Chapter Text
The thing about dying at the hands of Jonah Magnus, is that given free reign of a world without consequences, he really liked to drag things out.
Jon was pinned to the ground, Jonah's weight crushing the air from his lungs.
“We really could have been great, Jon,”
An image seared itself in Jons brain, Martin and Tim and Sasha, Sasha from before, all standing beside him at the top of the Panopticon, smiling, laughing. Cut off by another vicious stab with the knife, burying it deep in his stomach.
“If you’d just played along,”
He twisted it.
“You could have ruled beside me,”
The knife pulled free and came down again in his shoulder. Black dragged at him, but the eye forced him to witness this, his own painful destruction.
“I suppose it's just too bad,” He leaned back, dragging the knife with him. Jon moaned in pain, but still the eye wouldn’t let him die.
“This could have all been avoided, you know, if you’d just joined me at first,”
He leaned in again, elbows on Jons chest, digging into the stab wounds.
Agony.
“We could have made a deal for your friends' lives. They didn’t have to die so...pointlessly,”
Another image, Martin lying on the other side of the Panopticon, blood dripping down his face. His breathing fast, shallow, pained grunts coming out of his mouth every time he breathed in. And suddenly he wasn't anymore, as if he had never been there, as though a place so dependent on its residents not dying had tried to paint over one of the few who had managed it.
“F- fuck you,” Jon spat, pain coursing through his limbs on every breathy letter.
“Now Jon,” Jonah scolded, and he sat up a bit, only to drive the knife in again, further up.
Jon howled.
“You know Jon, there's only one sure-fire way to kill those like us,” He took the tip of the knife, dragging it up, up, till it rested just below Jons eye. “You know what it is, too, don’t you?”
And Jon Knew. He Knew that when Jonah finally took the knife to his eye he could join all those he failed to protect. Basira, Daisy, Melanie, Georgie. Tim. Martin. He Knew it was the only way to be free. He Knew it would hurt.
But still, Jon Watched as Jonah pulled his arm back in a slow, grandiose gesture. He watched the blade swing straight for his eye, felt the metal pierce it and destroy his sight. And as painful, agonising as it was, he could not look away, not even as Jonah drew it out and went for his other eye.
Jon couldn’t look away until his sight was truly destroyed, his connection to the Eye shattered, and the world faded out in a sweet wave of nothing.
-
“What the actual hell,”
Jon jolted awake at the furious voice.. The room he was in was bright, hurting his eyes.
His eyes?
Hadn’t- hadn’t Jonah-?
“Jonathan Sims you’d better get up right the hell now, or I will kill you,”
He opened his eyes, shielding them against the harsh lighting, and slowly sat up. The first thing he realised was that he was in his office in the archives. It was… surprisingly intact, looking much the same as it had an eternity ago, when he and Martin left London.
The second was that he had been lying on the floor, and his back was absolutely killing him.
And the third, arguably most important thing, was that he was staring up at Basira Hussain, looking as alive and angry as when he’d last seen her. Maybe even angrier.
He brought his arm up to his chest expecting gore, but his shirt was fine, his flesh and skin intact. His face must have betrayed his confusion, because Basira sighed and started walking towards him, slumping into the chair near his feet.
“Basira?”
“Yes, Jon?”
He winced at her tone. “I don’t- I- where-”
“The archives. Why are you here?”
“I- uh- I didn’t try to be,”
“What the hell, Sims,”
Jon just stared at her from the floor. Clearly this wasn’t some sort of benevolent afterlife. He felt a heavy sense of need overwhelming him, the Eye beginning for a statement in a way it hadn't since before the apocalypse. When Jon reached out, trying to Know what had happened, he was met once again with a door, little bits of information slipping out, though nothing like it had been before. Or maybe…
“Basira, what's the date?”
She blinked at him. “October… 30th. I think. Why is this what-” She saw the look on his face, and her expression immediately went back to resigned anger. “Jonathan Sims, tell me right now what you’re thinking or I swear-”
“Alright!” Jon held up both hands in surrender. “I- er, I think I came back in time? Or- no, more like, reset time,”
For a moment, Basira looked like she was finally going to break. But she deflated, burying her head in her hands and letting out the longest suffering sigh Jon had ever heard.
“Jon,”
“Er- yes?”
“I need. A few. Details,”
“Oh. I- god, what can I say?” He took a moment to ponder what he could even reasonably tell her. Without her murdering him on the spot. “I- er, I just died,”
Basira just stared at him.
“I think at least, although I am here, which would suggest that I didn’t,”
“Right,”
“I know it doesn't make sense but I- well, it makes more sense than anything else right now?”
Her expression didn’t change, but she put out a hand to help him off the floor.
Gripping her hand, Jon eased himself up slowly, trying to keep weight off his left leg and looking around the room to see if maybe, by some miracle, he had his cane with him.
No such luck, but sitting in a desk chair was better than the floor.
It took a moment of thinking before any kind of clarity came to the situation. Time travel. Who’d have thought.
“Jon,”
He looked up at her, still sitting across from him. “Right, right, explanations,”
“I- actually Basira, I don’t believe this is a conversation to have outside the tunnels,”
“Well, Jon, let's go down there right now then,”
Jon nodded in agreement, but paused halfway to standing up. Martin was worried. He Knew that, and god, wasn’t the thought of hearing that man's voice just about heaven. It couldn't wait for this inevitably long conversation. “Basira, wait. I have to call Martin,”
“It can’t wait?”
“No, it can’t,”
Basira sighed, but sat back down to wait as Jon dialled the number on the old fashioned landline on his desk.
“Hello?” Martin's voice came through.
“Martin,”
“Jon? Where are you? I woke up and you were gone, and when you weren’t back by lunch… I’ve been looking all day, I can’t believe-”
“Martin,”
Martin stopped talking long enough to take a deep, calming breath. “Jon. What's going on?”
And how could he explain? That he was in London, long months, maybe a year, after it was decimated. And that he’d just watched him die. And that he should be dead.
“Jon?”
“Martin, I- I’m in London. I don't really know how,”
“What? How are you- no, you-” He took another staticky breath. “Jon, can you- can you explain what's going on at all?”
“Not over the phone… but Martin, I need you to come back here,”
“Jon, what is happening? Are you hurt? Are you- are you safe, right now?,”
“Yes, yes, but it doesn’t matter, you need to get back here. I- I think somethings going very, very wrong very soon and- and I need you here,”
“Is this… Entity…. weirdness?”
“Ah, I- I think it must be?”
There was a pause on the other side.
“Alright, alright, I can get back by… tomorrow, if I leave now. Jon, are you at least safe? Can you- can you at least tell me that? Are you with Basira?”
“Yes, I am. And I’m as safe as I can be. I don’t… seem to be hurt, or in imminent danger,”
“Ok. Ok, I- I’ll see you soon then?”
“Yes,”
“Ok,”
“Martin,”
“Yes Jon,”
“I love you,”
A pause. “I love you too,”
And he hung up.