To Do and Die (Peregrine X DotCom)

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Altman's men started showing up again once the sun was fully up, and most of the people who lived in the area had already departed for work. The first one arrived in a nondescript tan corolla with tinted windows, parked in front of the building on the other side of the street from Andy's apartment, but never got out of the car. Jack gave him the benefit of the doubt... for approximately 30 seconds. He pulled a part of himself out of the nearest fragment, transforming it into something that vaguely resembled a fly. Like with the spider, it was surprisingly difficult to control an actual body that was not his, especially when he didn't really fully understand how the body worked. Luckily, no one ever looked at a fly twice, even if it did crash into the ground twice as it tried to fly towards the car. In that instant, Jack resolved to practice insect forms. They were nondescript enough to be incredibly useful, and he was absolutely certain he would have need of them again. At various other locations around Andy's apartment another fly, a wasp, a moth, a spider, and an ant, or at least things that all resembled such creatures, flew or crawled away from his fragments, and began to complete careful loops around the various spots.

Jack did not recognize the man in the car, but it was apparent almost immediately that this was not some innocent teenager stopping to check a message on his phone. Sure, he had a phone in hand, just in case any passers by should look into the car, but as Jack crawled further up the windshield it was just possible to make out a portable radio communicator sitting on the floor near his feet, and the automatic firearm tucked beneath the seat. Altman, it seemed had finally sent another team to keep an eye on Andy's apartment. These guys seemed a lot more subtle than the first one, and perhaps had even been warned about what had happened to the last 9 guys who had gotten close to Andy.

The one guy might be here, but Altman's teams, whether for assassination, observation, or even simple delivery, always consisted of five people. Five people allowed one to be placed as the head of the operation, and made sure that there would always be someone to back everyone else up. Five people, Altman believed, could handle any unexpected situation without drawing unnecessary attention to themselves. Well, this time there was no way they would be able to handle it. He pushed his way into the interior of the car through the crack in the door, before settling on the top of the seat behind the hitman. Jack waited just a little longer, waited for the traditional check in that would happen once every ten minutes if the various members of the team were not within eye sight of each other. He had yet to see any of the others approaching the apartment, which meant they were most likely much further away, outside of the ring of surveillance Jack had set up. That was fine. At least one of them would approach when this man went missing. He wondered how many more he'd have to kill before the others got spooked and ran away.

The check in came, with the man in the car reporting third. Good. It would have been boring if he had been the head of the operation. Jack took one last moment to make sure there was no one nearby to see what was about to happen, before leaping onto the back of the man's neck.

At first, he didn't even realize anything was wrong. His hand idly reached up to rub the back of his neck. It came away bloody. That's when it began to hurt, but before he could even think about screaming Jack smothered his mouth, utterly blocking all sound. In less than a minute, there was nothing to hint the man had ever been in the car, except for a pile of clothes, which Jack neatly folded and hid away under the passenger's seat, the boots, which he tossed in the back of the car, and the radio and gun, which he left right where they were. Jack didn't even bother to search for a camera, or anything else that might have had some record of what had just occurred. After all, he wanted to lure in the people who had started this whole thing, and they'd come all the faster if they thought he was here.

Jack waited patiently, half in and half out of the car, for another ten minutes to pass. The check-in came. There was no answer from number three. The leader sent in his partner, two, to go investigate, and finished the check in. Jack watched number two approach, one hand resting on the knife that was at his waist. It was fascinating to watch how antsy he was, how he twitched at every little sound. No doubt about it, Altman had told these men what had happened to the last two teams that had gotten close to Andy. Normally that edginess would have made them that much more skilled, that much more efficient at this job. In this situation, though, it just made them look out of place, which served Jack's purpose all the better.

Number two approached the car. He glanced inside, hurriedly looked around, and then looked back inside. "Shit nothing," he said into the radio. "He's just... gone."

Gone? Where the fuck did he go?

"No fucking idea. He's not in the car, but both his gun and radio are still inside." He checked the door. "It's locked up, too."

Retreat. The voice on the radio finally replied. I'm going to flay his fucking skin off when he comes back for breaking formation.

The man turned to hurry away, but he barely even make it a step. Everything on him, clothes, shoes, gun, knife, and radio, ended up in the nearby dumpster. Jack left a part of himself near the radio, before flying to the roof of the car and perching there, rubbing his front feet together.

It took two minutes for the team leader to start getting suspicious. Bravo. Where the fuck are you? No response. Delta. Go find fucking Bravo.

Like hell I will, Delta responded. The last two people to go near that place vanished. They're probably dead.

Get your fucking ass over there. Alpha barked. Or do you want me to report that you are such a pansy ass pussy that you wouldn't even go?

Fucking hell.

Stay in constant contact.

There was no response from Delta, but he soon began to approach the area. Jack didn't even wait for him to get close to this location, but jumped him from another location. All his worldly possessions went right into the sewer, except for the boots, which were too big to fit through the grate. It only took a few seconds for Alpha to get antsy.

Delta. Fucking hell, Delta, report! Nothing.

Fuck Altman. Said a new voice. Presumably Echo. I'm getting out of here.

Hold your position.

Fuck you too. We've heard nothing. We don't even have one fucking clue what's out there. This is just a fucked up death trap, and I'm not walking into it.

Hold your position.

After that, the radio went silent, and not another sound came from it. Echo had obviously fled, but Alpha moved forward. As soon as he entered into relative proximity to the area, Jack grabbed him.

He wondered how much longer it would take Altman to send another team. Or if he'd even dare.
 
Lily saw the car when she pulled into Drew's parking lot a few minutes later, but thought nothing of it. Drew's development was a relatively new one, and most of the vehicles parked there were, at the very least, nondescript enough to avoid drawing attention. Otherwise, it was just as likely, and just as unexciting that someone, somewhere, had a quiet new neighbor. A kid from the local community college, or a widow looking to start a new life. Nothing deserving of any attention. Or at least not any kind that mattered.

When no one had answered the door after the first several knocks, Lily let herself in. The door was unlocked. She couldn't decide whether that was good or bad.

"Drew?"

"In here." His voice drifted from the back room sounding muffled and distracted, but it wasn't the panic or apathy she'd been expecting. The tightness in her chest diminished a little.

It came back when she found him on the floor of his bedroom, in boxers, shirtless, and surrounded by papers torn from the journal she'd bought him for his last birthday.

"Drew..."

"Lily. Hi," he said, scrawling something down on a piece of paper, then arranging it somewhere to his right. "I'm making a timeline of everything that happened yesterday. Of everything I think happened yesterday." He looked up when she didn't say anything.

"It's not as bad as it looks," he promised, with an unconvincing grin. "It's...I'm doing like you said, sorting everything out. Just...the visual helps, you know? I know none of this happened. I know that. I just need to get it out of my head first."

Lily only nodded, chewing her lip, wondering if he'd had another break yesterday. He seemed...well, this certainly wasn't how his usual manic states looked. But he was pale, muttering to himself, and his free hands kept drifting up to scratch his arm, the back of which was already red and raw.

"So, I wake up, right?" he continued. "Or I think I do. I...I didn't. Or at least I guess I never left the house. Or maybe I -- " He reached for the journal again, now gutted, and scrawled something else down, then tore it out, studied his arrangement of papers, and set it down in a short stack by his foot.

"Possible beginnings," he said, pointing. "It could have been a dream or a...not a dream, but it didn't happen. And I...I think I had something to drink last night, I -- "

"What?! Drew, you were doing so well, how -- "

" -- but maybe not, 'cause no hangover, and when have I ever been able to stop while I was ahead? I think it was all a dream, Lil, I really do. I think this thing at work -- wait, what day is it?"

"...Tuesday."

"Yeah. So...I must have missed yesterday's assignment, and...maybe stress? Or guilt. I thought I saw...well, it doesn't matter. I'm almost done here."

"Drew?"

"So, I left the house maybe. Maybe it was on the way, there was a car that backfired, and it kinda threw me for a second, I remember that, maybe that's when it happened..."

"Drew. Honey. Andrew?"

"...could have started the whole vision, and I was just running with it. I was at the Motel 6 yesterday, I already called, they said the girl who was there yesterday called in sick today -- "

"Andy!"

Her boyfriend/ex-patient stopped then and looked up, somewhere between surprised and expectant. A look of disappointment flashed briefly across his face, then he laughed nervously.

"You never call me Andy."

"You said not to."

"Yeah, well...never mind. What is it?"

"Let's go outside, okay? Let's go for a walk. I think...I think you need to get out of the house."

There's nothing I can do about real bullets.

Andy shivered, lost for a moment. Lily felt herself get a little more tense. "Drew?"

He started and looked up at her.

"Yeah. Okay. Let's go."
 
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When he was a child, like many children, Jack had always dreamed of what it would be like to fly. He had looked at birds and considered them the symbol of freedom, and had thought that he, too, would feel remarkably liberated to be able to lift up off the ground and swoop around whenever and wherever he wished.

Now he knew better. Flying was no different than anything else in this world. It simply was.

It had not taken Jack long to master control over the basic insect bodies, and as soon as he had done that he had set to work on more complex animals. Back when he had first split himself into so many pieces, before his mind had followed, a robin had found one of his pieces had had decided it looked like a tasty morsel, promptly swallowing it. This bird now became sacrifice so that he could more properly study its anatomy in order to replicate it.

Only a few minutes later, a robin hopped onto the ledge of the roof of Andy's building, hesitantly spread its wings, and took off.

It was surprisingly easy. Almost alarmingly easy, after how much he had struggled with the insects. He wondered if he was simply getting better, or if had something to do with the fact that he'd studied the bird first. Either way, only a few minutes later, he perched on a powerline nearby, ruffling his feathers against the breeze and settling down to wait for a bit.

He'd have to push these bodies a little harder today still, before Andy got it in his head to go anywhere. There was no doubt that his apartment was completely secure now, and no one could get within three blocks without Jack knowing about it. However, once Andy actually left his house, for work, for whatever, those precautions would go to not. He had to make sure he had some way of following Andy flawlessly, and keeping his eye out for anything odd.

Ideas automatically began to appear in his head, just like they always seemed to now when he was confronted with a problem. It was no longer truly a matter of thinking, or at least it didn't feel like it to Jack. Instead it was releasing the issue at hand to the thought cloud, along with a whole bunch of information, and waiting for it to be processed and potential answers to start being returned. He knew he was the one doing the thinking, but, at the same time, it seemed almost independent of him. Like something that just happened whenever he had a problem.

It was for that reason that Jack did his best to not think about what Andy had done to him. He was afraid, if he did, he might actually start rationalizing it. Might start thinking about why he would have done the same thing. He didn't want to think about that. He wanted to stay mad, to hold his grudge indefinitely, until it felt like a curdled lump of lard in his chest, heavy and ugly. That's what Jack, the Jack that Andy had known so well, would have done. That Jack had hated secrets, and had always been honest, almost to the point of brutality. Sure, he might have sometimes held information back out of sympathy at times, everyone did, but he had never outright lied to anyone. Not his parents or brother, not to Alison while they had still been dating, and certainly not to Andy.

But Andy had lied to him, and it hadn't been a small lie. He'd been in possession of knowledge about what had happened to Jack, and the people who had been behind it. He'd been in possession of knowledge that could help wipe every person who would ever consider that an acceptable thing off the face of the earth, and make sure that nothing like it would ever happen again, that no one would ever have to endure what he had endured again. And, not only had he not told Jack what he knew, he had actively worked to hide the information from Jack. Even though people were now hunting Andy, presumably in an attempt to bury that knowledge, and make sure that the people who had ordered it got away with their crime. Got away to try it again, or something like it.

He could not even begin to understand why Andy would hide that information from him, but he knew, if he thought about it too long, if he tried, he would be able to rationalize it. To come up with possible answers as to why he would do something like that, even if none of them were true. He might begin to accept them, and then he might begin to forgive Andy. Because how could you hate someone for something if you truly understood why they did it?

And, for some reason that Jack did not fully comprehend yet, that fact scared him more now than the idea that he might have shattered and destroyed his mind had. And something that scared him even more than the idea of forgiving Andy was the knowledge that, if he wanted, if he devoted even a scrap of time and thought to it, he could figure out why forgiving Andy scared him so much. Jack was not prepared for that kind of self-analysis. He was scared what he would find, but even more so, he was scared of the fact that he would be able to fix it. He was scared that he was now a being that could consciously fix his own flaws.

If he wanted, he could fix all of them. He could fix every single flaw he had. And then...

Then, could he really still call himself Jack?
 
They stayed in the courtyard at the center of the apartment complex. It'd been a while since she'd seen him this unraveled, but she clearly remembered those early months when she'd first met him. Drew wasn't a gentle soul, quite, but he was sensitive, or compassionate at least. And yet the person he became when he thought he was somewhere, someone else. When he thought he was in danger...Lily had gotten in the way just once. She knew he hadn't forgiven himself for that.

She didn't really blame him.

This place was quiet and familiar. If he had an anxiety attack while they were here, it would be that much easier to ground him, or at the very least, get him back somewhere close to home. Besides, he was...strange. Not jumpy, quite. But close.

It made Lily antsy.

Drew didn't seem to notice.

"...it was good at first," he was saying. His pace was slow and measured, but he couldn't stop using his hands. He tended to over gesticulate on a good day. On a bad one, he bordered on manic, almost violent in his gestures. He kept touching his face, his neck. His arm was bruising under the relentless torture of his nails. She took his hand and held it. He paused briefly to look at her and smile, but a moment later, he'd wriggled free again.

"It was me and Jack -- or I dreamt that, anyway, or maybe that was part of the real one. I think maybe I was drinking before I got to the Motel? I don't remember. But the guy on the phone said someone, Jack or me...Me, I mean, just me...said I spooked the girl at the counter. I got...loud, y'know? Insistent that there'd been someone else with me. So, maybe it was then. I was already hallucinating Jack then. Anyway, I haven't heard back from work yet, but I think that assignment was supposed to go on two days? So I was thinking, maybe I started it yesterday, and they're just waiting for me to report in, and that I could tack on to the end of my timeline. So now I have a few pieces of solid evidence, right? To prove he left."

"Who left?" Lily said quietly, her stomach churning. This wasn't normal. People weren't supposed to backslide this quickly. Something must have happened to trigger this, some accident or interaction.

"Jack," Drew said, too distracted to be truly frustrated. "When he left yesterday, it was for real -- "

"Drew, Jack didn't leave. He was never here. He's -- "

"He was here," Drew growled, and when he stopped to face her, she saw a flicker of real anger, desperation in his eyes before he caught himself and turned away again. "I mean...he existed. He was my friend. It's just..."

"He's been dead for a year," she supplied quietly.

"Yeah. Right. Dead." He started walking again, and for the tenth time in as many minutes, rubbed a hand against his side. She frowned.

"Why do you keep doing that?"

"Doing what?" he murmured.

"Touching your side like that. What's wrong?" She grabbed his hand and tried not to flinch when he tensed up for a second.

"Oh," he said, sounding distracted again. "Nothing. It's where...nothing."

"What?" she pushed, telling herself this was good for him.

"Yesterday, I...I ran into something. A fence or something, I dunno. I tore my shirt, I guess. But I thought...I dreamed I...Jack saved me." His voice took on a distinctively distant tone, like he was dreaming all over again, right there in front of her. Imagining Jack rescuing him from some attack on his life. She'd long since known of the hero worship, but she'd never seen it in action.

"Jack -- "

"I know," Drew cut in. "I know. You don't have to keep saying it."

Lily dropped it, but she watched Drew rub his side again. He'd said he knew...but he sounded less convincing with each assertion.
 
It was common knowledge that there were certain times that you did not disturb Levi Altman. There was no handbook on it, no list of moments that were and were not appropriate to disturb the boss, but if you served under him for long enough, and were in a position where you frequently had to disturb him to deliver important information, you learned when the correct moments were and were not very quickly.

Nick Schaeffer rubbed the stump of the pinky finger on his left hand and shivered by the door. If there was one hard and fast rule of when to never disturb the boss, it was certainly, certainly, when the sounds of someone screaming were coming from within the room. And yet, Nick had been given the strictest of instructions to come find Altman as soon as the client returned his call. Now, all he had to do was pick which would be the better way to die, walking into the room and likely getting a knife buried in his head, or disobeying an order and slowly getting the skin flayed off his back.

Well, that was no question at all.

Nick knocked on the door, firmly, before opening it and pushing his way into the room. When he was three quarters of the way in, a knife suddenly imbedded itself in the door, only an inch away from his ear. Nick froze.

"What is it, Nick?"

Nicholas was a massive man, standing easily six and a half feet tall, with a skull that could break a brick wall and muscles that could outlift most bodybuilders. He was not only Altman's steward, but also his bodyguard. He had faced down threats that would have had most men wetting themselves. To many, it would have seemed downright humorous the way Big Nick cowered when Altman, skinny Altman with a receding hairline and a face like a rat, turned his way. Those people knew nothing.

"M... message, sir." Nick stammered. "They called."

Altman quietly set down the other knife in his hand, stepping away from the broken and whimpering body that was tied to a chair. He was barely recognisable anymore, and it was doubtful that even his own mother would have been able to identify him. The pictures of the body would be "leaked" once Altman was done, and it would stand as a harsh reminder to everyone else what happened when you accepted pay for a job and then ran away, leaving the rest of your team to die.

"Very good," he replied, reaching out a hand for the phone. Nick passed it over. "You may go." Altman's servant left with relief, rubbing the spot on his forehead where he had been certain a knife would be appearing any second.

Altman turned back towards the echo, his lips pressed tight in disgust. He had wanted to have a little while longer with the man, but he couldn't risk the fool crying out at the wrong moment. That would not be good business. The knife slid home, and the man slumped in the seat. Altman answered the phone.

"Thank you for returning my call so promptly." He said, voice waxy smooth.

What do you want, Levi? Said the voice on the other end of the phone. You know your job. Go do it.

Altman frowned. "This is not the first time you've hired me to complete a job. I've never asked questions, never asked why. It's bad business."

So what is this about?

"What the fuck have you gotten me into?" It was almost possible to see the man on the other end of the phone recoil in shock at the venom in Altman's voice. None of his clients had ever heard that voice before. They knew the rumors of Altman, knew the terrible things he did. Yet none of them had ever seen or heard that side of him. Anyone would be shocked.

The man recovered quickly. I have no idea what you are talking about.

"You don't?" Altman replied, sarcastically. "Well, allow me to inform you. I've lost three teams. Three, in the two days since you gave me the hit. I've been able to confirm nine dead. The other six have vanished off the face of the earth."

Vanished? What do you mean vanished?

"I mean fucking vanished! I know every place they could have run, and they did not run. That means they are dead, but there are no bodies, no blood, no trace of their existence. They have, in every literal possible interpretation of the word, vanished. Gone.

"You said this person was just a techie, that the amount of money you were paying me to get rid of him was exorbitant for the amount of work I'd be doing. Now, it is barely even going to cover everything that's happened, and we are no closer to getting rid of him. We don't even know where he is anymore.

"So, I repeat. What the fuck have you gotten me into?"
 
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"Tell me again what Jack...saved you from?"

They'd left the apartment over an hour ago, and Lily stood couldn't quite make heads or tails of what Drew was saying, though she was beginning to put together the myriad pieces of what he thought had happened to him yesterday. He still seemed...off, like he was talking to her through a day dream, which was somehow more and less than what she'd come to expect from him, even on his worst days. But she'd gotten him to sit down and eat something (or rather, stab at it nervously), so that was good.

Probably.

"GSW," he answered. "That's army talk," he added with a smile, though it came across more like he was telling himself a joke. Or maybe an imaginary person only he could see. "Gunshot wound. It was after...Jack was mad. He'd get mad about stuff like that, when he thought I was being stupid about something. He did it back in basic training, too, like this one time -- "

"Drew. Stay focused. Tell me about...you getting shot."

"Yeah. Right. He knew it was going to happen -- "

"You think he knew you were going to get shot, and he still let you go?" Lily said, her tone even, though she was certain she'd found her way in. "Drew, that doesn't make any sense, he was supposed to be your best friend, why would he -- "

"He is," Drew replied calmly. "You just don't know him."

"Didn't know him," Lily said, disappointed, but not dissuaded.

"Sure, yeah. Didn't," Drew said, poking at the day old scone that sat before him. He paused to rub at his arm. "He is. It's why he'd get so mad when I'd do stuff like that, just stuff without thinking. Anything he thought I did that would get one of us hurt. He took stuff like that personally. I think...I think that's why he left..."

"You said he saved you."

"Uh huh. I said I wanted to come back here, so we could go up to your cabin, to hide. And he got mad, so he left me. I guess I should have known it was going to be dangerous."

"He told you it was dangerous to go home?"

"It was, yeah. But he knew. And he fixed it somehow, I don't really remember, I was...I dunno, the gun messed me up."

"And you think this was a dream? Or a hallucination?"

"After the gun shot? Hallucinating, I think. It was another flashback, like after my car broke down last winter, remember?"

"Well, yes, Drew, but that was triggered by an actual occurrence. You think these attacks are are now being triggered by nightmares?"

"What?" She could see in his face he hadn't really been listening to her so much as he'd been thinking out loud, answering her questions like they were the logical ones his own mind kept trying to supply. And now, against this one, he was surprised. Confused.

It was making her nervous.

"You said you dreamt about being shot after...disobeying your friend Jack -- "

"Not disobeying him, Lily, it wasn't like that."

"Drew, it wasn't like anything. You understand that, right? You know none of this happened? You're scaring me, Drew. I need you to tell me you know none of this happened. You had an extended psychotic break, and that's...not great, but we can work through it. But you need to start by understanding what happened -- and that is none of this. You know that, don't you?"

The look he gave her was not one she'd seen before, and she wasn't sure she'd have been able to cobble together a guess as to what it meant even if she'd been given the time. But she guessed that didn't matter in the end, because it was gone nearly as soon as it came, and then he was standing up, rubbing his arm again, looking edgy and uncomfortable. Far too close to paranoia for her to feel comfortable.

Yes. Something had happened here. And Lily was beginning to understand that even Drew might not know what. She chewed her lip for a moment, then looked down at her watch. It was the middle of the week. She could hardly just take off...and yet she knew she couldn't leave Andrew alone either. Not without worrying he'd be back in the hospital by the end of the day tomorrow. She stared at him for a moment then resigned herself to canceling a few patients. It was one of many reasons she'd known she'd never should have agreed to that coffee date with him four months ago.

Sometimes she suspected even Drew himself didn't know how strange and quirky his odd brand of charm was. She wondered what Jack would have said about it.

She said, "Can you call off sick a few days? I'll...get you a note if you need one. If you want to head up to the cabin, Drew, I think now is a good time. You need to get out of the city for a bit."

The expression he settled on was somewhere between relief and curious excitement. But it was take a few days to realize the first expression to flit across his face had been abject fear.
 
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Jack had the feeling that, were he in a human body, he would be clenching his jaw so hard that his teeth might shatter again. Instead, he was simply left with the mental image this was taking place, and a feeling that was very similar to wanting to break something. Most likely himself. Instead, he restrained himself. Pain no longer seemed an effective medium for keeping himself focused and grounded. It still hurt, still reminded him that he existed, but like everything that touched his physical bodies, it was distant. The pain no longer consumed everything when he brought it into existence. It consumed everything of one part, but only a part. It would never again truly consume everything. He cared about pain, or physical pain, less now than ever.

His emotions, on the other hand, seemed no less potent, as long as he didn't try to restrain them. And he didn't. His anger towards Andy's actions had been starting to cool, ever so slightly, but now it was back in full heat. He was leaving. Running away to the country with his girlfriend. And as long as he was there, as long as he was hidden, nothing would get accomplished. Altman's men wouldn't know where to begin looking for him. Without Altman's teams to keep vanishing, the people targeting Andy wouldn't get how severe of a situation this was, and they would never feel the need to come themselves. And that meant Jack would be no closer to getting his hands on one or all of them.

Andy was ignoring it. He was ignoring the one thing that Jack had told him to do. Jack had said, plain and clear as day, that Andy had to do something about the information, find a way to get it public, wave it around a little bit to draw people in. He'd told Andy he had to deal with it, but all he was doing was ignoring it.

At this point, Jack could do one of three things. The first option, actively taking control of Andy's body to prevent him from leaving, wasn't an option. If Lily had any suspicions about Andy's sudden switch in personality, she'd send him right to the hospital. Jack wanted Andy in an obvious place, but that was just too obvious. The second option, just letting Andy go and hoping it all worked out anyways, was hardly better than the first. That only left one possibility. Jack had to do something to try and keep Andy from leaving.

It was dark now, pitch dark, and well into the middle of the night. Jack worried a little bit about his decision to appear before Andy again, fearing what conclusions the man might draw from it, but in this instance having Lily around might actually help. She'd keep him stabilized, keep him believing this was all just a hallucination.

Speaking of Lily, the very first thing Jack did was split apart a couple of the pieces of himself already inside the house. One moved to Lily, the other to Andy's policeman roommate. Those two fragments carefully settled around the two sleeping people, blocking all sound and sight from reaching them. The last thing Jack wanted was for them to wake up if Andy started getting noisy. Which, all things considered, wasn't all that unlikely. The last fragment quickly began to grow and stretch, forming into Jack. The body that was associated with Jack. Tall, strong, with an army cut of red hair and light green eyes. Even the chin scar was back now. But it hardly felt like his body anymore. No more than the bird or bugs had. He didn't think about what that might mean.

Jack moved into Andy's room. He was sleeping surprisingly peacefully, for Jack not having interfered with his rhythms at all. Jack stood by the window, purposefully letting the light from the street highlight his figure. As soon as that was done the part of him still inside Andy began to move. Began to create the signals that would rapidly draw Andy out of his sleep, and direct his eyes right towards Jack.
 
Lily had laid awake for nearly three hours just waiting for Drew to fall asleep. His mood had only gotten more erratic as they day had worn on. They retreated together back to his apartment where he spent another two hours laying out his timeline while Lily called the hospital to say she'd be gone until Friday. Then she made a few quieter calls to the pharmacies both down the street and nearest the cabin. It sounded like Drew was still on track with his meds...but it was always good to have a backup plan.

He'd been both more agitated and withdrawn once they'd decided to go up to the cabin. Right after she'd announced it, he'd been so frenetic with his laying out whatever plans he'd had for the day prior -- or the day after? It was getting hard to tell -- that she'd almost scrapped the whole thing. But when she suggested taking a drive to clear his head, he'd told her that he was 'busy' and retreated for a full hour to his bedroom to fiddle on his computer. She'd been the one to pack clothes, toiletries, food and the like for both of them. Andrew hadn't been able to look away from his computer or his phone for more than a few minutes at a time.

When at last bedtime came, she'd suggested a movie, and he'd agreed only to scroll through countless internet searches she didn't try to understand. He'd fallen asleep muttering to himself, something about phone calls and new plans.

Now Lily was out, and Andy was sleeping restlessly, nightmares vying for space in his head with half a dozen untethered thoughts.

He came awake suddenly and when the shadows moved in the corner of his eye, he somehow wasn't afraid. How could he be? He'd never been afraid of Jack. Not like that.

"Jack?" he said, sounding almost childishly relieved. He could hardly see in the dark, but the silhouette was clear. There'd never been any doubt in his mind. Not really. Not here.

"Thank God," he muttered. "I knew it. I knew you'd come back. Lily, she said...well, never mind, it doesn't matter. But I've been thinking. I've got an idea, I know how I can fix all this."
 
"Fix all this?" Jack repeated, indignant? "Fix it? Have you been paying attention to anything, Andy? You know exactly what needs to happen. You need to do something with that report. Yet, instead, you are going to go play house with your girlfriend in the woods. Is that your idea of fixing this?" Jack growled slightly, before pacing away from the window, into the darker shadow of the room.

It bothered him how happy Andy seemed to see him again. It was too calm, for the reaction Andy should have been having. It almost made it seem as though he didn't think this was a hallucination. Then again, maybe that's how it always went. Jack still remembered what it was like to dream. In a dream, you never question what happens. You simply accept it and move on. Except... except this wasn't a dream. And Andy... Andy seemed far more relieved than bothered by the fact that his "hallucination" had reappeared.
 
"Just for a few days!" Andy insisted, though he glanced back over his shoulder to where Lily was sleeping, trying to ignore the sudden wave of irritation that washed over him. He'd known Jack would be pissed he was leaving. Well. 'Known'. Because of course Lily would tell him he'd been dreaming, and she'd be able to back it up, or at least keep him from defending it when she was sleeping. It was just like her to be absent at the worst times. But if he could keep Jack here until...until morning?

It only then occurred to him that he realized -- or thought, at least -- that Jack was just visiting. Like some vision here to offer advice before fading with the dawn and claiming he'd been some dream, and he wasn't Andy was sure...almost sure about that. He just needed proof. For a moment, he just stared, silent and distracted as he'd been with Lily all day, sizing up his friend like a man measuring his prey.

An idea flitted through his mind. It was not a good one. It would scare Lily, infuriate Jack. But if he could just show both of them he was right, he could move on. Jack would be there, and Jack would forgive eventually, he always did. Then they could figure out the rest of this together, and everything could go back to normal...

Andy put his finger through the hole in his shirt again. He'd had yet to take it off. It was a good reminder of...of something.

"Just for a few days," he said again. "Keeping out of the way, avoiding...Ulman's men, like you said. I'm figuring out the rest, I swear, look, see?" He reached behind him and grabbed his phone. For just a second it occurred to him that Lily ought to be awake by now. He certainly wasn't being quiet, and Lily was trained to wake at a touch almost more than he was. But she wasn't waking. So what did that mean? Was this a dream? Would he wake alone again? He couldn't forget that moment in the motel when the hallucination had first broken, when Jack had...hell, compared to that, even the return of the hallucination seemed better than nothing. He would take a hallucination over a quietly guilt-ridden reality any day.

"See? I've...I've been doing research. I'm trying to figure out how to wipe my fingerprints from the file. Virtually, I mean. I mean, whoever wants me dead I guess already knows, but they can't...they can't kill everyone, right? So all I have to do is figure out how to get it out there without my name on it, and I'm halfway there, once it's clean, you can...you can come back, right?"

Jack is dead, Drew.

He'd lost count of how many times Lily had said that to him today. He didn't want to hear it anymore.

"I mean...you won't...you can't...Lily keeps telling me you're dead, and I know that. I remember that, Jack, but it's not...you just have to tell her what you told me. About the...what they did to you. She'd understand, she's a doctor. She could help! She could help us get this out there. You could tell her, Jack. We can make this okay."
 
"Just for a few days?" Jack repeated, again, completely ignoring the part about him "coming back". And even more ignoring the part about Lily helping. That was the last fucking thing he needed. "Andy, you've been holding onto this for a month. Do you really think that someone wouldn't have found out the information got grabbed? You are so worried about digital fingerprints on the drive, but you forget that you already left fingerprints when you took it."

Jack paced back and forth, door to window to door, in front of Andy. He wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible. He didn't have any worry that the two others might wake from the noise of the conversation, but there was nothing that might keep them from waking up on their own. And if they did that... well, Jack would be forced to retreat immediately. And that might leave loose ends he didn't want to deal with right now.

"Altman doesn't exist. He was just a way to get you moving. So, tell me. How much longer do you really think your anonymity is going to last? How much longer before they actually send someone after you? Just a few days, you say. At Lily's house. Do you want to drag her into this as well? What if they show up while your at the cabin? It isn't as though its any secret you two are connected, and she just took time off work. Her name is on the property. If they start looking, they'll find you there, and then you'll both be dead."

Maybe that would be a hard enough push to get him focused again. Focused and on task.
 
"He...he doesn't?"

Altman's negation had been but a small part of Jack's relative tirade, but they were the part that Andy's mind chose to stick to. He'd been searching Altman's name all day. Well. 'Altman' and various iterations, including Ulman, Illmon, and even 'almond' when the first three hadn't turned up anything. He didn't share any of this with Lily, of course. She'd only say that the fact that he kept turning up empty handed meant he was ass deep in one of his delusions again. But Andy couldn't believe that. Or at least he couldn't let himself.

Or he couldn't let go of Jack.

He'd been there. He was there? Wasn't he?

"Okay," Andy said, momentarily distracted again. There was another way around this. He didn't need Altman for his theory, whatever it currently was, to be true. His subconscious, or Jack, or someone was feeding him hints, and he was beginning to think he might uncover the answer to all of this if he followed them.

"We can -- I can still...I can protect her," he said, but he sounded uncertain even to himself. He looked over his shoulder again to where Lily slept, his expression softer now than it had been before. Jack was right. She'd been good to him. Too good. He couldn't afford to drag her into this.He had to think of some way to get rid of her before his luck ran out. And it couldn't be up at the cabin. If something went wrong, he'd be too far from safety to find her anything like it. He had to convince her to stay. And he had to figure out some way to tell everyone what had happened to Jack. Though whether that was for Jack's sake or his own, he couldn't begin to guess.

"Okay," he said finally. "I'll...I'll leave her. And then...the files. I can publish on the dark web with an API to keep it self-replicating in case they try to erase it again. I just need a computer and a few hours alone, but I don't...I need...it'll be days before any of the right people track it down, even if they know exactly what they're looking for, and why should they? I can...I have to leave a hint. A...a trail, almost, bread crumbs, y'know? Maybe nothing pointing directly at Altman or...or whoever, nothing linked from my CERT, but enough to...so it's not like a needle in a needle stack. Just enough to get them off my trail, put them somewhere else, so when they end up digging, they only uncover you, and then Lily will have to believe me, I know she will..."
 
"Uncover me?" Jack snorted, folding his arms across his chest. "Fine, Andy. Whatever you want to think. Whatever keeps you motivated. I'm not about to let you start arguing with yourself again. I don't care as long as you stay on task."

In all honesty, Jack didn't care whether anyone would be able to track down what it actually meant or not. Even if even one person saw this and decided to spread the word a little bit because they thought it was an amusing story, that would be enough. There was no way that the people behind this wanted to let the news spread, even as a joke story. Because sometimes, people took things seriously. As soon as it got on the web, they would double, triple, maybe even quadruple their efforts to get at Andy, get him to take it down, and then get rid of him, too. And, as long as jack kept all the intermediary people out of the way, eventually one of those people would be forced to handle the matter personally. And one that happened, the entire web would start falling apart. All he needed was to make sure that Andy stayed on task.

Which, if Andy's desperation was anything to judge, he'd accomplished quite well. It was time to wrap up this conversation. Hopefully another one wouldn't be necessary.

"Now that we have this settled," Jack said. He began to send careful, subtle signals to Andy's brain, putting it back to sleep. "We can wrap up this conversation." He could see Andy's eyes starting to droop, see him starting to wobble, even as he desperately fought to stay awake. It was almost admirable, how long he managed to fend off the irresistible demands of his own brain. "Sleep well, Andy." Jack said softly, as his friend dropped back into bed.

Jack took a moment to carefully, almost tenderly, tuck him back in again, before he began to fold in on himself once more. The parts of him that had made sure that Lily and the cop wouldn't be disturbed began to rapidly deteriorate as well. In only a moment, there was nothing, absolutely nothing, left to show that Jack had been in the room.
 
"No, wait."

Andy didn't really know what he was asking for, had nothing else to say to Jack, or at least nothing that his friend would want to hear. He had a plan, a plan he'd like, a plan he'd been sure was good enough, and if it wasn't he could change it. Jack had always been good for that, not just for making him think logically, practical, but for making him think realistically, too. It was why he was so sure Jack and Lily would love each other, if they ever met.

...which they couldn't. Because Jack was dead now. That's what Lily would say. Unless he could wake her.

"You...you don't have to go," Andy supplied, unable to explain the new hint of terror that crept into his voice. "Not yet. Lily won't believe you were here, she'll say I was dreaming, but I wasn't, right? You saved me, just like before, just like...like..."

But the memory was fading again, just like back at the motel, except this time, it was to be Andy who vanished from existence. He could feel it at the back of his mind, a sudden, inexplicable, unavoidable desire to sleep, pressing down on him like a physical weight, this new, traitorous weakness.

"Jack, h-hang on...lemme...lemme show you what I f-found -- " Andy got as far as leaning forward to stand up before he was fighting even just to stay upright. It was suddenly like he'd never woken up at all. He could already hear Lily...telling him...

"You don't have to go..." he murmured. "You don't...have to...go..."
 
Lily was fully awake in an instant the moment she heard the first traces of a whimper coming from Drew's room. It had been a noise she had trained herself to recognize over many long months, first in the hospital when Drew had been too traumatized by his own survival to even dream of facing the real world, and then in later months, as he'd broken free of the hospital, but had still clung so desperately to her.

For a moment, as she sat up quickly and the couch cushion she'd been using as a pillow fell to the floor with a thump, she thought she'd dreamt the noise. That had happened sometimes, when she'd been alone in her house. She'd hear a noise outside, something faint and unusual that didn't fit in with the usual sounds of city traffic, and suddenly she'd be wide awake as though she had never fallen asleep. Sometimes, at those moments, she'd found herself begrudging how much Drew had clung to her, how much he had needed her, and the response it had caused within her. But now... now she was glad for all those false wakeups, all those moments when her housemate's headphones had come unplugged and the sound of a TV show had echoed briefly through the house, causing her to wake up suddenly and not be able to fall back asleep for another hour. She was glad of them now, because this time it really was Andy, and this time he was in need of her help.

Usually his panic escalated slowly. That was why it had become necessary for her to wake up so promptly, because if she could get to him quickly enough she could save him from once more losing his grip on reality even once he woke. But this time, even as she stood quickly and rushed her way towards his room, his whimpers and chirps of fear were already growing into throaty screams. This was different. Everything about these past couple days had been different. She'd never seen Drew like this, even when he had first come back from war, when he had rubbed his face bloody trying to wash off the blood of his comrades, which had stained his uniform when the response team had finally arrived to save those who still lived.

But this, this Drew seemed unbalanced not because of his medical condition, but more because it seemed as though he wanted to be. Usually he took her words carefully, held them like a child, but treasured them, did his best to apply them to his life. This time, he seemed to be doing everything in his power to keep from hearing her words. It made her heart ache.

He was thrashing in his bed, tangled in his sheets. He was still wearing the shirt, the same shirt he had worn all day yesterday, and the day before. Lily reached out, grabbing onto his shoulders, using her surprising strength to keep him from lashing out further, from accidentally hurting either himself or her.

She knew he would be unbalanced when he finally woke, but she was used to this. She had seen it so many times. He'd get through it. They'd get through it. Together.

"Drew. Drew!" She cried, desperately trying to wake him. In the other room, David was awake as well. She heard him swear. "Andrew! Come on. Wake up. It's just a dream. Wake up."
 
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He heard the name before he heard anything else, and that told him more than opening his eyes ever could. He knew that name, knew the people who used that name, knew what they wanted from him, and how they were different from the people who had come before. Those people, the one from before, his friends and family and his fellow soldiers -- those people were dead. So even though he could hear them screaming sometimes, even screaming his old name, like they were supposed to, like they had, back when...

They were gone. Andy was gone. Jack was gone.

Jack. Jack...had been here? Close, maybe, near enough to touch, not dead, not missing, just --

"Jack?"

It wasn't the first thing he said, or screamed, or whimpered, but it was, he thought, always the first thing any of them could understand. Lily, at least. Lily would know. She'd get it. Even when Dave couldn't, when Dave fucking hated him for it, Lily would understand. She'd believe him.

"Jack?! Wait -- don't -- "

Andy was sitting up so fast, it was a wonder he didn't split Lily's chin. Well. A "wonder". She was used to this, probably. If he gave himself any time to think of that, he knew he'd understand it was far from happenstance. But he didn't want to think of that now. Now he had something else to do. If only he could remember...

"Lily?" she was holding his shoulders and shaking hard. Or...wait, no. No, that was him, trembling so hard he heard the bed frame shaking beneath him. Bedframe. Right. He was in bed, in his room. Not in some bloody mudhole somewhere. Not up to his knees in...in...

He felt his stomach clench and fought hard not to be sick. No. Not now. He needed Lily to listen to him first, he had important things to do.

"D'you see him?" he blurted once he trusted himself to speak without puking. "Lil, did you? It's important, Lily, I have to tell you something -- Jack, before, I didn't say anything, I didn't want to scare you, and I can't tell you all of it, not yet, but you have to know about him first, about this thing he can do with his body -- "

He stopped. She was staring at him, her face a mask of careful concern. He knew that expression. She didn't believe him. She was going to walk him through those stupid exercises again, try to 'ground' him, try to get him to admit he'd been wrong, like he didn't have everything else to worry about right now.

"I need my phone," he said. "I'm okay, Lily, I know what you're thinking, I just...I need my phone. I can prove it. I can prove it to you."
 
She kept her hands planted firmly on his shoulders even as he sat up abruptly, and she had to throw her head to the side to keep him from running into her. Even as he turned to look wildly around the room, even as he began to speak, nearly so fast that she couldn't understand it.

Jack. It was Jack again. It had always been Jack, and Lily knew it. Sometimes it drove her mental. She hated the way Drew always looked whenever Jack crossed his mind. She had hated the way he had stubbornly insisted that Jack was alive, even after the funeral, even after his family had started to take the steps to move on from his death. She had thought that, when they finally found his body, it would offer Drew some closure. Sure, it was horrible. What had happened to him was horrible, that he had survived that attack, that he had spent five months as a prisoner of war. But the body had been found. Jack was dead. She thought Drew might finally be able to start to move on again.

She had no idea what had caused Drew to backslide so violently now. He had seemed to be doing so well. He had finally gotten a job, and it was one he was good at. CERT had seemed like the perfect place for him, and they would understand about him, understand what he needed, the fact that he still wasn't healed. But he had been getting better. It had all been getting better. Until now. Until this. Lily had no idea what was going on. It was like Drew was floating in a dream world, unable to comprehend the boundary of reality and the inside of his head. It scared her, to see him slide so far so quickly. It scared her to think of what he might do now, when he no longer understood what was going on. All she wanted to do was help him ground again, get back on the path to recovery. She'd do whatever it took to get him there. Even if it meant taking time off work, cancelling her other patients. Even if it meant dragging him, kicking and screaming, to that cabin. It had helped him before, to be away from the city, all the noise, all the stress. It would help him again.

She couldn't figure out when she had come to care about him so much.

"Prove?" she asked. Her hands were still firmly clamped on his shoulders. "Drew, it's okay. You don't have to prove anything to me. There's nothing to prove. It was just a dream, but you are awake now. Awake, and back in the real world." It was okay. She had to get him focused. "You've woken up your roommate. What was his name again?"

Of course, she knew full well. But this was the first step to getting Drew back into the present. Back where, however much it might hurt him, his best friend was dead and was never coming back. That was the only way to help him move forward. She had to get him focused on the here and now, and on the things that were separate from his life before the battlefield.
 
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"He's...Dave," Andy answered automatically, because even though he knew exactly what she was doing -- trying to distract him, trying to make him forget Jack, and Jack's assignment, this thing he had to do for Jack before it was too late for all three of them -- he also knew it would make her feel better if he could answer. And Andy had been nothing but a people pleaser from the beginning. It was why he was here now.

"Lily, you have to listen. I've got to get my phone, okay? I have...I have important stuff there, and I can't tell you, not all of it, not yet, but I have to get back to my office. I'll be able to move faster from there, and they already know who I am, and where I'm from, but they don't know you yet, and they don't have to, so you can't come. Not yet. I think...once it's out there, Jack said, he said once it's all out there it won't matter. They'll...they might try and hurt you to get to me, but I won't let them, okay? You just have to keep your head low for a little bit while I disseminate everything, and that should buy us enough cover. Okay?"

It wasn't working. He could tell. She hadn't seen Jack, hadn't been awake yet, so she thought he was still dreaming. No. No, wait, she thought he had been dreaming. But he hadn't. Jack had been there. Because that made more sense, somehow, than a series of hallucinations.

...though he couldn't ignore...if his brain wanted him to know something, something big and bad and dark, but important...Jack was the only one who made sense to deliver it.

"Lil, it's okay," he said gently, trying to catch his breath, stop his shaking, because he could see he was scaring her, and if he did that, she'd make him leave, go up to the cabin, skip work, and he couldn't do that. Jack had said.

He leaned forward and reached up and took a hand from his shoulder and kissed her and he tried to smile.

"You have to trust me, okay? He doesn't want to hurt me. I promise."
 
She sat frozen as his lips pressed gently against hers. Lily was glad she was frozen, because she was certain if she hadn't been so forcibly held still she would be shaking, shaking from the fear. She hadn't realized exactly how bad Drew was. She hadn't understood how serious his situation was. Now... now it seemed like Drew was so far over the edge that he couldn't even comprehend what was going on anymore. How long had it been. She'd talked to him less than 72 hours ago, and he'd been fine then. He'd had a few nightmares, but he'd managed to wake himself up before he actually started screaming. He'd told her that Dave had told him he'd been able to sleep through the entire night through the last week, without Drew waking him up. He'd been doing so good...

But now... now it wasn't just his certainty that his dead best friend was alive, now there was a plot, too. People were after him. God. It had gone from hallucinations to full-blown paranoid delusion in less than three days. Probably only two. In that moment, Lily felt herself reach a new level of resolve. She didn't know what had happened to Drew. There was no way for her to know what had happened, and Drew was obviously too far gone to be able to tell her himself. But that didn't change the fact that he needed help. He needed help desperately. And she was the only person who was going to be able to help him. In that moment, most of the fear seemed to slide off of Lily. When she turned to look at Drew again, she no longer saw the man she had been dating for months, the man she was starting to fear she'd fallen in love with. No, she saw Andrew, the broken patient that had been brought under her care. She didn't allow herself to see anything else. She couldn't. After all, Lily would want to be gentle with him. Lily would want to humor him, would want to bring him back to health with kindness. But Doctor Johnson, she was what Drew... Andrew... needed right now. He needed someone who would stop this downward spiral before it got any worse than the catastrophe it already was.

"No." She said. The words seemed to take Andrew by surprise. "This has gone on long enough." A part of her felt wary. A part of her was afraid that if she pushed him too far he would snap, that he might attack her. But, even as the thought entered her head, Lily dismissed it. This was worth the risk. She turned around, following Andrew's eyes, and grabbed his phone, before sliding it out into the living room. "And I've had quite enough of it." It hurt her to say these words. It hurt her to see him look at her this way. But this was what he needed right now. Maybe when he came back to himself he would understand, and he would forgive her. She hoped.

"I am not going to let you fester in these delusions any longer. I'm getting you out of the city, and that is that. Once you get your head straight on your shoulders again, then you can come back." She'd have to keep his phone away from him. Keep him away from all technology. Right now it only seemed to be feeding his fantasies. "We are leaving. Now." Everything was packed. It was only a matter of getting Andrew into the car and starting to drive.
 
"W-wait...what? No. Lily, no, we can't."

Andy pulled back, a faint frown painted across his features, equal parts hurt and surprise, though the surprise felt easier to deal with. It had been a long time since Lily had said no time him. Since...since he'd left the hospital, really. Since they'd started dating. And if he stopped to think about it, he knew it made sense, knew it cemented things in the here and now just as quickly as his timeline had. He knew what she was doing, and he knew why, and somewhere deep inside him, he guessed it only made him love her more. She was strong, he knew. Stronger than him. More willing to make the hard decisions.

She reminded him of Jack that way.

But Jack, delusion or not, had been right. He'd been sitting on big information, dangerous information, for over a month now. Retreating to the woods was a short term solution, and one that would only get Lily in trouble. He knew she couldn't see that, but he didn't blame her for it. He just hadn't done a good enough job of explaining. She didn't understand, and so she couldn't believe him. That wasn't her fault. He would make it clearer to her, as clear as he could, and then she would get it. He knew she hadn't meant to hurt him. Not Lily. She wouldn't.

"Lily, just wait. Okay? I know you're scared, but I promise I won't let them hurt you. I can keep you safe. I know how. But we have to stay here, stay...stay close. They could have people out at the cabin if we stay too long. They'll learn your name, and they'll use you to find me. I need to send this information now, okay? You...you go back to bed, and in the morning I can explain more, and then we'll figure out somewhere for you to go while all this blows over. It's gonna be okay, Lil, I promise."
 
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