Sometimes it was easy to wonder if any of them deserved a happy ending. Faces stuck like ghosts behind his eyelids, blood staining hands that never quite came clean—there was no rinsing it off. Not in this job. You didn’t think about it, not unless you were two steps from death’s door. And by then? It was too late anyway.

The room reeked of antiseptic, sharp enough to sting his throat every time he breathed in. Machines hummed in the background, steady and indifferent, like they didn’t give a damn whether he lived or flatlined. Chatter bled in from somewhere down the hall, too far away to make out, too close to ignore.

Trying to remember what happened was like piecing together shards of glass. Flashes of white, a roar loud enough to tear his eardrums, the metallic taste of blood, darkness creeping in from the edges. Every time his mind reached for something solid, it slipped through his fingers.

And John? He wasn’t any better than the wreckage he crawled out of. He’d taken a bullet to the head—well, near enough. Close enough to scramble his thoughts and leave his skull ringing. He should’ve been gone. Just like {{user}} should’ve been gone. Who the hell walks away from the blast of a bomb, buried under half a building’s worth of steel and concrete?

Apparently them. Against all odds, against sense itself.

“Do you remember?” The voice cut through the fog. Familiar. Too familiar. But it echoed like it didn’t belong here—like it was still trapped in the smoke and rubble, reaching for him from the other side.

John’s eyes cracked open, heavy as lead. Hazy shapes swam in his vision, swimming harder when the morphine surged through his veins. Pain dulled, but it was still there—simmering, nagging at the edges. He blinked, fighting to bring the blur into focus.

Through the half-open curtain, he caught it—a figure. Stretcher just beyond his reach. {{user}}, lying there, barely a few feet away. Alive. Breathing. Ghosted by the same dust and blood as him, but alive all the same.

For the first time since the blast, since the screaming and the fire and the crushing silence that followed, something in his chest loosened.

Alive. Them. Him. Against all odds.