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Jon gets stitches.
Martin doesn’t really remember how it happens, doesn’t really remember much other than a sort of hazy feeling, pressing and pulling at his skin, his bones, and something a little deeper, tearing him from reality, as this new world opened up before him, blurry and bright.
Of course there had been blood, lots of it. Jon tinged scarlet like a watercolour painting.
Martin had looked up to find the towering height of the Panopticon no longer blotting out the sky, and the stone columns of the Institute, triumphant and stern, replaced by an innocuous architectural firm.
Martin had waited, watching Jon in a hospital bed, always that distinct feeling that they’d done this before.
They had, although this time Martin could see the gorgeous spikes of a heartbeat on the monitor.
They were alive. Jon was alive.
It was a fact that hadn’t fully settled in. It wasn’t opaque yet, a flighty thing that drifted away in the space between Jon’s breaths. Martin would wait, terrified, only sagging in relief when that rush of air passed between Jon’s lips. And then it would be silent again and Martin would hold his own breath until the next exhale came and that vital, vital knowledge returned.
He was alive.
They ask Martin questions. Martin answers what he can, which is not much, considering that he is a man that shouldn’t exist in this world, a world with, quite possibly, its own Martin Blackwood. Maybe they see how tired he is because, for the most part, they leave him alone.
Martin finds a job at a supermarket. He’s only trading in one corporate overlord for another, but that’s life, right? Admittedly, he feels a bit ridiculous, ending their grand apocalypse adventure with stocking shelves at a Tesco (steering clear of the canned peaches, of course), but they need the money. Martin finds a few pounds and a handful of loose change in his pockets, but he’s not sure about the exchange rate between alternate dimensions, so Tesco it is.
And then, Jon is discharged and they go home.
Well, it’s not home exactly. It’s a bedroom, a bathroom, and about half of a kitchen in the cheapest inn Martin could find.
But it’s okay because Jon is there with him. Together, like they promised.
Martin thinks a lot about promises.
He should be angry. He is angry? It feels almost petty to be upset about one broken promise between two people, when a whole world, and maybe countless others, has been saved as a result.
They don’t talk about it, not really, at first.
Sometimes they watch telly, curled up on the sofa, Martin’s head resting against Jon’s neck so he can feel his pulse against his cheek, reassuring in its rhythm. Sometimes they just sit, waiting for something to go wrong because this can’t be it, can it? Sometimes Martin cries, and sometimes Jon does. Sometimes Martin reaches out and Jon is always, always there—fingertips and ribs and the little crease between his eyebrows and the curve of his kneecaps and the ridges of his spine and the slant of his jaw.
And somewhere in there is forgiveness.
“I had to,” Jon says. “I’m sorry.” He says it again and again. “I’m sorry.”
“I know,” Martin says. And it’s not the kind of knowing from before, truth ripped raw from ragged throats and torn minds. It’s the kind of knowing that listens, that understands, that comes soft and slow, a promise within itself. “You had to.”
But Martin will always know what it looks like, what it feels like when the blade disappears into Jon’s chest. He’ll always know.
Martin can’t look at a knife for weeks. Jon butters his toast for him.
Most of all, Martin revels in the little things.
There’s hair, Jon’s hair smelling not of ash, or damp earth, or creeping, fetid sickness, or the tang of blood, or meat fresh off the processing line, or that sterile hospital smell, or electric, crackling power.
Hair, just Jon, not the Archivist, not the Web’s chosen one, just Jon and his lovely, lovely just hair. Martin buries his nose in it.
Outside the window, there’s a blind sky, with a grey London sun and stars and street lamps and people.
There’s food too, real food that doesn’t bite back. Tarts and curry and roast beef and fresh bread and ice cream. Oh, how Martin had missed ice cream.
Martin makes tea. Real tea. He drinks it so fast he burns his tongue. Jon laughs at him, and then promptly makes the same mistake, splashing a few droplets on himself for good measure. Martin fusses over him, because it feels nice to worry in a world where the worst danger they’ll encounter is scalding tea. Martin can hardly believe it.
There’s something so human about being hungry again, needing to sleep again. Sometimes it feels like that’s all they do. Eat and sleep and remember how to be human.
Martin comes home (alright, it is home) from Tesco to find Jon watching crap telly.
“He cheated on her with her sister, Martin,” Jon hisses, scandalised. “Her sister! ”
Martin grins and presses a kiss to the crown of Jon’s head.
It feels so inconsequential, so unremarkably ordinary, and Martin loves it: their every move no longer being watched by a thousand eyes, the whole world no longer relying on them to fix everything.
Martin misses the smiting he supposes, just a bit, but everything else is perfect.
Martin gets to thinking about the others—about Georgie and Melanie, Basira, the Admiral, even Rosie. He thinks of everyone else in the world they’ve left behind and he hopes they’re safe. He lets himself believe that they are. It’s easy to be optimistic with Jon in his arms.
As for their new reality, Martin can’t say that he’s seen much of it. The world seems much the same as it was before the fears came bleeding through. Little things are different of course: a pop star who Martin’s never heard of on a magazine cover, a bookshop in place of where Martin’s favourite bakery used to stand, an odd public fascination with table tennis.
Martin knows, in theory, that somewhere out there, another Martin, another Jon, or Georgie, or Melanie, or Basira could be roaming about. Or, it’s quite possible that here none of them were ever born, that this other Martin just never came to be, or that he did make it past the womb—made it as far as a degree and didn’t have to lie on his CV, didn’t stumble, stinking of desperation and debt, into the Magnus Institute (which doesn’t technically exist in this world), didn’t fall in love with his boss, and didn’t have both hands on the hilt of a knife as the tape recorder whirred and the world came crashing down.
Somewhere out there, there might even be a Martin who likes oolong.
He hopes not.
Martin knows there’s a million different ways for him and everyone he’s ever known and never known to be and not be. A million different versions. More than a million. More than any number Martin can conceive of.
But honestly, as far as Martin is concerned, this new world could start and end with the four walls of his room with Jon at the inn.
And the Tesco, of course.
Working in customer service is certainly a humbling experience after wandering a nightmarish hellscape as the antichrist’s plus one.
Again, Martin finds himself missing the smiting.
Martin works the register mostly, listening to customers whose worst complaints consist of invalid coupons and insufficient discounts. It makes him absurdly happy to hear all the mundane little problems people manage to come up with all on their own, no eldritch gods of fear required.
A toddler spills a bottle of juice down his front.
An elderly woman wails, furious, as the front wheel of her shopping trolley refuses to budge.
A couple argues loudly in the snack aisle.
All in a day’s work for Martin Blackwood: archival assistant turned tragic sidekick turned cashier.
Martin tries his best to tune them out, except this last distraction is rapidly coming closer, and consequently much louder.
“Since when is individually packaged apple sauce an appropriate snack for a birthday party?” A female voice asks, exasperated.
Martin glances up from the register to find arms heaped with yellow mush packaged into plastic cups.
“Who doesn’t like apple sauce?”
“It’s Danny’s thirtieth birthday. He might appreciate something a bit less childish.”
“Childish?”
The cups tumble from the arms and onto the conveyor belt with an indignant cry and Martin goes still because he knows that voice.
Martin looks up, scared of what he might find.
And there, as simple as anything, is Tim Stoker, pouting, playful, and not a scar on him.
He’s alive. He’s alive. He’s standing right there, saying something about apple sauce. He’s frowning like he’s cross but Martin recognises the light-hearted gleam in his eye. It’s Tim before the ragged sharpness like broken glass. It’s Tim before.
It’s Tim.
Martin blinks once, twice, because this can’t be real.
Tim Stoker went out in a blaze of pain and fury and vengeance and it had killed him, leaving nothing behind but charred rubble. You don’t come back from a hurt like that.
But this Tim had never done any of that, Martin realised. He had never lost his brother. He had never unknown and known. He had never pushed that button.
“I swear, I can’t take you anywhere.”
“Never thought you were the public break up type, Sasha.”
Martin looks between the two of them.
It’s her. It must be. The real Sasha—long, curly hair, witty eyes sparkling behind round-rimmed glasses. Martin knows she was his friend. He knows this, in theory, but that doesn’t make him recognise her. He supposes that was sort of the point.
She rolls her eyes, bumping her shoulder against Tim’s, and laughs, snorting. “You can buy your stupid apple sauce but you’re putting it on your card.”
Tim digs out his wallet. “Yes, ma’am.”
Sasha glances toward Martin, and she must notice the awed, vacant stare on his face.
“Long day?” she asks, sympathetic.
“Yeah.” Martin smiles shyly. “You could say that.”
Jon goes for a walk.
He’s not technically fully healed yet and he knows Martin would throw a fit if he knew Jon was exerting himself, but there is only so much crap telly one can watch before going a bit mad.
It takes no time at all for their room at the inn to start feeling like the cabin. Jon thinks he can even hear the creaking and the whispers carried on the wind sometimes. After a while, he just needs to get out.
It’s nice to walk without purpose, to wander aimlessly, no Panopticon to guide the way.
Jon finds a park and strolls, listening to the sounds of people and birds and small animals skittering in the underbrush where before there were growls and cries of pain and tearing flesh. The path slopes upward, and the breath comes thinner through Jon’s lungs.
At the top of the hill is a bench. Jon sits. He rests, letting his eyes drift shut for just a moment. (He can do that now. He can sleep with his eyes closed. It was almost a conscious effort to remember to open them when he woke on those first few mornings.)
The door in Jon’s mind isn’t boarded up; he’s lost the doorknob entirely. When he asks questions, Martin doesn’t have to answer. Jon likes it better this way.
And he can sit, knowing nothing and no one but himself.
Suddenly, echoing up the hill and through the grass, Jon hears barking.
His eyes flutter open just in time to see a white and brown spotted dog, floppy-eared, and wide-eyed bounding up to him, leash dragging behind. The dog pauses about a meter from Jon’s feet, and tilts its head to the side, studying Jon. Jon studies the dog right back.
“Major!” A voice calls, curving over the contour of the hill as its owner climbs. “Major!” The voice is frustrated, but light in a way that implies no real anger.
The dog’s owner comes up the path at a sprint. “Sorry about that,” he pants. “She’s too mischievous for her own good.”
And now Jon is the one tilting his head, fascinated. Jon hardly recognises him, what with his dyed black hair pulled back into a ponytail and his pale skin unmarked by tattoos, but it’s Gerry Keay standing before him, sweaty and grinning and more solid—more alive —than Jon’s ever known him to be.
He’s got a dog.
“What breed is she?” Jon asks.
Gerry bends down to retrieve the leash, patting the dog’s head affectionately. “Jack Russell terrier,” he says. “I don’t think she’s nearly as fond of me as she is of my dad. She always manages to run off when I’m the one walking her.”
Jon smiles, hesitant. “They are curious animals.”
Gerry nods decisively, and then extends his hand. No eyes on his knuckles, Jon notices.
“Gerry,” he says, introducing himself.
I know, Jon wants to say. I know. I burnt your page, and you told me that there weren’t any entities of hope and love, only fear, and I’m starting to think you were wrong.
Jon reaches out and shakes the hand. “Jon,” he says. He almost feels like laughing at how refreshing it is to be able to meet someone that doesn’t already know who he is, to have a conversation that doesn’t open with, “Why hello there, Archivist.”
“And this is Major,” Gerry says, indicating the Jack Russell terrier.
“Major,” Jon repeats. “Like the military title?”
Gerry grins. “Yep.”
Major’s tail is wagging.
Jon was never really a dog person, but he hasn’t exactly been a person in a long while. Who knows what will happen?
He sits on that bench for a while, and then he goes home, turns on the telly, and burrows beneath a blanket, just as he had been when Martin left that morning.
It’s over. It’s really over.
But in this new world where the dead climb hills with Jack Russell terriers, Jon thinks that it’s more of a beginning than anything else.