Trigger warning: language, mentions of torture, gore, murder.


Miller awakes, stumbling forward as the grav couch opens to release him from both his temporary prison and the nightmares that plagued him while within.

Swallowing back bile, he closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and tries to pull himself together.

They have work to do.

"We need to talk," Smith lurches forward, nearly slamming into his captain in his own unsteady attempt to reach the man. "Now."

It all comes flooding back in an instant, leaving the captain's mind reeling as it grasps for some kind of anchor, some sort of grip-something to hold on to while he comes to terms with the gaping horror that threatens to overpower him entirely.

"Move."

DJ curtly pushes past Smith, planting himself directly in front of his captain.

"Breathe." Miller's body responds automatically to the authority in the command. It's a tone the doctor rarely uses, but one that will accept nothing short of immediate, unhesitating obedience. "Just breathe."

It is not the same tone he used with Weir, when the man first came out of his own gravity couch, gasping for breath and on the verge of hyperventilating.

Miller keeps his eyes down, focuses on breathing. He's not sure he can look at the man before him; DJ's touch burns as the man checks for a pulse, and Miller wants nothing more than to pull away.

"Easy, Captain." A subtle reminder from his trauma surgeon that whatever else is going on, Miller is still the captain, and is still responsible for his crew. He takes in a deliberately slow breath, trying to calm the hammering of his heart in his chest, hoping the world will right itself once again.

He feels like he's falling. Reaching out, he latches on to the other man's arm in a desperate attempt to catch himself. Just beyond his awareness something shifts, and suddenly there's an ice-cold hand clamping down on the back of his neck, an iron vice that offers no hope of escape.

The grip is borderline painful, exactly what Miller needs. His breath catches, then evens out, and the world suddenly blinks back in to focus with agonizing clarity.

The iron vice on his neck loosens. A hand moves to his shoulder, lightly bracing him as he finally regains equilibrium, then to his jaw, guiding Miller's face so the other man can see it clearly, earnest eyes searching for some sign of what might have caused his captain's distress.

Their eyes meet; DJ's own widen in sudden alarm at whatever they read in Miller's, and he looks away.

Miller can hear the man's desperate plea echoing in his ears, begging, even as the doctor rejoins Peters and Weir. Echoes of a previous incarnation of their current mission.

"Captain?" Smith is watching. Waiting.

"I remember," he murmurs, the admission meant only for the two of them.

Starck staggers over to their corner of the room. "Sir?" Expression carefully controlled, she looks up at him. She, too, remembers. He can see it in her eyes.

Smith looks her over her critically before turning back to Miller. "What now?"

They need to bring the others in. Cooper. Justin. Peters. DJ.

He's not so sure about Weir. At best the man is inadvertently responsible for their current situation. At worst-

They can always bring him in later, if it turns out he's as much a victim as they are. If not-better not to risk tipping him off.


They listen to Dr. Weir's mission briefing, one that Miller could by now, had he the inclination, recite from memory, both in the crew area and later, on the bridge. They listen to the transmission received from the emergency beacon sent out by the Event Horizon upon its reappearance.

Repetition does not make listening any easier. If anything, understanding only seems to make Miller's horror at the sounds coming through speaker hit that much harder.

"Libera te tutumet," Miller corrects DJ without even thinking, and the man freezes, blinking. "Save yourself."

Man or demon, Weir doesn't notice anything odd about the exchange. Starck and Smith exchange a glance. Cooper and Justin look puzzled, but not overly concerned. Peters looks away.

"Libera te tutumet," DJ concedes, eyes locked on the speaker. "My apologies."

"Libera te tutumet ex infernis," Miller presses, taking a risk.

"I don't believe in hell," DJ mumbles, voice flat, and while at one time it may have been the truth, it certainly is no longer.

"Is that what this is?" Miller asks. "Hell?"

DJ shakes his head, a sharp negative that means absolutely nothing. Weir shifts impatiently.

"Doctor?" In ten years, Miller has never addressed the man by his title rather than his name. The trauma surgeon tenses, the color draining out of his face.

"Leave him alone."

Peters' order, as softly uttered as it is, is still very much an order. One directed at her captain, her tone making it perfectly clear that in this matter, at least, she outranks him. A man, even a captain, ignores that tone of voice at his own peril.

"See that everything's in order in medical." This too is an order, directed toward a man she's never once felt the need to assert any kind of authority over, and the unnecessary revelation that he's not exactly sure, between the two of them, who holds authority over the other distracts Miller just long enough for DJ to make his escape.

Peters takes a steadying breath before turning her attention back to the intercom as if nothing ever happened, and in that instant Miller knows that she, too, knows that something is very wrong.

How much she knows remains to be seen.


Starck stays behind with Weir on the bridge, tension settling into every inch of her frame in spite of the fact that the man, so far at least, seems as normal as he ever has-not, Miller is willing to admit in the privacy of his own mind, that that's saying much.

Cooper, Justin, and Peters are suiting up. Smith-

Smith has DJ cornered in medical. The pilot is speaking quietly, urgently. The doctor is ignoring him, gaze intent on the contents of a drawer everyone present knows he doesn't really need to organize.

As a doctor, DJ is every bit the professional, and that extends to maintaining an order in medical that might border on tyrannical if Miller didn't know better.

"Stop playing with your bloody tools and look at me," Smith snaps, reaching out to grab the man by the shoulder, and the other man flinches. He doesn't resist as Smith pulls him around, though he refuses to look up. "You know exactly what I'm talking about, dammit."

"Smith," Miller warns-they both know DJ is fully capable of outmaneuvering the other man. They've seen it in every previous version of their current mission, and that without the surgeon ever intending to do so.

"I don't understand why he's refusing to help us," Smith counters, voice tight with repressed emotion. Desperation, fear, even rage play across his face, giving him away. "Unless he wants all this to keep happening. Hell, maybe he's in on it. Working with Weir."

DJ's head snaps up, eyes wide, and just like that, the charade is over.

Please...

Miller closes his eyes, but the words still echo in his ears.

Please..kill...

"Let him go," Miller keeps his voice deliberately low. The look Smith shoots him in reply is nothing short of betrayal, but Smith's already admitted he doesn't know what happened after his own death, beyond the fact that one by one they all succumb to the evils of the Event Horizon, so there's no way he could possibly understand.

DJ, watching them both with too wide eyes framed by a far too pale face, still hasn't moved.

"Smith." Miller gentles his voice even more, in the hope of getting through to both members of his crew.

For a long moment neither crewmember reacts, but then Smith scowls and releases his hold on the other man.

"Fine," Smith snaps. "I'll be on the bridge with Starck." He storms out, leaving Miller to deal with his traumatized surgeon.

"DJ?" Miller ventures, still gentle, and the man draws in a deep shuddering breath.

"Sorry, Captain." Miller can barely hear the mumbled apology. "I-"

"Don't talk," Miller says. "Just listen. And breathe. Can you do that?" DJ nods. "I know you remember everything that happened," he continues. DJ swallows, but otherwise doesn't react. "Justin. Smith. Cooper. Weir."

DJ flinches as if he's just been dealt a physical blow.

"You do remember." After a long moment, the man nods. Miller mirrors the action, nodding as well. "We need your help," he says. "Yours, and Peters'-if we're going to figure this out, we need all hands on deck."

"There's nothing to figure out." The mask slips back into place with a sudden sharpness that leaves Miller once again off balance. "No way to escape. Welcome to hell, Captain." He turns away from Miller, and just like that, the conversation is over.

For now, at least.


"I told you to leave him alone," Peters murmurs as she leans over Justin, once again spread out unconscious on an exam table.

"So you do know." Miller is not entirely successful in hiding the accusation in the words. Or the bitterness. Peters spares him a glance, understanding in her gaze, before turning her attention back to Justin.

"I do," she agrees. "As much as he does, nearly. So you can direct your questions to me."

"He okay?" Miller asks, referring to the other member of his medical team rather than the man on the table, though he's pretty sure he already knows the answer.

"He-" Peters hesitates for only a moment before continuing. "He's doing his best, Captain."

"But you're keeping an eye on him," Miller suggests. He gets a side glance from the woman that says he really should know better.

"Of course." She sighs and straightens up, mentally arranging her thoughts. After a moment she continues. "From what we've observed, there's no way to avoid dying. Specifically-" she pales but continues on, determined, "no way for each crew member to avoid his or her death, as experienced during the original mission. And no way to avoid major events, either." she gestures vaguely toward Justin's prone form. "You live out the mission, you die when it's your time. You wake back up in the grav couch and repeat ad infinitum."

"But we don't stay dead."

"No," Peters agrees, pressing her lips together. "Whatever this is, we're trapped here, forced to live out the same scenario over and over and over again."

"Any theories?"

"Hell?" Peters quips. Her laugh is far from amused.

"Is that what DJ thinks?" Miller asks. "He's told me himself he doesn't believe in it."

"Well, that was before," Peters points out, reasonably enough. "But the ship disappeared, allegedly to travel through some gateway and instantly reappear somewhere else, right?"

"The shortest distance between two points is zero," Miller quotes. "I remember. So what, the ship traveled through a gateway to hell?"

"Does it really matter where the gateway led to?" Peters asks. "Hell, some other universe, or reality, or dimension-take your pick. Whatever it was, we saw what it did to the crew. To the ship. To Dr. Weir-"

"Do you think he's a part of it?"

Peters shrugs. "I don't know," she admits, willingly enough, though her expression is troubled. "It's-there's a lot of speculation. But the other crew-you saw what happened to them. Whether the ship is infested somehow, or possessed, we're not sure. And as far as Weir is concerned-"

"He could be a just another victim."

"I don't know," Peters says again. "Maybe whatever got to Justin got to him. Used him. He wasn't exactly in a stable frame of mind when he came aboard."

"Is that an official diagnosis?"

Peters purses her lips. Shakes her head. "The man lost his wife and his reputation in a very short amount of time."

"Seven years ago."

Peters shrugs. One of the things Miller has always liked about his medical team is their ability to know when to insist on following medical procedure-and when to ignore it. Both doctors have been very good, over the years, at knowing which tactic is likely to get the best results when it came to any given situation.

That their initial decision to give Weir space had turned out so disastrously was unusual.

"We leave him out of it then, for now." Miller decides. "If something changes, we can adjust accordingly." He frowns. "DJ, on the other hand-"

"Do you know how he died?" Peter interrupts, eyes raised.

"I do." Miller has to fight to keep the emotion out of his voice as the image of the man being cut open and hanging from the ceiling once again flashes in front of him. "Do you-?"

"I don't," Peters responds quickly. "He wouldn't tell me. Couldn't tell me, maybe." She studies Miller for a brief moment. "I can make a guess, though, and even without knowing the details, I can tell it was bad."

Bad might be the understatement of a lifetime.

"We'll give him space. For now." It's Miller's turn to study the woman before him. "I won't sacrifice the lives of this crew just so he can pretend nothing's wrong."

It's not nearly that simple, he knows, but that doesn't change anything. Miller will do whatever it takes to get his crew out of this mess, even if it means adding to the considerable trauma the other man has already endured.


"Any idea how long it's been?" The question is directed toward Smith, who shrugs.

"Fifty-seven days." Across the bridge, DJ never looks up, but the emptiness in the words leaves Miller no doubt that the man knew exactly what Miller was asking, even if he does wonder why the man chose to answer. He had to know speaking up would not only draw attention his way, but open him up for even more questions.

Peters' warning ringing in his ears, Miller ignores him, at least for the time being.

"We need to figure out how we got here-wherever here is," he says. "I refuse to believe there's no escape, so let's get to work. Ideas?"

"Time loop?" Starck offers blandly. "The engine core is a black hole. The ship was designed for faster-than-light travel. Maybe there's a connection."

"Maybe we got sucked through the gate?" Smith speculates.

"We saw how the original crew was effected," Starck counters. "Wouldn't the results be more like that?"

"You're asking me?" Smith wants to know.

"It was your idea."

Tempers are starting to fray. Miller clears his throat before the two can really start bickering. Smith rolls his eyes, but doesn't pursue the matter.

"Could the ship be doing this? Or whatever possessed Weir?" he wonders aloud.

"Could it bring us back to life, you mean?" Starck asks, intrigued. "If we're not out here alone, does that change anything?"

"We're far enough out that even if there were help out there, it's still beyond our reach," Miller points out reluctantly.

"Maybe it's a ritual," Starck says thoughtfully. "The symbols painted in blood, the Latin referencing hell-"

"The deaths would be part of that, then." Miller says.

"Not all of them, not necessarily." Smith counters. "Weir was trying to keep us from abandoning the ship when he set those explosives. I'm just a stubborn ass and got in the way."

"We thought we were safe," Starck says solemnly. "And then he was there. And the captain essentially killed himself, with the explosion. So maybe not a ritual, but there's definitely an element of sadism involved."

Like they're all playthings at the mercy of some malevolent being, Miller thinks.

"What about the other deaths?" Smith asks. "Peters?"

"Peters fell to her death." DJ again speaks up from the safety of the other side of the bridge. He is not entirely successful in maintaining his usual clinical detachment as he continues. "She's been seeing things that aren't there-mostly her son. She followed him through the ship and stepped off a platform an into what had to have been at least a twenty-foot drop."

Smith lets out a low whistle. "That's quite a fall."

"Cooper and Justin were with me," Starck points out. "Do you think, if we got to him soon enough, Justin would be able to help?"

"It's worth a try, if we end up having to give this another go," Miller says reluctantly.

"What about-" Starck looks up, across the bridge. Their trauma specialist is studying data on a screen that Miller knows for a fact means absolutely nothing to him.

"Weir killed him," Miller says softly, watching DJ out of the corner of his eye. "There were symbols painted on the walls in blood." DJ's blood, he doesn't say, but Starks nods in understanding, while Smith's gaze flickers toward the doctor briefly before returning to focus on Miller. "Other elements could be considered ritualistic."

"You said the ship was in your mind. That it knew your worst fears," DJ says, voice tight. "Peters kept seeing her son sick, injured. His legs rotting-"

"And you-?" Smith interrupts, tone harsh. "Did Weir torment you with your deepest, darkest secrets before killing you?"

DJ doesn't answer, but Miller doesn't miss the white-knuckled grip he has on the monitor in front of him, as if it's the only thing keeping him tethered to this world.

"Leave it," Miller says, turning his attention to Smith. "You hated the Event Horizon from the first second you saw it-any particular reason?"

Smith shrugs. "Didn't see anything. No visions or whatever. Didn't have to see weird shit to know the ship was evil." Smith has always had good instincts, even if he can rarely offer a good explanation for why something gives him a 'bad feeling.' Miller had learned early on to ignore Smith's gut feelings at his own peril. Had he been thinking just a little more clearly, he might have realized that Smith's complaining was symptomatic of instinct rather than simple overwork combined with bitter disappointment at being sent out again.

But Miller had ignored the man, and they had all paid the price.

"What about you?" he asks Starck. "Any visions? Voices? Did the ship try to manipulate you in any way?"

Starck shakes her head. "What about Weir? Did he ever let anything slip? What about when the two of you were facing off?"

"Not about this," Miller says, then remembers something. "He said something about the ship not letting us leave. Once, when I told him we were getting off it. Another-I assume it was after he killed..." he trails off, but the other two get the message. Starck never looks away from Miller, but Smith has to put considerable effort into not looking towards DJ, who has gone back to feigning interest in the readout on display before him.

"Nothing that will help," DJ says without looking up, before Miller can decide whether or not to ask if Weir ever said anything to him in the moments before his death.

Another flash of memory hits Miller without warning, of raising an industrial nail gun and pressing against the other man's forehead. He jerks his head, trying to shake free of the memory before it can fully form.


It feels like time is running out. Justin is alive, barely, packed into a grav couch very much like spam into a can.

Miller's supposed to be talking to DJ. Confiding in the man. Learning that his original translation from the beacon was wrong. He's not sure he has the energy-or the mental fortitude-to pretend.

"Where's Peters?" he asks instead. DJ twitches, and for a moment Miller is afraid the man is going to insist on sticking to the script. Out of all of them, he's been the most faithful to it, clinging to each and every word uttered the first time around as if he knows them all by heart-and as if he thinks it will save him.

"Dead," he says at last.

"We're running out of time." Miller sighs, rubs his face, and rolls his shoulders in an attempt to work some of the tension out of them.

"We have nothing but time." DJ counters, and Miller takes a long moment to study the man.

"What do you know that we don't?" he finally asks.

The other man refuses to look at him. "I know there's no way out," he says finally, voice flat.

"I know Peters has been studying that damned log every spare second she gets, and that she says at one point you were helping her." Miller counters. "And I know you want to help-you can't help yourself sometimes-but you're afraid. Why?"

DJ swallows nervously, takes a breath. Swallows again. Opens his mouth only to immediately close it. The uncertainty-the indecision-is completely unlike him.

"I-"

Nothing else makes it out. He closes his mouth again, looking miserable, but by this time Miller has had enough. Gentleness has gotten him nowhere. Peters' warning echoes still in his head, but Peters is, by the admission of the man in front of him, already dead.

Miller stands, ignoring the exhaustion pulling at every muscle in his body. Reaching out, he grabs the other man by his arm, dragging him upright as well.

DJ manages a spluttered protest as Miller shoves him backward, flinching when his back makes contact with the wall. Miller ruthlessly presses forward, pinning the man in place and leaning in until their faces are mere inches apart.

"We are currently trapped in some seemingly unending cycle of death and destruction, and my ship, Doctor, my crew are caught in the middle of it. I don't care if you think it's hell. I don't care if you think it's impossible. I will not rest until every one of us is free, and safe, and have eliminated every single thing standing in my way.

"Right now you are one of those things, intentionally or not, so you'd better get your shit together or get the hell out of my way. Have I made myself clear?"

DJ stares at him unblinkingly. The man is battered, maybe even broken, Miller thinks, and if this doesn't work he doesn't know how he'll get through to him.

A slow blink. A deep breath.

"Understood," the medic rasps. Miller lets him go.

DJ pushes himself away from the wall, takes another breath, lets it out slowly.

"I don't know whether it's the ship, or something using the ship, but the farther we stray from the original script, the angrier it gets. If you're going to fight it, you need to be prepared for there to be repercussions."

DJ's voice is void, empty of any emotion. Whatever emergency mode he's shifted into, he's got any and all feelings about their current situation locked down tight.

"What else?"

"The ship's log isn't going to help."

"What about Weir?" When DJ doesn't immediately answer, Miller presses on. "Any idea if he's part of this?"

"He's a victim, just like us. Whatever's pulling the strings simply uses him in the same way it uses the ship."

"A demon?" DJ shrugs.

"I don't know," he admits. "Hell, an alternate dimension, either way it's beyond our understanding. But you know something took control of Weir-you must have talked to it as well."

"I did," Miller agrees, then, "You talked to it?"

"It talked to me," DJ says. "Talks," he corrects reluctantly. "It likes to ramble while it's..." he trails off, and Miller doesn't ask for clarification.

There's no point, not when he already knows. DJ was still alive when Miller found him in medical, though how-

"Same conversation each time, or does it change too?" Miller asks. If the creature, whatever it is, is somehow making all this happen-

"It changes." DJ shivers, but otherwise remains in control. "It's a similar 'conversation' each time, but never exactly the same."

"Anything we can use?"

"It doesn't like when people don't cooperate." The answer is clipped, and the trauma surgeon's eyes have never been more guarded. Miller doesn't press; somehow he knows that if the mask slips again, there will be no recovering it.

"What if we take control? Act before it can?" Miller's grasping at straws and he knows it.

"Kill ourselves before it can get to us?" DJ shakes his head. "Won't work." Miller can feel his eyebrows raise at both the answer-and the implication behind it. "We'd just wake back up in the gravity couches."

All the same, he wonders if it would be the more merciful option, at least in certain cases.

"The Latin?" he tries. "There has to be some significance."

"Either that, or Captain Kilpack had a hobby." Miller tilts his head at the suggestion.

"How do you know Latin?" he asks.

"There's a lot of it Latin in medical terminology." DJ says, shrugging, and though here's more to it than that, Miller thinks, now is not the time.

"He said something before they engaged the drive."

"Ave atque vale," DJ offers. "Hail and farewell. Using it before the drive was ever engaged could mean the Latin has nothing to do with our current situation."

"Or it could have helped shape what they found on the other side of the gateway." The medic's eyes narrow, and Miler gives him a moment to think the possibility through. "Latin has just as much of a presence in religion as it does medicine."

"If you're suggesting that whatever was on the other side pulled religious imagery from the captain's mind and used that to create a world of chaos and pain and-" DJ pauses, lets out a slow breath, and continues. "I mean, it's possible, but at this point it's all pure speculation. Not sure how much good it will do."

"Do you think trying to talk to the creature would do any good, give us anything more to work with?" he asks, and the other man blanches.

"It's possible," DJ says, and though he looks almost ill at the thought, his voice never wavers.

"You and I have the best chance, when it comes to that," Miller says, but his trauma specialist shakes his head. "What?"

"Hard to carry on a conversation with a crushed windpipe."

"You talked to me-" He stops. DJ is shaking his head again, and something about the action suggests that continuing down that road is only going to threaten the man's control even farther.

"I'll try, if it comes to that," Miller says instead. "See if anything comes of it. What about Weir? You said he's a victim as much as anyone else. Peters seemed to think he was unstable coming right out of the gate."

DJ doesn't bat an eye, silent confirmation that he was not only aware of Peters' unofficial assessment, but in agreement. "The ship was his design, but he didn't know where the gate led to either." DJ hesitates for a fraction of a second before adding, "And the more he looked into it, the stronger the hold it seemed to have on him."

"What if we tried to talk to him before we even reached the ship? Him, not the demon. Maybe we could warn him."

"He saw what happened to Justin."

A thought occurs to Miller. A terrible, horrible thought. "He didn't have an active part in that, though. The ship did that."

"His ship."

"And he seemed to think Cooper was making things up." Miller points out. He gets an almost exasperated look from the man in reply, almost as if he knows where this line of thought is headed. "And even with Smith-he set the timer, but he didn't make Smith go in there."

"You want me to talk to him." It's not a question. DJ's voice and expression are both unreadable, but Miller doesn't need to read either to know the doctor is terrified by the very idea.

"I saw what he did to you. The end result, at least." Miller concedes. "I could try. Maybe the shock of it would snap him out of it-keep him from giving in to the creature."

DJ lets out a sigh. "Sure," he agrees. He doesn't sound overly optimistic about their chances, but then again, Miller can't really remember the last time the man sounded optimistic about anything. "It's worth a try."


In the end, they come up with nothing better than trying to talk, first to the creature that eventually possesses Weir. Failing that, they'll try talking to Weir himself next time around.

To that end, Miller is ready and waiting for the creature where it all began, next to the core itself, a detonator he never thought to grab in his hand regardless.

Runes, he remembers, trying to commit as many of them to memory even as he tries again-and in vain-to get some sort of answer from the creature before him.

Images of his crew burned into his mind, crucified, hung upside down above the core itself.

I am your confessor, the creature claims.

Religious language, he notes. Talk of the profane. Talk of living forever. There-

Weir is gone. He was reaching for the heavens, but all he found was me.

It's the same conversation-the same script-as it has been every time, but with new meaning. By the end, Miller has one hope left, and that is that somehow, when the cycle starts again, they can reach Weir before it's too late.

"Go to hell."


Disclaimer: Event Horizon does not belong to me.