Kim woke up in stages. First he was flying, or hovering, just above the earth. He tried once, twice, but he was unable to force himself any higher than dragging his toes through the dirt.

Wait, of course, he wasn't flying. They were carrying him of course, probably to his funeral. Muffled voices echoed around him.

"...still breathing. Kim, can you hear…"

"...maybe it's better if he doesn't…"

He opened his eyes again. The light stabbed into his head again, and his stomach immediately heaved, but it had no contents to empty. He spat a bit of bile on the ground, watching it absently as it passed below his feet. Somehow, incredibly, his glasses were still on his face.

"Kim? Are you awake?" Harry's voice echoed down from somewhere on his left. It took Kim several seconds to sort out the words from the garbled mess his brain took in. He tried to respond, but all that came out was a mumble. His tongue was being uncooperative.

He recognized the shoes plodding on his right, and the ragged breathing. Whose were they?

"Go back to sleep, Kim," said a gruff voice.

Of course. Jean.

They were carrying him between them, one of his arms over each of their shoulders. Strange. He raised his eyes enough to see the heels of the mercenary leader marching before him, and heard the click of ceramic boots from the two other mercenaries behind. Why weren't Jean and Harry in handcuffs? He had to think it over in aching seconds, his brain struggling to make the connection.

You don't need to handcuff a corpse. They rarely bother to take people alive.

"Jean," said Harry softly. "I'm sorry. I really am."

Jean sighed. He was limping. "Harry, you don't even remember. You don't have to–"

"No, listen," said Harry. "I'm sorry for everything I put you through. Whether I remember it or not, I did that stuff. You deserved better from me, and I've been trying to make it up to you. I've pieced it together, and I'm sure I would've killed myself if it weren't for you. So, thank you. And…" Harry's voice wavered, "and I'm sorry for today. I'm sorry we got you into this."

There was a pause.

"Thank you, Harry," said Jean. He cleared his throat, roughly. "And I'm sorry - I'm sorry I couldn't get here sooner."

Behind them, the fridge-shaped man reached the punchline of a dirty joke and the woman cackled.

"Kim, I don't know if you can hear me," Harry said. "But I'm gonna say this anyway."

Kim tried to force his mouth to form words, any words, but only managed a weak grunt and a cough.

"Thank you. You've been so…patient with me. It wasn't what I deserved. But I needed it. I can't say how much. You–and Jean, and Judit, and even Mac and Torson, are the reason I've been starting to put myself back together. But you went so much farther for, essentially, a stranger, than I ever could have hoped. You've saved my life…maybe a dozen times."

You broke me thought, wishing he could say it.I was so closed-off from everyone. And I still am, to some extent, but there are cracks in that facade now. But you were kind to me in a way I'd learned not to expect, and I'm seeing so much more of the world now, of what is and what could be, because of you.

"It's been an honor working with both of you," said Jean. His breath was getting more ragged, and his limp was getting worse. Kim tried to pull his feet underneath himself, to take some of his own weight. It was hard to tell if he was helping or just making it harder to carry him.

"It's okay, Kim," said Jean. "It's not much farther."

Kim managed to raise his head and saw where they were going.

It was the courtyard back behind the Whirling-in-Rags. A half-dozen mercenaries stood guarding roughly a dozen Union members sitting on the ground, Titus and Shanky among them. All of them looked badly beaten. The tree that had once held a hanging corpse was now covered in green leaves. The ground was still muddy, but around the edges of the courtyard a few flowers poked up from the soil.

"Well done, folks," said the leader, striding toward the group. "You brought back quite the haul." He grabbed Titus' face in his hand, turning Titus' head this way and that. He turned back to the mercenaries following him. "Add 'em to the pile." The woman and the fridge-shaped man pushed Jean and Harry forward, until they reached the others. Jean and Harry folded into a sitting position, bringing Kim down with them, breathing hard. Kim tried to sit upright on his own, but he felt like the ground was shifting under him. Harry put an arm around Kim's shoulders, supporting him.

"Attention, Vacholieres!" the leader bellowed, his voice echoing off the walls surrounding them. There were still sounds of fighting elsewhere, but it was deadly silent here. Kim caught glimpses of a few people peeking out of windows or over the edges of roofs. "I got some pretty good entertainment if you'd like to stick around and watch."

"I'm sorry," Harry said. "Everything's going to be different now."

Jean and Kim both turned to look at him. "What?" said Jean. Harry had the distant look in his eyes again. He came back to himself for a moment, looking at Jean.

"Tell you what we're gonna do!" shouted the mercenary. "For every one of these hostages, I need, oh, I'll say, a hundred people to come down and surrender to us. I promise, you won't be harmed if you do so," he said, putting a hand to his chest. "But for every ten seconds that go by, I'll put one bullet in the hostage. Depending on a few factors, I bet I can stretch it out to, oh, five minutes or so before we finish up with one and move on to the next. So who's ready to play?"

"Take care of him for me," Harry said, gently easing Kim over to lean on Jean's shoulder. Jean put an arm around Kim, still staring, confused, at Harry.

Harry slowly got to his feet, and this time Kim saw them - there was no doubting it. Shadowy figures separated themselves from Harry, remaining connected at his feet. It was hard to tell how many there were, as they writhed and jockeyed for position, seemingly all trying to whisper in Harry's ear. Lines of light burst forth from Harry's head.

The mercenary leader finally noticed Harry standing there. "What is this? What are you doing?" he demanded.

Deep inside Harry's torso, there was a faint glowing light. It wasn't the lungs, it was…his liver? Of course it was.

It suddenly dawned on Kim what was happening, with a horrible sinking sensation in his chest. "Harry, no!" he shouted, the words returning to him at last. He pushed himself to his feet and almost immediately collapsed. Jean caught him on the way down, gently lowering him to the ground.

"Dear god…" Jean said, staring up at Harry.

Harry was now in conversation with the figures. Kim couldn't make out what they were saying, but he heard Harry's responses.

"No, but…"

Whisper whisper.

"How?"

Whisper whisper whisper

"As above…"

Whisper.

"But I can't, they're–"

Whisper.

"I understand."

The mercenary leader's face was growing redder and redder. "Fuck this," he said, pointing his gun at Harry.

The fridge-shaped man rushed forward. "What are you doing?" he hissed, pushing the barrel of the leader's gun down.

"Are you undermining me?" said the leader, a dangerous glint in his eyes.

"I mean," said the fridge-shaped man. "He's…you know…"

"Leave this place," said Harry, but his voice echoed up and down the range of audible sound, sounding unearthly and…inhuman.

The leader took a step back in spite of himself. "I don't take orders from you. You're just– you're–" He seemed unable to bring himself to actually shoot Harry, though he brought the gun up again to point at him. Harry advanced slowly, then took the gun out of the man's hands with very little resistance.

"You're seeing this, right?" said Jean, awed.

"Yes, I see it," said Kim bitterly.

"Leave. Now." Harry commanded. Something in the tone of his voice made the mercenaries turn as one and start jogging away. Harry took a deep breath.

"Time to clean this place up at last."