JONATHAN

Jonathan marched out of the infirmary. He could hear Kells jogging to keep up behind him and trying unsuccessfully to convince him to stay in bed. Jonathan tuned him out. He'd always hated hospitals and the medical facility at River District was no different. The claustrophobic walls, the sterile white beds, the flickering fluorescent lighting— He needed to get out of there.

He had tried his best to conceal his condition but, once he'd gotten to the infirmary, there was no hiding the fact that he was still hyperventilating, and his heart was attempting a drum solo worthy of Led Zeppelin's "Moby Dick". Kells had proceeded to fuss over him... almost as much as Evie had... Evelyn.

Why did her name suddenly feel so long? And why did he keep trying to shorten it?

Though he did not want to admit it, the attention was comforting. No sooner had the thought appeared, did he immediately banish it from his mind. He had made his peace with the fact that he wasn't worth caring about. His father had made that point abundantly clear today... He wasn't sure why that had stung so much. They had stopped speaking a long time ago, but perhaps he had thought something might be said if he disappeared without explanation. He hadn't been expecting his father's whole personality to change, he wasn't that idealistic, but maybe some kind of acknowledgement.... He banished that thought from his mind too and surged forward.

He needed to find Evelyn. He had planned on sneaking her in through his hidden entrance, but before they'd even reached the nearest manhole cover, she'd tackled him and that whole debacle with Captain Singh, his father and Martha had played out. Now she was stuck in holding. She was...actually, he wasn't quite sure what she was to him. Perhaps the feeling he kept having was just a strange sort of obligation to help her, after all she had saved his life. He owed her. Once he'd repaid his debt, the feeling would go away.

"Seriously, Johnson," Kells pleaded, "you need to lie down or something, man."

Jonathan stumbled but kept walking. Whatever it was that Kells had given him was making his brain feel kind of foggy. They had entered the marketplace now and Jonathan blinked hard trying to reorient himself and, to a larger degree, remember where exactly he had planned on going. Every part of his body had suddenly decided to become heavier than normal, from his arms all the way to his feet, as if gravity was increasing on him with every step. He blinked again. His muscles felt limp and prickled with pins and needles. It tickled and he suppressed a laugh. He staggered into the middle of the square. The other survivors rushed past him in a blur.

His foot caught on one of the concrete tiles and he tumbled to the ground. It felt good to lie down. He rolled over until he was lying on his back. The other survivors took no notice of him and even Kells had been lost somewhere in the crowd. For a moment Jonathan just lay there watching the sky darken into night and the faces of the survivors melt together as they stepped over him. It was calming somehow. Peaceful even. If he just stopped existing right at this very moment, no one would have even noticed. A shiver rolled down his spine and he realized with a start that the thought scared him. All this time telling himself nothing mattered had been so comforting but now, why was it that it made him feel so afraid? Perhaps they were right, he was lost in life. All those horrible words he'd hear his father call him to the others—stuck, lacking, aimless—no one was here to shield him from those words now and each one felt like the hot blade of Evelyn's knife.

Evie.

The thought of her was like a shot of expresso, cutting through the fog in his mind. She would notice if he was gone. He'd made her a promise. He clambered rather ungracefully to his feet and nearly tripped again. Luckily, Kells' tall, lanky form seemed to materialize out of nowhere and caught him before he could fall.

"You escaped on me there, Johnson," he said in annoyance, "Do you know how much trouble I'd be in if I lost you."

Jonathan mumbled an apology. His head was spinning from standing up so quickly. In fact, he couldn't quite remember why he had gotten back up in the first place. Within moments, Jonathan found himself being half guided, half carried to one of the benches in the center of the square.

"Let's sit down here, huh?" Kells said gently, "you know that new stuff? Yeah, that sedative was a bit stronger than I thought,"

"You think?" Jonathan tried to respond but it was getting harder and harder to get his mouth to cooperate. It was even harder to keep his eyes open. He let his head loll from one side to the other, closing his eyes in long blinks to enjoy the brief darkness.

"You're going to pass out on me aren't you," Kells said, annoyance in his voice, "you know I can't carry you."

Jonathan grunted in response.

"Fine. You stay here, I'm going to go get someone to help me get you back to the infirmary before you get me into trouble with Singh." Kells lifted Jonathan's head to meet his gaze, "Do. Not. Move," he ordered before letting Jonathan's head drop again and taking off at a full sprint towards the infirmary.

Jonathan's eyes felt impossibly heavy. The world was moving in slow motion and it took Jonathan a moment to realize that they were setting up a tribunal. Probably for Evie. They always brought those decisions to a tribunal so they could air their grievances before being forced to comply with the whims of the council. Just another useless thing. Just another illusion that things were under control when they weren't. There was a bell ringing. Jonathan found himself focussing on the rhythmic sound of the chime. A calmness fell over him. Jonathan's eyes fell on the bell ringer. It was a member of the Serenity Society. The man was dressed in a loose beige jumpsuit and the whole ensemble suddenly reminded Jonathan of pajamas. He suppressed another laugh, this time with limited success. The man regarded him with his faceless mask and nodded at him as if encouraging him to lie down and rest.

Jonathan looked into the reflective surface of the mask; The person staring back at him looked familiar. Dark hair, the light freckles, and grey eyes... they reminded him of someone. A friend maybe? He didn't know but still he smiled and the person in the mirror smiled back.

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EVELYN

It had been hours. Evelyn slammed her fist into the wall, listening to the echo reverberate around the storage-unit. "An acquaintance," That's what Jonathan had called her. He was not planning to come back for her, that's not what people did for "acquaintances." Evelyn swore under her breath in Chinese. She had never learned the language because mama and baba had insisted they speak English at home so that she and her siblings would not suffer the ill-fated accent that had cost her parents so many jobs when they'd first moved to Canada, but she knew how to swear. Of course, she did. It was the only thing that children in the various neighborhoods she'd grown up in wanted to know about her culture.

She swore again, listening to her voice bounce off the corrugated metal walls. She'd been a fool. She'd taken Jonathan at his word, and that had been naïve. He didn't owe her anything for saving his life, he'd hardly asked for it, but he had agreed to help her. No, he'd agreed to take her to River District, because he owed her. Their agreement went no farther than that. Evelyn collapsed on the floor. Unfortunately, they hadn't allowed Singh back to question her, in fact, they hadn't bothered to send anyone at all. That might have been the cruellest part. She'd trusted Singh too and though she'd seemed kind... there was that way she'd looked at her and asked about the spelling of her last name... Perhaps she shouldn't have put so much faith in a stranger.

She hadn't seen anyone other than the rather haughty soldier who'd brought food and allowed her to use the River District facilities. She didn't realize how much she'd needed a bathroom break or food for that matter, even though he'd only brought a stale single-serve package of saltine crackers and a small paper cup of water. She hugged her legs to her chest. She realized with a sudden shock that this was the loneliest she had felt in a long time.

As she watched the shadows dance across the walls in the white lantern light, she was reminded of the bunker and its cold concrete walls. She missed her family. She missed the sound of Elliot's laugh, Beth's singing, her parents calling for her to help them turn on the tv, she even missed her Popo lecturing her to put on another sweater so she wouldn't be cold. The bunker had been filled with survivors, but she'd never felt so isolated in all her life, then Adam had come along with his radio. The thought of him created a pit in her stomach. She had been alone, but so had he and they had been alone, together which at the time seemed the best thing one could do. Then after Adam had gone it had been only her and the radio and then... Jonathan. Her heart ached and she drew the blanket even tighter around her body as if it could shield her from her thoughts. She found herself yearning for her radio. She hadn't realized how much she'd come to rely on it, on Jonathan's companionship, even if it was just the sound of his disembodied voice a million miles away.

Jonathan. He was equally irritating as he was magnetic when he spoke, and she couldn't shake the feelings of anger welling up in her again. He'd promised to take her here and now he'd just left her. She should never have trusted him. She should have known better.

Suddenly there was a thudding sound at the door which nearly caused Evelyn to jump out of her skin. The sound came again, and Evelyn's mind jumped into overdrive, running through every worst-case scenario she could think of. She hated herself for being so trusting. She'd told herself she was being optimistic and saw the best in humanity, or what little of it there was left, but in all honesty, maybe Jonathan was right, and she'd just been too hopeful. The thudding sound was louder. Someone was definitely trying to get in. Evelyn remembered how resistant Jonathan had been to even the idea of her helping him altruistically.

"Everyone wants something" he had said. The real question now was, what did they want with her? She wasn't going to just sit around waiting to find out anymore. She would be no one's damsel in distress. Evelyn stood up on the folding chair and grabbed the lantern off the hook. If she tried to hit the intruder with the chair, with her petite stature, likely she'd do little more than bruise them. Her best bet was to try to not only surprise them with a shot to the head but also by temporarily blinding them in the process she might buy herself some more time. She moved herself to stand to the right of the cell. The metal door slowly rolled up and then without wasting another moment, Evelyn charged, hurtling the lantern as hard as she could at the intruder.

"WHOA!" Jonathan yelped, as the flying light fixture hit him squarely between the eyes and clattered to the floor.

"Jonathan?" Evelyn squeaked, "What are you doing here?"

"Were you expecting someone else?" He asked clutching his face and blinking as he tried to regain his vision.

"Well, I mean no one ever came to question me," Evelyn said quickly, trying to think of a way to justify her actions without offending him. He lowered his hand, and she winced as she saw the angry red mark that was beginning to form on the bridge of his nose.

"I, uh, thought you forgot about me," She lied.

"Forgot about—" Jonathan scowled, "I gave you, my word. Remember?"

"You also told me I shouldn't trust people who just want to help others! So forgive me for not trusting you when you just abandoned me!" Evelyn shot back at his audacity to sound so accusatory. He had such a way of getting under her skin.

"First, it's forget and now it's abandoned? Why are you so dramatic? I mean I'm a little late and you do what? You decide you were going to break my nose with a lantern?"

"It's not broken, is it?" Evelyn asked, suddenly concerned, "I'm so sorry. I keep hurting you, don't I?"

"Yes! No! I mean, no it's not broken, but— you just— you just thought I would ditch you like that? You really had that little faith in me?"

Evelyn felt heat rising in her cheeks, "Well, where were you, then?"

"I—" Jonathan started, then he glanced down and scrunched his eyebrows together as if he was in deep thought, "I uh think I passed out in the marketplace."

"You fell asleep?" Evelyn nearly shouted,

"Shhhhh!" Jonathan whispered harshly, "For such a tiny person, why are you so loud?"

Evelyn ignored his comment but lowered her voice, "You fell asleep?!"

Jonathan held his hands up innocently, "It is not my fault, you can blame Kells. The guy overmedicates his patients. Now, would you please be quiet, I'm not supposed to be here!"

"What?"

"Look, I'm supposed to be in the infirmary," Jonathan said, "but lucky for you, I've gotten my hands on a key so we're going to sneak over to records take a quick look for your family hopefully before everyone gets back from the tribunal. Sound like a plan?"

"But if I just wait though won't someone come—"

Jonathan threw his hands up in exasperation, "Honestly, how do you go from trying to bash someone's head in with a lamp and escape to 'I'm just going to wait here and trust protocol?' Listen, they will not be coming to question you tonight, that much is for sure. Now do you want to find out if your family is here or not?"

Evelyn nodded.

"Alright then," Jonathan said raking a hand through his dark hair, "Let's go, but I have one rule: I just got out of the infirmary, please stop trying to send me back in there,"

Evelyn felt her face grow hot, "I'm sorry,"

Jonathan shook his head, "it's okay, apparently, I'm just like a magnet for these sorts of incidents."

"You know between this and the lightning, I guess you're like a lightning rod for bad luck."

The corners of his mouth twitched, "yeah, I suppose that's me..."

"Worst superpower ever." She smiled wryly.

"If I'm the lightning rod, you are the lightning because, you know, you're the one who keeps causing my injuries right?"

Evelyn let out a mocking gasp, "I'm offended!"

"Good." Jonathan's lips curled into a mischievous smirk, and he unslung a bag from his back, "By the way, I think this is yours."