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This wasn’t a retirement.
Just a slight detour before their grand plan. And if he had a brief respite after all that happened, perhaps that was one of the few things that kept him relatively sane these days. Ahab was out there handling their biggest problems, taking revenge for the fallen. Meanwhile, John was here, trying to warm his freezing fingers over a campfire.
The fire was a fleeting, fragile thing, barely clinging to its last embers.
Igniting this small flame had taken more effort than an expert survivalist like him should ever need. But after years of disuse, his fingers felt thick and unresponsive; his once-honed instincts were dulled. John couldn’t recognize his body anymore. He didn’t feel older than he did nine years ago, but while he didn’t remember those years, his body seemed to do so. He became tired and was short of breath faster than he ever had; his bones ached with fatigue. He constantly checked his pulse to remind himself that the heart in his chest was actually beating, that this was real, and not a dream his body was refusing to wake up from.
He blinked, half-expecting the stars to dissolve into the fluorescent light of a hospital ceiling. But they remained, shining brightly over his sins. The harsh desert breeze settled in his bones, and the cold remained no matter how close he got to the fire.
He didn’t let himself think about what Ahab was doing; leading Diamond Dogs in his image, playing the perfect figurehead Zero had designed him to be. Adam had ensured the mask was perfect, devouring the original man and leaving nothing behind. John was no longer disgusted by the atrocities committed in his name; he never had any power over that identity anyway.
He didn’t really want to leave Kaz behind.
These days, John tried very hard to keep his thoughts away from him; he knew Kaz. Kaz was spiteful and proud, and this would break them apart in such an irreparable way. He knew that Kaz would never forgive him. Just like John never forgave him. They were very similar at that. Despite that, he still found himself turning his head to share a joke with a version of Kaz that had died with their dreams.
Nothing remained from the people they once were, and now they were just two strangers who couldn't recognize themselves, let alone each other.
When he first regained consciousness, John expected to burn with fury in his veins; he expected that he would find himself with a relentless, bloody drive to claw back the empire they’d lost. But the more he recovered his strength, the less he felt the fire. MSF was long gone; Chico, Paz, and all those who swore allegiance to him were long gone.
Their ashes weren’t just scattered; they’ve been digested by the heartless sea. And he had nothing left of them.
One second, he was staring at the fire, and then the flames turned into the ones that engulfed their Mother Base, and the orange glow reflected off the water as Paz fell into the sea.
And then, he blinked.
A small figure was sitting next to the fire.
John hadn’t heard him. He hadn’t felt the air shift or the sand crunch. Once, he would have thought such a thing impossible, but now he trusted his body even less than he trusted his mind. The boy was small, barely taking up space, his hands held out to the flames, mimicking John’s own posture. When he realized he had John’s attention, he turned his head.
It was him. The boy who was abandoned.
What was his name? David? No, that was the one in the States.
Eli
John never thought of them as sons and was disgusted by their very existence from the moment he heard of that cursed project. For years, he tried to convince himself they had nothing to do with him, they weren't his sons, and they were sure as hell not him. But he was convinced that he could treat them like he would any other human being if their paths ever crossed.
But now, looking at this child, a wave of nausea hit him, and he felt the rise of bile in his throat. But this wasn’t the disgust he felt back at 72; there was a certain numbness to this.
John wondered whether, in another life, if he and Eva were different people and had actual children of their own, would those children look like him? Would they have that same defiant set to their jaw, that troubled look in their eyes?
The kid had his face and his eyes, but his matted hair was a familiar shade of blond; his eyes had a certain coldness that didn't belong to a face that was this young. It was like looking at a mirror that opened into his past, but it was just wrong enough.
With a sudden clarity, he realized this wasn’t the face of a child; it was the face of a soldier, of a survivor who would fight until the very end, even when odds are stacked against him. That realization made it easier for John to look at him.
Eli had curled his knees to his chest, looking smaller than he would ever look. The kid was shivering. “You’re freezing,” John said, looking around for something to cover the boy with, and reached for the jacket draped over his bag, tossing it to him. It wouldn’t provide much warmth, but it was better than nothing. The kid glared at the jacket as if it had personally offended him and made no move to pick it up.
“You look different, “ He gestured vaguely toward his own forehead, then toward John’s left arm. John didn't move. He looked down at his own hand, made of flesh and bone.
“So, you have met Ahab.” John wondered what Ahab, Adam, and Kaz had seen when they looked at him.
Had they recognized the abomination standing in front of them? Or was he just another child soldier who got in the way of their bigger plan?
The kid nodded, “I don't think he understood who I was,” and looked down at his hands. “I tried to kill him—him, you, whoever that was. I wanted to show him that I was not a mistake he could ignore, that I could take him down.”
He looked back up at John, his eyes went wide and unfocused, searching for the scars that covered Ahab’s face. The logic of the world was breaking. There was a frantic edge to his voice. “But you’re sitting here...so far away from the base they call home and looking like this.”
He let out a jagged, hollow breath. “Oh, I see. This must be my end.”
John laughed, a dry, hacking sound that sounded weird to his own ears. Eli looked at him incredulously, his confusion rapidly sharpening into a burning fury. To the boy, the laughter might be an insult, but to John, the boy himself was the insult. John laughed at that. The kid had a spark in him that needed kindling. He could work with that.
“As much as you wish or think otherwise, you’re alive, kid.” John leaned back, propping himself up on his palms, and looked at the boy’s trembling hands, then back to the discarded jacket. “But you won’t stay that way for long if you freeze to death before sunrise.”
“What is this? Eli’s voice was sharp, his chin tilted up, “You've decided to be my father now?”
“Of course not.” John’s response was immediate, delivered with a flat, clinical coldness. He finally turned his head, his eye locking onto Eli’s. “I might not like or even care about you. But no matter how hard he and I tried to ignore it before, you are a part of us. A part of our legacy. I see that now.”
For a brief moment, Eli flinched, as if he was physically struck. Then he spat into the sand near John, his eyes burning. “I want nothing to do with you. I hate you.”
“But you do,” John countered the first part, ignoring the second, a ghost of a smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” He reached for the dry branches he had gathered and tossed them into the fire.
Once, fleeting fire was now burning with a newfound ferocity.
“After hearing about your disappearing act with Zero, we had expected you to perish in this land, but you surpassed our expectations and excelled at it. That might not be your intention, but you have managed to impress me, and now you have my attention.
John looked at the boy the soldier next to him.
“You’ve survived. Just like me.”
And I can use that, John thought. The cold in his bones was gone, replaced by a familiar clarity. He didn’t offer the boy any more words of encouragement; instead, he gestured toward the jacket with his head.
“So cover up and lie down,” John said, his voice regaining the echoes of the man he used to be. “We've got a job in the morning.”
He lay down with his hands crossed behind his head and closed his eye. The stars were still glowing, and the desert was still cold, but the fire was roaring now.
And it looked like his brief detour was finally over.