I had helped Jake with the rest of his wounds, an awkward afternoon as both of us desperately tried to ignore the happenings. The silence was worse than before, a looming figure reminding me every moment of its existence. Any desire I had previously to tell him of all the events, all the choices, seemed to evaporate. He made some excuse to go out and get food for dinner, although there was plenty in the cupboard. I didn't find myself denying the need for space between us, nor trying to stop him.

A question in my head seemed to reappear over and over, and each time I did I would push it further down. I didn't want to deal with it, didn't want to process, or even begin to consider it answers. And after Jake closed the door, a sense of relief had washed over me as I collapsed onto the sofa. Yet still, the question remained, continuing to repeat itself over and over in my mind.

Was I going to tell Scott?

Every scenario in my head ended with disaster. Telling him, fear of his reaction. Why did I care? Had it been less than 24 hours ago then I would have easily gone about my day. But now it was complicated, now it was confusing.

And now I couldn't just live each day without preparing for the next.

If I didn't tell him, he'd surely find out. He'd probably know just from looking at me. Would he care? Would he be hurt? Why would he be hurt? Why did I even care? We didn't see each other as anything but friends, we were switching to not have to live lives of pain.

But why was I so confused?

I made my way to the empty bedroom, trying to get a nap, or at least try and escape the confusion of the waking world. Last night's sleep had been minimal, and now it all seemed to catch up to me in a wave of exhaustion. But every thought in my mind, racing past at every second, seemed to prevent that.

At some point or another, however, I must have managed to silence my jumbled words. I fell into not a peaceful sleep, but one of dreams and scenarios. Dreams of Scott, dreams of Jake, dreams of Charlie and Lillian. There was no solid storyline, no solid idea, just feelings, people, memories, and moments. Dreams that felt like a lifetime, lives that didn't exist and lessons I never learned.

Waking up from one of those moments, I felt my throat seizing up as I began to cough, my watch vibrating fanatically as it tried to wake me up. Still groggy from sleep, I pressed whatever button would make it be quiet, the time blinking back at me, as well as a notification below it.

Distressed Dreaming: Warning has been placed in the logbook.

I rolled my eyes, slumping back against the bed once more, hovering in the state between awake and asleep, unaware of the world, and in a peaceful sense where everything felt comfortable. But reality trickled in, and as I remembered the events of yesterday, my cheeks bloomed red, causing me to crawl underneath the covers in a denial.

Eventually, I managed to convince myself out of bed.

Getting ready, throwing on a jacket, I made some toast, thoughts of what had happened to Jake crossed my mind, but I pushed it away. I was desperately pushing down any sort of questions that it would just be a matter of time before I broke; but for now, I was only focused on each step I took.

Moving to the elevator, I was oddly startled by seeing Scott there. The bandage which had wrapped around his eye was gone, and sitting on his nose were his glasses. I seemed to hesitate, before stepping onto the elevator, jumping as the doors closed behind me.

The elevator slowly made its way down the building, a silence between us. Those bubbling questions continuing to stir as I continued my denial.

"Looks like you got your glasses back?" I said awkwardly, breaking the silence. His forward gaze shifted, facing me, quiet for a moment as if processing what I had said.

"Yes, thank you for that," he gave a small but genuine smile, pushing the newly fixed glasses up the ridge of his nose, "How was he?"

He, being in reference to Jack. Another thought I had pushed down to deal with later. I remembered the events of the previous day and what had happened, what he had said.

"Aggressive... thought I was trying to expose something. I thought I was gonna be punched..." I said, not being sure for a moment whether I should have lied. I looked to his face to give away any sort of emotion, but instead, he seemed to be the one analyzing me.

"Sounds like him," Scott said briefly, nodding, before facing forward once more, "I apologize for his behavior,"

The trip to work had been the same as any other day. It didn't feel right to talk to him, especially given his disdain for small talk. Even so, there was an air of understanding between us, and at least it was better than the looming figure of awkward silence.

At work, it also seemed normal, despite the current circumstance. Everybody was here except for the obvious. All the computers were in there place, and typing was the only sound coming from within as we entered.

Taking my seat next to Scott, I felt an odd sense of comfort. Nothing like the hospital, I don't think anything could match the feelings form that night. No, it felt like another world, another life, that I wasn't sitting next to the cold and bitter person I seemed to have first met. But he sat there, his usual stoic expression remaining forward as if he was a computer awaiting programming.

But I knew neither of us had forgotten the agreement we had made.

"Right!" Evan exclaimed, betraying no sense of grievance or that anything was wrong. He simply clasped his hands today, a typical grin as he sat backward on his chair to face us. It was as if it were another normal day for him, that the events of the past few days had just been normal. Even in his eyes, there was nothing.

Noah on the other hand, looked like he was near death himself. He looked tired, too tired, like weeks of sleep had been kept from him. It was as though the bags under his eyes had been in a permanent residence for years. He was thin, his hands so skinny that you could see each bone move as he typed. It had only been a few days, yet he looked like a man deprived of food for weeks. He was disheveled, a twitch in his eye, and a hesitance in every movement.

There was a moment, just a brief moment, nor more than a second. He met my eyes, seeming to stare me down as if screaming at me. It was locked onto me, seeming to look through me, as if reading every thought and every bit of paranoia. Before, just a second later, he jolted his head around, scrambling to continue typing.

"New task, since we're down a man- er- person? We don't discriminate here of course," he laughed, glancing at me as if expecting some sort of reaction. Whatever he expected to get, he didn't, causing his smile to falter slightly. He shifted in his chair before continuing, "This'll be fairly tricky given you're both newbies, but I trust you'll work it out. After all, you're both top of your section in problem-solving, it'd be a worry if-"

"What's the task?" Scott cut him off with a collected and clearly irate tone. Evan glanced to me, as if expecting me to back him up, but I just sat there, still processing the new world around me, half focused on Noah who would jump every time someone spoke.

Scott had asked a simple question, a simple phrase, but for whatever reason, it made my heart race, if only for a moment. I wanted to look at him but avoided it for whatever reason. Then, as if the world wanted to cause me further dismay, memories of the kiss flooded my mind, mixing and blending with the feeling to form a sense of dread.

"Eager, eh?" Evan was trying to be light-hearted, but given the grim circumstances, it was anything but. His joyfulness was a stark contrast to both Scott, Noah, and the situation at hand. But whatever negative reaction he received, he continued to put on an act of enlivenment, "Well, the big boys in the head state are doing a giant new system. Not our job, of course, we're just like ants in comparison. Those big minds already have the coding, but we just need to integrate our old systems into it. Overwrite the old code, things like the libraries and such. The main ones are already sorted. Any questions? No? Alright, get to work."

He carelessly threw a plastic folder between us, the stamp of the country logo on the front. Real government documents. He grinned ear to ear, seeming to notice my reaction of awe, before returning to his computer. Noah muttered something to Evan, which he responded to with a nervous laugh.

"You work on the library system integration," Scott said, not meeting my eyes, but delicately opening the plastic folder and handing me a small slip of files. They felt odd, not like paper, but not quite plastic. Like a blend of them together, something likely only used for documents of high importance.

He spoke no further words, taking the nearest file from inside and opening it. Doing the same, I saw what was inside each subfolder. A small briefing up the top which was a compacted version of what Evan had asked us, finished with the lines of, 'Official documents from the United Nations of America. Do not replicate.'

Below, was a string of code. I recognized some of it from when we had done file organizing, but it seemed cleaner as if the old code had been filled with flairs and unnecessary details. This seemed to refine, a book taken and removed of its chapters until all that was left was a synopsis. Alongside this, it left instructions on how to overwrite the existing code, as well as what to delete and replace.

It was so easy to get focused on it, making the world around me seem to disappear. It was as though all that mattered was each string of text, substituting paragraphs for mere sentences. Refining conditionals, compressing loops into a singular piece that would be universal across the country, simply a copy which was provided in the file. I had almost finished, only a page or two left when I was brought back into the world around me by a stern voice.

"Rebecca, can I talk to you for a minute?" Evan towered over me, and I jumped at the sudden break in silence. It took me a few moments to piece my own mind back together, still filled with thoughts of the variable which I was halfway through switching over. I stood, glancing at Scott who seemed somewhat annoyed that his concentration had been broken. He gave me a glance I couldn't quite recognize, before returning to his computer. As I turned back to Evan, his grim expression which adorned his face made every hair stand on end. He motioned towards the door, "Outside,"

I followed him as he made his way towards the back door, panic and paranoia making my legs shake. Whatever it was, it seemed to have stripped his joyous demeanor from before. Glancing back, I saw Noah watching me with searing eyes, a glare of hostility and hatred. And then I glanced back to Scott. He had looked up at me, and for whatever reason, it gave me an odd sense of comfort.

As I followed Evan outside into the small courtyard and the doors shut behind me, I felt every sense of comfort drain away. He was tall, skinny, but an imposing figure. He glanced at the door for a final time, before keeping his gaze firmly on me.

"You know what I'm going to say right?" he seemed impatient, annoyed, and I feared the many things that it could possibly be. There was, of course, one major thing that seemed to be the priority of my paranoia. Did he know about the agreement Scott and I had made? And then, I began to fear my life, fear the world I would be facing and whether I would meet the same fate that Marlin did.

But, strangely, I found myself distracted. It was the first time I had been in this courtyard, and although it was small, I was surprised by its apparent upkeep. There were plants everywhere. Some in pots, some in the dirt between bricks which crawled up exposed pipes. A marble bench was pushed against the far wall, wrappers and bottles lined the bricks underneath it like a rug. But there was one thing that seemed to catch me off guard.

The smell. There were flowers, real flowers, not plastic ones in clay pots. The aroma was fresh, fruity, and a sense of being free. But one, in particular, brought me back to March 3rd. Walking through those gardens, seeing those flowers, the scent had to be the same. It had been so unique, but now it seemed to flood my senses. When I had walked through that garden, I had no idea what would be in store for me.

And it seemed now I was just as clueless as before.

"I know you visited Jack," Evan seemed impatient, tapping his foot against the floor. He took a step forward, scowling, "I'm not an idiot. What were you doing there? You know full well who he is, you don't think I don't see what's going on?"

"I- Scott didn't go-" the sense of relief was only temporary as he took another step closer, staring down at me as if he would attack me the same way he did to Noah. I struggled to form my words, half confused and half scared out of my mind, "Scott just wanted his glasses fixed-"

"Then there's plenty of others who would do it," he hissed the words in a low but collected tone. It was completely different from his usual upbeat tone, instead, focused and poisonous, "Why not go to the shop where you got your watch fixed? Was that not adequate enough?"

The watch.

"How did... how did you-" My words were struggling to form, a deep stirring of anxiety filling my mind as I took another step back, now pressed against the wall. Yet he took another step forward. I felt my breath catch in my throat, my mind scrambling. How did he know? And if he knew that, what else did he know? Suddenly, I felt like a fool. If he knew about the watch, then he was bound to know everything else.

"You're not the first, you won't be the last," he took a step closer, his looming presence blocking out the sun, casting his features into a silhouette. Before I could respond, before I could breathe, before I could find any sense of what to say, he pushed my wrist up against the stone wall. I cried out as the brick scraped along the back of my hand, continuing to dig as he stared me down, his voice low and icy, "You don't want to end up like Marlin do you?"

"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" the looming silhouette moved back, letting my now bleeding hand drop-down beside me. My heart was racing, tears blooming as the scent of those flowers filled my nostrils as if they were trying to suffocate me. I coughed, but the scent remained, small blue flowers dotting the ground. As I looked up, I saw Noah was the one who had shouted, the door opened. Scott hung in the doorway for a moment, and as soon as he saw my state, he moved over to me.

"What happened?" he frowned, helping me to stand. My hand was shaking, bleeding, and yet still that scent of flowers was all I could focus on. Tears were running down my face as I shook my head, facing Scott. I didn't even know what I had tried to say, but he seemed to understand it, nodding, but keeping an arm around me.

"This isn't any of your business Williams!" Evan was yelling, seemingly furious. But despite his own state, Noah stood his ground, his shaky eyes fixed on Evan with a hatred deeper than anything I had seen before. Somehow, this seemed to make Evan falter.

"They're fucking kids!" Noah was angry, glaring with deep intensity, "You get them killed and I'll make sure you fucking rot like the piece of shit you are,"

"Don't threaten me," Evan had regained some confidence, standing taller. But Noah continued to keep his ground. Evan shook his head, "I've direct links to UNA Officials-"

"And I have a direct link to Marleen's insulin," this seemed to make Evan stand back, "And don't think I would fucking cut the supply. Don't get me with this UNAO bullshit, they won't care if they find you dead at the bottom of a lake,"

There was a long silence, a tension as my hand continued to burn. Scott remained quiet, but kept an arm around me, keeping me from collapsing into a breakdown. I didn't know how, I didn't know why, but there was a lot more Evan seemed to know.

And it scared me more than anything ever had.

Evan glanced at us, fury burning as he looked at us. Scott's grip on me tightened, but his gaze remained calm and collected, staring at Evan as if he was no different than before. I tried to see any sort of fear within him, but he was just as emotionless as ever.

"I believe it's the end of our workday," Scott said calmly, his arm firm as he began to walk towards the doorway with me, "We shall be leaving if that is all,"

"Right..." Evan said, his gaze trained on me. He looked to my still bleeding hand briefly, before nodding, "Go on, get out of here,"