This chapter is very similar in both novellas. The dialogue lines are mostly the same, the situation is obviously the same, the one change is whose thoughts we're privy to. I apologise in advance for that, but couldn't find a way where it would make any sort of sense to skip this scene in favour of writing a different one in the other novella.

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It'd taken Quentin less time to wake up than expected, Ian found out when he walked in the room. He barked the command to turn on the lights to make sure, relief filling him at seeing Quentin alive.

Quentin was predictably less than happy to see him, but Ian wasn't Travers. It'd take far more than posturing to get him to move from the room's only exit. And Quentin knew it — they'd spent too many years together for him not to. The only way he was getting past that door was if he killed Ian.

"You win," Quentin said, with a bitter twist of lips. "I'll shut down."

"Quentin, no, wait. Please. Hear me out." Ian just needed to give him the cards and tell him of the chip. The questions he'd hoped to ask weren't important; he wouldn't have liked the answers anyway.

Quentin looked at him intently, no hint of fondness it his posture. It was better this way, Ian supposed. No more pretending. "What do you want from me, Ian?" His voice was as dispassionate as Ian had ever heard it. "What are we doing here?"

Ian asked him if he was hungry, an impulse that dated back to the day they'd met. Quentin had been hungry then too, nearly having burnt down his kitchen, wanting to borrow a protein bar. Ian had always prided himself on having offered him something better, then.

Nothing but an illusion.

"—Offering me a last meal before you ship me off?"

Quentin might as well have punched him. The memory of him trembling, begging for death because he thought that was the best Ian would grant him, was far too vivid in Ian's mind. He couldn't let Quentin believe that'd be his fate for a moment longer. "I'm not shipping you off anywhere. You're free to go. I just — I understand." But he still needed Quentin to stay for just long enough to give him the credits, to tell him about the chip. "Give me just five minutes to explain, and then you can go. Please. Is that alright?"

The stammering agreement, Quentin's tentative, "I could go for that food," was more trust than Ian deserved. They sat just as he had with Ulla, Ian on the floor, Quentin on the bed. He almost regretted asking Quentin if he could heat up the can until Quentin replied, "I'm a regular household appliance. I bet I could even use my left hand as a can opener, if this weren't easy open."

Ian tried to laugh, but the sound that came out was wilder, wounded, on its knees. "I sold the house," he said instead of trying to make small talk. He didn't know how long Quentin would allow this conversation to go on. Telling him about the practical aspects of fleeing to safety was paramount.

"Wow," was Quentin's only reply.

He held out the cards, keeping one for himself. "There's fifty thousand credits in each, and they're untraceable. That should help when establishing a new identity." Still not enough, given the state of Quentin's face and arm, for prosthetics and bribes. "But I'd still advise you to buy something easy to carry and easy to sell, so you can start building on that identity in a way that looks legitimate. Stop me if this is knowledge you already have, I..." He paused, realising he knew nothing about the man he'd been married for eight years. "I don't know what your skills are."

"When did you find out? That I'm me?"

Something came unstuck inside his chest. Quentin wanting to know that... Ian was probably reading too much into this, but he could think of no reason other than Quentin didn't despise him as much as he'd thought. Why else would it matter? "On Thursday. SynSec — the Secretary himself — called me in for a meeting."

They were silent for a while, Quentin having finished his soup and chewing one of his protein bars. It could have been a quiet moment at home between them, in another life.

"How long do you think I have," Quentin asked after some time, no hostility in his voice, "until they give my codes to someone else?"

Pride welled inside him for the first time since that billboard frame had speared their car. This, Ian could give him. "They can't Track you anymore. I switched your chip."

Quentin's stunned look was a reward in and of itself. "You..." He paused for a long time. "Thank you. Is there anything I can do for you in return?"

In return. Ian's insides shrivelled at that thought, the last dregs of pride fleeing, wondering how much of their marriage had been that. A skewed version of tit for tat, Quentin giving him everything he could have dreamt of in return for a little safety. "Not in return." Never again. "Not if you'd rather not. But, if you don't mind answering, I do have some questions."

"Ask."

Looking at Quentin, at what he'd endured, Ian found his first question, the more pressing one, had nothing to do with their marriage. "First, just... Who did that to you? Do you know their name?"

"It was Connors."

Connors. If Ian had been asked who the most vicious, most unhinged psychopath he'd ever met was, it would have been Connors. And Quentin had been at his mercy and the thought, just the thought, made him feel sick with loathing. "Is he dead?" At Quentin's nod, Ian's shoulders relaxed, his gut unclenching. "Good." He hoped it had been painful beyond measure, even as he knew it would never have been painful enough, no matter what. "That's good."

He felt like a coward as he gazed away from Quentin. Some truths were easier to bear without an accompanying image. "Why me? What was the goal?"

"I was part of the rebellion. You were a Tracker. A good one." Not for safety, then. There was something better in this, somehow. In Quentin having chosen to get close to him with an active, rather than passive motive. "I was... Sent to keep an eye on you, at first. I'm..." He could tell giving the answers wasn't any easier for Quentin than asking the questions was for Ian. "A people person, my commanding officer said. Easy to connect with."

"A mission, then." The rest of what Quentin had said slotted into place. A people person. "You were chosen because you were willing to—" He had to stop talking, or he'd break down. It wasn't better. Ten years of Quentin offering his touch, his body, in the name of a mission, it was just as bad as if he'd done it for safety. It must have cost him just as much, one way or the other. Ian swallowed over and over until he could continue. "You were very convincing." He regained control of his voice, raising it so it wouldn't be a broken whisper. "But... Ten years? You never did anything, never sabotaged anything... What was the point of keeping me under watch for that long?"

"I glitched. A few months into the... Mission. After I'd gotten the order to kill you." A glitch had saved Ian's life. "The day after I first told you I... After we said..." The day after we said I love you, he was sure was what Quentin meant. So long ago, long before their marriage, before they were even living together. "When I woke up the next morning I didn't know I was a BioSynth. I didn't know until the accident. I glitched."

"You glitched." What could he say to that? "God..." He rubbed at his face, trying to stay in the present, trying to live through this moment. Was this better? Perhaps it was better. Perhaps Quentin had been happy, then, even if he'd been robbed of himself for ten years. Perhaps living with Ian hadn't been a torment every day, regardless of the delusion. He wondered how Quentin felt about it now, about having believed himself to be someone else for a decade, but didn't have it in him to ask.

Quentin finished his protein bar, Ian hollowed out and empty. Tomorrow he'd work on finding some purpose in his victory with the chips. He'd work towards a sliver of redemption. Tonight brought only darkness.

"Is there anything else you'd like to know?"

This was the last he'd hear of Quentin, and still Ian couldn't face him.

The walls in this place were pale yellow, he noticed, as if sleeping in a windowless coffin of a room weren't suffocating enough. Maybe they'd been meant to be cheerful, once upon a time, but hadn't managed to be anything but dreary. "Just one more question, if you'd do me the courtesy. But, if you answer, please be honest."

In his peripheral vision, Quentin nodded.

"After that... After you glitched, was..." Ian didn't know how to phrase this, how to put it in words that he hoped it had been better than the alternative "Did you feel something wasn't quite right? Or... What I mean is..." The question itself was easy, once the words got past the knot in his throat. "Did I ever make you happy?" He shut his eyes tight, as if he could shield himself from the pain the answer would bring. What was he thinking, asking something like that? "You don't have to answer."

Quentin moved then, so close next to him on the floor Ian could feel his body heat.

"Ian," he said, tone too urgent to ignore, "I didn't glitch into thinking I loved you. I glitched because I loved you. Because I wanted to be the man you were in love with."

Loved.

It had been real then, all of their marriage, it had been real. As much for Quentin as for Ian, with the same joy, the same completeness, free from duty or sacrifice.

Every single thorn that had taken root in Ian's soul since the accident released its hold at once, heart beating the way it was meant to. He turned to look at Quentin, desperate to see the truth of those words reflected in his hazel eyes, just as Quentin's balance failed him. Ian only meant to steady him, but then they touched, skin to skin, and then they were kissing, Quentin was right here kissing him, and Ian was whole again.

He made a point to touch Quentin's right cheek with the same affection reserved for his left — he hadn't missed the cues, even if he doubted Quentin had been aware of how he'd taken to turning his face so Ian wouldn't look at his right side. As if to prove him right, Quentin turned off the lights, but Ian turned them back on. He wouldn't have it, wouldn't have Quentin ever wondering if Ian saw him as a machine from this day forward.

"Please." He caressed that cheek, fear that he wouldn't get this right, that he wouldn't make it clear enough, making his hand shake. "I want to look at you. You're beautiful."

Quentin's lack of coherent reply all but confirmed Ian's deduction. "You're beautiful," he said again, meaning every syllable, treasuring every bit of Quentin he was allowed to touch. "All of you."

He switched positions to make a point, kissing Quentin's left arm inch by inch until there was nowhere his lips hadn't touched, placing Quentin's left hand on his own cheek so Quentin would know he could use it, that he didn't have to hide his nature from Ian. Never again.

"I love you. I still love you," Quentin said, and everything that had happened in the past week and a half stopped mattering. "You held a gun to my face, and you were willing to shoot me and send me in for processing, and I can't make myself stop loving you."

"I love you, I've always loved you. I loved you even before I knew it was possible to love like this." Ian didn't hold back, letting Quentin know every feeling he'd ever inspired, letting him know he was beautiful at every turn.

They ran into some trouble undressing, Quentin's left hand hindering his efforts until Ian took matters into his own, and then they were on the bed, the threadbare sheets a trade-up from the cold floor but still not the comfort he wished he could give Quentin, who always deserved everything.

The accident had left physical scars, in addition to the emotional ones Ian had so callously inflicted. Quentin's chest left no doubts he wouldn't have survived the crash if he'd been human, and Ian could do nothing but kiss every one as he held Quentin's left hand, as he kissed further down, until Ian was on his knees on the floor again, grateful beyond measure Quentin was here, with him, alive.

Every movement, every helpless sound Quentin made that was so welcome, so familiar, a reminder that it'd been real. That it'd been real then, and it was real now.

When every drop of pleasure had been wrung out from them both, they turned off the light and nestled in each other's arms. Ian's breathing evening out, comforted by Quentin's smell, by the thrum of his heartbeat. He wasn't asleep, but he was close, almost meditating, acutely aware of Quentin all around him, filling him with joy. He hoped this was their first night like this, with nothing but the truth between them, together.

Until Quentin disentangled himself gently from Ian and shattered his heart anew.

Not their first then. Their last.

All of Ian's tomorrows lost their glow, grey and worn out echoes of what might have been.

He could tell from the sound of the zipper Quentin was opening his backpack, but made no move to stop him, to let him know he was awake. Whatever Quentin wanted — the backpack, the chips — it didn't matter. Ian would find a way to get more, somehow.

Perhaps it was neither. The scratch of pen on paper was the only sound that filled the room, steady and final. Ian felt Quentin place the note on the small bedside table and found he couldn't feign sleep anymore. He sat up, struggling with losing everything he'd thought he recovered so soon, far too soon. "Is that for me?"

Quentin's voice brought the lights back to life, much like his presence had done for Ian, for the duration of what they'd shared, and sat next to him. "Yes. I didn't want to leave without saying goodbye."

"Do you regret it?" When would Ian learn to stop asking questions with answers that might destroy him? "What we did?"

A smile that was as beautiful as it was mournful. "Never. I wish I could stay."

"But you can't trust me after everything I've done," he realised, wondering why he hadn't seen it before. "I understand."

Quentin's brows drew together, nostrils flaring. "No. Ian, no." One more kiss. "I know you." One more press of heart against heart. "I believe you. I trust you."

"Then why—"

Quentin said his name as if he were breaking, "I'm not your pet Syn who doesn't bite. I've been safe long enough." His husband leaned back, hazel eyes glittering. "There are others out there like me. Being Tracked, being tortured, enslaved. I can't turn away from that anymore. Can't run away and hide. Hiding's all I've done for too long. I have to help them be free. I don't know if you think I'm the exception, that the rest of us are weapons—"

"I don't." He couldn't bear to think Quentin would go believing something like that. "I don't think that anymore. I only ever did when I thought you were programmed, not intelligent." Ian couldn't breathe, couldn't recall the peace he'd felt only minutes before. "I know I've been hunting people."

"Thank you," Quentin said, and it was clear nothing had changed. He was still leaving Ian behind. "It means so much to hear you say that."

"I want you to know." His voice cracked in all the wrong places. "I want you to know that there's nothing I won't do. Whatever you need, wherever I am, I'll find a way to help. I swear. I know I didn't protect you. I know." His gaze was drawn again and again to Quentin's left arm, to what he'd endured because Ian had left him to struggle alone after the crash. "That it's my fault you—"

"No." Quentin's denial was firm. "That was Connors's fault."

"I swore I'd protect you and I hunted you down instead." And he'd pay the price for it every day.

"You thought you were saving me from the evil Syn," Quentin said, failing at lightness, tightening the vise around Ian's heart.

"Don't use that word." How could Quentin find the will to still love him when his every memory was of Ian disparaging him and everyone like him? "Please. You never used to, and I never will again."

"Okay. I should go."

Please, just a little longer, Ian thought, knowing he'd never be ready. "Won't you..." No. He'd vowed not to ask more from Quentin than what he was willing to offer. "I have no right."

Quentin's warm fingertips beneath Ian's chin, tilting it. He always used his right hand unless Ian prompted him to use the left. "Ask."

Ian didn't have the strength not to. "Won't you at least stay until morning?"

"No." Quentin let him have one last kiss. "I need to go."

Ian had to stop asking. If Quentin needed to leave Ian behind, to fight this fight without him, so badly that he had to leave in the middle of the night, wearing nothing but a uniform torn in a dozen places and half-covered in blood, Ian had no right to try to change his mind. He wanted nothing that wasn't freely given.

He got up to find something more appropriate for Quentin to wear, something that would hide his cheek from those who'd hurt him, who'd turn him in. He found his hoodie on a corner of the floor. "Here. It's one of mine, it..." If he'd known, he'd have brought some of Quentin's clothes with him, instead of leaving them in their neat piles back at the house. "It won't fit very well, but it's better than what you're wearing. And you can pull the strings to hide your face if you need to."

"Where will you go," Quentin asked as he put it on, "now that you've sold the house?"

The change in topic was welcome. "A few motel rooms for now. Rent a space somewhere that's discrete, when I figure out how to earn a living. Some place under the radar, where the number of people walking in and out won't be noticed. It won't be an issue at first. I haven't exactly earned a lot of street cred. But you know me. I work better when I have a base, and I don't take up too much space."

"Discrete for what?"

"Chip replacements, mostly, but I don't know the condition in which the people I manage to extract will be, and they might need a place to lie low. I'll have to figure out how to get more chips. Repairs, when I have the materials; those will be harder to come by at first." He tried a smile he didn't feel on for size. "Can't exactly use my old contacts now that I've switched sides."

"You have to be out of your mind. You can't help. They'll... What you did caused too much harm." And that was exactly why Ian had to do it. "They'll kill you, if the government doesn't get to you first."

"Dying in the line of duty was always a possibility for me." Ian tried to drink in every alarmed twist of Quentin's expression. Every proof his husband cared what happened to him, despite walking away. "Did you think it'd be less acceptable because I've been on the wrong side of that line so far? If anything, it's less of a burden, now that I have nothing to lose." He couldn't have Quentin thinking this was emotional blackmail. "You have my word I'll do my best to stay safe."

He'd be twice as careful as he'd ever been, but there was no denying that knowing Quentin was waiting for him to come back in one piece had made his life be worth more for ten years.

"They're my people," Quentin insisted, as if it mattered. "You're doing this no matter what I think about it?"

"I hunted them down no matter what you thought about it. I have to undo what I can." Was... Was this why Quentin was leaving? Because they were his people, because his marriage to a Tracker would make them turn from him before he ever got the chance to build something? It made sense, but if it was that... That could be fixed, if Quentin was willing.

"Don't leave me." Ian hadn't meant to sound this cloying. "I promised myself I wouldn't do this," please understand, "I promised myself I'd accept whatever outcome you chose, that I wouldn't question it. And I will. Of course I will. But you have to choose it first."

A gesture, a move, half a step towards Quentin. Hoping against hope he'd meet him halfway. "You have to choose knowing what your options are. I'll understand if I killed anything we might have had the night of the accident. If that's your choice." One more step. But Quentin hadn't moved. "And I know being with a former Tracker would undermine your credibility with the movement you're trying to build. Damage whatever bridges you build. I respect that. But if that's the only reason," Please let that be the only reason. "I could be your secret. No one would have to know. Don't leave me," he repeated, and now Quentin did move, closing the gap between them. "I promise no one will know."

He waited with bated breath, unsure whether Quentin would save him or crush this fierce, fragile, terrible thing beating against the walls of Ian's ribcage.

"Connors wasn't the only person I killed today."

"Quentin—" He didn't know what he was going to say, but Quentin stopped him with a raised hand. The right one, of course.

"No. Please, let me finish." Quentin's eyes dropped from his. "It was Maxine. She... I — She wasn't like him. I didn't mean to. She was pointing her Nuller at me and I... I took it, and I punched her, and I just wanted to knock her out, but I... I punched too hard. I didn't mean to." Quentin's voice was a mirror of Ian's heart. A plea. A prayer. "She was dead before she fell."

Maxine. Ian spared a moment to mourn her loss, even though they hadn't been friends. She might have been swayed to their cause, if she'd known.

"She was a decent person." He wished it had been one of the bad ones. "Always looked out for the kids. But we all know what we sign up for. And you didn't mean to kill her, which is more than what can be said for her if she was pointing a Nuller at you." He made to touch Quentin, to hold him, but he still didn't know Quentin would welcome it at this precise moment. He let his hand drop. "You're not a killer, not by choice. Did you think I'd blame you for not letting yourself get killed?"

Quentin's head shot up. "So you'd still..."

"Always."

Tears swam in beloved hazel eyes as their lips met again, just before Quentin made the most startling of confessions. "I didn't think you'd — I thought you'd welcome a fresh start without... Without being tied to me."

"Nothing makes sense without you." If there was a fresh start to be found in their parting, it would be Quentin's. "But you... Twenty years. And I never saw it. Can you still take me, knowing that?"

"Less than two weeks," Quentin shot back, touching their foreheads together. "And, from the moment you saw it, you saw everything. Do you know how rare that is? That ability you have to say you were wrong, to do the right thing, to change? And me, I... They told me to kill you, and I wanted so badly not to that I glitched and forgot." Ian wanted to wipe the look of helplessness from Quentin's face. "I've wondered this week, if I hadn't glitched, would I have done it? Killed you in your sleep and walked away? I can't say for sure that I wouldn't have. So I guess I'll send that question back to you: Can you still take me, knowing that?"

The answer was so simple, he didn't need to think it over. "You're not that man anymore. We've both changed."

"Have we? I don't have that ability."

Ian smiled, realising he knew the answer to the next question already. "So you still can't say for sure whether you'd kill me in my sleep if you got the order now?"

Quentin drew back, sucking in a breath, lips twisting in horror. "Of course I can. I wouldn't. I wouldn't."

"Then you have changed. If you don't hold the man I've been until last week against me, how could I hold the man you were ten years ago against you?"

"Are you sure? I understand this," Quentin waved at his cheek, "isn't easy to get used to."

"That's not who you are. That's just what you're made of. And I'm glad, I'm so glad." Quentin needed to hear this, Ian realised. "If you were human, you'd have died in that car crash. Are parts really that important?" He'd coax a laugh out of Quentin yet. "Unless you tell me what drew you to me was my liver?"

There it was, Quentin's laughter that he'd missed so much. "I'm sure it's a very sexy liver." Ian had hoped the mirth would have lasted longer, but everything was still as raw to Quentin as to himself. "But what I mean is, I'm not the man you thought you were marrying."

"I'd marry you again right now." If Quentin didn't accept him now, nothing Ian could say would sway him. "If you'd have me."

Bruised lips fit together, so desperate to be close it hurt. "Always. And not as a secret. I won't keep you a secret."

Ian wanted to speak, but it wasn't easy when his lips were as reluctant to give up Quentin's as he'd been to part from Quentin himself. Yet it had to be done. He had to explain they couldn't be selfish, couldn't put their happiness above the fight for the freedom of an entire people. "No, love. We have to. I understand what you're trying to achieve, the importance of—"

"Ian." Quentin cut across him. "I'm not fighting for BioSynths to be free to do anything except fall in love with a Tracker. Don't you see that's not freedom?"

That... That made sense, complete sense. It wasn't an excuse to be selfish. They needed to start as they meant to go on, building freedom that wouldn't find itself subjected to arbitrary rules that were as cruel as the ones BioSynths had lived under before, in their own way. His heart soared with the realisation that there was nothing, absolutely nothing holding them back anymore. "Together?"

"Together."

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Thank you for reading!

There you have it. What these two feel for one another, what they're willing to do, what they want to achieve. I don't need to beg for comments at this point, do I? You all know I'm chomping at the bit. Also, should you feel it's warranted, please remember to vote.

If you've been reading both, did you decide to reread this chapter in the other novella? Why/Why not? And, if you did, what are your thoughts on having the scene from both PoVs?

Expect the next update tomorrow!