#I'm not tagging this as anything else bc it's for meeee. Like you're welcome to read but if you want specifics ask me bc I'm not gonna clog

[ziracona]

Here is all of it. So I don't have to keep digging through my ancient side blog to find it again.

The context is so hyper specific. The shortest possible version (still long) is it's Nancy Drew Game fic. AU where on a mission for ATAC, Frank and Joe get set up by a minor criminal who pretended to want to help them, Joe is shot, Frank captured by a spy ring and tortured for two years. Goes completely insane both with grief and the torture. After getting free and seeking vengeance, becomes paranoid the same thing that happened to Joe will happen to Nancy, the only person he has right now that he cares about. Kidnaps a bunch of minor criminals who knew Nancy, out of his paranoid fear she will suffer the same fate, and a kind of 'I can save him by saving her' deluded attempt to deal with his own guilt and loss. Puts them in a complex like, Jigsaw situation in a bunker, where they're given lots of mystery puzzle things, and ethical quandaries, meant to give them a chance to prove they don't deserve to die, and him a chance to kill them really personally if they do. Terrible plan. He's a mess. Goes in with them as a 'kidnap victim' too, pretending to be Alec Fell, to keep a close eye on them and get the full detail version of events. Uses Henry at gunpoint as a mouthpiece to give the illusion of a game master on the outside. As literally anyone could have predicted, because every part of this is completely insane, everything falls apart. No one involved deserves murder. Befriending people you might kill messes you up. It's hard to spend /weeks/ being fake friends without catching feelings. He gets way too emotionally involved in everything almost immediately and steadily freaks out more and more as he begins to realize how bad he's messed up. Extremely like ride-or-die (almost literally in several fights) friends with Nick, and very close to the Hubbard twins, Grigor, Dylan, and Rentaro as well. Weird relationship with Henry, who is kind of trapped as his almost killed about four times semi-confidant for the entire encounter. Frank does snap out of this, but realizes way too late that the two years of psychological and physical torture left him super warped and not okay and has gone completely insane and nothing he's doing makes sense and this is all really bad, and decides to stop in the first moment of clarity he has since Joe's death. This is the resulting fallout. He killed three people, pretended to kill four more, and one pretended to kill herself to have a cover to sneak around without being missed to try and help everyone escape. They're mid one of his little 'test' events when he made this call.

---[[1/6 parts. 5 Ending segments, one pre-WDM. This is the pre-WDM situation. Frank having the OG breakdown that leads to this whole thing, after he escapes Zhiming syndicate: ]]

---Year Two

He kept running, past the door, past the steps and the sidewalk.  He lost his footing, or his legs gave out, and his knees and palms met pavement. 

He gasped and felt fresh air enter his lungs for the first time in, God, months, years?

His hands were shaking uncontrollably, but he could barely see them through blurred eyes.  He could feel tremors starting in his core and traveling the course of his whole body, wracking him uncontrollably.  He managed to focus on the ground ahead of him.  Blood, blood everywhere.  Had he cut his hands, or was it just from…him?  From something else?  God, how much of him was even left?

Behind him the night sky shattered into a million pieces as a momentous explosion erupted from deep within the tower building behind him.  He threw his hands up to shield his head.  The shockwave knocked him back into something, and his vision went black and red for a minute, until it slowly melted into the yellow-orange of the flames consuming the building.

Frank Hardy tried to stand, but his legs weren’t working.  He punched his leg, but he couldn’t even feel it.

Come on!  Get up!  GET UP!  You don’t have much time.

His hands were still shaking.  Dark red.  Was it blood, or was the skin just gone?   He couldn’t remember.  He couldn’t think right, but he hand to.  The drugs, the drugs were still in his system. 

Frank tried to breathe.  It came out in gasps and ended in coughs.  He clung to the object the blast had knocked him into, and tried to steady himself.

Lukewarm metal under his hand.  What was it?  He looked.  It took a second to focus. 

A motorcycle.

Frank dragged himself up, adrenaline kicking back in with a renewed sense of purpose.  His fingers began to fiddle with cords, trying to remember how to hotwire.  He kept fumbling—shocked himself once.  Thank God muscle memory was working, and his hands were doing most of it on their own.  He couldn’t think straight.  His hands.  His hands were the hands of a skeleton.  He could only imagine the rest of himself.

The motorcycle purred to life, and he let out a deep sigh of relief.  Noticing the helmet for the first time, Frank put it on.  Good, it would cover his face.  Maybe he wouldn’t be stopped.

He dragged himself on top of the bike.  Sirens were going off in the distance.  He had to move fast.  No one could still be alive in the building behind him, and he knew for a fact that three of them were dead.  No…Not three.  Three in the room, then two outside, and…another…six?  More? 

Why?  He’d been so focused, but now his memories were falling apart.  It was like the explosion had broken the flimsy wall he’d constructed in his mind to hold his sanity in.  Everything was fading, crumbling.  It was so hard to think.  Joe. 

Frank hit the gas and sped out of the parking lot.

He drove until the gas light came on, and he pulled over in a secluded part of town.  Quiet.  Closed stores.  Apartments nearby.  Vaguely familiar.  He found a wall and parked, and leaned against it.

Joe.  What year was it?  He had to find him!  He had to find Joe.  He had to get help.  ATAC.  Why hadn’t anyone come for him? They had to looking, and if they were, they would be nearby.  But where to start?  He needed new clothes, a disguise.  Something to stop the bleeding.  He had to find Joe—he had to still be alive, he was, he knew it—he had to be.  Where—where to start?  How—

He became aware of something.  Pain?  Worse than normal?  Or was it…

He looked down.  The cut in his side was still slowly letting fluid seep out.  Very slowly, but still.  He had to find a way to stop it.

He couldn’t die.  Not until Joe was safe.

He could find the Embassy…No, no—if Zhiming knew he was alive, they’d know he was coming for them.  If they still had Joe, they might—no, he couldn’t let them know he was alive.  But where?

“Oh my God.  Frank?” 

He looked up, ready to run, or kill the speaker.  When he saw him, he did neither.  He collapsed.  Somehow, his body realized it was okay to do so now, and stopped pretending it could keep him upright.

Ned Nickerson dropped his bag of groceries and ran, cutting his knees open, skidding on the pavement in time to catch him in his arms, and keep Frank’s head from hitting the pavement.

“Frank!  Oh God, what did they do to you?  I’ll call an ambulance, please, just hang on!”

Frank was losing sensations, losing consciousness, but he could see Ned’s panicked face looking down through a haze of grey fog.

“Don’t…Please, you can’t tell anyone I’m alive.  I need you to no…t…or…”  Frank faded out.

-

Frank Hardy opened his eyes.  He didn’t recognize the sensation at first.  Comfort.  He was on something soft.  It was warm, and dry.  Something…smelled?  Nice?  The ceiling was white plaster.  Where was he?  What kind of sick trick were they using today?  It wasn’t going to work, he wasn’t—no!

Frank shot upright. 

He’d killed them!  He’d escaped, he had—

“Frank?”

He turned his head.  A familiar face greeted him.  She’d been sitting by the bed; her face held a mixture of extreme emotions.  She looked like she was going to cry.

“N…Nancy?”  His voice.  He hadn’t heard it for a long time.  Until he’d spoken to Ned.  Ned?  He looked up and saw him, standing behind Nancy, looking worried and relieved.

“Frank, oh, I’ve been looking for you!”  Nancy threw her arms around his neck and hugged him—trying her hardest to be gentle.  “For two years!  I never stopped—I knew it, I knew you were alive!”

Frank didn’t hug her back.  He couldn’t remember how, or his arms weren’t responding.  Why?

Tears were streaming down her face, and he could feel her chest heaving.  It hurt.  But he didn’t mind.  A different…a different kind of pain.  There were different kinds of pain, that was right.  Some of them were okay.  He’d forgotten.

He looked up and saw Ned.  He could tell he was trying to keep it together, but silent tears were streaming down his face.  A strange sensation welled up in his chest.  For a second he thought he was having a heart attack, because he didn’t remember what it felt like to laugh, but then he was laughing and remembered.  It hurt.  In a good way.  His hand went up slowly and he hugged Nancy with the arm that was easier to move.

Nancy finally let go and pulled back.  Her face was stained with tears.  “Frank, what happened?”

Frank shook his head, trying to put his thoughts together.  “I was…Joe and I.  We had a case, and this man—he, he turned on…He—“suddenly, the memories slammed into his head, as merciless and hard as a sledgehammer.  He reeled backwards, bringing his hand to his face.  Joe.  God, no.  No, no, no.  He saw it.  Bai Guo, grabbing him, the gun—using Joe as a shield.  He’d shot Frank.  He shot me…No…no, no, no, no…no.  God please, no.  Through Joe.  He saw the gun flash, the bullet tearing through Joe’s chest, slamming into him after killing his brother.  Killing? 

“No!”

“Frank, Frank what’s wrong?”  He felt Nancy’s hand on his shoulder.

“It can’t.”  He finally broke.  One second of facing reality did what two years of physical and psychological torture couldn’t.  The memory of Joe—he hadn’t meant to accept it.  But he finally had.  And his mind shattered with the wall of denial he’d fought to keep up.

He didn’t remember much from those few days.  He remembered crying.  He remembered memories, or nightmares, all sorts of contorted things in his head.  Thoughts—images.  Real, not real?  Who knew.  They destroyed him, a piece at a time.  He remembered the memories of Joe the week before it had happened, watching Jumanji on the plane, Joe completely wasting his opportunity to try Chinese cuisine by requesting McDonalds.  And, God, had he really been so mean to him?  Had he had to make fun of him for that?  Couldn’t he have just smiled at him, one more time?  Couldn’t he have said something else to him, with his last words?  Why did they have to be “Don’t mess this up?”  Why did they have to be…? 

He remembered Nancy, and Ned.  They were both there a lot.  Feeding him, healing him.  Looking after him.  But those memories were foggier than the ones inside his head.  They were worried—he’d known that.  But they’d honored his request not to take him to a hospital.  Nancy had called his father, to let him know.  He had held the phone.  He remembered that part clearly.  Nancy’s voice, saying “Fenton?  You might want to sit down.  One of your sons is alive—“He’d cut her off, his dad had, asking about something.  Nancy had tried to say something a few times, but had given up and handed the phone to Frank.

Frank remembered it so clearly, taking the phone. His dad’s voice.

“Frank?  Joe?”

Which one.  “Frank.”  He’d answered.  Speaking the word had hurt.  If it could have just been the other name.

“Frank?  Oh, Frank, thank God it’s you.”

“Thank God it’s you.”

He’d hung up.  Nancy had called his dad back, explained Frank wasn’t doing so well, convinced him not to tell anyone his son was alive.  She’d seemed to have been successful, but Frank hadn’t cared. 

Thank God it’s you.

--

---[Current time. WDM events aftermath]]----

-

--- Endings (1/5)

“It’s getting late,” said Dylan nervously, “Why hasn’t something happened?”

Two hours ago, their rooms had unlocked, and they’d walked back into the common area, and everyone had been there but Alec. Well, everyone still alive, thought Kim. The door to ‘Niobe’s Room’, where they had seen him last, was still locked. They had knocked on it and called for him, and gotten no answer. Nick had even tried to break it down, but nothing had happened at all. Not even a reprimand from their captor, watching on the camera system.

But he can’t be dead, thought Kim, trying to avoid the most likely reality, He won the last challenge. He had immunity. He wasn’t Scared.

But. But she and Dylan had been. After everything people had gone through the past couple of weeks, they were close, and Alec was nice. Nice and rash, and what if he’d…what if he’d made some kind of bargain? What if this close to the end, he’d traded immunity for one of them. No, you don’t know that. He’s probably okay. Maybe he’s not in there. Maybe winning the case got him a reward, and he’s somewhere else being given information. You don’t know he’s dead.

She was so scared thinking about it.

Nick looked like he felt about the same. He kept pacing the hall, pausing by the door to Niobe’s Room to listen, and then walking again. Agitated. Muttering to himself.

Rentaro and Dylan were together against the wall across from the door, Rentaro sitting with his knees tucked up, Dylan standing. Both exhausted.

“Why hasn’t something happened?” echoed Kim in her head. Dylan or she should have been dead by now. They had talked, and Nick had promised to try to protect her if she got attacked, back in Grigor’s Room, and she knew if something came for Dylan right now, they’d have all done the same, but she’d known how low the odds of surviving were. I’m so used to being afraid I don’t think I even feel it normally anymore.

There was a thunk from inside Niobe’s Room.

Nick’s head shot up and he spun on his heel and ran to the door. “Alec!” He banged against the metal with his fist, “Say something! Are you in there?”

Desperation. She knew exactly how he felt. So many times, they’d almost been able to do something. Rentaro had grabbed the killer, had been so close to saving Jane. But while the sound might mean Alec was back, or waking up, or any number of things, it almost might mean he’d been in there the whole time, and something had finally just killed him. She tried not to imagine that. Not to think about it, squeezing her eyes shut. What had been left of Grigor, Niobe, and Lori still way too fresh in her head. Thinking about the pendulum, the pyre, the stoning. Stop. Don’t. Come on. Rachel’s out there, and she’s doing so well. We’re gonna make it out before anyone else dies. It’ll be okay, it’ll be okay, it’ll be okay.

She had liked Grigor so much…

“Alec!” Nick was more frantic this time, and the sound snapped her out of her head.

Dylan and Rentaro exchanged glances, and then came over to help, trying again to beat the door in. Kim watched them for a second, thinking with a thudding heart about the last case. About how the killer had said they bumped into Grigor in the hall to get his keycard. Apologized and went on. It’s one of us. Or they were lying. They might be lying. But.

The paranoia was killing her, but Kim ignored it and joined the others, trying not to think about being scared of them. “Alec?” she called hopefully, moving to a chunk of the wall because there were three men blocking the door. She pressed her ear against it. Wait, is that. “Shh!” she called, holding up a finger, “Stop making noise!”

They stopped. And she was sure. For just one second after the beating stopped, footsteps.

“Someone’s in there!” she called, “I can hear them walking.”

“I swear to God!” shouted Nick at the door, “If you-“

The door opened.

They all stepped back in surprise, and Kim slid into place beside Dylan in time to see Alec step out, looking unusually haggard. Even for Alec. Looking like first week Alec, stumbling in drunk all the time and barely coherent.

“Oh God,” said Nick, overcome with relief and smiling, going forward to hug him, “We thought you were dead.”

“Don’t,” said Alec, holding up a hand, and looking really different. Far off, and pained.

Nick stopped. Face immediately grave again. “Are you wired to something?” he asked, paling.

A bomb? thought Kim, looking frantically around what she could see of the room for an explanation for why he looked like this.

“Sort of,” said Alec, “I need to talk to you. All of you.”

“Are you in danger?” asked Nick, “What do we need to do.”

“No, just,” Alec hesitated for a second, and he looked at Nick and smiled, and Nick looked relieved, but Kim thought there was something off about the smile. That he looked…sad. “I have to explain something,” said Alec, “Please let me explain all of it.”

The relief on Nick’s face wavered.

Explain?

After what the killer had said last night, they all had to be thinking the same thing. No, Kim told herself, There’s no way it’s Alec. But. She didn’t think it was Nick or Rentaro or Dylan either. Honestly, as doable as it had been to fake Rachel’s death, Kim had kind of suspected it was someone who’d died. That somehow they hadn’t done it for real. And she’d thought the killer was lying about Grigor. If they could program the cards, why bother swapping with him? Just make a new one that can go anywhere. Whoever it is just wants us to not trust each other. Even if Alec says something, I bet it’s because he’s being forced to. Like Henry was. We all thought it was him for a few days, but he just had a gun to his head. I don’t believe it. I know all of these people, and none of them are bad. They’ve all risked their lives to keep me and each other alive. She knew it. She knew it so hard.

“I’m not Alec Fell,” said Alec.

“What?” said Dylan, looking betrayed and worried. She could tell Rentaro was trying to think fast beside him, as lost as she felt.

“He’s a real person, like Moira confirmed, but I’m not him,” said Alec, “I killed him, and I took his place. He was the first body.”

“The-? No,” said Nick, taking a step back. Horror and betrayal flickered across his features, and for the first time Kim had ever seen, she thought he might cry. He stared at Alec, shaking his head. “No.” More conviction in his voice the second time. “I don’t believe it. Alec, I know you. Why are you saying this? What did he say he would do to you?”

“Nobody’s making me say this,” said Alec quietly, watching him and looking almost sad. “My name is Frank. And I’m the one who did all of this.”

“You monster!” shouted Dylan, hurt and enraged at the same time, stepping between her and Rentaro and the person she had thought was Alec, “You did this? You kidnapped us, and kept us scared, and picked us off one by one for weeks while pretending to be our friend?”

Alec watched him, pained, but made no move to do anything. He stayed still. “Yes,” he said quietly, “It was me.”

“Please,” said Nick, almost brokenly, “It can’t have been.”

Alec looked at him for a couple of seconds, and then at the ground. “I wish it wasn’t.” He looked back up at the little group, one by one, and when he met Kim’s gaze, she felt physically ill. She didn’t know who she was looking at. “About three years ago, I lost my brother,” said Alec. Very little emotion in his voice, but a tone to it and a look on his face like he was feeling many things, and simply doing a good job repressing them all. Like a storm building that just hadn’t broken yet.

No…Not Alec, realized Kim slowly, feeling…sad? Which wasn’t the emotion she had expected. She was feeling a lot of things, but somehow that was the one that was winning. She wanted to cry. Somehow, it being him made her want to just give up and sit in a corner and not even fight back, and she didn’t know why. Not Alec. What had he said his name was? Frank?

“I was a detective. We were working a case,” continued Frank, tone almost empty. She thought he was trying to sound that way, but he wasn’t quite doing it. Still a little exhausted, a little sad, despite his best efforts. “There was a low level criminal—a petty thief—who’d gotten caught up in the operation a crime syndicate ran. He wanted to flip, to help. The things they were doing were too awful, and he’d never wanted to hurt anybody. We believed him. We met up with him, and our second meeting, he caught us completely off guard. Killed my brother and shot me.”

“What does that have to do with any of us?” asked Rentaro in dismay, “With anyone you murdered? Why? Why would you do this to us?”

“I. I’m trying to explain,” said Frank, a little harried and unsure for the first time since appearing.

“Explain faster,” said Nick, expression hard. Frank looked at him in surprise, and then a very downcast kind of acceptance as he took in the look on his face. He nodded.

“I’ll try to make it as short as I can,” said Frank, not really looking any of them in the face. “Your last case was about what happened to us, so you know some of it anyway. I ended up captive for two years, more or less as a practice tool for their interrogators. After two years of physical and psychological torture, I got lucky. Someone made a mistake, and I broke out. Took the whole building down with me.”

“You’re not explaining anything!” said Dylan, almost more desperate than mad now, “What does any of that have to do with us?”

“You were threats,” said Frank, looking up at him, speaking in the tone of someone trying to describe something they knew it was hopeless to explain. “I—I was. Not thinking. And—no. I was. I was thinking wrong. I didn’t realize how-how messed up I was from the things that had happened. I was just. I didn’t know what to do anymore. But I was so sure. I was so sure, after that, that…anyone who was willing to be any kind of criminal would go as far as they had to. And you were all people someone I was close to knew. I was afraid that…if I didn’t do something, she would die too.”

“W-you,” said Nick, trying to comprehend, “Y-you kidnapped us and killed eight people b-because we knew someone you liked?”

“I know,” said Frank, almost pleading, “I know how it sounds. I know how insane that is. At least.” He looked away a second, eyes moving quickly, “At least I think right now I do. I don’t know.” He looked back at Nick. “It made sense. It made so much sense. I was sure. Of everything I was doing. I knew that I was right. I was… I-I don’t know. I don’t. I don’t know what happened to me. I don’t know how I ended up here. I don’t know why I did this; I don’t know why I didn’t stop. There’s something wrong with me, and I didn’t realize it—I didn’t realize how wrong. How much I changed, in those two years. But it’s done!” He was almost desperate. “It’s over! I’m letting you all go.”

“And what about everybody else?” asked Kim, voice small and caught in her throat. Frank turned his head to look at her, and he looked so deeply sad. Almost wounded. “What about Grigor. He was your friend. He would have died for you. You know he would have. He would have died for any of us. What about the rest of them? Lori, Niobe, Connie, Jane, Moira, Lou? What about the people in that morgue? Al—” She stopped. No. Not Alec. “Frank. What about the people you killed? Jane got scared and wanted you to hold her hand. She was younger than me. She was fourteen. What about them?”

He listened to her whole statement, and then lowered his head. “I can’t do anything about the people I killed.”

“Well we can!” snapped Dylan, taking a step forward, furious. “Jane was fourteen! She was a child! I don’t care what happened to you, you sick—”

“—Jane’s alive!” said Frank desperately, taking a step back into the room, “She’s alive! And so are Niobe, Grigor, and Lori—I haven’t killed anyone since Connie, or, since Lou—Connie wasn’t planned.”

“What?” said Kim at the same time Rentaro said, “They’re alive?”

“Where are they!” asked Nick, turning on him.

“They’re locked up, deeper in the building,” said Frank nervously, taking another step back, “Henry’s already getting them. They’ll be down here in not too long, or he’ll take them to the elevator alone and you’ll see them at the exit. I-I don’t know. I don’t think I told him what to do.”

“You’re lying,” said Rentaro, face falling a little, “They can’t be alive. ...We. We looked at their medical records. Niobe’s hair. Lori’s blood. We saw their—” He stopped and his eyes widened. He stared at Frank. “You changed the records.”

“You believe him?” asked Dylan.

“Think about it,” said Rentaro quickly, “T-the overkill in this case? The weird deaths? How all the bodies were completely unrecognizable? It was them—it was—it was the other corpses. That’s why Niobe was stabbed before being stoned—it wasn’t Niobe—it was Connie. He had to mask her broken ribs. That has to be why the corpse was scalped. We’d have recognized the hair. And that means Lori was Moira. You had to burn her, to make the corpse’s age unrecognizable. Grigor must have been Lou…Or—or maybe Soren—Alec. The-the first guy.”

“Can you prove it?” asked Dylan.

Frank gave a nod and fiddled with his watch for a moment. One of the screens they’d seen messages on before lowered and lit up with a security feed. Kim saw Henry trying to help Lori, who was sobbing and clinging to him, out of a cell. Behind them, in the hall, Grigor was carrying an unconscious Niobe with much shorter hair, a shaky and pale Jane at his side, clinging to the edge of his shirt.

They all just stared at it, trying to undo the mourning and loss over friends felt in the last 48 hours, and before, unable to really comprehend any of it. After a moment, the group on the screen made it to an elevator, and stepped inside, and Frank shut off the screen.

“That’s the down elevator. They’ll be here soon,” said Frank quietly, lowering his arm, “Rentaro’s right about what you all found. Jane was just paralyzed. There was no body double, but she was never dead. Tetrodotoxin creates a very death-like façade when used in smaller doses. You just have to be extremely precise.”

“I don’t understand,” said Kim, turning back to him, “If you felt bad about what you were doing as far back as Jane, why didn’t you stop? W-why kill Connie, why keep going?”

Frank looked at her for a second, and then let out a breath and shook his head. “I…I didn’t regret, I. Was conflicted. I was buying time. To think. I don’t know. I. I was…I thought I knew what I was doing. I.”

He seemed shaky almost. Not physically, but, like mentally he wasn’t on very solid ground. Like first week Alec, but worse.

About thirty feet off, the far elevator opened, and Grigor, Jane, Lori, and Henry stepped off, Niobe still out cold in Grigor’s arms.

“You!” shouted Grigor, picking out Alec-Frank immediately. What had been relief and joy at seeing his friends immediately flipping to rage like a light switch.

“You little psychopath!” said Lori, almost as mad, but kind of scared and hanging by Henry and Grigor.

Grigor gave Niobe a worried look, and then set her on the ground by the elevator, and stormed over.

“Grigor—wait,” tried Henry from behind him, but Grigor wasn’t listening.

“You murdered them!” shouted Grigor, and Kim couldn’t tell if he was more angry or betrayed, advancing on Frank like a musclebound grim reaper, “You pretended to care about us, and you killed them! You said you looked Moira right in the eyes as she died, and you liked it! Lou begged for his life!”

He pushed past a stunned Dylan and Rentaro, and Frank started to back up.

“Wait!” said Frank kind of desperately, holding up his hands in front of him, “Please—just listen to me!”

“Wait?” echoed Grigor, furious but hurt more than anything else, looming over him, “Like you waited? You’re a murderer and a traitor!” He grabbed Frank by his collar and dragged him forward, and Kim had seen Alec fight so she knew he could, but he wasn’t, he was just trying to get free. “Look! Look at them!” Grigor pointed to Jane and Lori and Niobe hovering by the door, and at Henry, halfway to reaching Kim’s group. “Jane survived, and look what even that did to her!”

She didn’t look good. She was pale, and shaky, hiding behind Lori, who looked confused about anyone hiding behind her, but hadn’t tried to make her move. Grigor let go of Frank and punched him in the face with so much force it knocked him back onto the hard marble floor of the replica museum. At his feet, Frank dragged himself up on an arm, looking back up at Grigor and breathing hard.

“I know, I—” tried Frank unsteadily.

“That makes it worse!” said Dylan desperately, moving up himself, “How could you do this to us? We were friends. Nick and Grigor and Rentaro saved your life, and you put them through hell! You put us through so much that Rachel killed herself to try to keep someone else from being murdered!”

“I-I. I know,” said Frank, still on the ground, much shakier, and his eyes found Kim’s, “I. I’m so sorry—I never meant to do that. I…”

“You think that matters?” asked Lori, furious.

Grigor started to take a step towards Frank again, fist already drawn back. Overwhelming amounts of pain on his face.

“Wait! Don’t!” called Henry, struggling to push his way into the room past the little crowd choking the entryway.

Grigor and Dylan did not wait. Kim didn’t even think they really heard him. They were furious, and Kim was too. Rentaro was, Lori was, they all were, and they should be. Grigor was right. How had he done this to them? How could he have…She was seeing things in her head she wished she had never seen. I don’t understand, I don’t understand. I just…I don’t…I…

On the floor, Frank watched them coming and started to drag himself back up unsteadily, gripping a display for support, and then suddenly Nick was between him and them, back to Frank.

“Wait,” said Nick, holding his hands up.

They did, for Nick, but they didn’t want to. There was so much pain and anger and confusion and betrayal in the air that Kim was choking on it.

“We’re not gonna do this,” said Nick, glancing behind himself to see where Frank was, and then back at the other two.

“Nick,” started Dylan.

“Please!” said Henry, finally breaking through the little group, “Listen to him! You can’t kill him!”

Nick, Grigor, and Dylan glanced at him in surprise.

“We can and should!” snapped Lori, “He deserves it!”

“He’s—the whole place is rigged,” explained Henry, shaky and out of breath, “If his heart stops beating, this whole place will blow up and we’re all dead!”

“Fine,” said Grigor, not looking anymore, eyes fixed on Frank and breathing raggedly. Furious, so upset he seemed like he might cry, “Some broken bones won’t make his heart stop beating.”

“No,” said Nick, stepping into his way again, keeping between him and Frank.

“Nick—I know he was your friend,” said Dylan, “He was my friend too, but he was never Alec! He’s dangerous! This isn’t just about revenge—if we don’t stop him, who knows what he’ll do? You’ve seen the kinds of things that might be!”

“I know,” said Nick, taking a step back and staying between them and Frank.

Behind him, Frank looked so…surprised. He was staring at Nick like he couldn’t even understand the gesture. Like moving between him and the others had wounded him.

“He needs to face justice, for what he’s done,” said Nick steadily, eyes on the people in front of him, “He killed people. He has to pay for that. But we’re going to do things the right way. He’s done. He stopped, he surrendered. We’re going to leave together, and turn him in to the police. We’re doing this the right way. We’re not gonna be a mob.”

A little of the anger drained out of Grigor and Dylan, and Grigor lowered his fists. With the fury gone, he just looked sad and confused. Dylan just looked lost. It was hard to tell how everyone around her was feeling. Rentaro was watching and he looked kind of far away, and sad, like somehow for him the scene was already over and he had been able to move on to thinking about it. Lori was still furious, but she had pursed her lips and regulated her breathing, trying to calm down a little. Jane had just shut her eyes and buried her head against Lori’s side. Henry seemed relieved, more than anything. Still locked into fight or flight and not really ready for anything but ensuring survival. Definitely not ready to process.

And Nick?

Nick looked…different. Older. And resigned. Sad, in a deep, bitter, hopeless kind of way.  Kim had no idea how she felt.

“Here,” said Frank quietly, taking a keycard out of his pocket and holding it out to Nick when he turned. “This will unlock the lift so it goes all the way to the surface.” He didn’t look at Nick when he took the card, and Nick didn’t really look at him either.

“Do we have something to tie him up with?” asked Rentaro hollowly, “If we’re all going up, and he’s surrendered?”

“Yeah,” said Nick, not looking in Frank’s direction at all, “That’s a good idea. I’m sure there’s something in here we can use.” He turned his head toward Frank but didn’t look at him. “You stay there.”

“Okay,” said Frank, staring past Nick at nothing. There was a dark bruise starting to form along his cheekbone.

The guys split up to look for rope, except for Retaro, who went over to talk to Jane quietly for a moment. They had been kind of close, before. At least, Rachel had said they were. Frank stayed where he had been, not even shifting his weight. Just looking at nothing as people went around him, trying to find something to tie him up with.

I don’t understand, thought Kim, looking at him, and seeing Alec, and not wanting to hate him at the same time she desperately did. I don’t understand.

What had he even said? That—that he’d lost his brother, to a criminal he had trusted. And…been tortured. And kidnapped himself, and somehow, that had spiraled for him, into a belief that anyone who broke the law would potentially turn on you and kill you. What did I even do? thought Kim, feeling like crying, I-I tried to pay for one education instead of two? I snuck onto Waverly grounds and lived there without paying fees? I…I stole cookies from the snack shop to have something to eat? Her eyes welled up with tears, thinking about Moira, and Lou, and Connie, and the first man she had never even really known. You were going to kill me for that? For…for.

He was looking at her. He hadn’t really looked at anyone since Nick had defended him, but when she looked up, he met her gaze. And he looked sober, and sorry, which she hadn’t expected. Everything was a little too much, and Kim’s tears spilled over and rolled down her cheeks as she held his gaze.

“I’m so sorry,” he said very quietly. Probably only she even heard it. “I know exactly what I put you through, and I can never be sorry enough.”

“…Rachel isn’t dead,” said Kim.

She saw shock register on his face. He looked past her, at nothing, thinking incredibly fast, and then back at her, confused.

Kim wasn’t even really sure why she’d told him. “We faked her death. Henry helped us. So that she could escape the morgue and look for a way out.”

“She’s alive?” he checked, astounded.

Kim nodded.

Relief. So much relief. He looked like someone had just given him the best news he could possibly have heard. He even smiled at her for a moment, and it felt so familiar. So much like the Alec she had known and cared about. And then the expression faded, and became almost blank again, and he swallowed hard.

That just made her so much more confused.

“Thank you,” said Frank. He glanced at her for just a second, and smiled a little. “I don’t know how you did it, but whatever you three did, it was smart.” The smiled faded again and he looked at the ground.

I’m so lost, thought Kim, watching him, What am I supposed to do?

She. She could get Rachel. And they could talk and understand stuff together, but she had to do that first. Quickly, she went over to Henry.

He gave her a welcoming if shaky smile when she reached him. “Hi.”

“Did you let Rachel know?” asked Kim.

“Yes,” said Henry quickly, looking guilty for not having thought to update her on his own, “She’s close to the surface already, and she can’t get back down easily. She’s okay though. There’s an office Frank must have been using, right by the surface ,and she’s there. It’s the second-to-last stop on the elevator. She’ll be waiting for us when we go up. Or—if you want, I could go ahead and get her and bring her down.”

Kim shook her head. “Just in case something bad happens. I don’t want her to ever have to come down here again. I’ll wait.”

Henry nodded.

“Thank you,” said Kim, kind of affectionately bumping him with her shoulder. She was afraid to show much physical affection, because he was so weak right now he looked like a hug might snap him like a toothpick. Henry glanced down at her again, surprised, and then smiled. “Really,” said Kim, “We could never have gotten so far without you. You were really brave. You risked dying a lot of times to help us.”

“I…wasn’t the one really under a threat,” said Henry, “You two are a lot more brave. Willing to drug yourself and crawl into a morgue storage unit and trust someone else would be there to let you out before you died of asphyxiation. Climbing around elevator shafts with no security rope. You’re a pretty incredible pair, you know that?”

She grinned. Feeling a lot better and more grounded just from that one positive interaction with a real friend. Yeah. Alec was lying to you, but Henry wasn’t. Nick wasn’t, Dylan wasn’t, Rentaro, Grigor. None of them. You can still trust people. It’ll all be okay. We’re gonna get to go home soon. And Rachel will be okay too.

“Are you holding up okay?” asked Henry, concerned.

“Yeah, you?” asked Kim. He still had a bandage over half his face and he looked about ready to collapse.

“Well, supposedly I still have both my eyes, and my organs haven’t catabolized yet, so I think I’ll be okay,” said Henry, trying to joke.

That’s too scary to joke about, thought Kim tearfully. “I would hug you but I think I’d break your bones,” said Kim.

Henry almost laughed, and then very gingerly put an arm around her shoulder. “Half-hug?”

“Sure,” said Kim, leaning against him and shutting her eyes for a second.

When she opened them again, she looked back into the room, and watched the action. There wasn’t much of use in the museum replica, except the velvet ropes roping off exhibits, and those weren’t very flexible, so in the end, they more or less gave up, and Nick came back over to Frank and used his belt to bind his wrists instead. It was hard to watch. He approached Frank, belt in hand, and looked him in the eyes, and Frank silently held his wrists out. Frank held still as Nick tied his wrists in place with the belt, but he watched him. Not saying anything, not resisting. Just looking kind of sad and far away. Nick was trying hard not to look at him while he worked, but he did on accident, while tightening the bonds, and he looked like that had hurt him. Kim thought he was going to say something, but then he just looked away again and shook his head, and finished tying his knots. Frank looked at the ground past him, and his shoulders slumped a little.

As soon as Frank was tied up, the group left. Grigor went and picked up Niobe again, and they filed into the elevator as one. It was packed like that, but they could fit with a little room to spare. Kim stayed by Henry as he operated the controls, and glanced over her shoulder at Dylan and Nick, guarding Frank, who was staring blankly past them all at nothing. No real fight in him at all. Jane was hiding behind Rentaro like she was afraid to be anywhere near Frank, and Kim thought absently that that was good for Rentaro. He looked a little more okay right now than he had before, now that he was protecting someone else. It seemed to have given him a little bit of an override on how he was feeling. Lori stayed by Henry and her protectively, casting Frank hateful looks he wasn’t noticing.

“Are there weapons in here?” asked Nick, watching the numbers on the elevator slowly creep up.

Kim didn’t know if he’d been asking Henry or Frank, but it was Frank who answered. “Yes. Room 604 on the keypad has supplies.”

“Stop there,” said Nick to Henry, “On the way up. I want some insurance.”

“Sure,” said Henry, glancing over at him and then keying in the room on the keypad. It would have been an infuriating elevator to operate without a blueprint, because it moved in at least six directions, and the rooms seemed to be named arbitrarily to make them hard to find—and there definitely weren’t 600 or more of them. Henry seemed to know what he was doing at least a little, though, and the door slid open to what looked to Kim like a room from a film set for a Mission Impossible movie, or something. It was just…full. Full of every kind of weapon imaginable. Guns, and little drones, knives, tazers. There was gear too. She blinked at the place in wonder. Why did you have all this? she thought, glancing over at Frank, How did you afford it? I thought…before that. You were a detective? Why…?

No…there had. She almost had something. There had been…in the files they’d gotten for the last case. The one that Frank said was about what had happened to him. …….Oh. Her eyes widened.

“I’m getting a gun,” said Nick, stone faced, walking into the room, “Dylan, can you watch him?”

“Sure,” said Dylan quietly, looking like he didn’t feel much better than Nick did. He placed a hand on Frank’s shoulder, and Frank didn’t move. Just watched Nick go through things in the room in silence.

“Are you all okay?” she heard Grigor asking Rentaro quietly.

“Yeah,” said Rentaro, “You? Did you get hurt getting…kidnapped?”

“Not badly,” said Grigor, “I have a headache and a few bruises. Niobe’s still out, though. I’m kind of worried. She might be…”

“He said it was just sleeping pills,” said Rentaro encouragingly.

“Yeah?” asked Grigor, sounding a little better.

Kim was only half hearing that though. She was looking at Frank. We’re where you were, aren’t we? Or…No. Not the same place, but. One of them. It had been in the case. You went back and wiped out the people who killed your brother. This isn’t your stuff. It’s theirs. Or…I guess it’s yours now, but.

She looked away, thinking, trying to figure that all out. She wondered if maybe that was why he’d never used a gun himself, on them. Because he would never be completely sure, no matter how impossibly low the percentage of a chance, that it wouldn’t be the same gun that had killed his brother. She wondered, what exactly had happened to him. Why he had stopped. If he’d been…been whatever enough to do this. Why? Why…just give up like this? How had that worked, in his head? What would I do, if somebody killed Rachel… What would she have done? Kim didn’t like the idea of hurting anybody. Not at all. If she saw beetles in the house, she used to catch them in a cup and take them outside, because she didn’t even like squashing bugs. They didn’t mean to be a problem by just existing. But. But Rachel? Her best friend, her other half, her sister? What on earth would she have done, if Rachel had…If way back when, the Black Cat had gone too far, and killed her? Poisoned or something. What if…if here, Alec, No, not Alec, Frank, had killed her? Would she have run at him and tried to hit him in the head with whatever she could find, as soon as he’d told the truth? She…she didn’t think she would have. Could have. But then. She’d also loved him. If it had just been somebody. Some man she’d never seen before, and he’d shot her through the throat like he’d killed Lou, would she…?

Kim shut her eyes, feeling sick and sad. Really, she had no idea what she would have done. Except that she wouldn’t have been okay. And. And…

And she probably wouldn’t have been okay ever again.

She looked over at Frank again. He was still watching Nick. Looking sad in a way she wasn’t used to people looking. Resignation and remorse and regret, all together, but just barely. Like he didn’t have much energy to feel anything right now, or to show it, maybe. Maybe he was just the kind of person who felt things privately. Personally, instead of out where people could see them.

“Does anyone else want anything?” asked Nick, glancing back at the elevator.

Kim didn’t.

“I want a gun,” said Lori. Grigor shook his head and looked down at the unconscious girl in his arms.

“I-I would take a…bat, or something,” said Rentaro hesitantly.

“I’d take a knife,” said Dylan. He had been furious earlier, and he was definitely still mad, but he looked more somber now.

Jane just shook her head, and Henry, like herself, kept quiet.

Nick took a second sorting things, then came back into the lift with a pistol strapped over his shoulder and gave Dylan a tactical knife, Rentaro a police baton, and Lori a pistol, and then said, “Just one more thing,” and went back and perused a row of handcuffs and shackles on the wall before selecting what looked like a pretty impressive pair and coming back with it.

“Go ahead,” said Nick to Henry, stepping back inside, and then, as the elevator started to move again, he turned to Frank. “Hold out your hands.”

Frank looked at the shackles he was holding and looked almost desperate. He glanced back up into Nick’s face. “Please. Don’t make me put those on.”

“Do you think that there is any part of this that is enjoyable for me?”  asked Nick, breaking the stony presence he’d been keeping up and sounding pained for just a moment. “Do it.”

Frank stayed still for a second, breathing faster, and kind of twitched for a second, then looked up at Nick and shook his head. “I can’t.”

He really sounds like he means that, thought Kim in confusion, watching. Why?

“Please don’t make me force you to,” said Nick.

Frank looked at Nick for a few seconds. The set line of his mouth. And then he took a breath and shut his eyes and held up his hands. Nick opened the shackles and reached over to start undoing the belt.

“Lori, keep your gun on him in case something happens,” said Nick. Lori did. Grigor awkwardly maneuvered closer to Rentaro and Jane to be out of accidental-misfire range.

Frank didn’t do anything but stand there, though, eyes still shut. Nick got the belt off and took his left wrist and closed a shackle around it, and Frank flinched at the sound of the click, and his arms started to tremble. He was breathing almost raggedly, now, eyes still shut. Tense and braced. Nick hesitated and watched him for a second, and then for just a moment his expression softened, and he just looked sad. Almost sympathetic even, maybe. Looking at his friend. He let out a breath and unlocked the left shackle, and as it came free, Frank opened his eyes and looked at him in surprise.

The shackles hit the ground, and Nick kicked them towards a corner of the elevator. “Keep still,” he said, glancing at Frank for just a second, and then going to re-tie the belt. Frank did, just staring at him in what was almost wonder, but a little too sad and a little too shaky for that, like he was almost afraid to be looking at him at all.

“Why?” asked Dylan, watching the shackles come to rest by a wall.

“I don’t know how those things really work,” said Nick, tugging the belt tight around Frank’s wrists, “He does.”

Kim was pretty sure that wasn’t why, and she wondered if everyone else knew it too.

“We’re getting close to the top,” said Henry, trying to help with the stifling silence in the lift, “I’m sorry it’s so slow. It has to be, because it goes in so many directions. We’re sort of going up and back and left, instead of just up.”

“You didn’t make it,” said Lori.

They were all quiet. After a few seconds, Jane asked Grigor something Kim couldn’t quite make out, and he answered. Something about Connie, she thought. Probably wants to know what happened…

“You okay?” Lori asked Henry quietly with way more warmth than Kim had heard in…maybe ever.

“I am,” said Henry, giving her a shaky smile, “You?”

Behind her, Kim heard Frank’s voice, very quietly, in the middle of the other conversations. “Thank you.”

She glanced over, trying to be subtle, and saw he had said it to Nick. Nick had his back to him, though, and didn’t turn to look.

“For…” Frank glanced at his wrists, and then at what he could see of Nick. “Not. And. For downstairs.”

Nick said nothing. Just stared straight forward.

Frank looked at his feet for a moment, and then back at Nick. Unstable, and rough. “I-I just wanted you—”

“—What could you possibly say,” said Nick in a low tone, cutting him off. His eyes were a little bit glossier than normal, but he kept staring straight forward. A request for him to stop.

“…Nothing that would matter enough,” answered Frank quietly after a moment, looking away. Defeated. He kept his eyes on the floor, and Nick kept his back turned to him, and Kim thought that was the end of it, but just as the elevator began to slow, she heard Frank say so quietly she almost missed it, “But I am sorry.”

-

-----Endings (2/5) -

The elevator began to slow, nearing its stop. Nick kept his eyes on the door. Trying really, really hard not to think about anything at all.

“…But I am sorry.” Alec. Almost whispered.

No. Don’t say that, thought Nick, trying not to show any reaction to that outwardly at all. He wasn’t ready to deal with that. He couldn’t even think about this right now. It was way too much. Just don’t look at him. We’ll get to the top, and we’ll be out, and the cops will come and it’ll be somebody else’s problem, and…And what? He could pretend to just forget? That was never gonna happen.

I don’t understand. It wasn’t like no one had ever stabbed him in the back before. Life had been rough on and off for Nick Falcone, but. Never like this. Never someone he had been so close to, so completely. He hadn’t realized that confusion could be one of the most painful things to feel, but. God, he, he would have rather been angry, or sad, or…or anything, he thought, and he was—he was both of those things and more, but above all, he was just so utterly lost. I just don’t understand.

How can it be you? he thought, not looking back. How could it possibly be Alec? He had…they had fought together. Traded clues and watched each other’s backs. He had woken up with a concussion and a relieved Alec looking down at him after that fight in the basement, propped up in his lap and with his stupid green coat on to keep him from freezing in the snow. Nick had heard him calling for help and saved him from drowning in the library, and…it was so genuine. The memory he had in his head of Alec, drenched and coughing, shaking his shoulder to wake him up. He’d said something about being so relieved he was okay, and Nick had believed that without question. It had been so real. Everything. They had…they had hung out together a lot, between cases. Just to try to make being locked up here bearable. Talked about life, and places, and movies, and friends, and nothing, like friends. They had…they had been friends. And Grigor and Rentaro…Dylan and Kim? It… How? I can’t…I can’t understand.

The elevator door slid open, and Nick was brought back to the present by the sound of what he’d thought at first was Kim’s voice, but couldn’t be, because she was right beside him, and it was shrieking, “Kim!” with joy, and then Kim was tearing past him and flinging herself at her twin sister, and they collapsed backwards onto the floor of a little office, laughing and crying and talking over eachother so fast he could barely make a word out.

“Rachel?” said Dylan, who had been close to her, staring in shock at the sight and going pale.

“I-I’m so sorry,” said Henry, turning to him, “I—So much has happened in the last half hour. She’s been alive the whole time, and I should have remembered you all didn’t know. Kim and Rachel and I faked her death together, to try to find a way out.”

“You didn’t die,” said Nick with wonder, staring at the hugging sisters on the ground, trying to mentally adjust to that. A lot of people hadn’t died. Because their killer had had second thoughts. And for a second that made him feel a lot better, and then he was thinking about the four people who had died, and the better feeling went away. Against his better judgement, he glanced at Alec for a moment. He wasn’t even really sure why.

Alec was watching Kim and Rachel, and almost smiling. Looking sad like he had ever since he’d told them his name wasn’t Alec Fell, but in just that one moment, better too. Relieved, and happy, for someone else.

That felt so familiar. But. But Nick didn’t know if that was real, or if he was acting, the way he had been for weeks. The way he was apparently so proficient at that Nick hadn’t been able to sense a single thing off at all. Were you just pretending to be a drunk, too? He wondered, looking back into the office, not willing to look at him long enough to risk Alec knowing he’d done it. Nick had thought, that when he and Grigor and Rentaro and Alec had become kind of a unit, a…a friend group, that Alec had gotten better. Had stopped drinking. Had been less erratic and irresponsible. And he’d been…really happy for him. But. That had probably been just an act too, something to distract people. And either way, it hadn’t actually been Alec. It had never been Alec…

The real Alec was dead somewhere in this building. Nick wondered if he had been anything like the person this guy was pretending to be. If the real Alec and he would have been friends. But he couldn’t think about that much, so he stopped, and tried to go back to thinking about nothing.

“Hey!” said Rentaro, running into the room and then hesitating just short of them. He’d definitely been going in for a hug, and then second-guessed every decision he’d ever made, and it was painfully awkward to watch. “Rachel—welcome back,” he said, trying to save it.

“Hi,” said Rachel, giving him a warm smile.

“What’s going on?” asked Jane timidly from beside Grigor.

That’s right. You never even found out there were two of them, thought Nick sympathetically.

“Uh. Twins,” said Grigor, still kind of reeling himself, “You only ever met the one who was already in the room until a few minutes ago. The one waiting downstairs is her sister, Kim.”

“I’m very confused…” said Jane quietly.

“Henry!” said Rachel, spotting him in the lift. Henry smiled at her and gave a wave, and she shot to her feet and ran over and hugged him with enough force that as paper-thin as he was right now, she knocked him into the elevator wall and he almost fell over.

“H-hi,” said Henry unsteadily, grinning at her, “Glad you’re okay.”

“You too!” said Rachel, arms wrapped tight around him and eyes squeezed shut, “Thank you so much. For everything.”

“You too,” said Henry, returning the hug as best he could, “You were amazing.”

Kim joined them and turned it into a group hug.

“So you were never dead?” said Lori, blinking at her, “Wow. Holy smokes you did good, kiddo. Everyone bought that.”

“I’m really glad you’re okay,” said Dylan, starting to go over to greet her too, and then hesitating, because he and Nick were kind of guarding Alec.

“You too Dylan,” said Rachel, beaming at him.

“Hi,” offered Grigor happily, “I’d come hug you, but-“

“-You’ve got your hands full,” agreed Rachel, almost giggling. She glanced past him to Alec, and her expression changed. It got serious, and hurt, and she let go of Henry and took Kim’s hand, kind of backing a step away.

Alec had almost looked happy, watching her reunite with everyone, but as soon as she looked at him, his expression changed too, and he looked away from her and past the floor at nothing.

“So. We just go to the top?” Nick asked Henry, “Are we close enough to some kind of…human residence of any kind that we can get to a phone? Or a car?”

“There’s a phone in the office,” said Alec, not looking up, “The windowsill has a hidden compartment. I’m the only one who can unlock it, though. It needs my fingerprint and retina scan.”

Nick looked over at him. His eyes were still fixed solidly on the elevator floor. “Okay,” said Nick, tone low and level, “Get it for us, then.”

Alec glanced at him for a second, and then gave a nod and took a step into the room, looking at no one. Nick went with him, and Dylan came after.

“Don’t try anything stupid,” said Dylan, more tired and tense than anything.

“I won’t,” said Alec quietly.

Yeah. Dylan might be right. I…guess I should… Nick took the pistol out of its holster and checked the safety, then stayed close to Alec, weapon in hand, just in case. He didn’t love the feeling of doing that.

In the corner of the room, there was a tiny window. Not big enough for even a small person to have possibly fit through, and it was just barely at ground level, but it let in daylight, and Nick felt almost sick with relief at the sight of the sun. He’d had no idea how much he’d missed that, until he was looking at it again. Alec approached the little windowsill and slid his left thumb along the edge kind of awkwardly, with his wrists bound, and it lit up light blue at his touch. The sill slid back and a little black console embedded in the wood appeared. Alec leaned forward and brought his left eye level with the scanner, and it made a little ‘beep’, and a drawer slid out. Alec stepped back, and stopped moving. “In there.”

Nick cautiously stepped forward and checked the drawer. There were several things in it. Files, a notebook, a camera, some piece of tech he didn’t recognize, and a phone. Nick took the phone, half expecting it to be an elaborate trap and shock him, but nothing happened. He tried to unlock the screen, but it made an angry sound as soon as he touched the screen. There weren’t any buttons on it. He looked to Alec.

“I’ll get it,” said Alec, trying not to meet his gaze. He held out his hands.

Nick passed it over, and Alec tapped what looked like random parts of the screen, and grimaced, having difficulty maneuvering with his hands tied together. The phone made an angry sound at him too.

“What are you trying to do?” said Dylan tensely, stepping closer.

“I-I’m not,” said Alec shakily, glancing from one to the other, “I can’t do it right like this.”

“We’re not untying you,” said Dylan, very firm, and extremely suspicious.

“I’m not lying,” said Alec. He looked at Nick for help.

No. Don’t do that. Don’t look at me like I’m the one who might help you. I can’t. I can’t do this.

“Here,” he said, holding the phone kind of shakily out to him, “If you can hold it still for me, I think I can do it like this.”

Nick said nothing and held the phone up. Alec tried to find an angle that worked, and then used his index finger to quickly tap parts of the screen in what looked like a memorized sequence, even though there was no grid on the screen or anything. Whatever he’d done worked, though, and it lit up blue like the sill had. Alec lowered his hands.

“It’ll work now,” said Alec, “It’s pretty straightforward. Phone icon. You can call for help.”

“Where are we?” asked Dylan.

“China,” said Alec quietly.

“What’s the emergency code for China?” asked Dylan.

Right. It’s different, remembered Nick, hesitating halfway to hitting a 9 on the keypad.

“It’s 110,” said Alec, looking at him only for a second, “For police. 120 for an ambulance.”

Nick started to hit ‘110’, and then hesitated. “Henry.”

“Y-yeah?” said Henry, stopping mid-conversation with Rachel and Kim and Rentaro, back in the elevator.

“You should make the call. You know more than anybody but Alec,” Crap! No. That’s not his name. It was too late though, he’d said it. “What happened. It’s, uh, 110, on the phone,” he finished a little awkwardly, because correcting his mistake would have felt even worse.

“Oh. Uhm. Sure,” said Henry. Nick walked over and gave him the phone.

“Come on,” said Dylan, nudging Alec. No. No, that’s right. He’s…’Frank’. He was never Alec. Frank complied and walked back onto the elevator, looking at no one. Everyone tried to move further away from him, closer to the walls.

“Okay,” said Henry, hitting numbers on the keypad, “Last stop.”

The elevator began to rise, and Henry dialed. “Hello? Hi. I need help. Uh. I’m not sure where I am, where we are. There’s a bunch of us. Sorry. Sorry. I’ll slow down. I-I don’t know Chinese. Am I…u-understandable enough?” He glanced at the others in the lift, just in case, and people shook their heads. A bunch of Americans, a couple Greeks, two Brits, and a teenager from Japan. They had not hit the one-of-us-knows-Chinese-as-a-first-or-second-language lottery.

“I can speak it,” said Frank quietly.

“Yeah, that isn’t happening,” said Dylan.

Frank looked at the ground again.

“Okay. Thank you,” said Henry, still on the phone, “Hi. Sorry-I—”

The elevator doors slid open, and suddenly they were standing in fresh air again.

“Whoa,” said Rachel, stepping off the elevator and onto solid ground. The others hurried off after her, taking in the trees and grass and nature and ability to really breathe.

I can’t believe we actually made it. Relief actually hit Nick then. He hadn’t felt it, not when Alec was surrendering, or explaining, or on the ride up. He’d been thinking about too much to really remember this was a big part of what was happening. We’re free. We lived. Almost all of them. They’d lost three, since waking up at the base of an elevator much like this one, surrounded by strangers, but almost all of the people he’d gotten to know over the last few weeks were still there. Living and breathing, and stepping out into sunshine. All of his close friends had made it. He had been so sure Grigor was gone, but he wasn’t. The big guy stepped out after Rachel, still towing an unconscious Niobe, and looked around. Smiling, really smiling. Everyone was. We’re out.

“Mountains,” said Grigor, almost painfully happy, looking back at him and the people still in the lift. He was right. They were somewhere in the mountains. The whole thing must have been underground, built into the earth. It was so wonderful to see the sun again.

For a moment, Nick felt better too, feeling the wind on his face for the first time in weeks. He saw the look of relief and hope and happiness on Dylan’s face as they glanced in each other’s directions, and then Nick saw Alec between them. He was watching Kim and Rachel laugh and spin each other around on the grass, still gushing. Rachel grabbing Rentaro’s hand and saying something Nick couldn’t quite catch, then hugging him, and Kim piling on too. Watching Lori and Henry walk outside together, Henry still stumbling over himself, trying to give details on the phone, Lori taking in the scenery with relief. Grigor finding somewhere in the grass he could set Niobe down, checking her pulse, still worried. Jane hovering by him and looking around with big eyes. And Alec looked…What exactly? Not…sad. Not just sad, anyway. There was a word for it, Nick thought, just one he wasn’t remembering. Like someone looking at friend going off to work at a job they had been hoping to get, but one that would also take them to another continent. Or somebody reading an old note from someone they used to know, that had meant a whole lot to them once. He couldn’t really find a word for that feeling, but he knew what it was.

You have to stop. You have to quit trying to make sense of things—you never will. You’ll make yourself go mad, Nick told himself, looking away.

“Come on,” said Dylan, nudging Alec’s—Frank’s shoulder. Frank complied and walked off the lift a few steps and then stopped and went still again. Nick followed them. The last one off. He looked back at the awful hunk of metal, the opening to a place that had brought nothing but suffering and pain, until the doors had shut behind them. Good. I never want to see that place again.

“Okay,” said Henry, “Thank you.” Nick had missed a lot of his conversation with the police, but it seemed to still be going on. “I’ll keep the line open. No one is…” He looked over at the others. “B-badly hurt, as far as I can tell. We’ve got a couple of cuts, and I’m uh…” He held up his own bony hand and looked at it, and then swallowed and kept going, “n-not great. Weak. But no one is seriously hurt. One of us has been drugged, though. Sleeping pills.”

“Veronal,” offered Dylan, trying to help.

“Veronal,” echoed Henry to the phone, “And she’s still unconscious. Yes—she’s breathing. We have her propped up.” Grigor had sat down, but still had her in his lap. “There’s ten of us,” he added, and then, glancing over at Frank, “And our captor. Eleven in all. He’s tied up, and he surrendered, but he’s still alive too.” Henry listened for a moment, and then turned to the others. “We’re pretty far out from the city, but they’re sending people. We have to sit tight for maybe half an hour, though.”

Lori sighed, but the others seemed to take that okay.

Half an hour. Not too long. He wished it was sooner, but there was nothing to do about it. They’d just have to sit and wait. I better call my mom and tell her I’m alive… thought Nick kind of sheepishly. He hoped they weren’t too worried. Kim and Rachel had said they were orphans, but they had to have some relatives, and Jane and Rentaro’s parent’s must have been about ill at this point too. Orphans? Right, he’d forgotten. Nick glanced over at them again. They were talking animatedly to Rentaro, explaining things and gesturing wildly. He couldn’t make out all of it, but he heard, ‘Blackout,’ and ‘Elevator shaft,’ and ‘Climbing,’ and a few other things that gave him a general idea they were probably discussing Rachel’s wild escape. I wish I’d gotten to know you were alive, thought Nick tiredly. But of course Kim hadn’t told anyone. And that was good. She’d been close with him, but she’d been close with Alec too, and if he’d found out? What would you have done? he wondered, looking at Frank again, Would you have tracked her down and killed her?

He had been so upset. Nick still had really fresh memories of comforting Alec when Rachel had…when they had thought that Rachel had killed herself. I really thought you were sad, thought Nick, trying to see if he could find any answers at all in the blank face a few feet to his right, staring at nothing, You were…you were so genuine. You were so heartbroken. Talking about your missing sister. I was so worried about you. I thought. I. I thought…

He looked away.

“What happens now?” asked Rachel, looking from one to the other of the older people around her, starting with Henry and ending with Dylan.

“Uh,” said Henry, who wasn’t talking on the phone anymore, but was still holding it, “I think all we can do is wait.”

“But after,” said Kim, on the same wavelength.

“You’ll get to go home,” promised Dylan with a smile, “I’ll make sure. Probably the police can set something up, but I’ll buy you a ticket if not.”

The twins beamed at him.

How are they gonna survive this? wondered Nick with a sinking feeling, no matter how happy they looked right now, How are two teenagers with no family going to make it through unpacking the kind of stuff you two have seen here?

Honestly, all of them were…

Beside him, he sensed movement, and saw Frank had turned. He was scanning the nearby terrain intently, when he’d been almost zoned out before, and Nick took that in with a note of suspicion.

“Hey. What are you doing.”

Frank glanced back at him, surprised. “Just looking. I haven’t been out in a while.”

You’re lying, thought Nick, trying to figure out how he could tell that. Why are you lying? It was the held, steady eye contact—that was it. Alec—no. Frank didn’t do that if he was feeling bad and not lying. Alec had done that when he was feeling bad, if Nick had asked him how he was. If he didn’t want Nick to worry, he’d look him right in the face and smile and say, “No, it’s nothing. I’m just tired,” but Nick had always been able to tell. That’s just paranoid, Nick told himself, Obviously you never had any idea if he was lying, because he was lying constantly. And he probably was never feeling bad. You just thought you knew him a little. That was…true. So. Maybe it was nothing.

“Sit down,” said Dylan to Frank, “I’ll feel safer.”

Frank obliged, kind of gracelessly taking a seat without arms to steady himself, still looking around. Not at the people, but at the mountain.

“Where’ll you go?” asked Rachel, watching that, and then glancing at Dylan. “Back…to England?”

“I’m uh.” Dylan hesitated and glanced at Nick, “Uh—can you?” He indicated Frank.

“Yeah, I’ll watch him,” said Nick.

Dylan turned and went over a little closer to Rachel and Kim, and gave Rachel a hug for real. Nick would have liked to do that too. He was so glad she hadn’t died the way he’d thought.

“Nick,” said Frank quietly.

Nick glanced down at him. He looked a little unsteady, but more focused than before. Thinking hard.

“I don’t want to hurt someone again,” said Frank, like he was having a hard time finding the right order for words, “I know I…have to pay. For what I did. But I don’t…” He looked up into his face, and then trailed off. He’d been going to say more, but something made him change his mind, Nick saw him give up. His expression fall, and close off again, tired, and resigned, and he looked back at the ground. After a second, he shut his eyes, and took a few steady breaths.

Nick watched him, trying to figure that out. It was so impossible. All of this. He didn’t think he could do it. I still feel like I’m just talking to Alec, and something will click into place and it’ll all make sense. It will have all been some big trick, or I’ll have been asleep, or something. But that’s not going to ever happen. Is it.

Frank opened his eyes again and looked up at him. His eyes went to the gun. “You put the safety on?”

He’d asked it like why did you do this? not did you? and Nick tilted the gun in his hand, double-checking that it was still on, and felt something slam into his legs, and then he was careening backwards, legs swept out from under him, and hit the ground hard on his back, air knocked out of him.

Vaguely, he was aware of people shouting, and movement, but really all he was paying attention to was what he knew had just happened. Frank had moved on the ground and swept his legs out, and from his back, Nick could just barely see him up and running. Trying to get away. No way.

Nick dragged himself up with a vengeance and took off after him as fast as fast as he could, barely even registering the other people doing the same. Frank had bought himself maybe a six second lead, but Nick wasn’t about to lose him. He flipped the safety off the gun and ran hard, tearing through underbrush, eyes locked on the figure in dark brown ahead of him, trying to lose them in the woods. Lori and Dylan and Grigor were with him at first, Rentaro and one of the twins too, he thought, but he lost the younger ones fast, and then lost the others. Running blind, Nick heard gunshots four times, from on his left—it could only be Lori, and he didn’t even know what he hoped that meant. Just kept running. And after a minute, he lost even the sound of the others nearby, shouting and pushing past tree branches, and it was just him. For a second he thought he’d even lost Frank, pausing on the edge of a steep hill, breathing hard, and then he saw him. He’d gained about sixty yards, but he was still in sight, and Nick took a shortcut, following the path of least resistance above him on the hill, trying to keep him in sight. Somewhere along the way, he’d lost the belt, and his arms were free now. It took Nick a minute to figure out what exactly he was doing, and then Nick saw it. Down the slope, on his far right. A road. He was trying to make it to the road.

Immediately, Nick changed course. Straight for the road, only barely keeping Frank in sight at all. He’s smart—I bet he’s got a bike or something. A way to get out of this. You can’t let him do that—you can’t let him get away. After all this—

Breathing raggedly, Nick jumped a little ravine and stumbled on the other side, and he temporarily checked the safety back on, a little afraid of shooting himself, and he kept going. The road was close now. So close. And arms pumping at his sides, lungs burning for oxygen, he broke the tree line at the base of the hill one second before Frank did, about twenty feet behind him. Nick had been facing back, and Frank facing forward, and they saw each other immediately, and he saw shock register on Frank, and he turned to run, and Nick flipped off the safety and pulled the trigger, aiming well to the right of him.

The gunshot was so loud it made Nick flinch, but he shouted past it anyway. “Stop! I won’t miss the next one!”

Frank froze, breathing hard himself, and slowly turned to face Nick. Nick started to walk towards him, and Frank took a step back, shaking his head at him.

“Don’t move,” warned Nick, pointing the gun at his chest and feeling sick doing that. He hadn’t pointed a gun at someone before. He’d used one to shoot clay pigeons in college, at a friend’s house on weekends, so he was a fine shot, but holding something that would kill someone if you accidentally increased pressure was such a…shaky way to feel. He didn’t like the lack of control it gave. The way he was constantly thinking about what would happen if the trigger was pulled. Nick had missed it at first, but he realized then that Frank’s shoulder was bleeding, and he thought for a horrifying moment that as wide as he’d aimed, somehow he’d hit him, but. No, he’d turned around, that was right, and it was his left shoulder that was bleeding. If he’d hit him, he’d have hit the other side. And Nick remembered Lori, and the four shots in the woods. One of those must have landed. Somehow, though, the sight of a bullet hole already in him just made his hands feel shakier on the gun, even though the bullet hadn’t come from him.

“Nick, wait,” said Frank kind of desperately, raising his hands, but still backing up.

“I said don’t move!” shouted Nick.

Frank stopped, breathing fast. He looked at the gun, and then at Nick. “Please.”

“’Please?’” echoed Nick, hand still shaking, “Please, what, Alec!” He kicked himself mentally. Not Alec. “Please let you go?” he continued, trying to move past that, “Let you run off and kidnap twelve more people to murder?”

“No,” said Frank, almost desperate. He started to take a step back again, because Nick was still advancing, but he saw Nick move the gun and hesitated. Instead, he stopped and just looked him in the face. Pleading. “I’m—I’m trying to do the right thing.”

“By running away?” asked Nick, furious, and hurt, and a lot of things he hadn’t had time to begin to unpack.

“I’ll turn myself in,” said Frank, “But I can’t do it like this.”

“You can’t let us be the ones to do it?” asked Nick, angry and disbelieving, still advancing on him.

“No—Nick—please,” said Frank, watching the steadily shortening distance. He started to back up again. “It’s not that—I—”

“—I willshoot you if I have to!” warned Nick.

Frank stopped, and looked him in the face again, shaky now. “I ran because you all would never have listened to me, not because I wanted to escape! I’m telling you the truth. I know—I know what I did. I know I have to face justice for that, but you can’t turn me over to the police.”

He looked so desperate. He looked like he really meant that. ‘Can’t?’ –No. Stop. Don’t listen to him. You’re better than this. He’d say anything; you can’t trust him. He’d hesitated though, without meaning to, said nothing and forgotten to take his next step forward, and he could see hope on Frank’s face, taking that as a sign he might listen.

“Listen, Nick,” said Frank, “I-I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I know it’s bad. I know I’m all kinds of broken and messed up, and I know I have done things that I have to pay for. B-but I also know I’m not myself. I’m not the person I used to be. And I know that right now, but I didn’t for so long, and I did things that I already can’t understand. Things that made sense to me yesterday. And back there, in the elevator, when you started to cuff me, I-I wanted to do them again. I started to crack, and feel like someone completely different, but for a second, I thought that the thing I was doing was the crazy thing, not the thing I was about to do. And I—I have no idea how to stop it.”

He looked so distraught, and confused, and lost, and Nick understood that in his soul, because it was how he felt right now, pointing a loaded gun he knew he was supposed to be willing to use at the person who had been maybe the closest friend he’d ever really had. Trying to make sense of all of the time he’d spent with him, and how they had ended up here, face to face like this.

“If I let them take me, I know what’s going to happen,” continued Frank, almost begging, “I don’t know when. I don’t know if it’ll be as soon as they cuff me, or the first time someone shoves me to get me to move, or when they put me in the back of a car, or a cell, or chain me to a table to interrogate me, but somewhere along that line, I’m going to snap, and they’re not going to be ready for me. I don’t know how to stop that from happening. I don’t think I can. But I know what I’m capable of. And they won’t be able to stop me.”

Frank lowered his hands, and just stood there, facing him. Nick still hadn’t moved. He was maybe ten feet away, gun still drawn.

“If it hadn’t been you,” said Frank, looking sad and exhausted and broken, “If it wasn’t someone I…” He looked him in the eyes for just a second, and then looked away like it had been too hard to do. “Trusted. That I…felt like I knew. Then…I think I might have killed everyone in that elevator, without even meaning to. And I-I can’t do that again. Please, Nick. I want to make things right. I know I can’t just go off and hide. I know I. I-I might do anything, forget myself again. B-but there’s a way! I have people I know. People I am completely certain I wouldn’t hurt. People I trust. I’ll go to them, and I’ll tell them everything, and I’ll turn myself in to them, and they can make sure whoever takes me is prepared.”

“…I can’t just believe that,” said Nick, trying so hard to see in his face if he was lying. As if that had ever been something he’d really been able to do. “Frank, I have no reason to think you’re telling me the truth. For all I know, you’ll change your mind and come after us again, or we passed whatever your ‘test’ was, and you’ll go kill another room full of liars and petty thieves. I would be insane to let you go.”

“Then shoot me,” said Frank hopelessly, “Because I’m not coming with you.”

“You would do that to me?” asked Nick, so betrayed by that. He heard his voice crack, and he couldn’t stop it, couldn’t hide how much that had hurt. He tried to force Frank to meet his eyes, and he did, surprised by that response. “After everything? You would force me to choose between letting you run off and kill people like Lou again, and gunning down my best friend? You would force me to become a killer, no matter what I do?”

“I—no,” said Frank shakily, sounding and looking just like Alec, “No. Nick.” He stopped and thought quickly, frantically, eyes moving, but looking at nothing, and then finally at Nick. “If I go back with you, and lose my mind again and kill a station full of policemen, you’ll just feel the same way. Please. If you let me go, no one else has to get hurt. I-I know I’ve lied to you, and it must be so impossible for you to trust me, but I’m not lying to you now. If you let me go, I’ll turn myself in—I’ll have them call you as soon as I do. I’m done! I am. I’m myself right now, at least more than I am somebody else, and I just want this to be over. This is the only way I think I can do that.”

“How am I supposed to believe you?” asked Nick, chest aching, gun leveled.

“You—”

“—Don’t say that I know you!” said Nick, desperate, sure that had been what he’d been about to say, “I’ve never known who you were! I don’t know anything about you! I’m not even sure I know your real name!”

For a few seconds, Frank just looked at him, sad. “Nick. I’m so sorry,” he said finally, much quieter than he’d said anything else. “You have no idea how sorry I am. I. I wish I could undo all this.” He lowered his arms completely, shoulders slumped, standing still in the road. “I know you…won’t believe this. Maybe it’ll just make things worse. …But I did care about you.”

Nick wanted to shout at him for saying that. There were hundreds of things he could have said, and they were all true, but he didn’t say anything, because Frank looked so far away and hopeless, and there was enough of Alec in that look that he lost the anger before he could put it into words, and he just felt broken, and wounded, and confused. He wanted so badly to hate him, but he didn’t know how to. Not yet anyway, not all the way. I wish that too, thought Nick against his will, I wish you could undo it. And it’s you who has no idea how much.

“There’s another way,” said Frank, voice empty and dead, “If you can’t trust me to do what I said, then give me the gun, and I’ll do it myself.”

The thought of that horrified Nick, and he started to take a step back on impulse. “No.”

“I don’t see another-“ started Frank.

“—How do I know you wouldn’t just shoot me?” said Nick, trying to recover some of the intensity he’d had before, to not let Frank know he was listening to any of it, and Frank stared at him, taken aback, and then his face fell, and lost the tiny fragment of hope that had still been in it. Because he had thought the reluctance had been over Nick’s desire for him to live. Which…it had been. He just hadn’t wanted him to know. “Besides,” said Nick more quietly, looking away and giving in to the guilt he knew he had no reason to be feeling, “Even if you didn’t, how would that be any better?”

“…I don’t know what to do then. I don’t know how to prove it to you,” said Frank hopelessly, not really begging this time, just asking. Pleading less intensely. Pleading like you would with a friend. Almost just talking, like they would have yesterday, when the world had been a place Nick had still understood. “Nick, I just don’t want to hurt someone again. I don’t know any other way. Please. I know you have no reason to believe me, after everything I’ve done to you, but I will turn myself in.”

Nick glanced up at him and the person who had been his friend held his gaze, asking silently for him to trust him this one last time.

“I know what I did,” continued Frank, “I know how awful it was. And not just the people I killed; Kim, Rachel, Rentaro, Jane—kids? And Grigor, and Dylan, my friends—and you? I wouldn’t…I won’t let myself get away with what I did to you. I don’t want to get away with it. I want to pay. I want to make things right. If I can. God. If I…if I can do that at all anymore. I swear to you. That’s what I want, more than anything. I just…I’m. I’m so barely here at all. You don’t know what that’s like. I feel like I could slip away and die again any second, and then wake up in another year to see I’m even more of a monster than the last time I was in my own body. They did something to me. Those two years I was locked up. I don’t know when, or how, or which thing they did turned me into this, but I’m so messed up. And I can see that now, I can, but I don’t know how to not be like this again. My brain isn’t mine anymore. It does things I wouldn’t have ever wanted, and I obey it. I-I don’t even know if I’m…sane.” That looked like it had been incredibly painful to say, but he kept going. Forced himself to. “I know if I turn myself in to my friends, I won’t hurt them, and they’ll know what to do with me. That’s all I want to do. I just want this to be over. I want to stop. But I’m so scared that if someone else tries to stop me, I’ll go right back to where I was. Please.”

“…Your brother,” said Nick, holding his gaze. It hurt to do that. So impossibly much. How could it hurt this much just to look at someone? “What was his name.”

Frank looked confused, and surprised, and sad, but he answered. “Joe.” His voice was soft and low and full of affection and pain when he said it. “His name was Joe.” He glanced up and met Nick’s gaze again and tried to smile, but his eyes welled up. “And he would never have turned out like me. No matter what someone did to him. You would have liked him.”

“Swear on Joe,” said Nick, feeling sick himself, “Swear on your brother that you’ll do what you’re promising me, and you’ll do it immediately.”

“I swear,” said Frank, shakily holding his gaze, and then looking away once he’d said it. He shut his eyes. “I swear on Joe.”

Nick lowered the gun.

Frank opened his eyes slowly, and looked up at him. Watched him for a few seconds, like he was waiting to see if the decision was real, and then he reached up almost absently and felt the bullet wound in his shoulder and winced. He looked at the blood on his hand, then back at Nick. “Thank you.”

Nick thought he meant that, but it was so hard to tell himself he really knew anything anymore.

For just a moment, they stood like that in silence, then Frank lowered his head and turned, and started to walk. Away from Nick, towards the far side of the road, and then past him. Nick turned and watched him go, wondering if he were a terrible person for believe him. For letting him go. For not shooting him in the back now, while he still had a chance. Or maybe shooting him in the leg. Something that would stop him, force him to wait for the police to come. He couldn’t, though, and he knew it. He thought that if Frank had run, hadn’t talked to him at all, he probably couldn’t have done it either. He would have pulled the trigger, and tried to miss. As awful as that was. Because he was still looking at this person and seeing someone else. And he couldn’t kill them.

On the side of the road, Frank removed some thick underbrush by a large boulder, and tugged out a small motorcycle. He brought it to the road, and Nick tried not to notice the make and model, or the license, because he didn’t want to struggle with himself over lying if someone asked him. Frank climbed onto the bike, and took a helmet clipped to the bars and placed it on his head, and then glanced back at Nick one last time. Nick stayed in the road where he had been before, watching him go.

“I…know you can’t be glad you met me,” said Frank, “But you should know that being around you got me back where I am now. Even if you hate that you thought I was someone worth getting close to, you should know that doing that saved a lot of people’s lives. So. Hopefully that makes some tiny part of it something that…you can.” He had been trying to say something nice, but he was struggling. His voice sounded choked. “Y-you should be proud of that. That. You helped…not me. But. That you helped them.” He looked at Nick shakily, trying to see if that had done anything to help him, and then he looked away and flipped the visor over the helmet. He started up the motorcycle, and said something else over the roar of it, but so quietly Nick couldn’t quite make it out. He thought though, watching the motorcycle take a corner and fade in the distance, that it had been, “Goodbye.”

-

-------Endings (3/5) -

“Okay,” said Nancy softly, watching him with sad blue eyes.

Joe had blue eyes too, a lot like hers. He had to stop thinking that. Stop thinking of them like they were the same person. It had gotten him where he was now.

You’re almost there, Frank told himself, Just hang on a little bit longer, and this will all be over. “Okay,” he echoed quietly, holding his right arm out to her, palm-up.

He was sitting on the edge of a bed in a hospital. A lot of the last forty-eight hours was kind of a blur to him, but he remembered well enough the steps. Leaving Nick on the side of the road, finding her again in Shanghai. It had been Ned again, first. Poor Ned. He thought it a little fondly, remembering the look on his face. Surprise and relief, and then worry, but worry because Frank had had a bullet hole in his shoulder. No idea all the things he was about to learn that he should have been worried about. It shouldn’t have had to be you. Either of you, but you especially, Ned. Getting dragged into this. You must be so exhausted. Hanging on to loyalty towards—what—a casual friend? They had been something. Something that had meant he’d felt safe enough to pass out when it had been Ned a year ago who found him in the street. But it couldn’t be enough that Ned should have had to be here through all of this mess.

Still, a little late for that. For a lot of things. Frank had gone in, and Nancy had been inside, rushed over and hugged him, worried about the wound, worried about him, and all her unanswered messages, telling him she was waiting when he was ready to come home. She’d wanted to fix his shoulder, and he’d wanted to get the truth out first, but she wouldn’t let him. She’d told him to talk while she dressed it, and so he had. And she hadn’t stopped. Not when she’d heard that Alec was dead, or Moira, or Lou, or Connie, not when she heard what he’d done to Jane and Rentaro and Rachel and Kim, not for any of it. Ned had gone pale, and looked horrified, but he’d stayed too, just watching Frank in disbelief. He’d gone to get Frank some water and bread, when he’d just started the story, and he’d still handed it over, like he didn’t know what else to do. And they’d listened, like he knew they would, until he’d gotten to the end of it and filled them in on where he was now. What he needed.

Nancy had asked him if it was possible he was wrong. That…the whole thing had been in his head, or a hallucination. Not because she didn’t trust him, but because she did. Because she’d been so sure that he couldn’t have done the things he’d just said he did. But Frank had been sure, and he’d still had his watch. It was well out of rage of the blacksite by now, but it had some internal memory. Enough for a few recent video files. Enough to be enough… And the police had called, and confirmed, and she had called Nick, like Frank had promised, and he had confirmed, and there had been no getting away from it then.

And still. Still they hadn’t wanted to do this. To turn him in. But they’d had to, and all three of them had known it. Gone to a hospital. He’d walked in with them willingly, trying not to think about the police cars parked out front, or the guards in the halls. Tried to just focus on the two people with him he’d known and trusted. And now they were here.

“It’s a sedative,” said Nancy, showing him the needle she’d gotten from a nurse. Frank had known if someone else tried to do it, he would snap, and so they’d had to show her how.

Ned was standing in the corner, watching. The only other one there. Everyone else was waiting for him to be out. Frank didn’t know what she’d had to say to people to get them to listen. Maybe she’d gotten help from ATAC. After all, with what he’d accomplished solo in the last year, it had to be a well established fact that he was, above anything else at this point, dangerous. And devastatingly so.

“It’ll knock you out for a little bit,” she continued, taking his arm gently and readying herself.

He nodded. Not really looking at her. He felt the needle slip under his skin, then, and he had to look at her, to keep from lashing out. To reassure his pre-programmed mind that this was fine. It was her, and he knew her. For a second, it was hard, even with her face and her sad blue eyes, but after holding her gaze for a second, he calmed down, and the impulse to attack her faded. He could feel it, though. The sedative pumping in. That’s okay, he told himself, Almost over. As soon as you pass out, you’re done. You won’t have to fight so hard anymore. You’ll wake up, and you’ll be restrained, and watched by people who know what they’re doing, and you won’t have to be the one stopping you anymore. You’re almost there. Thirty more seconds.

Such a shame. It hurt a little bit, even as hard a time as he was having really processing anything, to know how difficult a time he was having just acting like himself for thirty seconds.

“That’s it,” said Nancy, removing the needle, “It’s over.” She closed her fingers around his.

“Thank you for doing this,” said Frank quietly, sad, returning the gesture and tightening his grip while he was still awake and strong enough to do that.

“Of course,” said Nancy. She looked rough. She had been keeping it together for hours, but she was starting to crack now.

Please don’t cry, thought Frank, heart sinking. “I’m so sorry.”

“I know,” said Nancy, “It’s not your fault.”

“It is,” said Frank, starting to feel a little shaky. Whatever she’d given him was kicking in. “Most of it, anyway.”

She shook her head. “I know you. You were out of your head when this all happened. You didn’t mean to.”

He wasn’t sure anymore. Maybe it didn’t even matter whether or not she was right. You’re so beautiful, he thought, pained, looking at her, And so kind. I wish you didn’t have to be here. “I’m sorry I had to ask you to do this,” he said. His vision was getting blurry. I should…lie…down. I’m not gonna be up. Much longer.

“It’s okay,” said Nancy.

Shakily, Frank leaned back against the hospital bed, trying to focus through the drug setting in in earnest. He could hear his heartbeat in his ears, but it felt far away. He turned his head and looked back at Nancy, and Ned behind her. He couldn’t make out Ned’s face anymore. Everything was getting. So much…harder to see. This is it, then. I’m about to be gone.

“I’m gonna miss you,” said Frank, trying to smile at her.

“No, don’t say that,” said Nancy, taking his hand in both of hers, “This isn’t goodbye. We’re going to be here when you wake up. I’m staying the whole time. Through the trial—through everything. It’s gonna be okay.”

No, thought Frank, studying her face, trying to memorize it, because he was pretty sure he wasn’t going to get to see it again. He wasn’t sure if he was ever even going to wake up again, but if he did, she wasn’t going to be there. It won’t be.

“I’m…sorry. I…let you…down,” he managed. Breathing felt hard. His vision was so fuzzy, he could barely make her out now. He could still feel her hand, though. Reassuring. “T-thank…you. For…tr…trying…to s…save me…”

“It’s not over yet.” Her voice sounded so far away, like he was underwater. Everything distorted. But he could just barely make out the words. “You’re gonna be okay.”

No, thought Frank sadly as his vision went dark, But that’s okay. It’s what I deserve.

————————————————————-

It had been a long couple of days.

The last few years, there had been a lot of long couple of days, but never as bad as this one before. Maybe not even that first day, c-could it really just be three years ago? It felt like another lifetime. Ned still remembered it. He’d been working, trying to fix a problem with his car’s radiator—he—really he couldn’t remember at all anymore what had caused it, and it didn’t matter. He’d missed his phone going off the first time, listening to music, and just barely got it the second time, recognizing his ring tone for Nancy. That sequence was solidified in his head, and he felt pretty sure it always would be. Almost smacking his head on the hood in his hurry, frantically wiping a hand on his jeans to get grease off, picking up on the last ring with a happy, “Hey—sorry—I couldn’t—” He had been going to say ‘hear’. That he couldn’t hear his phone go off. But she had been crying, and he’d stopped immediately, and the kind of light, okay feeling he’d had that day had vanished. Nancy was solid as a rock, and not scared of anything at all. For her to cry, it had to mean something awful—mean someone was dead, or dying, or had run over Togo or something, and he felt like his heart had stopped. And then she’d been saying that Fenton had called her, and Frank and Joe had gone missing on a case in Shanghai. Something big, with dangerous people, and it had been a few days ago, but they’d found their car in the bay, and been able to track their last location with cellphone records, and they’d found traces of blood. Blood from both of them. And there had been nothing since. Someone had heard shooting at the time, had reported it to the police, but that was all they had. And Fenton wanted help. He was going to Shanghai to look for them, and wanted her to go too, and Ned had said, “Let me go with you,” because he had known she shouldn’t be alone. Not just because there was someone out there dangerous enough that Frank and Joe were missing, but because they were so close, and she wasn’t okay. He had never heard her…really not okay before. Not like that. And he hadn’t ever forgotten.

His car hadn’t been working, but he’d left immediately. Called Dave because he was close, he would get there faster than a taxi, and he’d taken his car and sped the whole way to her house. Helped her pack. Flown to China. Ned hadn’t known when he’d gotten on that flight that he’d be living in the place he was going for the vast majority of the next few years.

He hadn’t even really thought about how he felt until the plane ride. That was. He had, as soon as he’d heard it, and again driving to see her, and every moment alone for a second, carrying bags, or grabbing food, but not enough. Not extensively. There had just been shock there, and fear, maybe. It hadn’t felt real. Frank and Joe were really capable people, and of course he’d been worried, but when your friends were people who almost died all the time, it was hard to feel like they actually might have. And then, on the plane ride, Nancy had given him her copy of what they knew so far to look over, so he’d be caught up. He’d been holding it open for Bess and George to see too, Bess at his side and George leaning over her seatback in front of them, and he’d looked at the photo someone had taken of the spot their cellphone records put them last. At the blood on the ground, and.

And he had been scared. In a way that he just…he never had been before.

That fear hadn’t really left him for two years. Until the day he’d been walking back to Nancy’s apartment with groceries, and he’d seen Frank.

Ned had frozen, sure he was hallucinating, or dreaming, or seeing what he wanted to see, but. The person had been him. Leaking a worrying amount of blood from his side and looking like a ghost. For some reason, it was all in fragments after that. He remembered calling out to him, Frank meeting his gaze, and seeing recognition, and then he’d collapsed. Ned had dropped what he’d been holding and caught him, just barely in time to keep him from hitting pavement, but he couldn’t remember what he’d said to him. He must have said he’d take him to a hospital or something, because he knew Frank had told him not to do that. That something would happen if people knew he was alive. And Ned had been terrified he would die, but he’d believed him. And then he’d passed out, and it had just been Ned, alone on that street at night with a body that was still alive. But he wasn’t a doctor. And Frank had looked so close to dead. He remembered blood on his hands, and his jacket, and stepping over scattered oranges while he hefted him up. Remembered how light he’d been. How different he’d looked. Remembered…tying something around his side, to try to keep some pressure and slow the bleeding. Getting back to the apartment as fast as he could. The look on Nancy’s face when she’d opened the door and he’d been standing there, covered in Frank’s blood, holding what looked like his lifeless body.

They must have talked. He must have told her what Frank had told him, but he didn’t remember that either. He remembered getting off Frank’s jacket, and thinking there was something weird about the clothes he’d had on underneath. Almost like a uniform, but not in a good way. Remembered taking that off too, and seeing the wound for the first time, and how awful and huge the gash had looked. There had been so much blood. He kept thinking that if Frank died, it was going to be because he’d messed up. Ned had been so afraid that the little he knew how to do wasn’t going to be enough. He’d known he would never forgive himself if that happened. And he had looked so dead. He’d looked so dead…

He hadn’t been, though.

They had fought to keep it that way. Had sewed up the cut with a travel sewing kit, no idea what either of them were doing, and sterilized the wound, taking turns working and frantically googling things and trying to offer guidance on the next step, a tandem paramedic replacement act of desperation. It had been so surreal, seeing him that way. Ned and Frank had never been best friends, or known each other incredibly well, but Ned had liked him, and he’d known him well enough to recognize that there was so much wrong, so much different. There were so many scars on his body he hadn’t had before, mostly small, but all different kinds, and everywhere. Burns, and cuts, and things Ned couldn’t even really guess at. Still, he’d tried to find solace in the fact there were no other real wounds, not serious ones—just the gash. He’d lost a lot of weight, and been weak and sick, but they’d gotten lucky, and he hadn’t been hurt in a way that was past two people who weren’t surgeons to fix. And after they’d cleaned him up, Ned had gotten him carefully into some of his own clothes, and on a bed. And God, that had felt so much better. Like being on solid ground again. Like he hadn’t really been breathing the way he used to in two years. He’d been so relieved, seeing him there on that bed, just a little more color in his face again than the ghost who’d collapsed in his arms.

Nancy had been so happy that after the danger was over, she’d come up to Ned and wrapped her arms around his back and put her head against his chest and cried. Cried because she was happy, and she was scared, and because it wasn’t both of them. Ned had tried not to cry, so she’d feel better. Tried to stay strong. And he’d almost done it.

That night, they’d both stayed up. Waiting for him to wake up again. Keeping a careful watch to make sure he was stable, and didn’t get worse. It had been a long night, and maybe something like seven hours after they’d sat down to watch him rest before he’d opened his eyes again.

And that part, that part Ned remembered all of. He remembered the way Frank had tossed weakly, mumbling incoherent things to himself, face scrunched up in worry, and fear, and pain. How sometimes he would lay still for a while, and then start to breathe raggedly for a few seconds, and shudder in a way that went down his whole body. The way it had felt to watch that, and wonder, knowing what he’d known then, after two years of investigating with Nancy, about who the people he’d been investigating when he’d vanished had been.

But he’s okay, Ned remembered telling himself, over and over again that night, waiting for Frank to wake up, He’s safe again, with us, so he’ll be okay now. And maybe, he’d believed, maybe that meant Joe was still out there too, and they would both be okay. Maybe after all of the agonizing waiting and searching and not knowing, and the way he’d seen that chipping away at Nancy, the way he’d felt it slowly begin to seep into himself too, maybe it would turn out to have some kind of a happy ending.

He’d really thought that, a year ago, for seven hours. He really had. He had been…he had been so happy to find Frank alive. So relieved. And he still remembered that, in painful detail. The way the light had been a pale orange, from the old lamp in the kitchen, and the way Nancy had reached over and held his hand, and looked hopeful again, and the touch of her skin had felt like home, and it had all seemed so quiet and still to him, even with the sounds of the city outside. The way Frank had looked, shaky and sweating and pale, but breathing and so much less pale than an hour before. And how he’d felt so awful for him, but so relieved, and just kept thinking, He’ll be okay. We can help him. We’ll find Joe. We’ll fix it. He’s gonna be okay.

But he had been wrong. They had not saved him. They had not gotten a happy ending.

-

-------Endings (4/5)

-

“Hey.”

Nancy looked up in surprise, recognizing the voice instantly. She would have known him even if she hadn’t called him two days ago—he wasn’t a person it was easy to forget. “Hey!” She shot to her feet.

Nick Falcone gave her a little wave from the doorway, and a tired smile. He looked a bit rough, a fading bruise on his head, a big bandaid on his cheek, bags under his eyes, but not too bad, and she was relieved to see it. She still didn’t know all the details of the things that had gone down at the complex, so she hadn’t really known how bad off any of them specifically would be. Nancy hurried over to him and hugged him, and Nick returned the greeting. She hadn’t seen him in…was it actually—could it really be five years? Six?

“It’s so good to see you—not like this, but, in general,” said Nancy, releasing him so she could see him again, “It’s been so long—I’m sorry I didn’t do a better job of—”

He waved the concern away. “Don’t worry about it. Nobody keeps up. But you? You actually remembered to send me a post card every Christmas. You know how few people still send Christmas cards period, even to their family? Most people I meet on the job don’t even save my number.”

“Yeah, well—but we were,” started Nancy.

“A team,” agreed Nick, then, with a wink, “Partners in crime?”

“—My friend was kidnapped!” defended Nancy, grinning.

“I know,” said Nick with a matching grin.

“Still, it’s really good to see you,” said Nancy, straightening back up. And it was. A lot of the time, she…never saw people again, after cases. Even though she would have liked to. She was a traveler in people’s lives, there one week and gone the next. Somehow, she rarely seemed to hit the same island twice. And she didn’t like that, she really didn’t. Nancy cared about people pretty easily, but not in a way she thought was cheap or surface-level. She just genuinely enjoyed establishing connections with other human beings. And. It was sad, to not see them again. That was how life was, sure, and for everyone to some extent, but. She went so many places, and made so many friends, and she ended up missing all of them. And Nick had been not just one of the people she’d helped, he’d been a case partner and a trauma-bond friend.

“Yeah, yeah. I missed you too,” he said, all the warmth and playfulness and familiarity that had been there before back so easily, like it had beeen six days and not six years. That was...really nice to hear.

“How are you doing?” asked Nancy, “Really?”

Nick shrugged. “Okay, I guess. Physically, I’m fine. I have some bruises, and a cut on my cheek that might scar, but that’s the worst of it. It’s weird to come out of all that with nothing that’s gonna leave more than a little mark, but, looks like that’s how it’s gonna be for me.”

“And…” said Nancy, “…Uh….”

“Mentally?” asked Nick sympathetically, “Yeah, I wouldn’t want to ask me that either. I could be asking you the same thing though. From what I’m gathering the past two days, he was your friend, right? And a pretty close one.”

Nancy nodded. Was? “He is,” she said, because even saying nothing would have felt like a betrayal she wasn’t ready to commit.

“You okay?” asked Nick.

“No, but you didn’t answer my question,” said Nancy.

He smiled kind of sheepishly. “Did I not?”

She shook her head.

“I’m fine,” said Nick, clearly lying blatantly.

She tilted her head and raised an eyebrow.

“Okay. Honestly, I have no idea,” said Nick, giving in and amending his statement, “Everything is just. Surreal. I guess I’m lucky to be alive, and I should feel good about that, right? But I don’t feel anything about it at all.”

“Yeah,” said Nancy quietly.

“He’s here somewhere?” asked Nick, glancing around the hospital’s open main foyer, like he might see him, and didn’t want to.

“Yes. Upstairs,” said Nancy, “They’ve got some psychologists trying to work with him who’ve been in and out all day, and armed guards that are a constant, so, you don’t need to...” worry...

“They got any idea what is wrong with him?” asked Nick kind of awkwardly, “It was…He wasn’t lying, right? There is…something wrong. I mean—beyond killing people—wrong-wrong-uh—PTSD, dissociative episodes kind of something wrong stuff.”

“Yes, very,” said Nancy, “But are you sure you want to hear about this? I understand, if—”

“—I want to know,” said Nick, looking like he meant it, “I’m gonna wonder forever if I don’t.”

Right. You were…sort of friends. Not with him, but with...’Alec’. She had. She had just…no idea what to say to Nick at all. What could she even try to say, to explain any of this? It was so much, and so exhausting--just the version of today she was dealing with. She couldn’t even begin to understand, right now, what Nick’s version of the last month had been like.

“…Can I see him?” asked Nick quietly, expression a hard read, “—Not talk to. Just, I...feel like until I actually see he’s locked up somewhere under armed guard, I’m not gonna really believe it. And. It might seem…in bad taste, to you, but the others would probably like a photo of that. –Not to gloat. Just. Nobody feels really safe right now. Even right by a station full of cops.”

“…Right,” said Nancy, overcome with a pang of sadness. She understood. It make a lot of sense, and it wasn’t in poor taste, it was just hard. “Sure. He’s out right now anyway, so he wouldn’t even have to know. I’ll show you.” She motioned him to follow her, and Nick came, sliding his hands into the pockets on his big brown jacket, and looking around the hospital curiously as they went.

“You still doing detective work, rescuing kidnapped girls?” asked Nick with an only barely forced smile, catching up and keeping pace with her, trying to lighten the mood a little.

“Yeah, sort of,” said Nancy, returning his smile with an even more exhausted one, “I’ve been working one case for three years now. But, sometimes someone local needs help, and I’ll be working two cases, and it’ll be like old times, and that’s really nice.”

“You’re some kinda do-gooder, but I get it,” said Nick carelessly, “We all got our own wars to fight. Causes to win. They just look a little different to each of us.”

“Yeah,” said Nancy, actually feeling a little better. It had been a long time since the case in Missouri where she’d met him, but they’d been good friends, even if their relationship had started out with her yelling at him and accusing him of kidnapping. Look—I was having some kind of day—Maya was gone, and everyone was stonewalling me and being a huge pain—him too. I was mad. Still. By the end of it, he’d been almost her partner on the case, and they’d saved Maya together. He’d bought her enough time to get it done. “What about you? Still a Human Against the Destruction of Illustrious Theaters?”

Nick snorted. “You know I am,” he said proudly, “That and running with about five other causes.”

“Should you be doing six at once?” asked Nancy.

“Hey—You don’t get to lecture me about doing too much,” said Nick.

“Fair enough,” agreed Nancy with a smile.

They reached the second floor, and Nancy wove through halls, finally finding Frank’s room. It was in a corner, by itself. One thin window a human couldn’t possibly fit through, about eye level, and looking in from the hospital to the room. No external windows at all, just solid concrete walls. There were several armed guards at the door, which still felt strange. But. It has to be like this right now. You know that.

Nancy held up her ID. They knew who she was, so it was just a formality, but it paid sometimes to go by the book.

“Who’s he?” asked one of the guards she knew by now was named Guozhi. After three years, Nancy wasn’t bad at Mandarin, but the guards knew English, and had been generous and started just assuming that was the best bet with the people coming in and out of the room all the time, and they weren’t wrong. It was only going to get worse, with the people Nancy already knew were flying in from the US to try to help deal with this.

“This is Nick Falcone,” answered Nancy, nudging Nick with her elbow. He quickly pulled an ID out of his pocket and held it up. The guards were familiar with the situation, and would already know who that was, so they’d know the name.

“I don’t have to go in,” said Nick, almost nervous, “I just. Wanted to…see.” The guards gave a nod, and Nick stepped past them and to the side, near the wall to the room, and looked in the little window. His face was almost impossible for her to read. Maybe she didn’t have any right to be prying right now anyway, trying to guess what was going on. Nancy decided not to try, and just stepped up beside him and looked in too.

Frank was asleep. Ned was in there, waiting with him, back to the window. Reading a book, but not very well. Every couple seconds, he would glance over at Frank, and then keep going. Not able to focus enough to probably be actually comprehending anything in the book at all. Oh Ned, I’m so sorry, thought Nancy, meaning it, and feeling bad, but feeling worse that as bad as she felt for him, she was so much more glad and relieved that he was there. That he’d come with her, and stayed with her, and she hadn’t had to do all this alone. I’m some kind of terrible girlfriend, I guess… She loved him so much. She had to find some way to tell him that, and that she was sorry it had been like this, and she was glad he’d stayed, but there was so much going on right now, she barely had the energy to get up and walk around.

“So. …What happens now?” asked Nick, expression still closed off and a hard read, taking in the scene in front of him.

Poor Frank, thought Nancy, watching herself for a moment. They had strapped him down, wrists, chest, waist, ankles. With a blanket over, it wasn’t so awful to look at, but she could still see the cuffs around his wrists. She still knew. And he was so pale, sweating, and moving fitfully, like he had the first night he’d been safe with them in Shanghai, and all the nights for two weeks after. They were trying out a drug, to see if it would help him, and God, she hoped it would. Nancy didn’t like to be here. It was hard to bear. But not being here would have been worse. It. It was so strange to be talking to Nick like this too, especially now, right here by Frank—she wasn’t really sure what to say. She was still feeling like Frank was the victim in this, well, not the, a, but. To everyone things had happened to…? I don’t think I’ve really even begun to process it, thought Nancy, placing her fingers against the glass, Not really. Because I haven’t had to see a body. But Moira? Mom’s best friend? She was…like an aunt to me. We were getting really close, the last few years. And Lou was a thief, but he was just a stupid college student. Connie? She wondered if anyone had let Daryl know yet—if they’d still even been together. I did such a bad job of keeping up with people, she thought again mournfully, Maybe if I hadn’t, something would have been different. I’d have known they were gone. I could have stopped it, or something. And Alec—the real Alec? She wondered. Was his sister still out there somewhere, like he’d hoped? The one he’d been searching for so tirelessly, for years, and years, far past when anyone else would have given up? What would happen to her now, if she was, with no one left out there in the world to find her…

“Now?” echoed Nancy, glancing over at Nick, “He’s going to finish getting evaluated, and hopefully get a diagnosis from some psychologists, and then treatment. And, somewhere while that’s all happening, it’ll go to trial. I don’t know when, yet. I’m…Technically, his next of kin is his father, Fenton, so, when anything happens isn’t really up to me.”

“Is he here?” asked Nick.

“No,” said Nancy, removing her hand from the window slowly and letting out a breath, “Fenton’s getting in late tonight, though. It’s…been hard.”

Nick nodded, and studied Frank for a few more seconds in silence, then straightened up. “...Kinda surprised he really did it.”

“Turned himself in?” asked Nancy.

Nick nodded.

“You didn’t think he would?”

“I don’t…think I knew anything, one way or another,” said Nick tiredly, staring past her at nothing.

“…I’m really sorry,” said Nancy quietly, watching him.

“It’s not your fault,” said Nick, meeting her gaze again, “You didn’t ask him to do it. Unless there’s something I don’t know, he came after us because we knew you, not because you told him we were problems. Right?”

“No—of course not,” said Nancy, horrified, “—We were friends! I—” He was grinning at her. “Oh, you were teasing me.”

“Yeah,” said Nick.

“Still,” said Nancy, glancing back through the window. Not really sure which of many things she’d been wanting to say.

“…What did he say?” asked Nick.

Nancy glanced at him.

“Anything that—made more sense than what he told us?”

“…I don’t really know exactly what he told you,” said Nancy.

“Okay, but you said ‘very’—very wrong. Why ‘very,’” said Nick, “Like I said, I want to know. Not one thing that’s happen the past month makes sense. If there’s a way to understand all that, I…I need to.”

“I can…tell you what I know,” said Nancy, feeling bad, taking in the look on his face, “But you might be better off waiting for the psychologists to be done. Or to at least have a primary diagnosis. We don’t have anything in writing yet at all. I wouldn’t want to…Like you said, he’s my friend. I’ll do all the guessing I feel like helps me, but I don’t want to guess for someone else. You deserve real answers.”

“I want what I can get,” said Nick, “You knew him. That’s more than I’ve got. What do you think?”

“About…why he did it?” asked Nancy. She glanced at Frank for a few seconds, and then back at Nick. “I’m…not a psychologist.”

She could see very plainly that he still wanted to know. Desperately. And she understood that. She would have been asking anyone who’d known more than her, even without having to suffer through the version of it Nick had. If she’d just…been home, living her own life in River Heights, and gotten a call, and Joe had been here, she’d have been asking him. Trying to get him to make sense of it for her, because any step closer was better than where she was right now.

“Okay,” said Nancy, taking a breath, “But. Take what I say with a grain of salt. I’ve been spending all the free time I have trying to research, and understand, and I’m good at that, it’s—it’s kind of my job, but. I know really I’m just…guessing. And that’s all. I believe him, though. I know him. I’ve known him for years. And I think he told me the whole truth when he got home. He’s…he’s different, and at the same time, I know he’s still the same person he’s always been, and that’s so hard for me to understand. I’ve been trying. Torture…from everything I’ve been able to read up on, it’s designed kind of above all else to destroy someone’s sense of self. And their sense of safety, and trust, and any kind of security or understanding they had in the world at all along with it. People all develop cognitive framework for understanding the world when they’re growing up—how to categorize things, their idea of a just world. Self-identity, society, personal relationships. But. When you get tortured, everything the person torturing you is doing is about destroying all of that. It damages your brain. You go through too much to suffer and be able to really stay the same, on even a…a physical level, and the damage breaks neurological connections. You have to form new ways to think about the world, to cope, to just survive, and you spend every day with people trying to make it so you can’t even remember how you used to think about yourself and life before. There’s a lot of stuff about the aftermath of torture, and about anger, and anxiety, and so much about paranoia. Cognitive deterioration.”

She let out a slow breath. Even with all the time she’d spent the past two days, she still knew so little, and yet somehow everything she did know felt really impossible to explain anything like quickly to someone else.

“But I believe him,” she said again, watching Nick’s face, “I think he didn’t know what he was doing. Not the real him. I think he was doing what he thought made sense, but what he thought made sense was what going through things I can’t even imagine for two years made him think. It wasn’t what he wanted. He was out of his head, and out of control, and there was no one there to stop him, but I don’t think he ever really wanted to do it. Somebody else conditioned him to be like this. And then, somewhere along the way, he came to his senses enough to realize that, and so he stopped, and tried to get help. I just. Wish it could have been sooner…”

Nick had been listening in silence, and he looked away when she finished, thinking. A very far-away and set look on his face.

“You don’t have to listen to this, though,” said Nancy, feeling bad, thinking about the trauma he’d been through over the past month or so, “You don’t have to feel sympathetic. –You don’t have to think sympathetic. You don’t even have to wonder. You can just go home, and you should. None of this excuses anything that happened to you, or the rest of them. Nobody could ask you to try to be generous about that.” He had just—he had said he wanted to understand, so, she had been…trying. But. I’m sorry if I just hurt you more.

“Yeah,” said Nick, glancing back at her. He cleared his throat. “So. He’ll go to trial in a few weeks or something?”

“Or something,” agreed Nancy, “You’ll probably be asked to be there—all of you, to testify. But if you, or any of the kids, or—any of the others can’t handle it, I think you can talk to someone and have a written statement submitted. Or a video, or something.”

“I know,” said Nick tiredly, “They already talked to us about that.”

“Oh,” said Nancy.

For a moment, Nick glanced back into the room again, watching the unconscious person inside, then he turned to Nancy and straightened up. “Do you know what he’s pleading?”

“What?” said Nancy, genuinely confused for a second, “—Oh. Guilty. He wants to plead guilty, to whatever charges get brought. He’s been in and out of it since getting here, but he was really set on that. I…He does feel awful. I don’t—I’m sorry, if you don’t want to know things like that that, tell me, and I won’t say them again. But if it…makes any of this any more…bearable, or something. He wants to pay.”

Nick held her gaze for a second, and then smiled kind of sadly, and shook his head. “You’re fine. I think I just want to know as much as I can.” He turned and took a few steps back towards the stairwell, and then paused and turned to face her again. “We’re around. All of us are staying in town, together, for the moment. Uh—separate rooms, because there’s some drama. Lori and Niobe tried to kill Grigor a few days ago—”

“They did what?” asked Nancy, horrified.

“It’s—it’s so complicated,” said Nick, very exhausted, taking a little travel notepad out from a pocket and scribbling on it, “But uh. We’re all in the same hotel, for safety. Because none of us are ever gonna feel safe in a room alone again.” He’d been trying to joke, and flashed her a grin, but it was too hard to laugh at that. Too soon. And it had been too soon for him too, and she could see it. “It was as close to the police station as we could get,” continued Nick more soberly, “I’m in 114 and 116—adjoining rooms, with Grigor, and Dylan, and all four of the kids. Niobe and Lori are across the hall and one down in 117. Henry kind of just, drifts. Between all three rooms. If you want to find any of us, that’s where we’ll be.” He tore off a sheet of paper and handed the address out to her.

“Thank you, Nick,” said Nancy, taking it. “Ned and I haven’t even booked a place yet. I’ve got an apartment, a bit of drive from here, but technically in town, so I’m not even sure if it’s worth it to get a hotel. We might just sleep here in chairs for the moment…But uh. Whatever we end up doing, I’ll text you, in case any of you want to reach us.”

“Sure,” said Nick.

“It was good to see you again,” said Nancy.

“You too,” said Nick with a real smile for a second. He turned to go.

“Do you…need your picture?” she asked, feeling a little sick.  He turned back around. “For the others?”

“…Right,” said Nick. He gave the room a look, and then glanced back at her. “No. I changed my mind. They’ll have to take my word for it.”

“Okay,” said Nancy, not pressing him on why.

Nick hesitated in the hallway, though, absently opening and closing his fist, caught in indecision. Agitated. I wonder if he wants to ask something, but he thinks I won’t want to help?

For a few more seconds, he was silent, debating whatever he was debating in his head, and then he made his decision and glanced over at her. “You should talk him out of that.”

“What?” said Nancy, not sure what any part of that sentence had been referring to.

“Pleading guilty,” said Nick. He met her gaze, and he seemed tired, and sad, but firm—sincere. Beyond that, she couldn’t read him at all. She felt like that was the way he wanted it, too. “Having spent the last almost two months with the guy, and knowing what I know now—the things I saw him do in that place? If there’s ever been a case where someone really deserved to plead not guilty by reason of insanity? This was it.”

“…” She had wanted to say “You really think he’s insane?”, but, when she had looked for her voice to do it, all it would say for her was, “Yeah,” because she’d known it too, and just hadn’t wanted to say it out loud, but she couldn’t say that, so she couldn’t answer him at all.

Nick waited for an answer she couldn’t give for a second, then smiled at her. “If you want someone to testify to that, I’ll do it. You know where to find me.” He gave her a nod in goodbye, and then started down the stairs.

“…You would help him?” she asked.

He stopped on the third step down, and turned to glance at her over his shoulder.

“After everything he did to you?” asked Nancy. She wanted to help Frank. God, even, even after the things he’d done—the people she…she had lost too, in ways. Especially Moira. But…Nick had never known him before. It was different. To him—to all of them, except maybe Lori, he was a complete and utter stranger.

Nick glanced away, and stuffed his hands into his pockets, then shrugged. “I don’t think it’s…’helping.’ That would be trying to get him out of something he deserves. I just think you’re right. I think he killed four people because he got tortured somewhere for two years and lost his mind. It’s the only thing that could possibly make sense, even a little, after the way things fell apart—how elaborate it all was, but how poorly planned, how much things went off the rails. Him turning himself in. I’m not a doctor, or a lawyer, or a cop. I don’t ‘know’ what’s right, I guess legally, or ethically, or scientifically speaking. And I can’t claim to. But it seems like it…it should at least be different, you know?” He glanced at her again, “Than what you’d call justice for someone who just wanted to do all that. That’s why we put murders in categories, right? Premeditated, heat of the moment, manslaughter. ‘Crazy’ isn’t a full category on its own, that I know of anyway, but. It isn’t the same as the others either. I…just want whatever happens to be the right thing.” He met her gaze again and tried to smile.

“That’s…really good of you,” said Nancy.

“No,” said Nick, looking at the ground. “I’m just tired of watching people die.”

Die?

Oh no.

Everything changed. She felt her blood run cold and the urge to vomit suddenly. No, no, no. She’d been living here for three years now—she’d known that, but somehow she’d missed it. Somehow Nick Falcone had realized it first. She was so used to American laws, and American ways of doing things, she hadn’t even remembered to think about it, but Nick was right. Oh God, he was right about all of it. Everything that had been done, every death, it had all happened on Chinese soil, and unless there was some way Fenton could get him extradited—

The knowledge she had had and simply not looked at before slammed against her skull, and Nancy felt the floor of the building cracking under her feet and things collapsing around her, and she knew it was in her head, but it didn’t matter. It was going to be real enough.

How. How could I have forgotten this? He’s right. God, he’s right. China practices capital punishment. It’s got the highest number of death penalties handed out of any country in the world. It’s passed down as a common sentencing in criminal trials here. Especially for. …Drug trafficking. And. Murder. Murderers often get sentenced to death. By lethal injection…or gunshot.

-

--Endings (5/5)

-

Frank had sat in a chair in chains and tried not to think at all, facing a judge and a room full of people.

He had been so barely aware of anything at all.

It had been like that for days now. Everything was a haze. He knew what was happening, but he didn’t learn details or retain them. He felt empty. And far away.

So many doctors had come in to talk to him, and God, it had been so hard to be chained to something like that and to make himself tell people the truth about anything at all. It had been hardwired into him not to do that. But he’d tried. He’d tried. He’d tried…

Off and on for days. Medication? He was pretty sure, but he couldn’t remember what. Maybe no one had told him. Ned was there. He…he thought…Ned was there…

Nancy sometimes. His dad. Nancy’s dad. Lots of other people. Too many people…

Then, finally, the days that had seeped into one another had been over. And they’d taken him to a trial.

It had been a relief. That was the last thing he really had to do. And as far as he could tell, he really just had to show up there, maybe answer a few questions. Almost done. Almost done…

His dad. He’d seen him a lot over the past few days. Frank remembered some of that, but not most of it. So much talking. He’d wanted to know what he’d done, and why, and so much—so much. So many details. Details about things he didn’t want to talk about. Had he? Did I? …Had he… Huh. He couldn’t remember. He would have thought he’d remember that. But. No. …Had his dad been angry? He must’ve been. Frank remembered him being there. Shouting. But…No. Wait. I was shouting. I was shouting at him. Right. Oh. There it was. Yes, he had been mad. They’d both been mad. Frank didn’t remember all the words they’d said anymore, but he remembered the visuals that went with it. Weird. When you were little, it freaked you out if one of your parents shouted at you. Apparently you would feel the same way if you had a shouting match as an adult while chained to something… Or. Frank had, anyway. Mom. Mom had come too. He hadn’t wanted to see her. Hadn’t wanted to talk to her. He’d forgotten that a part of turning himself in would mean she’d hear what he’d done. He hadn’t wanted her to be there, to see him strapped down to a hospital bed, to know, and when she had been, he’d wanted her to…To not care, somehow. To be angry too, maybe. But. She’d just come into the room and cried and stroked his head and said she loved him, and he wished he could forget that, like everything else his mind was letting just drift in and out, because it had made him a little bit sad to die. Or to be in prison for the rest of his life. Whatever happened. Sad because she would be so sad watching it happen. And he had almost been at peace with just letting himself go.

The trial lasted what felt like days and days, but he wasn’t keeping count. There were a lot of people trying to defend him. He hadn’t wanted that. He just wanted it to be over.

And then, he’d been sitting there, listening to people talk through their opening formalities, and barely even really hearing it, and his lawyer had gotten up and said, “Not guilty,” when they’d asked for his plea.

“Not guilty, by reason of insanity.”

He remembered staring in shock and horror at the man in front of him, and standing up himself—trying to actually do something for the first time since turning himself in. He’d said something. Shouted. And they’d had to stop for a minute to get him to shut up. He had argued. He had argued for what felt like an hour, and everyone had been against him. Frank remembered, really vividly, finally turning to his dad and saying, “It doesn’t matter what you think! I’m the person charged, so I get to choose my plea!”

And his dad had looked him in the face and said, “Not if we can prove you aren’t capable of doing that.”

It had been. So surreal. And it hurt. Hurt in a way he couldn’t really categorize. Getting told to his face by his father that he wasn’t enough of a person to make decisions about what happened to him anymore.

He had argued. He had fought. Frank had tried so hard to get anyone to listen to him, anyone at all, but no one would. Not his mom, not his dad, not even Nancy. He had seen her, hanging by the edge of the room, worried, had looked at her, and said, “Please! I can’t do this—I know I’m not right in the head, but I’m not insane enough to not be guilty of doing this,” and she’d met his eyes and looked sad, and said, “You don’t deserve the guilty plea.” And that had…it had been as bad as saying he was. And still he had tried, alone, tried to get the judge to listen. The people in the court room to listen. And then he had sat there while a bunch of doctors he’d met with had paraded out and talked about him in front of him for hours, and gone into so much detail about everything that was wrong with him, and there had been so much that he hadn’t said that they were so sure of, somehow, and…He hadn’t been able to take it. His brain had shut off and dissociated after the second full day of it, and he’d just sat there, barely half-listening, having realized now that they weren’t going to hear him when he spoke either, so what was the point.

Frank had thought that would be the end of it, but it hadn’t been. He’d had to testify too. That had been…been so much more surreal than even the things that had come before. Sitting in chains, looking at his father, and being asked questions he knew he was supposed to answer truthfully about how insane he was.

He had…he had wanted to fight. But he hadn’t wanted to lie. Then had wanted to lie, when the questions got too personal. Realized way too late he could have just opted to stay silent, and then done that, once he’d remembered he could. But that had been after hours of other things. Of quiet ‘yes’s and ‘no’s to leading questions someone should have been objecting to. What are you doing, Dad? he’d thought, watching his father work through a long question about his relationship with Joe, Trying to walk me through convincing the judge here I’m a lunatic? Are you so afraid to watch me rot in prison, or die, that you’d rather do this? Throw everything I don’t want to think about at me in a court full of strangers and make me live it again, just so someone can put me in an institution for the next forty years instead? And what, you’ll just…pretend that’s the best way to handle the fact that I shot a guy my age through the neck while he was begging me to let him go? Pretend that’s the fair thing for all of us to do?

That whole, long, awful process, Frank had thought those things. Exhausted, and hurt, and confused. And not once, not once the whole time, did he stop to wonder if they might be right.

He knew they weren’t.

And it had all only gotten so much worse.

He had already been so tired, after days of exhausting questioning, and then he’d been waiting, waiting like always, and they’d called Jane to the stand.

Frank hadn’t expected to ever see any of them again, but of course. And of course it would be like this.

And that? That was punishment.

Sitting there in a room, surrounded by strangers, watching a fourteen year old girl talk about the way you had kidnapped her. How she’d woken up in a room full of adults she’d never seen before, far from home, and been told she was going to die for something terrible she’d done, unless she found some way to prove her innocence. How it had been scary, how she’d seen a body, and it hadn’t been the last, just the only one that wasn’t someone she could remember alive. All the pressure, all the strangers, all the threats and fear. How she had met people, too, people who had helped her. He’d had to sit there, listening to her describe Moira, and Lou, and Connie—the ways she’d seen them. Hear her talk about him, about the American named Alec, and how he’d looked out for her, along with some of the others, and he’d been an alcoholic and she’d been worried about him, so she’d stolen his alcohol to try and make him stop, because they were all in it together and he was her friend, and God—she had—she had done that. He remembered that. She had tried to help him, and she’d been proud of it. But he’d kept going. And Jane talked about the recreation of her home, and what it felt like to find a woman cut to pieces in a replica of her family garden, the fear of sleeping at night knowing it could be her that didn’t wake back up. The anxiety of trying to perform, trying to prove herself, and being so young, and not knowing if she could trust the people around her. Knowing she’d have lost easily in a fight with any one of them, even the teenagers.

And then she’d described seeing Lou. Strung up by his wrists, with an arrow hole in his throat. Frank had realized, listening to Jane, that he was going to hear this story a lot of times, he was going to hear it at least nine more times. But he couldn’t even take it once. That had been the one he couldn’t get past. Moira, he had been so sure for, and Connie had been an accident, and he’d still been angry, but Lou? Lou. God... God, look at you. Look at what you’ve done. How could you do this? How could you do something like this. How could you do this. How. He’d begged. He had begged. Why didn’t you stop? Why didn’t you stop? You could have saved him. You didn’t want to do that one. I was there. I remember. Why didn’t I stop? It would have been so easy. I taught him a lesson; I never had to kill him. I could have lowered the bow and walked away. Why didn’t I? Why didn’t I. Why didn’t I. Why didn’t I…

She must have said other things after that, and a lot of them, but Frank didn’t hear. He stayed with that death in his head, thinking about it, looking at it, reliving it, and he didn’t come back out of his head until someone bumped him to ask if he wanted a glass of water, hours later, and Jane was walking down from the stand.

It doesn’t matter, Frank had thought then, wondering why he felt nothing at all instead of relief as he watched her go, It doesn’t matter what dad or his ten lawyers try. Nobody’s going to let me go after hearing that. Hearing it from a kid. And they’re going to get it again. And again. And again. From a lot of people who deserve to say it. God, Henry. I hope he’s okay. I hope he’s well enough to come. That had been the one he’d interacted with the most as himself, behind the scenes. And he’d been awful to him. He’d almost killed him once, when he was angry, and then almost let him starve to death because he’d been so wrapped up in everything he was trying to do that he’d quite literally forgotten that he was there. He has to be terrified of me, thought Frank emptily. And that had been what he’d wanted. He’d worked hard to make sure Henry would be. But he’d been so good at it. He wondered if it was hurting the people who’d survived him more to be here, and to talk, or if maybe it helped a little, to be able to have a platform to make people listen to what had been done to them. He hoped it was the latter. He felt awful he’d gotten lost in his head and stopped listening to Jane’s—like he’d intentionally gotten out of something he knew he should have done.

Either way, thought Frank, trying hard to refocus, This is good for me. It means Dad won’t get what he wants. They’re not gonna ignore ten innocent people for one psychopath. No matter what he tries.

And where would that leave him?

…Probably dead, realized Frank, no feeling attached to the thought. Probably dead. And then what? What after? Frank hadn’t been scared at all until he’d wondered that. He really hadn’t. Maybe he’d not really thought the whole thing through at all before, or maybe it was just because the question of after bore so much more terror than death itself. Regardless, he did then, and the fear he had thought he was well past feeling seeped in, slowly, but relentless, and it settled in his bones. Like a pendulum he could see swinging closer and closer, or an hourglass running out of time, a bomb counter working its way down to zero. And he was afraid, then. Still firm in his decision to take the punishment he deserved. But scared. Constantly, relentlessly, consumingly afraid.

The days got harder to focus on as the trial went on. Frank didn’t know if it was him, or the medications he was being given he didn’t even know the names of, or just stress and exhaustion, but he started to lose track of time. Things just seeped into each other, one day to the next.

He was moved. He would talk to doctors, talk to lawyers, sit in court in silence. He saw everyone, from the blacksite. But only barely. He couldn’t feel anything but fear and guilt and regret and confusion at all, and those just barely, but constantly, hammering at his head. Frank tried to focus, tried to hear what people said. Tried to listen to the people he had hurt. But he couldn’t. He would be able to focus on snippets, fragments, but the rest would just go past him like he wasn’t really there. Sometimes he would hear them, and then forget it too, and not be able to remember what had happened in court at all. But it was all so bad. And that was right, that was how it should be. That was what had happened. Any time he made out a phrase right, it would be Lori recounting him threatening her with a knife at her throat, or Henry giving an account of waking up on a table in a room he’d never seen before, too weak to even sit up and with an IV in his arm and the man who’d almost killed him a few days earlier waiting. Be Grigor describing struggling with him when he’d shoved a mask on him and made him inhale anesthesia so he could get him to a different room, and how he’d recognized ‘Alec’ and known he was going to die. And Frank would have to remember it too, and be thinking about it from his side. Seeing shock and horror on Grigor’s face when he’d fought back, and how he hadn’t realized until that moment how well someone could plead with just their eyes, because Grigor couldn’t talk with the mask, but he’d been saying ‘Please. Please—we were friends. You can’t do this. You wouldn’t,’ and he’d been saying it just fine without words at all.

And Frank would get so lost in those memories, he would sometimes miss hours before he thought to tune in again. It was so easy to get lost in his head. So easy… He knew that was bad, but at least it was a different kind of bad. It was dissociative and unstable, but at least it wasn’t volatile and violent, like before. Barely there was better than there and just not present to stop himself. Not present right.

Frank missed a lot of testimony, that week, even though he tried. He could remember their faces, though. A lot of them tried not to look at him. Some of them did though, some of them wanted to make him look, and he’d tried to, zoned out and barely there as he was. Some of them were mad, some of them were shellshocked, some of them were just confused. Sometimes they looked at him in ways that didn’t make sense. It didn’t feel good to look at them. Every time he accidentally made eye contact, it felt like being kicked in the gut.

It was strange. Maybe he hadn’t known how it would feel at all. But it hurt, to have people hate you. It hurt to listen to someone who hated you talk about why you should die. Even if you deserved it. He had…he thought…he thought that he had thought it wouldn’t, since he knew they were right. But it did. Stupid. Stupid, and unfair. You have no right to care. But he couldn’t control that. And it wounded him. Ate at him. Stacked, and built, and blurred together, and he heard steadily less and less of what anyone said. Just felt more and more anxiety, and dread, and guilt, and fear.

So many people talked. He had to get up and talk too. The prosecution asked him things he didn’t want to answer, or didn’t know how to, and Frank couldn’t even remember after any of what he’d said. It got suffocating in that room. He could see on everyone in the gallery what they thought, every time he was looking out at them. And he started to think about dying a lot. And then he couldn’t anymore, and he thought about nothing. He shut down, and compacted, without really meaning to, and things happened around him while he didn’t really listen. While he tried to dig himself back out of the hole he’d made for himself unconsciously, and failed.

It was so hard. Climbing back out of numb and empty. If he thought about any of it, about what death would feel like, then he would think about what things had felt like before. He would think about watching his brother die, and how that had felt, and he would think about his mom and dad coming to watch him leave the world, because he knew he wouldn’t be able to stop them. And he thought about how that would feel, for them, and what they must think of him, and how broken he would be leaving them after. He thought about how the people who hated him would feel, and might celebrate, and he wasn’t angry, but it hurt, and he was sad. And he would think about Nancy, and Ned, and how miserably wasted their last three whole years of life had been. What kind of an ending that would be for all their work. How that would feel. How trying to sift through all of that could only possibly feel like torture. How Joe would have felt, if he’d known. How heartbroken he would be to know the legacy his brother had carved out in his name had been the last thing he would have ever wanted, had been nothing but blood. He would think about afterlife, and that would be too much, because if he didn’t end up where Joe was, how would that be bearable? Ever? He knew he had done awful things, and he knew he deserved to suffer for that, but. God, that was too much. It was too much. He couldn’t bear that. He couldn’t. It was beyond him. And it was coming for him now, looming, like a waiting guillotine. And so after traveling that circuit of thought about four times, he just shut down any time it began, which was constantly, and lived in the fear of its shadow. In a haze of drugs, and exhaustion, and trauma that hadn’t even begun to be addressed.

The last day of court, Frank hadn’t known it would be the last one at all until Ned had said something to him. Had bumped him in a friendly way very gently with his elbow when they’d been walking out of the hospital and said, “Don’t worry. Everyone’s worked really hard. I know it’ll work out.”

He had looked up at him kind of blankly, and taken a second to realize what he meant. “The sentencing is today?”

Ned had looked so surprised. “…Yeah. You. Didn’t know?” He’d glanced over his shoulder, back at the people walking behind them, and then at Frank again. “Nobody told you?”

They probably had, and he’d just missed it, or forgotten it, but Frank hadn’t really wanted to say that, so he’d just shrugged.

“Are they treating you okay?” asked Ned, worried now.

That had been funny. For some reason, it was always funny to him when Ned was sad or worried because of him. He didn’t know why. “You would know better than I do,” said Frank, almost smiling for the first time in quite a while, “You’re there all the time, and awake for more of it.”

That was true. He was there even more than Nancy was. She was out trying to help her dad, and his dad, and the lawyers. But Ned had no expertise, so he’d been left to babysit. He was always there when Frank woke up. Like a nurse or something. Or a dog. In a good way, thought Frank, feeling guilty.

“Yeah, but I’m not there when the psychologists are,” said Ned, still concerned, “Or your lawyers.”

“I don’t know,” said Frank, suddenly very tired, “Does it matter?”

“What are you talking about?” Ned had asked, “Of course it does.”

Not really, Frank had thought, but it had been nice of him. A lot of things had been nice of him. Now that he was thinking about it, Ned had talked to him a lot. Wait. Hold on. Did you read to me??? He was getting memories he hadn’t had at all before suddenly, and it was surreal, because they were detailed, but he hadn’t had them at all until just then. Did you ask me what books I like and then read to me while I’ve been out? thought Frank frantically, trying to deal with a type of new information he hadn’t gotten like this before, Am I completely losing my mind?? Did this happen? There was no way he could ask Ned that. He would sound completely insane.

Well, thought Frank tiredly, glancing over at him again, I guess it’s worth considering that it’s not like they don’t already know that. “Thank you. For doing what you can,” said Frank instead, to have given some answer, and because it was something he had needed to say anyway.

“I’m sorry I can’t do anything real,” Ned had replied, trying to smile, “I really picked the wrong career for being useful in this kind of situation. …I guess I picked the wrong hobbies too—I’m not even that good of a narrator.”

He had been trying to joke to make him feel better, but all Frank could think was, Oh my god, he did then. He has been reading to give me something to do. I’m. I’m forgetting way more than I thought. Oh, this is bad.

“Are you okay?”

Ned again. So much concern. And again, it made him want to laugh. What a strange way to still be able to feel.

“I don’t know,” Frank had said, because there was no way to explain right now everything he was feeling, “I guess we’ll find out.”

The air in the big cavernous room had been different that day. Before, it had been heavy, and looming. Now it was tight, and fast, but not in a way that was better. Just a different sort of tension. Tension like a bowstring drawn back.

Frank had tired to stay focused, especially after talking to Ned. He had watched the judge, and listened as the attorneys presented their last statements. One arguing that he was broken, incapable of personal responsibility, and criminally insane, another that he was a cold and calculated, a vicious, sadistic murderer. Is that true? he had wondered, listening to the two men out there presenting their cases to the room, Am I either a complete monster, or barely even legally a person at all? He had…he had sort of thought, that it was somewhere between the two. That he was messed up, and sick, but also responsible, and wrong, and very, very guilty of choosing to do terrible things. That was…still what he thought. Both people were telling this room full of strangers that he was inhuman. Just one was sure it was because he wanted to be vile, and the other that someone had beaten the humanity out of him and left just the shell.

What a thing for everyone in the whole room, everyone in the whole world who knew you, to believe. No matter which side they were on.

But I’m not, Frank had thought, feeling kind of sick. Feeling the room crumbling around him and his focus failing. I’m not inhuman. I know what I did was unforgivable, and monstrous, but I feel awful. I feel. I came back because I wanted to do what was right. I didn’t kill the kids because I couldn’t—it was too wrong. I couldn’t kill my friends, either. I came back to face justice because I wanted to. It wasn’t fair. He was going to die; how much more did they have to take away from him? He’d fought for this, and it hadn’t been easy—couldn’t he at least take that one thing with him? That he had chosen to try? That he had been himself, been a full human being, damaged and broken and bad and wrong, but still him, and he’d made a choice, and the last one had been a good one. It didn’t undo all the others, but it was still his, and he had been proud of it. A little. Not in a way that was more proud than the horror and shame at all the other choices. But. But he had done this. It was the last good thing he had. It was his.

I’m not just a shell, walking around on auto-pilot either, he thought, words from his own defense reverberating in his head, I’m not a robot. I’m not…a ghost, repeating old patterns, or a toy, with no agency at all. Zhiming took a lot from me, and I know it broke something in me, but I didn’t just hurt people. I also made friends. I cared about Nick, and Rentaro, and Dylan, and Grigor, and Henry, and Kim. I found a way through everything bad in my head, and I chose to listen to things they said to me. I changed my mind. That was real. It doesn’t matter to any of them and it doesn’t have to, but it mattered to me, and it was real—it was important. I cared. And I did that, as a human being. I cared about people—I let myself care again, when I didn’t want to, and I changed because of it. That was mine too. It’s not fair. I should get to keep that. I should get to keep my humanity, and the good decisions along with the bad. I’m willing to pay for what I did, I’m willing to rot in prison, I’m willing to die, but I’m myself. I’m still a person. And no one thinks that anymore. How am I supposed to die at peace with that.

It hit him in a kind of painful, kind of sad way, that maybe that wasn’t true. The way Ned had talked to him this morning, he thought probably he didn’t think either of those things, even now. Maybe Ned was so oblivious that he was still just Frank to someone. It would be…a consolation. A big one. If he could be sure that was true. One person was so much more than zero.

Behind him, his counsel was talking, sharing notes with each other. It had gotten quiet in the court room. He glanced over his shoulder, and saw Nancy and Ned and Bess and George and his parents, first row. Right there, right behind. All of them tried to smile at him, or give him whatever their version of reassurance was. Bess had been crying.

You’re all so worried, Frank had thought fondly, just the tiniest piece of that anxiety from moments before fading. It was nice. It was nice to still have people who cared like that about him. He didn’t deserve it.

People were talking again, in the court, and Frank turned his head to look. Took in a little re-hashing of his list of crimes from the judge before he started to zone out again. He’d looked at the gavel carved in as a decoration on the judge’s platform and been dragged down into thoughts, again, about after. About what would happen to him next. There was so much to think about that he couldn’t get through it all, and he wasn’t ready. He was afraid.

So much sound erupted from the courtroom that he jolted, adrenaline kicking in, snapped back to reality.

Frank turned his head, chains clinking together as he looked as far as his limited mobility would allow, trying to see what had happened. Startled. People were on their feet, people moving. His family, his friends with them. Nancy had reached him almost before he’d been able to pick her out of the group, and she threw her arms around him, crying, and hugged him hard.

“What?” said Frank, totally lost, “What happened?”

“What?” she’d asked, more confused than he was, still clinging to him and looking up with a tear-stained face. “You weren’t listening?”

He shook his head.

“Your sentence,” she choked out, and then she couldn’t talk for a second, shoulders trembling while she tried to fight back sobs.

Frank looked past her in confusion, so lost in the middle of the crowd, the only one who didn’t understand what was happening to him. His father was holding his mother, and she was crying. George was holding Bess, who was crying. Ned—there. Ned was walking up and standing just behind Nancy, and he was crying too, but he smiled at Frank. Good smile? thought Frank in confusion, Not sympathy smile? What did…

“You got,” Nancy again, choking words out. He looked back down from Ned to her. “T-ten years,” she managed, “Under approved constant supervision and psychiatric care. To be served under home or location-approved imprisonment. With a—an ankle monitor. And you can appeal to have yourself revaluated in four.” She had started crying again on the last line.

What?

He was so confused. He didn’t understand what had just happened.

“Told you,” said Ned, trying to stop crying and smiling at him, reaching over and putting a hand on his shoulder. “They worked hard.”

“I don’t…” said Frank, still confused, “I don’t understand.”

“Mitigating factors,” managed Nancy, “They understood. You’re gonna be okay.”

“I don’t understand,” said Frank again, unable to catch up to where they were, trying desperately. “I don’t…” He looked at her, then Ned. “I’m not going to die?”

Ned teared up and shook his head, and Frank heard Nancy choke out a, “No,” from where her head was buried against his torso.

“I’m…I don’t—why?” said Frank, “I. I should be going to jail. Or. Or dying. I-I don’t.”

Ned shook his head. “You shouldn’t.”

“But. I…” He couldn’t keep up. He couldn’t process this. Frank hadn’t been prepared for something like this at all. “The people I…”

“I know, I know,” said Nancy, stilly crying, “But we’re gonna figure all that out. Together. It wasn’t all your fault.”

Not…’all’…? I…

“But…how will they ever feel like—” started Frank desperately, trying to find something to hold on to.

“—At least half of them testified more or less in your favor,” said Ned reassuringly, “It’s okay.”

What? There was…he had…no memory of that. Not at all. He went looking for it, hoping it would come in a downpour like his memories of Ned, but it didn’t. He just had faces, and no audio. Had they? But. No…He’d. The gallery had been so hostile. He had known. He had…

“…I…” he managed, standing on shaky ground, “…What does this…what does this mean?”

“It means you’ll be okay,” Ned had promised, holding his gaze.

And everything had been chaos and confusion around him, and Frank had known that couldn’t be right—that whatever happened, things could not be okay ever again, but because it had been Ned who told him, Ned who had talked to him this morning like he was still just Frank, and thought somehow that it would be worth it to read a book out loud to a murderer who couldn’t even remember his own answers in court, he hadn’t been sure.

Every time I think about whodunnitmafia stuff I wrote post game I get so furious why the hell did I write some of the best fiction I've written in my entire life, for a story so niche it's literally for an audience of like, two, at absolute most.

[jesuschristt-thatsaprettyface]

hi hello i adore you and i wish i wasnt so shy bc we are actually mutuals and we share a lot of similarities—you like basically all the same stuff i like, we're both autdhd kinky they/them dykes, were about the same age etc etc—but we dont talk and i wish we did 🥺 except im EXTREMELY awkward and literally don't know how to have a conversation.. and u make me extremely nervous bc u r so attractive/handsome/pretty and funny and cool and sksjdnsmdnjfjdj

anyway the thing actually i came to tell you is i love seeing you on my dash so much. besides 100% banger posts, youre like a palate cleanser for any annoying song that might be stuck in my head. doesn't matter what song or how long it's been stuck, whenever tumblr shows me a post from you, im reminded that jesus christ brand new exists, and it overrides anything else. and i love that song. i literally cannot even tell you how many annoying ass songs you've saved me from, idek if i can count that high. u have improved my life so much just by existing <3 i am forever in ur debt

hiiiiiiii omg sorry for making you wait forever for a response!!! this message was just so fucking sweet and i wanted to give it the attention it deserved (and tbh i kinda wanna keep it in my inbox forever to read it when i'm having a bad day 🐰) first off pls don't be nervous, i am a huge dork i promise 🥺 i totally understand the social anxiety, but message meeee!! i wanna hear from u!!! if it makes it easier, just dm me a post you think i'd like or tag me in something, i love that shit. and then there's no pressure to have a real conversation <3 we can just send shit back and forth. and i love that my url is a palate cleanser for any annoying song stuck in your head that makes my heart happy. it's such a beautiful song <3 you're kind. and beautiful. and if we're moots we're already friends so you're more than welcome to come talk to me!! ily