Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He had fallen asleep recording again.

Georgie could see the damn statement still clutched loosely in his fist and she supposed the tape recorder might have run out of tape hours ago if it was a normal recorder. But it wasn’t normal, was it? No, Jon’s spooky tape recorder was still whirring away despite it having been at least a few hours since the man had fallen asleep.

She supposed that she should have been irritated, should have woken him up and scolded him for continuing to read those damn pieces of paper that kept turning up at the door. All that had done was force him to start recording later at night so that she wouldn’t notice.

Instead of shouting, instead of waking him up and watching him curl up with embarrassment and shame, instead of making him choose between staying here and reading the spooky bullshit, instead of all of that, she pulled out her phone and took a picture of the Admiral purring away happily on-top of Jon’s chest. She wished she could post it on her social media but it was probably best that she didn’t advertise that she has a murder suspect living with her. She moved away into the kitchen to make them both tea, though even that was fraught with Jon. Georgie swore that if she had to hear Jon lament about this Martin fella and his cups of tea one more time she was going to lose it.

The sound of her moving throughout the kitchen woke up the Admiral who came racing in, tangling himself around her feet in search of breakfast.

Her second housemate came padding into the kitchen at a much slower pace a few minutes later. A quiet thanks for the tea as he watched her struggle to nudge the cat out of the way of his bowl for the brief seconds it took to fill it.

Georgie looked across at Jon as they both sat in the quiet stillness of the early morning.
He looked terrible.
Tired and scared and even scrawnier than he had been at University where he had spent the week before a student loan payout chainsmoking rather than spending any of his dwindling funds on food.
She thinks that he kind of has a similar look as he did then. So very hungry but unable to do anything about it. The only time he didn’t look as if he hadn’t eaten in days was straight after he read a statement, and even reading one of those a day never seemed like quite enough. If he managed to finish it, this was not exactly the first time she had caught him asleep half-way through a statement.

She had been feeding the man, she had watched him eat, he shouldn’t look so hungry.
But he did.
And that was the problem.

She wondered how often he had been reading statements before he had been forced to run.

She also wondered how long it would take Jon to pick up the half-finished statement, rewind the tape and finish reading it once she left to go pick up some milk.

A predictable routine. She didn’t want him to read them, he would agree and try to leave them alone, he would give in to his hunger and wait for her to be otherwise engaged before he would curl up to record them anyway. She would wake up in the morning and shout at him for recording a statement anyway.

It was getting tiring. And not just for her if the way Jon became increasingly lethargic as he tried to stretch out the gaps between statements, was any indication.

He clearly didn’t enjoy reading them. He had stated that he didn’t want to read them. Even now as he sat across from her, Georgie could see him fiddling with the sleeves of the hoodie she had leant him, waiting for her to scold him for something she was starting to suspect he wasn’t physically able to go without.

Maybe if they had re-connected earlier she could have helped, if he hadn’t already been so entrenched in the institute and their culty bullshit.

It was too late for that now. 

Jon nibbled distractedly on the toast she made for them both and nodded as she mentioned that she was going out, his eyes flickering for a brief moment to the living room where the tape recorder still sat.

He was still waiting for her to shout at him, still curled up defensively.

She sighed. They were going to have to talk about it sooner or later, but if either of them were good at communicating, then they probably wouldn’t have split up in the first place.

The talk could wait.

Stepping out of the flat, Georgie spied a white delivery van that had been parked outside for a few days now. She guessed one of her neighbours must work for them, though she had never seen anyone get in or out of the van and the glass was just shaded enough that the light bounced off it, making it difficult to look inside. She shrugged and walked away, brushing past someone in an unusually bright red ringmaster’s jacket as she made her way to the store.

Chapter Text

The van was still there when she returned. Still no sign of movement.
Jon looked a little pale as she opened the door, but didn’t raise his head.

Huh, weird.
The tape recorder had moved, but the statement that he had fallen asleep reading the night before still lay on the floor. As if he had been recording something but not one of the files stacked in the box of unread statements that sat next to the couch. Even if she hadn’t seen the file she could have guessed he hadn’t recorded it, Jon still looked as hungry as he had when she had left.

Jon was cuddling the Admiral, his breath a little unsteady and…
Wait…
Had he been crying?

Georgie dropped the bag to the floor.

“Jon? Jon, what’s wrong, what happened?” He finally looked up at her, eyes rimmed red and a slowly purpling bruise around his throat. She watched as he opened his mouth to speak but all that came out was a series of coughs.
She felt a brief spark of amusement at the sad little sound Jon made as the Admiral jumped off his lap to race over to her, disturbed by his coughing.

Picking the Admiral up, Georgie walked over before collapsing onto the couch next to Jon. Now that she was right next to him she could tell that he was shaking. Something had rattled him, in fact, she was pretty sure something had attacked him from the palm-shaped bruise that he had ducked his head to hide from her. She reached out, desperately ignoring his flinch, and tugged him towards her with an arm around his shoulder.

“Are you ok?” He nodded.
“Can you tell me what happened, and do not try to tell me nothing happened Jonathan Sims. I am not an idiot.”
When he finally spoke his voice was a little raspy.

“I should go.” Well… never let it be known that Jon was an easy man to talk to.

“I think I’m gonna decide that Jon. And that is probably your worst attempt to deflect a question I have ever seen.” He laughed a little, quietly.

“Something broke into the flat, she was looking for me.” She hissed air in through her teeth.

“Did she hurt you?” He gestured towards the bruise, “Apart from that I mean.”

“No, Nikola wasn’t here for very long”

“I know that Jon! I was only gone for maybe 20 minutes!” he winced and Georgie sighed, trying to calm down, this wasn’t getting them anywhere.

“Do you think she will come back?” A nod as he managed to tempt the Admiral back onto his lap.
This was exactly what she had thought would happen, she didn’t want to be pulled into Jon’s spooky bullshit, and now some creature had broken into her home and could come back whenever it wants. It could hurt her, hurt the Admiral, it already had hurt Jon and he just seemed resigned to it happening again. 

He was right.
He should leave.

She looked over to where Jon had picked the Admiral up and was kissing him on his fuzzy little forehead.

What would happen if she kicked him out?
Where would he go? Back to the Institute? Back to whoever had trapped him in this supernatural business in the first place?
Would anyone even care when he would get hurt?
Would she even be in any less danger?

She couldn’t do it.

Her phone pinged, reminding her that Melanie was back from India and that she had promised to call her once she was home. She had mentioned going to talk to someone about something that had happened out there. Sounded proper irritated at the thought of the guy when they had chatted when she had come off the plane. 

Giving him another squeeze across the shoulders, Georgie got up as he picked up his abandoned statement, reminding Jon to keep it down while she was recording, before moving away to her recording equipment.

Not everyone could record on tape after all.

Chapter Text

Jon was gone.


He had been gone for weeks now.


No text. No call. No note.


Yes, he had been scared when they last spoke, kept insisting that he should move out immediately, but surely he would have said something. Jon could be an asshole, but he wasn’t completely clueless.


His stuff was still here.


She didn’t know if he had any other friends to ask if they knew where he was. No matter how much she screamed at his creepy, asshole of a boss,  no one seemed to have heard from him since they had talked about him moving out. His co-workers didn’t seem to care (excluding the guy who became passive-aggressive as soon as she mentioned that Jon had been living with her, she suspected jealousy). She couldn’t even convince Melanie to even bother looking into it. They didn’t even believe that he had gone missing.


She was the last person to see him.


The Admiral scratched at the couch where the bedraggled man had spent the last few weeks, and meowed late into the night, his tail waving in irritation at his missing pillow.

She folded the What The Ghost hoodie that Jon had been borrowing, hung it over the back of the sofa. The Admiral got up from his sad slump, padded over to hoodie and continued his sad mewing while curled up on it. She slumped over onto the sofa, staring up at the ceiling.


Her phone rung. A glance over. Melanie.


Georgie gave a few fruitless grasps at where her phone buzzed on the table before she accepted her fate, groaning as she sat back up. A very familiar voice, one that she was starting to feel painfully affectionate towards, rang out from the speaker.

“Hey Georgie, guess what? You’re favourite dickhead just turned up. He’s at the Institute.”


She was going to kill him.

Chapter Text

Jon this is an unacceptable time to turn up at someone's flat

When Georgie heard the first knocks on her door, she looked at her phone clock, swore, and rolled over, letting the sound of rain lull her back to sleep.

The knocking didn’t stop. She shoved her pillow over her head.

In the end, it was the Admiral’s excited mews that convinced her to drag herself out of bed at 3 in the bloody morning.

Her beautiful baby boy was scratching at the front door, mewing and purring away like a car motor. She stumbled over to the door, not bothering to remove the chain before she pushed it open, ready to verbally rip into whoever was knocking on her door at such an ungodly time in the morning.

The man on the other side of the door looked like a drowned rat, one with an unfortunate resemblance to her ex. Sensible, emotionally stunted Jon was not the sort of man to be knocking on his ex’s door at 3 am, so this was probably something serious. He looked scared and… was that blood!

“Jon what the fuck are you doing?” He rocked on his heels a little, fiddling with the blood and rain-sodden ends of his button-up shirt.

“G-Georgie? I’m sorry, I need help. I need somewhere to stay. I’m in trouble.”

Georgie liked to think that despite her lack of fear, that she was a sensible sort of person. Letting her ex, who may have killed someone from the look of it, into her flat in the middle of the night was not sensible. He had never seemed the violent sort, rude certainly, but never violent. He was shivering in the cold of the night, soaked through and, damn it, it looked like his bad eating habits hadn’t left him since they had last seen each other. He still looked like she could throw him over her shoulder with little-to-no effort.

He was probably freezing.

She sighed and slid the chain from the door.

“Get in before you catch your death.”

The Cat, Give it to me

The Admiral was happy to see Jon again, Georgie hated to admit that her poor boy had missed Jon. She was even more reluctant to admit that she had missed him too. He refused to let Jon move anywhere within her flat without clawing his way up whatever trousers he was borrowing from her that day, and into his arms, purring like he had never been pet before in his life. She stared at her beloved cat, he could see her, and his ears twitched whenever she called his name, his head swivelled towards her, but he was not moving. Jon was passed out on the sofa, freshly showered and sporting a hoodie that he had come out of his sad fugue just to raise an eyebrow at her. 

He had no room to judge, at least her merch didn’t make him look like a middle-aged librarian. 

Either way, her lovely baby boy was purring away happily on Jon’s chest and no amount of calls of his name, and treat box shaking, and pspspsps’ing was convincing her beloved, infuriating cat to remove himself from her guest’s chest.

She sighed, standing up and moving over to lift the Admiral up into her arms. Eyes that she did not remember being quite so green, flickered open and Jon’s arms reached around the Admiral, clutching the cat that was now starting to sound remarkably like a Jet Engine. The two boys on her couch looked up at her with identical baleful glares.

“Jon give me my cat back.”

A disgruntled sound, muffled by the mound of fluff that had stretched out slightly, to shuffle slightly up Jon’s chest, half his weight laying directly on Jon’s face.

“Jon, he has never missed breakfast in his life, release the cat.”

The muffled sound resembled a “No”. She watched as the Admiral pushed up further towards Jon’s face, sliding slightly before Jon gently smushed the cat into the neck of the hoodie that swamped him. The Admiral’s purring now muffled through the layer of fabric.

“You cannot steal my cat forever Jon” The man in question looked far too pleased with himself, a look that much clearer now that he was not being smothered by the cat.

“But he is so happy. Georgie, how could you make him move when he is comfy? What kind of monster are you?”

“A responsible one, one of us has to be the strict parent. Give me the cat Jon.” He grumbled as she held her arms out. The Admiral let out a plaintive mew from where he had begun to fall asleep as Jon pulled him out from his hideaway before he poured the upset cat into Georgie’s arms. She booped him gently on the nose as she turned away.

“Come on handsome man, time for breakfast.” She could hear the quiet laugh from behind her and was already rolling her eyes as Jon spoke.

“Oh? Very kind of you to make breakfast. You didn’t need to do that.”

She threw a kitchen towel at the smug little shit that was sat on her sofa, giving her own laugh as it nailed him right between the eyes.

The betrayal, How will Jon ever recover

She flicked through the channels on her tv, finally settling on a random nature documentary. They were both on the sofa today, her recording finished and a quick call from Melanie to confirm that she was finally home. The Admiral stretching out to do his very best to lay across both of their laps. Jon shifted a little, trying to relocate an extremely unwilling cat off of his lap, finally reckoning that it would be easier to just slip off the sofa, rather than try to lift the cat up far enough for him to get up. He held up the Admiral, moving forward to give him a little forehead kiss.

A paw pressed insistently at his mouth. Jon reared back slightly, before trying to manoeuvre for another kiss.

Another paw, claws slightly pricking at his lips.

Georgie could not help but laugh at the sad look on Jon’s face.

“Georgie, please, your son is ignoring me.” She couldn’t help but laugh harder.

Jon, a fool: "I do not care for this cat"

The first time she saw him, he was tiny, all bluster and pride. His fluff, sticking up around his head. She thought he was adorable. She couldn’t help but bring him home.

Jon at the time was much less impressed. Only a few months away from his final exams, Jon only tended to halt his studying for what little time he remembered to spend with her.

Understandable though incredibly frustrating.

He was nursing a glass of something vaguely alcoholic, he suspected an ungodly combination of multiple dregs at the bottom of bottles. There was definitely a strong “hint” of vodka that mixed unpleasantly with something that may have been rum. And, oh, yes that was definitely a liquorice undercurrent there, as well as something unbearably sweet and sour.

Who was Georgie inviting around to the flat that was actually drinking this abominable cocktail?

Anyway, he was sat with a glass of something when Georgie came in with the crate. An insistent, high pitched squeaking coming from inside.

The kitten that stumbled out of the box was so small, he could be cupped in Jon’s hands. Not that he was going to, of course, he had no interest in it, no matter how cute it was.

“Georgie, I know for a fact that your landlord doesn’t allow pets” She raised an unimpressed eyebrow at him.

“Oh? And are you going to tell him, Mr “Fuck Landlords” himself is going to rat me out for bringing home a kitten is he?” Jon was silent. “I didn’t think so. Come on, hold him for me while I set up his stuff.

Chapter Text

The Admiral could remember Warm-And-Quiet from when he had been a kitten, Warm-And-Quiet was very nice to sit on and he gave very nice scratches and he didn’t mind when the Admiral sat on top of the warm-buzzing machine that made him frown a lot. Mine did not like it when the Admiral sat on top of her warm-buzzing machine but then again she had never frowned at it as much as Warm-And-Quiet did.

But then Warm-And-Quiet and Mine had started fighting and Warm-And-Quiet had left.

The Admiral had not liked that, he had cried for Warm-And-Quiet to come back, had scratched at the door that he had left through and refused to let Mine take away the pillow that still smelt of Warm-And-Quiet. But he did not come back.



The Admiral was not a kitten any longer.

Many seasons had passed since Warm-And-Quiet had left, life returned to normal. Mine brought round others, some nice others less so. His favourite was Metal-And-Anger, she made Mine laugh like Warm-And-Quiet had, and she was fun to play with and she snuck the Admiral treats when she thought Mine was not watching.

But then Metal-And-Anger became Metal-And-Anger-And-Fear, and even later became Metal-And-Blood-And- Anger .

She still snuck the Admiral treats under the table though.

Warm-And-Quiet came back. Quieter and hungrier and scared and different.

Warm-And-Quiet-And-Static-And-Fear smelt of blood that was not his own and he made the Admiral feel like he was being watched even when he was hidden underneath the bed. It was still him though and being watched by Warm-And-Quiet just meant that he was safe. There was something wrong with Warm-And-Quiet-And-Static-And-Fear, scared and hurt even when there was nothing there for him to fear or be hurt by. The Admiral didn’t know how to fix that so he sat on Warm-And-Quiet’s chest and purred as loudly as he could, and for a brief moment the fear would go and Warm-And-Quiet would press his face into the Admiral’s fur and he would know that he had done well.

Sometimes it felt like something else was watching. Something that watched them like the Admiral watched a toy before he pounced on it. The-Thing-That-Watches became stronger, almost unbearable whenever the Box came from outside. The Box made Mine very angry and Warm-And-Quiet-And-Static-And-Fear very excited and scared and hungry. The Box smelled of Static like Warm-And-Quiet, but it hurt and buzzed and pushed the Admiral away. It smelled of dust and ink and very old blood. And The-Thing-That-Watches oozed amusement as if it found their fear and anger to be funny.

The Admiral did not like the Box, he did not like the papers that came from it and he did not like it when Warm-And-Quiet-And-Static-And-Fear read them out. They made his Static become louder. He would always wait until Mine had left to read the papers and the Admiral was all too aware that anything you had to do when Mine wasn’t there was something that you shouldn’t be doing. But like when the Admiral was a kitten and Warm-And-Quiet-And-Static-And-Fear was just Warm-And-Quiet, he did not mind when the Admiral jumped up onto the table and sat on the whirring box, like he used to sit on the warm-buzzing machine. Warm-And-Quiet would grumble, but he would pick the Admiral up and cuddle him to his chest and press his face into his fur and the Admiral knew that he had done well.


PlasticAndBloodAndMusicAndLaughter came and Warm-And-Quiet never stopped smelling of fear, even when the Admiral purred as loud as he possibly could. Mine and Warm-And-Quiet-And-Static-And-Fear argued and fought and hugged and cried.


Then Warm-And-Quiet was gone again.
Mine cried and shouted and Metal-And-Blood-And- Anger was angry and scared and confused.

So the Admiral cried like he had as a kitten and curled up on the fabric that smelled of Warm-And-Quiet-And-Static-And-Fear and wondered how different Warm-And-Quiet would be the next time The Admiral saw him.

Chapter Text

Georgie had never been to the Institute before. She had heard about it, from Jon and from Melanie and from her own research. She had called everyone she could find the number of on their website when Jon first went missing. But it had never occurred to her to actually go see the place that was ruining the lives of two of the most important people in her life.

Scooping the Admiral up into the little carrier-backpack that Melanie had bought her for her birthday, Georgie made her way through the tube to the Institute, scowling all the way there.

She managed a brief smile for the receptionist as she asked for the location of the Archives, a question that gave her a few odd looks from both the receptionist and from a few employees coming back from their lunch break. After a brief, very polite, argument with the lady at the front desk about whether Jon was back or not, and could she please tell her where the Archives are, and no, she didn’t want to give a statement, and no she didn’t want to talk to someone else . She was finally directed down into the basement of the building.

It wasn’t immediately awful.

It wasn’t dark, it wasn’t damp, it was pretty much like any other modern office.

But the towering shelves of boxes, ones very similar to the ones that had been showing up at her doorstep, crowded the room, leaving it claustrophobic and dusty. There were signs of a better time, joking post-it notes on the memo board.

She stifled a smile at a shoddily framed HR complaint with a “nice one Boss, you’ve hit double digits, many more of these and HR might have someone permanently posted down here”. It, like the rest of the board, was covered in a layer of dust. A few of the desks looked like they were still being worked at, or at least people were spending the workday at them. She recognised Melanie’s laptop on one of the desks, YouTube pulled up in one tab, Twitter in another.

The break room was in a similar state, only the small kitchen had any signs of life. A kitchen that she noted had a truly impressive number of boxes of tea stacked up. She suspected this was the domain of the “Martin” that Jon could not shut up about.

She could hear shouting and complaints behind a closed door with “Head Archivist” painted on the old wood. Caring little for whoever was on the other side, Georgie swung open the door with a bang.

“Jonathan Sims where the fuck have you been!”
“Georgie! Wait, you shouldn’t be here,” He looked legitimately terrified at the idea of her being involved with the institute.
“You should have thought of that before you disappeared! What were you thinki-”
“I was kidnapped. I’m sorry I-”
“... Excuse me? You were what?”
“Um. The thing that came into the flat? Yeah, it came back.”

She spun round, glaring at the small group gathered in the tiny office.
“Did any of you know?” a mixture of angry, confused and completely apathetic negatives from the group. She looked back at Jon.
“Did your fucker of a boss know?”
“They um, they sent him tapes of what they were doing to me”
“That Bastard .” A symphony of snickers. Good to know that she wasn’t the only one who was not impressed with Bouchard. Jon’s mouth quirked up into a repressed smile.

Jon looked awful . Hair unwashed and swamped in a hoodie far too large for him. He looked terrified and jumpy. And that was taking into account the night he appeared on her doorstep. She strode into the office, curled her fist in the hoodie and pulled Jon into a hug.
“I’m so glad you’re ok.”
“Missed you too”
She brushed herself off, reaching around to her backpack, pulling the Admiral out and dropping him into Jon’s arms, the man looking like she had given him the secret to eternal life he looked so thankful.
“Here, take your son, he’s been complaining the entire time you’ve been gone. Now you get your stuff, we're going to go back to my place, you need a shower. I'm just going to go give your boss a piece of my mind.”

Chapter Text

Well, that was… illuminating .

Jon’s creeper of a boss, Mr Bouchard , was as much of an asshole as Georgie thought he would be.

The smug fucker didn’t even have the grace to pretend to look surprised when she slammed his office door open and stormed into the room.

He didn’t look anything other than smugly composed throughout her rant, a stream of insults and complaints ranging from how she hated his stupid institute with his stupid office, to a slightly more serious complaint about the way he was treating Jon.

His composure didn’t falter as he calmly told her that he “had done all he could” and that he “didn’t want to cause undue panic.”.

He barely flinched when she politely informed him that he was full of shit.

That she had rung up the institute almost every day asking if anyone had heard from Jon and to know that this prick had known what was happening to him and had just kept it from her. 

He tried to freak her out, talked about the corpses, and what had happened to Jon. How maybe she could have stopped him from being taken if she had hurried home a little quicker. She could feel something spooky, like something was pressing against her head.

Ah, he was attempting some kind of supernatural nonsense.

It was almost sad how pathetic his attempt was without his spooky bullshit backing him up.

Sure it made her feel sad and a little guilty but she had been taken on worse guilt-trips by guys trying to get into her pants on the first date.

Her lack of reaction did wipe the grin off his face.

A face that quickly shifted to fear and anger as she grabbed the skull on his desk and threw it at the wall next to his head. He scrambled to catch it before it smashed into pieces as she strutted out the room.


Walking back into the Archives Georgie could see Jon, bag packed and talking to one of his assistants. She left him to it and made her way over to the beautiful lady typing at her laptop. Wrapping her arms around her shoulders, Georgie pressed a quick kiss to Melanie’s cheek, who laughed, turning around in her chair.

“Hello gorgeous, you back from tearing asshole boss a new one?”

“Haha, yes. Manipulative fuck isn’t he? I’m taking Jon back now, but you wanna grab a drink later? I’ve missed you, you’ve been stuck here and I’ve…”

“You’ve been searching for your weird ex?” Melanie raised her eyebrow. Georgie shrugged in acceptance.

“Ok, that's fair. But I was right! You told me he’d just fucked off but I knew something was wrong!” Melanie rolled her eyes and gave her another kiss.

“Ok, ok, you were right. Well I have good news for you, tea boy over there has finally dragged up the courage to ask spooky boss out on a date tomorrow, so I was wondering if you wanna go grab something to eat while the boys are out flirting badly at each other”

“Oh, I’d love to.” Georgie spied Jon looking like he was seconds from hyperventilating, blushing and stuttering through his conversation with Martin. The Admiral was purring away in Jon’s arms as the man in question hugged him tight to his chest. “Oh lord. I’ll call later and we can talk more about it. I’ve got to go save him from his own awkwardness”

She gave Melanie another quick kiss before walking over and wrapping her arm around Jon’s shoulder.

“Come on Casanova, we need to get you cleaned up for your date with this handsome gent.” She nodded over to Martin, who had turned a bright shade of red.
“Now come on, my son needs to go back to his plastic prison” She lifted up the clear backpack. Jon looked mutinous but raised the cat up to look in his eyes, kissing him on the forehead before gently placing the Admiral into the backpack, the cat in question mewing in protest.

He fiddled with the end of his sleeve before giving Martin a small smile. Martin looked star-struck as they made their goodbyes.


These two were going to give her cavities.


As she pushed open the door, she came face to face with Bouchard. He gave her a glare as she grinned back.

“O-Oh Elias. Did you need something? I’m just going?” Jon sounded so hesitant, like he’d stay if his bastard of a boss asked him to. The bastard in question immediately softened his glare into a polite smile as he looked at Jon, placing a hand on Jon’s shoulder.

“Oh no, you should go rest. I’ll send you an email about your living situation since you don't have your flat anymore and I’m sure Miss Barker would like her privacy back. You were planning on moving out after all.  I've got a spare room ready for you until you get back on your feet.” She could feel the smugness radiating off him and she had never wanted to punch someone so much in her life.

It occurred to her that this must be how Melanie feels all the time.

“Oh, um su-”

“I am quite happy for Jon to stay. In fact, I’d feel a lot calmer knowing where Jon is when he isn't in this hellhole”

“Georgie!

“Well staying with you didn’t keep him safe from the Circus, did it, Miss Barker? Maybe he’d be safer staying with someone with a little more knowl-”

“He’s staying with me, final, buzz off creep. Come on Jon, if we hurry up we should just catch this documentary I thought you might like.” She pushed passed the man, Jon following behind. She heard the Admiral hiss at Bouchard as she walked by him.


The walk to the tube was quiet before she felt Jon clasp her upper arm gently.

“Thanks for trying to find me Georgie, nobody else did.”

She felt her jaw clench.

“No problem,” She forced herself to relax and turn to give him a quick grin.

“Anyway I had to find you, the Admiral missed his favourite pillow”

Chapter Text

Georgie nudged the Admiral out of the way as she came out of her bedroom, make-up in hand, as she set up her mirror on the living room table. She was half-way through her third attempt to get even eyeliner, when Jon stumbled out of the bathroom, steam seeping around the door from his fifth shower in 24 hours.

She would complain about the water bills, but he had been surprisingly forthcoming with what had happened to him at the Circus, so she didn't begrudge him the need to feel clean.

Especially since he was going on a date.


Jon flicked through the suitcase of clothes he had retrieved from his old flat, someone (she guessed Martin) had gone and picked up his stuff when his rent ran out. She realised she was going to have to help this disaster as she watched him pull out a shirt and cardigan combo that suddenly made his coworkers comments about him being “stuffy”, make a lot more sense.

“Jon, you are going on a date with the lovely young gentleman who hates me, you’re not sixty years old and working in a library. In fact, I vaguely remember your Gran having a better style than that so you have no excuse. Second draw down, right at the back of my wardrobe, there's some of your stuff I stole and forgot to give back when we broke up. It should still fit and will have the added benefit of making you look your age.”

She half-listened to him grumble about how his clothes were fine before he shuffled over to her room.

She was done with the accursed eyeliner and her make-up in general by the time Jon came out of her room.

He looked acceptable enough she guessed. She tried to get him in some eyeliner, but Jon scrambled away like the Admiral when she was trying to give him a bath. No amount of “you wore it at uni!” was convincing him even though she knew Martin would lose his shit if he saw it.


He had been wearing eyeliner when Georgie had first met him.

It was a very good look on Jon.


The coward dodged her attempts to pin him down long enough to apply the liner and swept up the Admiral into his arms as a squirming adorable shield.

“Georgie! Georgie! Stop it I’ve got to go! Martin’s waiting for me at the cafe.”

“Aww that's cute, like baby’s first date”

“Fuck off Georgie”

Chapter Text

12:45 Saturday Afternoon

Jon tapped at the table, sipping his sub-standard tea as he waited for Martin.

Not that Martin was late, Jon had just turned up twenty minutes early.

Looking out of the front window of the cafe at the people passing by, the stores on the other side of the street. One store with a particularly unnerving mannequin in the front window looked like it sold the sort of things that he used to wear in Uni, he took a quick picture and sent it to Georgie.

“Ah such happy memories, maybe one day I’ll manage to convince you back into those black jeans you used to wear. I’m sure Martin would appreciate that.”

Jon didn’t deign to give that a response.

He felt a rush of cold air as the door opened, a sweater-clad Martin looking around before smiling shyly and sitting down next to Jon.

“Hi”

“Hi”

“Um, uh, w-waiting long?”

“No, I just sat down when you arrived” Jon lied.

He’d been here for almost half an hour you say? Don’t be ridiculous.

Georgie gave the Admiral one last scratch as she heard the knock on her door, she checked her hair in the mirror, picked up the picnic basket that she had dug out from the back of her closet, before stepping out and giving Melanie a hug. Her wonderful, beautiful girlfriend had picked up a bottle of wine on the way, had an incredibly shitty looking radio under her arm and was trying to wave to the Admiral behind her back.

The walk to Hampstead Heath, while long, wasn’t too bad in the early morning sun. Dodging the other pedestrians, Georgie leaned over and kissed her on the cheek before gesturing at the radio.

“So where did you find that piece of garbage? It looks ancient!” Melanie shrugged.

“Tim found it in Archifact Storage, think it has been there for decades” Georgie leaned away from the radio, eyeing it warily. Melanie laughed

“We’re pretty sure it isn’t cursed,” She gestured to the eye carved into the front, “It’s part of a pair, You can use the other one to listen in on what’s happening on our end. Tim currently has it locked in his desk, promised to mind his own business. So it should act like normal.”

“You… you could just use your phone?”

“It’s romantic! Anyway, the internet isn’t working on any of our phones after Basira brought in a mirror connected to the Web”

Georgie sighed at Melanie’s amused cackle. 

Martin was cradling his own cup of tea as Jon talked. He was quite proud of himself, he’d managed to set Jon off onto an intense speech into the differences in… well he wasn’t quite sure... he was vaguely aware that it was something to do with weird algae in water.

Either way, he was quite happy to sit and watch Jon’s eyes light up as he info-dumped. Martin thought Jon looked younger like this, excited and focussed. The sunlight catching on the grey in his hair, turning it almost silver. The way he stuck his tongue out a little as he grabbed a napkin to start doodling to help his explanation. The scrunch of his nose as he sipped his tea.

Jon had never scrunched his nose at Martin's tea.

Martin finished his tea, placing his chin in his hand as he watched Jon, a soft smile on his face. He was shocked out of his stupor when he realised Jon had stopped talking, the smile wiped off his face.

“Jon?” Jon was staring out of the window at the shop across the road, he turned back to look at Martin.

“Martin… I… I could swear that mannequin has moved… I’m sure it wasn’t looking at us when you came in”

Martin turned his head slightly, looking out through the window at the store. 

The Mannequin had vanished. 

Georgie sipped at the wine as Melanie laughed at her joke, barely noticing as the Radio crackled, the song fading out into a news report.

[ -eaking News as two men have been seen causing a disturbance in Central London, having broken the window to a shop before running awa-]

“So what do you think?” Georgie asked, “It could be fun, and hey, you can use the institute’s internet to upload the podcasts.”

“ Georgie! I am a responsible employee. What would Mr Bouchard think if he found out I was using Institute resources for private use? Honestly what kind of employee do you think I am?” Maybe in a different world, Georgie might have thought Melanie was being serious. She watched as Melanie’s stifled amusement broke out into a slightly wheezing laugh.

“Ah, could you imagine? Honestly Georgie, I’d love that but I dunno… I don’t want my bad reputation to hurt your show”


[-avy traffic near King’s Cross after a man was apparently thrown into the front window of a passing car. No aggressor was seen and the thrown man was pulled away by a-]

“I just think it could be a good way for you to get back on your feet, give you something to focus on other than everything going on at the Institute” Georgie chewed absentmindedly on the crust of her sandwich as she spoke.

“Maybe…”

“Hey we could have you come in for a couple guest episodes and then when that goes well, we could announce that you’re staying”

“ If it goes well.”

“When. Melanie you had a very successful show before it all went down. At least give it some thought.” Mealnie leaned over to give her a kiss.

“Okay, okay. I’ll think about it. It’ll be nice to get away from Jon for a bit anyway.” Melanie laughed, “I have no idea why you like him, he’s such a stuck up prick.”

Georgie shrugged, feeling a bit defensive.

“He’s not that bad, I think it’s the Institute, makes him all weird and paranoid. Well… Ok that's not fair, he’s always been painfully anxious and getting him to talk about important things is impossible, but he can be fun and he cares, he’s just bad at showing it.” Melanie looked at her a little dubiously.

“If you say so…” She shivered as a gust of wind lifted up their picnic basket, “Hey do you wanna finish this at your flat, it’s getting a little cold?”

Georgie agreed. Packing up and making their way back, she reached over and linked her fingers with Melanie’s. While waiting for the traffic light to change, she felt her phone buzz in her pocket.

A message from Jon.

“Hey, running a bit late, won’t be back until tomorrow morning. Hope your date was nice.”

She rolled her eyes, typing back.

“It was lovely, you can just say you’re going back to Martin’s, you’re fooling nobody. Chat with you tomorrow.”

Martin slammed the door to the institute open, Jon bursting in through after him. They both only just managed to keep the door shut as the mannequin slammed against it. Seeing as it was the weekend, the institute was mostly empty, only a few workaholics closeted in their offices or the library.

Back sliding down the door, Jon was jerked forward slightly as the mannequin tried to get the door open again. He looked over to Martin who was laughing as he slid down to join him.

“What a way to end a date! Well done Jon, I don’t think I’ll ever forget this.” He hooked his arm around Jon’s as they worked together to keep the Stranger out. Jon sighed and leant his head on Martin’s shoulder.

“Well, it looks like I’ll just have to keep taking you on dates until we have one that isn’t ruined.”

They sat like that for about a few hours, long after the mannequin had appeared to leave in boredom. Martin wobbled back to his feet before helping Jon up.

The click of heeled shoes against the floor of the institute. They both froze before a familiar figure rounded the corner. His expression was similar to concern, in the same way a snake looks concerned for prey it’s cornered. Martin felt Jon somehow tense up even more, feeling a tight little ember of anger that after the day they’d had, it wasn’t the bloody homicidal mannequin that Jon was most scared of. He grabbed Jon’s arm and pulled him towards the archives, brushing past the approaching figure, interrupting him when he attempted to speak.

“Oh fuck off Elias”

Martin decided this was the best date he’d ever had as he listened to Jon break out into uncontrolled laughter.

Chapter Text

Jon was being secretive, he obviously thought he was keeping whatever was worrying him from her and Georgie was having none of it. He might have gotten away with is if Melanie hadn’t also become squirrely in the past few days and between the two of them, Georgie was sure it would be easier to crack Jon than her girlfriend. The Admiral tucked under one arm and carefully balancing two cups of tea with her spare hand, she dumped her cat onto her housemate’s lap before placing down the tea onto the coffee table.
“O-oh hi Geor-”
“What are you up to Jon?”
“Wha-what? Nothing. I mean.. I’m watching TV?” She gave him a blank stare and watched him go a little pale. She didn’t enjoy scaring him but if she tried this with Melanie she would laugh at her.
“Try again.”

“Ah, um… So, theoretically,” two words in and she already knew that she was going to hate whatever came out of his mouth, “ what if I found out how to stop Nikola, you know, the one who broke into the flat”
“The one who kidnapped you.”

“Yes! Well that was technically Breekon and Hope but she was the one who… kept me, i guess? Anyway, we have- we might have a possible way to stop her, to stop her ritual”
So far this sounded fine, so Georgie took a fortifying sip of tea as she waited for him to spit out whatever the terrible plan was.
“Yes, so, well Gertrude was prepared for it and bought several crates of C4,” Oh no, “So we are going to set up the C4 and blow up the ritual. We won’t even be in there when the explosives go off, it should be perfectly safe”

Georgie was sure that if she thought very hard, she might be able to come up with a worse plan. Even with those 2 ex-cops, that was still a bunch of untrained academics around an awful lot of explosives.

Melanie could not stab an explosion. Almost like he heard her think that (and he better not have ) Jon turned to reassure her.

“Oh, and Martin and Melanie are staying behind, just in case anything goes wrong.”

The Admiral was worming his way up under the What The Ghost Hoodie that Jon was drowning in. Jon winced as the feline’s claws dug into his hip in the scramble. Which meant Georgie was now forced to have a serious talk with Jon while he had a large purring bump for a stomach.

It was tragic that the conversation meant she couldn’t laugh right now, because she wanted to laugh so bad she thought she might cry and with the current direction the conversation was leading towards, she didn’t want to give Jon the wrong impression.

“And you are sure that it is going to be safe? I don’t want to lose you again so soon after we got you back”

“Y-yeah, it should be fine. Don’t worry Georgie.” His smile was so utterly unconvincing, but she couldn’t actually stop him. She wrapped her arms around him and held him tight.
“Come home Jon, please”

She felt her shirt go damp with tears as he whispered a simple “I will.”

She bundled the Admiral in her arms as she watched him pack a bag and leave the apartment, though not without giving the Admiral a good belly rub first. 

She was listless for the first day. Drifted around the apartment, knowing that they were likely still travelling. Eventually, she had to admit to herself that this was doing nothing and threw herself into her work. 

She almost forgot.

Had almost managed to completely distract herself when she heard the knock at the door. 

It was Melanie, a cheap bottle of Champagne from the corner store under her arm. A celebration? But then why did she look so worried.

Her voice was a little hoarse as she sat down and began to talk. A weak smile on her lips. 

“Ok so… good news! We got Elias! Bastard was taken away by the police about an hour ago. I would have liked to kill the man but Martin insisted this was better.” She lifted up the bottle with false cheer, “that’s what this is for”

Georgie looked at her. 

Melanie looked back. 

“What aren’t you telling me?” Georgie asked, voice flat. Melanie broke the stare first. 

“Well the world hasn’t ended, as I’m sure you know,” she picked at the thread of her sweater, “Basira was the only one to come back. Don’t know where Daisy is, couldn’t find Tim’s body in the rubble and… and Jon is in a “coma”,” she had actually used finger quotation marks as she spoke the word ‘coma’. Georgie raised an eyebrow, not trusting her voice right now. 

“He is… well his heart has stopped,” Georgie couldn’t help the sharp intake of breath, “He has brain activity though! And his damn tapes are still popping up all over the place, Martin can’t get the things to leave him alone.” she almost sounded hopeful.

As Melanie wrapped her arms around her, Georgie heard the familiar click and whirr of an old fashioned tape recorder.