldn't afford to let his guard drop, not even around his family – this new world was too unpredictable, so he had to be ready to leap into action, to protect at any given second.

Sometimes he found it almost laughable just how broken he was. There was so much wrong with him that it would take too much effort to fix it – more effort than he was worth, anyway.

"We thought we going to lose Alan." Virgil was doing a remarkable job of keeping his voice steady, despite the obvious emotion which underlaid the words. "And while we didn't, while we now know that he's going to be fine, that doesn't take away from the fact that for a time we had to face the belief that he wouldn't be."

Scott dug his nails into little grooves in the woodwork. He was dizzy with déjà vu, rocketed back to all those months ago, to that conversation with Alan in which his youngest brother had attempted to explain how knowing that Scott and John were okay didn't erase the time he'd spent believing otherwise. Now, back in the present, his breath caught in his throat at the reminder of those hours in the hospital. He finally understood what Alan had meant.

"I-" His voice cracked. He screwed his eyes shut, swallowed past the lump in his throat, tried to breathe in the face of so many complicated emotions that they threatened to drown him.

"And then everything happened with Gordon and John." Virgil hesitated, choosing his words carefully. "It's a lot of pressure on all of us, but especially on you. So, how are you handling it?"

Or, unspoken, are you handling it at all?

To which the honest answer was no, because in order to handle anything you had to acknowledge that it had happened in the first place.

Seriously, if there was ever a competition for repression talent, then Scott would win the trophy. He'd been deliberately avoiding thinking about everything which happened ever since he'd first plunged through the cover of that swimming pool. John's worsening struggles with the hivemind had been the perfect distraction. It was as if the universe had been actively encouraging Scott's terrible coping mechanisms.

He couldn't think about it. Couldn't, wouldn't, they were sort of the same thing when you got down to details, because both were applicable in this instance.

Here were the details which haunted him constantly but he refused to acknowledge, aka a list of his Top Screw-Ups in The Last Two Weeks Alone: overcome in the swimming pool by a curious sense of utter peacefulness and certainty that it would be okay to give in, that he could finally rest on the other side; his hands smothered in the blood of an infected child; sitting on the precipice of that hospital roof with rotters snapping below and the sky snarling above, lying to Gordon's face because the truth was that despite mostly wanting to live, he still didn't know how and these days there seemed to be very little point anyway.

"We nearly lost Alan and John. Both of them, all at once." Virgil's hand was still gripping his shoulder, but now it seemed like it was to anchor himself rather than to offer comfort. "And I know that I'm not okay with that even now, so you're definitely not."

"What are you getting at?"

"Before the- the, uh- the moment with John, when Gordon- You were on the roof for a long time, Scott. A really long time. Gordon's formed his own idea of what he thought he saw, but I want to hear it from you, because if he's right, then… You can't just pretend nothing happened. I can't sit back and ignore it."

"Why not? It- Whatever did or didn't happen, the moment's passed."

He could just sense Virgil staring at him. Incredulous possibly, horrified certainly.

"Scott, that's not- You can't do this. You can't ignore it, because until you talk through this it's going to keep haunting you until one day maybe it wins. I'm not going to stand by and let that happen. We haven't survived nearly nine months of the apocalypse just to lose you to yourself."

Scott flattened his hands against the table. The movement reminded him of the grazes across his knuckles which pulled taut and stung viciously.

"I've handled it for years. It's fine."

"It's still in your head."

"It's been in my head for my entire life. Even before we lost anyone, before all the shit that went down in the Air Force, it's always been there in some sense, some vague fucking feeling that I can never shake completely, and I don't know why."

He exhaled in a rush and continued, more tiredly than intended, "Maybe there's been something broken in me right from the start, I don't know, but the point is that I don't need to talk about it and you don't need to worry, because I'm still here, aren't I? Still surviving."

He finally looked up, just in time to spy the open devastation on Virgil's face. It was swiftly banished but traces remained. It wasn't the first time that Scott had spied this type of heartbreak. He could still recall hearing it in John's voice on the other end of the phone and then in his father's eyes. He'd glimpsed it on Virgil before too, but not like this, not in this heavy way which seemed to infect every part of his brother.

"Life's not supposed to be a fight, Scott," Virgil said quietly.

Scott fished for words and came up empty-handed. He laid his head back on the table, face-down so that the whorls in the wood dilated to strange, blurry galaxies. It confused his vision a little, so he closed his eyes and flinched against the onslaught of darkness, reminding himself that he was in the kitchen and not in the hivemind space. Virgil's hand moved from his shoulder to the nape of his neck. He was too exhausted to do anything but melt under the touch.

"It's okay," Virgil whispered.

Scott gave a tired chuckle.

"No, it isn't." His breath caught in his throat, twisting his voice. "It really isn't," he repeated, barely even a murmur. The pressure behind his eyes was back. "What's wrong with me, Virg?"

Virgil didn't answer at first. He'd identified those knots of tension and was now steadily working them out which threatened to send Scott to sleep right there on the table.

"I wasn't able to properly treat you for blood loss," he replied after a moment, "So at a guess… Iron-deficiency anaemia, not to mention long-term sleep deprivation and the physical effects of stress."

"That's not what I meant."

"I know."

Virgil's voice was painfully gentle and Scott sort of wanted to cry, partly wanted to run, kind of wanted to let himself fall asleep.

"People have a bad habit of neglecting mental health. But it's like any physical injury – you've got to care for it, or the problem won't get any better. Once you've broken a bone, you'll always have-"

"-Weakness?"

Virgil paused.

"That's not the word I would have chosen. The point I'm trying to make is that just like old injuries sometimes flare up, so does mental health. This is a shit situation and none of us are handling it particularly well, but you have an additional susceptibility due to your history."

There was an element of fire lacing his next words, a fierce urgency which demanded to be heard.

"You're not broken. You never were."

"Okay," Scott mumbled.

Virgil reached over to grip his chin and raised his head so that they were eye-to-eye. He refused to let go even as Scott tried to shove him away.

"Listen to me. If this is the only time you ever pay attention to what I'm saying then so be it, but I need you to hear me right now, okay? Swear to me, Scott."

Scott gave up trying to escape. "Okay, okay, I'm listening. Jeez."

Virgil held his gaze for a long moment, eyes wide and searching. "You are not broken."

Direct eye contact was terrifying. Virgil could already read him too well without staring into his soul.

Scott glanced down at the table. His hands were shaking again. He didn't know if it was from cold or from anxiety. He went to curl them into fists, but Virgil caught them before he had chance. He didn't dare look up.

"It's gonna take a while for me to believe you, Virg," he admitted at last. "And to tell you the truth, I'm not sure I ever will. But I can try. And I am – trying, that is. I'm trying to be better in a lot of ways."

"I know." Virgil ran a thumb across Scott's bruised knuckles. "I've noticed. You'd have run from this conversation if I'd brought it up a couple of months back. I'm proud of you."

Scott shivered. He still couldn't muster the courage to look up. In the same way that he sometimes found the strength of his own love for his family overwhelming, he couldn't bear to see in Virgil's eyes just how much his brother cared.

It wasn't the love itself which scared him, but its unconditional quality. On his best days he was an inferno, dishing out affection like free candy, unable to give away enough of it, but on his worst days he was a black hole, absorbing every precious scrap of love which his family had to give without offering anything in return. He wanted better for them than to love someone like that.

"Can I ask you something personal?" Virgil queried, not exactly hesitant as such but something similar.

"You can ask. I can't guarantee that I'll answer."

"No, no, I know. That's fair. I was just thinking… You said that you've had these, uh, low feelings as long as you can recall, so I was wondering if you were ever tested for depression."

Well, that was an easy one.

"Nope."

"No?"

"No." Scott tugged his hands back, pushing them through his hair as he sat up. "It would have gone on my record. USAF wouldn't have touched me with a ten-foot pole."

Virgil frowned. "Surely Dad could have made that disappear."

"Dad didn't know."

"USAF must have had a mental fitness screening."

"And I passed with flying colours."

Had Gordon been in the room, he'd probably have made some comment about pun intended? Scott watched the clock tick over the seconds, still reluctant to meet Virgil's searching look.

"It was never a problem when we were kids. The first time I remember feeling this way was after Mom died and I put it down to grief. It might well have been. By the time I signed up for USAF, I was… well, normal. There were a couple of questions which tripped me up, but I just told them what they wanted to hear. Besides, they weren't about to turn away Jeff Tracy's son, were they? And even if they had any concerns, they turned a blind eye once they saw how good I am in the sky."

"So, Dad…?"

"He never knew that it predated my time in the Air Force. He assumed it was all related to PTSD and I never corrected him. Hell, even I don't know for sure. It might well have just been part of a grieving process back then."

Virgil hesitated. "Okay. Thanks for telling me. It was just a thought. You remember when I got tested for it back in college and my score was… fairly high, let's say that. It can often be hereditary. Genetic. Runs in families. So, if I'm predisposed to those low feelings then it kinda makes sense that maybe you're the same way and it just never got picked up."

"Possibly," Scott conceded.

Virgil slumped in his chair a little, stifling a yawn. With the lights on full, it was easier to spot the dark circles smeared beneath his eyes, face haggard with exhaustion. His eyes were bloodshot, hair greasy and posture defeated.

"Virgil," Scott asked softly, "If I have you and John, who have you been talking to? Because it hasn't been me, not lately. Not since…"

The realisation was akin to being doused with icy water.

Virgil sat up straighter. "Wait, Scott, no, that's not-"

"You haven't confided in me since I told you about the one-to-ten scale."

It came out as a tiny whisper. Scott couldn't bring himself to care.

"I… We've talked," Virgil protested.

"No, I've talked."

Virgil's silence was telling.

Scott nearly tripped over his chair in his haste to stand up. Disbelief tasted bitter with betrayal. He was vaguely aware that he was working himself into a panic, complete with the shakes and a strangling hold on his lungs.

Virgil stood up, hands aloft in a feeble attempt at appeasement. "Scott-"

"No." Scott shook his head. "No, don't. Don't you dare try to- This is exactly why I never told you, why I never wanted to tell you, because I knew you'd treat me differently which is the one damn thing I've always tried to avoid. You don't get to sit there and spout all this bullshit about how I'm not broken and then treat me as if I am."

"I'm not!" Virgil's eyes were welling with tears. "Scott, that's not fair. I haven't once implied- I never intended to make you feel like- I was just trying to protect you."

"I don't need protecting! That's my job, Virgil, that's my role. That's the one certainty I've always had. You don't get to decide all of a sudden that I can't handle it! That isn't how this works. I look out for you. I've been perfectly capable of doing it my entire fucking life and now, what? You don't trust me to do it anymore?"

Voices in the dining room had come to an abrupt halt.

"I do trust you," Virgil protested. "It's not about trust, it's about- about-"

"About what?"

"I just didn't want to worry you. I didn't want to add my problems to-"

"To what? Mine?"

Movement flickered in his peripheral vision. Scott ignored it. He was conscious that his voice was shaking.

"You don't get to treat me like I'm something fragile. I'm not going to shatter if someone talks to me about anything other than sunshine and damn rainbows."

"Scott." John's tone was sharp. "Stop it. That's enough."

"Really?" Scott tossed his hands up with a dark, incredulous laugh. "Are you serious? Virgil does the one thing I asked him never to do but I'm still the problem?"

Virgil made a choked, plaintive sound of protest. "I didn't intentionally block you out."

Scott whirled on him. "That makes it worse!"

John took a step further into the kitchen. "Scott, calm down."

"Oh, fuck off, John." Scott gripped the counter behind him for support. His vision was blurry. The tightness in his chest threatened to steal his ability to speak. "If I'd never told you, you wouldn't know any different. You'd still treat me like me. I'm s-still me, Virgil, you don't get to t-take that away from me, that's not fair, you can't do that."

Virgil shook his head. A trace of fear flashed across his face. "I never said that."

"You're overreacting," John said in a falsely calm voice. "Virgil isn't implying that you're incapable of looking out for us. He didn't want you to worry about him on top of everything else, that's all, and that's something which predates the apocalypse by a long time."

"That's such crap. He stopped talking to me after the-"

The penny dropped.

The anger evaporated in an instant.

"You haven't looked at me the same way since I made the decision to leave Joanna's group behind."

His ears were ringing. He gripped the counter tighter, praying his knees wouldn't buckle.

"And then- Everything since- I keep killing and- Especially in the hospital. All of the- And the kid. You think I don't remember? That I don't see his face on repeat every time I close my eyes? That I don't remember the way his blood felt on my hands? Or the way you pulled Alan away from me for a moment as if I was a greater threat than the infected? Because I sure as hell remember." He tapped his temple. "It's all up here in fucking technicolour, don't worry."

"Scott," John whispered, at a loss for words.

Virgil flinched. "That's not true. I don't look at you differently. I get that you had to do what was necessary."

"The violence isn't what bothers you, it's my capacity for it."

Virgil floundered for a defence. "I love you," he said helplessly.

"You can love someone and still dislike them."

Scott didn't give him chance to speak. Hysteria was bubbling up his throat and he could have choked on it.

"Well, don't worry, because I hate myself enough for everyone – all of us and all of the lives I've taken. I've successfully fucked up everything. John literally died because of me. I pushed for us to go to the privateer satellite. I trusted the wrong person and nearly got Alan killed. I refused to help people in need. I've gotten all of you traumatised. Alan got so sick on my watch that we thought he was dying. I've scared the shit outta Gordon on multiple occasions. I can keep going."

"Stop," Virgil pleaded. "Please, please stop."

"You want to know what I was really thinking on the roof of that hospital? I was thinking about how I ruin people just by association. Wherever I go, death follows. I'm a curse. And would you believe it? I actually had a breakthrough. It only took the apocalypse and a literal goddamn zombie tearing my skin open to realise that I want to live. So, no, Gordon's wrong – I wasn't standing on that ledge wanting to die, I was standing there thinking how fucking selfish I am for wanting to live when I don't deserve to."

Silence fell. Scott swore he could have heard a pin drop. His hands were tingling with excess adrenaline and anxiety. He couldn't catch his breath. His heart was having palpitations or, if not, then something pretty damn similar. Tiny red welts on his palms stung where he'd dug in his nails.

And hello heartbreak. Twin stares, both glistening with tears, although where Virgil was openly crying John was clenching his jaw in an effort to keep his pain hidden.

Great job, Scott thought bitterly. Real A-Star for effort on this one, Scotty. You just couldn't keep your mouth shut, could you? Yet another fucking failure.

He could feel himself shattering, to the point where he almost expected to see the cracks spreading across his skin. Instead, he wrapped his arms around himself in the hopes that he could hold it all together long enough to get far away so that his brothers weren't at risk of hurting themselves trying to pick up all of his broken pieces.

"I'm sorry." His voice was the first thing to crumble. "I'm s-sorry, I'm so, s-so sorry. I love you, I'm sorry, I-"

What have I done, what have I done, what have I done-

Virgil snapped out of the trance and tried to reach for him, but Scott was running on pure adrenaline and anxiety and bolted faster than his brother could catch him.

"Scott?" John called, rough with unshed tears. "Where are you- Scott, come back, we need to talk this through. Scott!"

There was a brief pause. Scott flattened himself against the wall of the abandoned dining room, clawing at his shirt as he tried to get precious oxygen into his traitorous lungs. The world was spinning. He wanted to stop, hit pause on life until he could gather his bearings. God, he wanted to rewind.

John finally realised that Scott wasn't coming back. A note of panic entered his voice as he hurtled from the kitchen into the dining room, Virgil at his heels.

"Do not leave. Scott? I swear to you, we'll figure this out, it's fixable, okay? Everything's fixable, just don't make any impulsive decisions, okay?" John's gaze flickered to the door which led to the rest of the bunker just as Scott made his choice. "Scott." His voice cracked. "Please."

Scott dashed for the door.

John's pleas followed him, increasingly more desperate. "Virg, we can't let him leave, not like this, I don't know what he'll- Scott! Come back!"

Their voices were cut off as the door slid shut behind him. He took a step backwards into the corridor without glancing over his shoulder and crashed into someone.

"S-sorry," he gasped out, twisting around only to spy a very familiar tailored suit.

"Tracy," the Hood greeted coolly. A note of curiosity glimmered in his biological eye.

Scott swallowed and stood up straighter. "Hood."

The Hood studied him for a long moment. "There's a bottle of scotch in my quarters. You look like you could use some."

"Why would I trust you?"

The Hood gestured to the empty corridor.

"Who else do you have?" He turned on his heels and marched towards the awaiting elevator. "Make a choice, Scott."

Scott cast a final look back, then, summoning his last few dregs of strength, followed the Hood.