Chapter Text
Jon, Martin, Tim and Sasha met again, eventually.
It wasn't very long after they'd quit that Martin had received the call from Jon, passing the information, asking if Martin would be interested in a meeting. The idea had apparently been born during an earlier conversation he'd had with Tim.
Martin was curious, just a little, about who had actually proposed it. Whether it had been Tim - friendly and caring and confident, knowing he could make the meeting work even if it was awkward for all of them - or Jon, worried and wanting to know for his own piece of mind that all four of them were okay. Measuring himself against the other him over and over, the way Martin was doing, too.
Whatever may have happened, the meeting had been set; and on a Friday afternoon three weeks after leaving the Institute, Martin found himself in a slowly-filling pub, and as he'd shown up a bit early - silently keeping a table for four.
He wasn't alone for long. A few minutes later Jon walked in, his eyes quickly sweeping the place all over, and nodded hello when he spotted him.
He looked better, was the first thing Martin thought. A bit less highly-strung, for certain. Or like he had finally got a good night's sleep.
…Or maybe Martin just wasn't expecting to see him not try to appear professional for the first time since they'd met - not counting the other Jon, of course. Either way, it was something of a strange sight, at first.
Jon made his way towards Martin, and with a small "may I?" sat down next to him, leaving the other side of the table for Tim and Sasha.
"…Tim let me know they'll be here in fifteen minutes," was the first thing he said, after a moment.
Martin nodded. The familiar feeling he'd started to associate with Jon - part-uncertainty, part-awkwardness, and part-understanding - settled between them right alongside the first seconds of silence.
"Do you know how they're…" he started, then paused. He was going to learn that in a moment, anyway; asking it now just felt like dodging… everything else, really. "Have you talked to them since…?"
"Just a couple of times," Jon replied. "Honestly… less than with you. Because… I mean-"
"No, no, I… I get it."
"-but they seemed good."
Martin nodded again. One of the waiters came to their table, and they got a small drink each while they waited. Martin couldn't say he wasn't grateful for something for his hands to fiddle with.
…Still. The elephant in the room wasn't just going to address itself.
"…How are you?" he asked, raising his eyes at Jon.
"I'm… I'm all right," Jon said, and the answer seemed to come after a moment of genuine thought. "The new job keeps me occupied when I'm there, and… and I'm glad it does."
Martin, of course, understood him.
"You said the position was… 'webinar copy editor', yeah?" he asked.
"Christ, I hate that name." Jon let out a small laugh and rolled his eyes. Martin felt the corners of his mouth twitch in reply, too. "I wish they'd just call it an online lecture like everyone else. But- Yes, it's… The university posts those videos on their website where professors talk about some niche topics every month, to… to reach out with some academic knowledge to people. It's a whole initiative. And- Professors write the lectures, and we're their editors."
"…Sounds really nice." Martin looked at him. The exchange was tentatively starting to feel like a conversation rather than small talk.
Jon may actually have been feeling something similar, because he looked back, and replied, "It is. Mostly… It's nice to get to read about some genuinely interesting things as I work. Reminds me of being in Research, in a way. It's actually… It's exciting." He paused for a moment. "…What about the library?"
"It's good," Martin said. It was a relief, honestly, to be able to say it about a job and mean it. "People are nice, and the money isn't too bad. I know what I'm doing. In any other circumstances it'd be the the most normal I've ever felt at work." The words came out of his mouth with a small laugh. "Except before, I've never known about some literal other me just- walking around somewhere in Scotland, and thought about it half the time I'm awake."
Jon looked at him with the kind of tired somewhat-amusement that seemed to accompany most of their conversations these days.
"Yeah," was all he said in reply.
"…Yeah."
A few silent moments came and passed. Martin glanced at Jon as he took a sip of his drink, quiet and deep in thought.
…There was something else they could talk about now, Martin thought, not for the first time this afternoon. Something which had been on his mind for the past few days; which he'd already considered saying to Jon before, because the no-one else would have understood the weight and the doubts and the embarrassment that lay behind it.
All it took now to do it was speak. Not grab the phone and open the chat with Jon and think of a greeting and a way to start the conversation. Just speak.
"…Jon?" he whispered, eventually. Before he managed to talk himself out of it yet again.
"Yes?"
"Can I tell you something?" he asked, still quietly. "Before Tim and Sasha come?"
Jon put his drink down, and looked at him closely. There wasn't much of anything specific in it, he just… looked.
"Yes," he repeated with a small nod.
Martin nodded back, and turned - in the vague direction of Jon rather than to him - and sighed before he spoke.
"…I tried to visit my mum over the weekend," he said, finally.
(And it was embarrassing and painful to admit, just like he'd thought it would be, but Martin had already felt embarrassed and in pain before he said it. At least now he was embarrassed, and in pain, and not alone with it.)
"…Oh," was all Jon replied with, at first. He saw Martin battle with his own words, too, and added, "But- you didn't, after all?"
Martin shook his head.
"She didn't want me to," he said, trying to make the words sound like it wasn't something he was used to, like it wasn't something to be just sad and resigned about after years of effort. "She wasn't feeling well."
…It was true, technically.
"I'm- really sorry," Jon said. And then, "I'm sure you'll get to see her again, before…" He paused, a small wince passed across his face. "I mean- Who's to say she'll pass away at the same time as for him? Things have changed."
"…Maybe she won't." Martin didn't sound convinced, either. For a moment or two, they both fell silent. "Either way… Thanks for letting me tell you. Honestly. I didn't really know who else I could say that to."
"I know, I- I understand," Jon said, quietly.
Martin nodded, chewing at his lip, until finally, with another sigh, he slumped softly against the back of his chair.
"I don't even know if I would have done it in the nearest future if…" he tried to start again. The half-voiced thought didn't really need finishing; Jon knew what he meant. "Some things I do still feel like… Like they're dictated by him. I wish… I wish 'me' would come back to meaning just me."
Jon let out a small, tired, understanding laugh.
"I'm thinking about getting a cat, you know," he said. It was a reply to what Martin had said, he could tell. "The job pays a bit better than the Institute, and…" He sighed. Martin recognised Jon's embarrassment, a mirror of his own, even before he heard it in his next words. "And I'm scared of being as unhappy as he was, for most of those years. Before the other you, I suppose. And I… I feel like I'm paranoid when I think about it this way, or when a big part of why I'm glad to see all of you is that I'm worried if everything they talked about really is none of our business anymore, but… But these are the things I think about now. As if the two of them had never left."
"I mean, it doesn't sound unreasonable, you know," Martin replied. "I'd probably feel something similar if it was my other self who went through- all that."
"Yes, but- Like you said. I'm not just me." Jon frowned, and stirred his drink, absentmindedly, and added, "…I wonder if they agonise over us as much as we do over them, though."
Martin almost laughed at the thought. When Jon said it like that…
"God, yeah," he said, smiling into his glass despite himself. "Not even fifteen minutes of talking and I'm exhausted. No offence towards you."
"None taken."
The smiles faded, slowly, and the silence stretched for a short while, a little bit more comfortably than before.
"…Do you think about them often?" Martin spoke, eventually. "Not about what they said, just… them? As in, us except not fully human plus killers plus traumatised to hell and back plus a couple?"
"It's hard not to," Jon agreed. "But I…" He paused, changed his mind. "Do you ever… find anything there, Martin? Does it ever make any sense?"
Martin looked at him. His past three weeks seemed filled to the brim with thoughts about… a bit of everything, really. Relationships, and choice, and circumstances, and most of all, what really made a person that specific person. None of them had reached any conclusions, though, and apparently, Jon's hadn't either.
…At least they could talk about it.
"I often think… about us, and where we might go from here," Martin said, eventually. Honestly. "And what that would mean. What it would say about both us and them. And… I don't know."
And Jon… Jon wasn't surprised to hear a thought like this. He just nodded in reply.
"I think about it, too," he said, quietly. "And I don't know, either."
He frowned, and looked up, and a moment later something further away caught his attention. Martin followed his eyes towards the entrance.
Tim and Sasha walked through the door, smiling, talking over each other. His arm was hooked around hers as he leaned in to speak; her eyes were searching the room for Jon and Martin as she listened. She noticed them soon, and held her hand up as a hello - and then rolled her eyes and laughed at whatever Tim was saying.
"It's really good to see them," Jon said, quietly, when they returned Sasha's greeting. And then, "But- I'm honestly kind of glad we got to talk alone, as well."
"Me too," Martin replied.