Content Warning: In the first scene, there will be a brief dream that alludes to school violence. It's not even real in-universe, it's a part of a dream, but considering the current culture around school violence, I am warning in case that is upsetting for any readers.

A/N: So this chapter actually takes place around 2.12, the episode when Jon first returned to school. That's was the whole point of going to therapy, after all, right?

Beep! Beep! Beep!

Jon's phone alarm stirred him from a restless slumber. His sheets were soaked in cold sweat again. He had had another bad dream, same one he'd been having for days: the one where he got attacked by someone with his face.

Jon-El—his evil doppelganger from the Bizarro World.

It had barely been a week since the attack. Since that monster with his face had appeared on his front lawn, looking for him. Since Jon learned that the reason his father went missing during the worst month of his life was because Dad was stuck on another world, a parallel reality, with another Jon. One who was just as much of a screw-up as him, if not more so.

The Bizarro World was… well, bizarre, and not just because Jon-El dressed like he had raided the reject pile at a Hot Topic. Everything Dad had told them about that alternative reality was just plain weird. Backwards, even. Kryptonians there had freeze vision instead of heat. Fire breath instead of cold. Kryptonite boosted their powers while X-K hurt them. Their planet rotated around a red sun, instead of a yellow one. And everything was cube-shaped.

To top it all off, though, was the fact that it was the Bizarro World's Jon who had gotten powers, not Jordan.

Jon-El had had everything Jon had ever wanted: powers, fame, admiration. On his world, he had become a literal superhero. He even got to do real saves with his father, something Dad would never dare let Jordan do. Superboy is what they had called him—same name Jon always used to tease Jordan with. His life was perfect.

Yet it still wasn't enough. Something was broken inside of him. Maybe the same thing that was broken inside of Jon that made him do stupid shit like take drugs just to compete at football. Except since Jon-El had powers, he could actually do something about his dissatisfaction. And acting on his worst impulses meant leaving a wake of destruction in his path.

It hadn't been enough for him to bring misery to his world. He had to bring it to this Earth, and Jon's life, too.

The only thing worse than reliving that psycho attacking him in his nightmares was being awake. Jon hit the snooze. Then his dreary mind reconsidered the idea of it going off again in five minutes, so he turned the alarm off altogether.

Knock! Knock!

"Five minutes!" Mom called through the door.

Jon buried his head under the covers. They were really going through with it. They really were going to send him back to that hellhole.

He drifted back to sleep, except this time when Jon-El appeared, it was at school. He attacked Jordan, Candice, Nat, Sarah—even the damn football team. Their bodies lined the hall. As Jon watched that monster with his face do untold violence to his loved ones—and even his ex-friends, an eerie feeling came over him. This wasn't just Jon-El attacking.

It was Jon. They had merged into one being.

Jon-El, or Jon—or whatever they were now that they were one—used their fire breath, blowing it across the hall. No one was safe. No one was spared.

Suddenly, Jon's covers were torn off of him and an annoyed Dad was standing over him. Jon was in his room. Awake. Safe. Still himself. Still powerless. The real Jon-El was still locked away in some government black site, hundreds, or maybe even thousands, of miles away.

"Did you forget to set your alarm?" Dad asked.

Jon sat up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, and leaned against his headboard. He tried to shake off the bad dream, but it had felt so real. The memory of the actual fight with Jon-El was still so raw.

"I feel sick," he moaned.

Dad pressed the back of his hand against Jon's forehead. "You're fine. Get dressed."

As if anyone could actually tell like that. Jon tried a different strategy.

"I'm achy," Jon whined. "I think I'm still messed up from when Bizarro-Me attacked."

It wasn't a complete lie. He hadn't felt right in days, not since Jon-El had appeared in their lives. First it started with migraines, but those were just a side effect of the pendant Jon-El wore: some sort of alien tech that allowed parallel versions of the same person to merge into one being—Jon-El's ultimate plans for Jon.

Then there was what he felt when Jon-El had actually used that pendant on him. When Jon-El had grabbed him, and dug his fingers into Jon's forearms, and Jon felt their bodies pulled toward each other. He had felt himself slipping away. Like his skin was melting—not off, but towards Jon-El. He had been losing himself. Becoming something else. He was pretty sure he had been dying.

Dad and Jordan had stopped the process. Saved him. But he still didn't feel right. His extremities tingled and everything else just had a dull ache.

Dad's face softened at the mention of Jon-El. They still hadn't gotten around to talking about that particular elephant in the room. Too busy with dumb school meetings and ridiculous therapy appointments. But pretending they were just a normal family with normal problems didn't make the extraordinary ones go away.

"Jon." Dad's voice was suddenly soft. "Why didn't you say anything before? Have you been in pain all week?"

Jon suddenly felt five-years-old again. He remembered the time he and Jordan were still learning to ride their bikes and they collided, scraping their knees, elbows, everything. Jordan was hysterical; Jon didn't make a peep. Both parents attended to the crying child while Jon just sat there on the sidewalk, trying to clean blood off his arms and legs with his shirt. When his parents finally noticed him, they asked him the same thing. "Why didn't you say anything?"

Just like back then, Jon just shrugged.

With a frown, Dad removed his glasses and squinted at Jon. "Nothing's broken."

"I didn't say I broke something. I said I ached. And—and you can't actually know that. Having X-Ray vision doesn't make you a doctor."

Dad pinched the bridge of his nose before he put his glasses back on. "You're fine, Jonathan. You're not getting out of school." All of Dad's sympathy was gone.

He turned and left.

Jon pulled his knees up to his chest. Why did it even matter if he went to school? Why did high school even matter? There were evil doppelgangers invading their world from another dimension who wanted to "merge" with people and bring about the end of the world as they knew it, and his parents were wasting time with therapy appointments and school attendance. Talk about screwed up priorities.

Jon dragged his feet getting dressed for school. So much so that Dad came back to "check on his progress" not once, not twice, but three more times. He got a lecture about dillydallying—Dad's words—and another reminder about how low he had fallen when his father added, "You never used to act like this."

The last thing Jon needed was Dad coming back a fifth time, so instead of sulking in his room like he wanted to, Jon grabbed a hoodie and finally made his way down to the kitchen. Everyone else was already seated around the table, having a normal breakfast without the family delinquent weighing them down.

Their chatter abruptly stopped as he approached, and Jon instantly knew how little he was welcomed. The only smile he got was from Jordan, but even that seemed half-hearted.

"Nice of you to finally join us," Mom sniped, breaking the silence.

Jon sighed. Pissing off his parents first thing in the morning was not a good omen for the day. He made a beeline for the coffeepot and poured himself a mug.

"Since when does he like coffee?" Dad asked.

Jon pulled the carton of cream out of the fridge and slammed it onto the counter with a little too much force. It was just so annoying when they talked about him like he wasn't in the room.

"He doesn't like coffee," Mom said with a grimace.

Jon rolled his eyes. Mom's coffee snobbery was one thing, but what he really chaffed at was the idea of having to catch Dad up on another thing he had missed while on the Bizarro World. It wasn't a big deal—Jon had just overindulged a little when Mr. Olowe told him he could have free use of the Britt & Dunn coffee bar—but all the little things were adding up. The gap of understanding between him and Dad was damn near a chasm now.

Dad just didn't know him anymore. And if he did, he probably wouldn't like him very much anyway.

" 'Every bit of caffeine helps,' right Mom?" Jon mumbled, quoting something he had heard her say too many times to count.

"Hey, don't blame this one on me," she said. "I've seen what you do to your coffee, and you clearly learned that from watching your father."

Dad's brows scrunched up into wrinkles. "What did I do?"

Jon poured the cream into his mug until the coffee turned a milky tan. Then he reached for the sugar bowl and scooped three spoonfuls into his mug. He stirred and tested it. Still too bitter. He added two more spoonfuls.

"Dude!" Jordan said from the table. "Do you want some coffee with your sugar?"

"I don't know. Do you want some funny with your jokes?" Jon took another sip.

Perfect.

Mom's face twisted into another grimace. "That's really gross, Jonathan." She turned to Dad. "See. That's your fault."

"Oh," Dad said. "That."

Jon shrugged. What did she know about gross? She seemed to think her cooking was edible. And from where Jon stood, the yellow mush in the skillet on the stove was anything but. It looked runny, but there were also patches of burnt spots. How do you even do that?

"Mom cooked?" Jon asked.

"I recommend the toast," Jordan said, raising up his half eaten slice into the air.

"Stop it," Dad warned. He looked over at Jon. "I would've made breakfast, but, well, I was a little busy this morning."

Right. Busy micromanaging the problem-child.

Jon sighed and scooped some eggs onto a clean plate, then joined his family at the table with his breakfast and coffee. He poked at the both under- and overcooked eggs with his fork, cringing in disgust as they both flaked apart and dripped across his plate.

"I guess if I get salmonella I can go home early," he said.

"I just told you to stop picking on your mother," Dad chastised.

Jon had to physically concentrate on holding back an eye-roll. Sure, he was the family screw-up, but it still wasn't fair for him to always get in trouble for what Jordan started. Shouldn't he get his own warning too?

Mom sighed. "Clark, it's fine. Look sweetheart, there's no time to make something else. Is cereal okay?"

Jon stared at his mother and wondered why she wasn't giving him her usual tough shit routine. It was one thing for them to give Jordan a second option at a meal—he had dietary texture issues—but Jon was supposed to just suck it up. Why was Mom giving him the kid gloves treatment now? Was this just because of therapy? Was everything going to be different now?

His stomach turned, making the eggs somehow even more unappealing than before. This was the last thing he wanted. Between doppelgangers from the Bizarro World, and the drama that Mom was having with her sister, and all of Jordan's issues, there was already enough on Mom and Dad's plate. They didn't need Jon causing any more problems; he had already caused enough as it was.

Jon pushed the plate away. "I don't want anything else. I'm just not hungry."

Mom stood up and grabbed a bowl, a spoon, the carton of milk, and the box of Cheerios. She placed it all in front of him. "You have to eat something. You're not hanging out at a convenience store all day anymore; you're going back to school. You need fuel for your brain."

Jon looked up at her with a glare. He wouldn't exactly call his forced labor at Brit & Dunn this past month "hanging out".

Instead of arguing, Jon just grudgingly took the box and poured it into the bowl, then poured some milk over it. He would have rather been given something with sugar instead of Cheerios, but complaining would be causing problems, and he was determined not to do any more of that this morning.

Dad checked his watch. "Eat fast," he barked. "We got about five minutes before we have to leave. Jordan, dishes." Dad stood and made his way over to the kitchen island, and started prepping the lunch bags.

From his spot across the table, Jordan rolled his eyes and made a face.

"You okay?" Jon asked, as he stirred the bowl of cereal without actually eating any of it.

Jordan just shrugged.

"Jordan, I'm not going to say it again," Dad said.

With another roll of his eyes, Jordan stood and picked up each of the dirty plates on the table, then made his way over to the kitchen sink.

"Has Sarah still not texted him back?" Mom asked in a whisper.

Right. The breakup. That's why Jordan was being all mopey. Jon tried to be sympathetic—really, he did. He had had his fair share of shitty breakups too. But after everything that had happened this past week, a breakup just seemed so mundane. Plus it was hard to be a shoulder to cry on when you were already busy looking over it to see where the next attack was coming from.

"Guess not," Jon said.

Mom patted his arm. "Watch out for your brother today. You know how hard breakups are." She left him alone at the table and joined Dad at the counter.

A small, bitter laugh escaped from his lips that thankfully no one noticed. It was his first day back at school after being gone for a month, but all anyone could worry about was precious Jordan and his heartache. Who cared that Jon was physically aching? Jordan was a little sad, so the world had to stop for him. Never mind that no one had given a damn when Eliza or Tegan had dumped Jon.

"Two minutes, Jon," Dad warned.

Jon sighed and picked up his bowl. He joined Jordan at the sink and poured the milk and uneaten Cheerios into the basin. Mom was at his side seconds later, and Jordan took the opportunity to abandon his post and go nag Dad about something Sarah related.

"You didn't eat anything," she noted.

"I told you, I'm not hungry." He turned on the garbage disposal and watched his breakfast disappear down the drain. If only he could disappear too.

She frowned at him before grabbing a couple of granola bars out of the cupboard and handed them to him.

Now a third option? What was she doing?

"You got everything for school?" Mom asked.

Jon made a show of looking around the room. "You know, I'm not really sure where my backpack is. Oh well, no point in going, I guess. Might as well postpone the whole thing for another day."

Mom was so not amused. "Go look for it," she said sternly. "If you don't find it, I'm sending you to school with a purse."

Grumbling, Jon made a detour back to his coffee mug before he started his search. He was going to need all the help he could get to make it through this day.

"Do me a favor," Jon said as he walked outside with Jordan. Dad was straggling behind inside, probably complaining about him to Mom. "Let me have the window seat."

Usually Jon didn't mind when Dad drove, but right now there was no greater hell than the idea of being squeezed between his brother and father on that tiny truck bench. Why couldn't dad just buy a bigger vehicle that fit more than three?

Jordan pouted. "I don't want to sit in the middle either."

Typical Jordan. He was too wrapped up in his own problems that he couldn't see how anyone else was suffering. All he could think about was how much he didn't want to get squished in the bitch seat, not about how if Jon was in that seat instead, shoulder-to-shoulder with Dad, it would make the tension at breakfast look straight-up delightful.

"Dude, come on," Jon begged. "I can't deal with him today. Please."

Jordan let out the heaviest freaking sigh ever. "Come on, Jon, I'm having a really crappy morning. Can you just not?"

"You're having a crappy morning?"

Another sigh. Jordan stuck out his fist: their morning ritual to determine seats.

Such a brat. If circumstances were reversed, Jon would have taken the middle seat for him, no questions asked. With a roll of his eyes, Jon readied his own hand for their daily game of rock-paper-scissors.

Jon chose rock. Jordan chose paper. The smug smile Jordan suddenly had, made Jon wish he had a real rock.

"Shut up." Jon climbed into the truck, then Jordan slid in next to him. Dad joined them a minute later. Jon was immediately pinned between them with no room to move.

Usually when Jon was already in a bad mood, he wanted nothing more than for his father, and his chipper small talk, to leave him alone, but about halfway through the bumpy ride toward town, Jon realized Dad hadn't spoken a single word. Neither had Jordan. The three of them just sat in awkward silence as Jon felt the flex of each tense muscle beside him. The longer the silence dragged on, the more painful it became.

Did Dad really hate him this much? Could he not even pretend to stand him enough for some small talk?

Jon wanted to crawl up into a little ball, but in a truck this tight, there wasn't any room for that.

The agonizing quiet dragged on until they arrived in the drop-off area. Jordan bailed as quickly as possible, not even waiting to hear the, "I love you," from Dad.

Jon was a little more sluggish as he wondered if that I love you was directed at both of them, or just Jordan. He lifted his backpack and scooted over on the bench.

"Jon, wait a minute."

He brightened at the sound of his father's voice and turned back at him.

"Keep out of trouble, okay?"

The words were a punch to the gut. Just another reminder of how little they trusted him. His parents still thought that after everything he'd been through, he was just going to screw it all up again.

"Yeah Dad," he mumbled. "I'll try." He got out of the truck and stepped onto the pavement with wobbly legs. The world was giving out beneath his very feet.

"J!" a voice screamed from across the lawn.

Candice. Her smile lit up the world, and in an instant she was running toward him.

Suddenly he felt like he could breathe again. Like the world was standing still. Nothing else mattered. Not this shitty school; not his shitty home life; not even the end of the world. When Candice reached him, he took her into his arms and hugged her tight, like she was the only thing keeping him grounded.

As far as he was concerned, she was. She wasn't an alien, or from another reality, or trying to end the world, and while her drugs may have been the reason he had gotten expelled, she was also the only person who hadn't treated him any differently after that incident. If anything, they had grown closer. He had protected her and in turn she was now his rock.

When their hug broke apart, Jon snuck a look back at the truck, and saw his father staring at them. Blushing, Jon walked Candice inside, holding her hand.

"How much do your parents hate me?" Candice asked.

Jon frowned. He had made his own choices, and he had accepted them. But his parents? Well, all they saw of Candice was the girl who he had "ruined" his life for. Hate wasn't strong enough of a word. He couldn't tell her that, though.

"They just don't trust you," he said. "But they don't trust me either anymore, so welcome to the club."

They stopped by Jon's locker and he fiddled with the dial, but it wouldn't open.

"I mean, it's not like my mom's gonna write an exposé on you or anything, right?"

When Mom and Grandpa finally got Jon to come clean about where he got the drugs from, that was the agreement: his dealer stayed anonymous. No paper trail. Candice would tell Grandpa everything she knew so he and the DOD could shut down the production, but she would stay an anonymous source.

"Then why haven't I been allowed to see you since we came clean to your mom and grandpa?" Candice asked.

That had been the same night Jon-El attacked. The same night Dad returned from the Bizarro World. How did he even begin to explain all the crazy that had gone down in his life right after he had finished walking her home that night? How did he make it sound normal?

"It's not like that," Jon said. "Things—things have just been hectic at home the last few days. Dad's finally done with his assignment… the Metropolis one." That had been the cover story for why Dad had been missing the past month: freelancing in Metropolis. "And I… there were a bunch of things we had to do for the school before I could re-enroll. We've just been busy."

At least that last part was kind of true, considering the school meetings and therapy stuff.

"What kinds of things?" Candice asked.

Jon stared down at the lock, as his brain fought to think of the next number in the combination while simultaneously coming up with a reasonable explanation. He settled on a half-truth.

"Just… meetings… with the school… school meetings," Jon said.

Could she tell he was avoiding something? He added in a couple more specifics to throw her off the scent.

"I'm at the school's beck and call for drug testing and they're gonna toss my locker whenever they feel like it." Jon lost his place on the locker's dial. He had to start over again.

"That really sucks," Candice said. "I'm sorry."

"Not your fault."

"Jon… you know it is."

He sighed. "Can—can we just not?"

There was no point in assigning blame. What was done was done, and he didn't regret it anyway. Candice hadn't gotten caught up in the fallout of the drug raid, and that's all that mattered. At least one of them still had their reputations intact.

Candice leaned against an adjacent locker. "Can I ask you something?"

Not if it was going to be more questions about culpability.

Jon forced a smirk. "Yes, I've always been this adorable."

Candice giggled, but it had a nervous edge. "Well, I knew that. No… Talk around the trailer park is Micky Jeroux got picked up by some government agency and his X-K production's been completely shut down… your grandpa?"

That wasn't exactly a question about blame, but it was still about the drugs, so it gnawed at Jon's guilt anyway. But he couldn't let Candice see him sweat. There was no reason for her to regret what happened too.

"I'm pretty sure that's classified." Jon tried to play his words off as a joke. The eye-roll and arm-smack that he got from Candice told him that he was successful.

"Got to be honest," she said, "I've been half-expecting some men in black type suits to show up at my trailer and drag me out in handcuffs all week."

Jon hit the third number of his combination, and tried to jiggle the handle of his locker again, but it still wouldn't budge. He turned toward Candice. "My grandpa promised to keep your name out of it. He keeps his word. Besides, the DOD just wears your standard fatigues. No, uh, no men in black shit."

"So it's, like, all over? I get to just pretend to be the innocent, good girl while you keep taking the fall?"

"I told you I'd protect you. I keep my word too."

After everything that had happened, Jon had a lot of regrets. Taking drugs instead of biting down his jealousy. Buying from Candice instead of trying to talk her out of selling. Hiding what was going on instead of trying to get help.

But saving her from getting caught? From being dragged out of school by the cops like he was and blamed by the town for everything that followed? From getting expelled and having the blowback hit her and the precarious position her family was already in? Not a chance. He'd do that again in a heartbeat—well, maybe he'd try to get out of the hallway a little quicker once he grabbed her stash if he got a second chance, but he'd always choose to keep her safe.

"I don't deserve you," Candice said.

He leaned over and gave her a kiss. He missed that. He never wanted to go almost a week without seeing her again. His heart couldn't take it.

"Sure you do," Jon said. "I'm the lucky one. You're the only person in my life who doesn't treat me like shit."

Candice frowned, but she didn't comment on it.

"Speaking of how much I screwed up my life… I'm, like, sort of not allowed over at your house anymore. And, uh, and I'm not really allowed to meet up with you anywhere in town right now."

"So what… are we, like, over? Are you not allowed to see me anymore?" Candice's eyes watered.

He hoped not. If he had known it would have played out like that, he never would have agreed to that arrangement between Candice and Grandpa. Surely there could have been another way to shut down production without dragging her into it. Without destroying another one of his relationships.

"You can still come over my house… when my parents are there… and we can see each other at school."

That's what he got his parents to ultimately agree to after an hour long argument/debate/begging session that had originally started with his parents demanding he break up with her. But he pleaded his case and reminded them how Candice wasn't a bad person, just someone who had made bad choices like him. If he deserved a second chance then why didn't she?

At least Candice had made that choice to support her family—they desperately needed the money—not over some dumb game.

Candice stared at him. It wasn't enough for her, was it? She wanted more. A boyfriend she could actually date, and bring home, and be alone with.

She leaned forward and pressed her lips against his. He tried to make it last. If this was going to be their last kiss, he would have to remember it for a long time.

"Okay," Candice said when she pulled away.

"Okay?"

"Okay. We'll just have to stick to seeing each other at school and your house for a while. I guess I need to work on earning your parents' trust too."

He couldn't believe it. He couldn't believe she was willing to put up with all that just to stay with him. She was too good for him.

"I love you," Jon said.

Candice gently pushed him out of the way and rotated his lock, turning it back and forth until it open.

"Love you too, J." She gave him another kiss and told him she'd see him at lunch.

A moment later, his phone vibrated. It was a text from Candice with three numbers. His locker combination. He realized that after a month away from school, his decaying memory had caused him to switch up the last two numbers. Thank God for Candice or he would have been fiddling with that all morning.

Now that it was opened, Jon inspected his locker. The sheriff had tossed it the day they found the X-K on him and it was still a mess. He started organizing, looking through ripped and disheveled worksheets that he had long since redone online. He couldn't just throw everything straight into the trash, though, in case there were some important notes mixed in.

As he worked through the mess, whispers grew around him. He didn't catch most of it, but he definitely heard "football" and "druggie". As heat rushed to his cheeks, Jon tried to ignore them and work faster. Not that class would be any better.

Within about a minute, Jordan and Nat appeared at his locker.

"Your locker's a mess," Nat observed.

"You can thank your friendly neighborhood sheriff's department." Jon grabbed a stack of papers to sort through later, then shoved the rest back inside before continuing to look for his first period notebook.

Jordan started begging Nat for help with something Sarah related and Jon tried to tune them out. He just couldn't deal with that today. Not right now. Not while in this place.

Finally, he spotted the blue, spiral notebook that he used for first period sitting at the bottom of his locker, underneath a stack of folded papers. When he bent down, he noticed there were a bunch of folded papers with his name written across them. They looked like notes.

He opened the first one up.

Jon.

You suck. I hope you OD and die.

Jon dropped the note to the floor. He didn't need to read any of the others.

"Look what the cat dragged in," a familiar voice said.

Jon turned to see a few of his teammates approaching, and they did not look happy. Timmy Ryan was right beside them, squaring him down.

His stomach was still flipping from that note, but the path of least resistance was always easiest. Besides, these guys used to be his—well, not friends, but as close to friends as he had in Smallville. He gave them a quick greeting, hoping this wasn't going to turn into something. Dad had literally just warned him to keep out of trouble.

Wellnitz cracked a joke, asking if he was going to get baseball canceled next.

Jon wondered how long it had taken him to come up with that one. Had he workshopped it with the others? Practiced his delivery in the mirror?

Stupid Timmy stood there laughing, with his stupid, smug face.

They were all acting like Jon had been the only one on X-K. Like he had actually been selling that shit. Like him keeping his mouth shut and taking the blame for everything hadn't benefited all of them too.

Just how short were their memories? Were they really so dumb that they actually believed town gossip more than their own experiences? Had they really forgotten that Timmy started this and that Jon had just become the convenient scapegoat?

It was a stupid argument anyway. Who cared who was to blame? None of this was going to matter in the end. Not once Jon-El escaped and the rest of the doppelgangers from his world came through the portal.

Not once the world as they knew it was gone and everyone had lost themselves in a merge with their Bizarro-selves.

Words tumbled out of his mouth. About how meaningless it all was. About how nothing mattered. Not football; not baseball; not high school. Nothing. The world was about to end and those idiots were too clueless to see it coming. Too stupid to care about anything but their bread and circus.

Jon and Nat pulled him away. They looked concerned—Jordan even looked outright angry rather than glum—at least that was an improvement. Nat rattled off a weak excuse, trying to explain away Jon's ramblings as a passion for climate change.

Sean called him a freak. Jon almost laughed. How the tables had turned. After years of protecting Jordan from that word, now people were throwing it at him.

"What the hell was that?" Jordan asked.

Jordan had always been the one that looked more like Dad, but the way he was staring Jon down right now, with a little vein practically popping out of his neck, was a perfect impression of Dad right after the X-K incident. Except either Jordan didn't have quite the same intimidation factor as Dad, or Jon had built up a tolerance to disappointing his family, because he didn't feel nearly as guilty about this ensuing lecture.

"It's nothing. It's fine." Jon barely remembered what he had said anyway. He had just rattled off whatever popped into his mind. But as long as he hadn't mentioned the secret they were all good, right?

Whatever. It didn't matter. All that mattered was getting out of this damn hallway before someone else attacked him. But what was waiting for him in first period? Or second? Or the rest of the day?

"No, you are definitely not fine," Nat said. "Which is cool, considering what you've been through."

End of the world. He had told Timmy and the others about the end of the world, hadn't he? Well, at least the good thing about the world ending was that he wouldn't have to hear his parents yelling at him about letting that slip out.

"But," Nat continued, "maybe you shouldn't be here."

Jon looked over at her. It had taken Nat all of five minutes to notice what Jon had tried telling his parents all morning—all week, really. Why could she see him, but not them?

"Where do you want to go?" he asked.

Nat had a devilish smirk. The same one Mom always used on Dad before suggesting a crackpot investigation plot. "Follow me."

"You're going to skip on your first day back?" Jordan asked.

The bell rang. Why not? They were already late for class. Might as well just miss the day all together.

"We're so gonna get busted," Jordan muttered, but he followed anyway.

Okay, yes, I ended this chapter with a slight rehash of Sean, Wellnitz and Timmy confronting Jon in the hallway at school, but I tried to mostly stick to Jon's headspace rather than just replay that scene. I will NOT do too much rehashing from canon in this fic because I know that can be boring, this fic will mostly be missing scene content, but occasionally I may need a moment where I get into Jon's mind during an important moment from canon. To me, that was such a moment.

Next chapter will kind of be part 2 of this day (obviously). Again, I'm going to avoid rehashing as much as possible, just dipping in to canon when necessary for setting something up.

Anyway, thank you for reading! You can show you love with kudos and comments if you so wish.