Clarice finally comes back, but John is far from out of the woods.

"Lauren?" Marcos calls, opening the door. "We're here."

Lorna waves Clarice in in front of her. It's strange, coming back to this apartment. It's only been three weeks, but it may as well have been a lifetime. It already doesn't feel like home anymore, but then neither do the tunnels.

Clarice feels more and more like nowhere can be home without John.

And she knows he's here, but it doesn't feel like it. The stuff littered over the coffee table and the couch is Lorna's, not John's. Nothing else has changed, but it still feels wrong, empty.

Lauren comes out of the bedroom, carefully closing the doors behind her, and freezes when she sees Clarice.

For a moment, it looks like she doesn't know whether she should hug her or run away. Clarice lets her make the decision. After all, she's the one who left without saying goodbye.

Lauren turns cold instead. "Clarice," she says with a nod.

"Lauren," Clarice answers in kind, but hopefully more warmly.

They look at each other for a moment, then Lauren breaks eye contact and turns to Marcos and Lorna. "I'll be upstairs if you need me," she says.

And just like that, she walks away. Clarice swallows hard, near tears for the umpteenth time today. Neither Marcos nor Lorna make any comment, and she's grateful for that small blessing.

"Come on," Lorna says, waving toward the closed bedroom door.

Clarice steels herself and approaches. She looks on as Lorna opens one of the door just a fraction and ushers her in, but all she can see is a vague shape on the unmade bed.

"Didn't you say he was blind?" she asks, noticing the way Lorna doesn't turn on the lights, although it's nearly fully dark in the room.

"It turns out you can be both blind and hypersensitive to light," she answers. "And deaf and hypersensitive to noise. It's been...complicated."

Clarice nods and takes a deep breath. She walks toward the bed carefully, though she knows this room like the back of her hand.

It's changed, though, she notices. The bedside table on John's side is missing, and an IV pole is standing in its place. The small dresser is also gone, and the radiator seems to have been ripped off the wall.

Clarice frowns, but she doesn't care about that right now. She can't tear her eyes away from John. He's lying on his side, his back to them. He's shirtless, but most of his torso and his visible arm are heavily bandaged. Clarice thinks he's sleeping at first, but Zingo, lying against his side, shifts slightly and he runs a hand though her fur.

"Zingo hasn't left his side, and she's the only one John doesn't reject," Lorna explains.

Clarice can tell when Zingo notices her. She raises her head and wiggles her tail happily, though without ever trying to move away from John.

"Zingo?" John mutters.

He's alert, suddenly, sitting up with a wince. Zingo barks once at Clarice, as if welcoming her home, but John pressed his hands over his ears with a moan. Zingo immediately nudges him, worried. He buries a hand back in her fur.

"Who's here?" he asks, his voice hoarse and too loud.

Clarice hesitantly comes closer.

"John−" she starts. He doesn't react.

Clarice sighs. It's one thing to be told he can't hear or see, and another entirely to see his eyes look wildly around the room, never settling on her.

"Zingo," she says instead. "It's good to see you, girl."

She doesn't dare pet the dog first, now knowing what John might react to, so she kneels down and puts her hand on John's, over Zingo's fur.

John freezes. "Who is it?" he asks again, this time in a barely distinct whisper.

Clarice goes with her instinct and turns his hand in hers.

C-L-, she starts writing, taking care to press enough that he can feel it through his dense skin.

"No," John shakes his head. "No. You can't be here. You don't want to see me."

Clarice sighs sadly. "I'm here," she says, but it's of no use. John keeps shaking his head and muttering.

"He's done some version of that with all of us, but I was hoping it would be different with you," Lorna says from the door, sounding disappointed. "He seems to think we're either hallucinations, or people trying to confuse him. Depending on how lucid he is."

Clarice bites her lip, grasping for ideas. Lighting up suddenly, she grabs the hand John removed from her grasp again and guides it up to her face. John resists a little at first, but he almost involuntarily leans into the contact. He must be craving for a human presence, Clarice guesses.

She brings his hand all the way up to her ear, pushing her hair back. John takes a sharp intake of breath in surprise when he feels it.

"Clarice?" he asks softly after a moment of exploring the shape of her pointed ear. It's like he wants to make sure.

"It's me, John," Clarice says uselessly. She guides his other hand to her face, and puts her own around his neck, in between the abrasions on his skin.

"Clarice," John murmurs. "You're really here." He mouths something else, but no sound come out.

Clarice brings their brows together.

"I'm really here. I'm so sorry," she adds.

John smiles sadly. "I can feel you talk, but I don't understand," he says.

Clarice sobs. John strokes her cheeks with his thumbs, finding the tears. "Don't cry," he murmurs. But he's crying too.

"You're not supposed to be here," he says. "You said−"

I-M S-O-R-R-Y, Clarice writes on his hand, taking it off her face. It takes a while−too long, she has to write several letters twice because John frowns in incomprehension−but he wait patiently until she's done.

"You were right," he hangs his head. "It's all my fault."

"What?" Clarice asks uselessly. What does John think she said to him? She thought this was about her leaving, but it sounds like something else.

She looks over to Lorna, who is still leaning on the door frame. She shrugs. "The Frosts messed with his mind," she says. "Who knows what they put in there."

N-O-T Y-O-U- Clarice starts, but John stops her by sandwiching her hand with his. "It doesn't matter now," he says. "They're all gone."

W-H-O-? Clarice writes. Lorna's told her John thinks she and Marcos are dead, but if John could tell them more, maybe they could show him it's not true.

John frowns. "Marcos. The Struckers. Lorna. You know it. You told me to finish it."

"Finish−what?" Clarice blurts out, surprised.

Lorna shakes her head. "He never said anything about that before," she says.

"I did it," John rambles, almost for himself−except he probably can't hear his own voice, can he? "I had to. You know I had to."

Clarice strokes his hands wordlessly, unable to think of anything to do that could appease the anguish in his voice−or help them understand what he's saying.

"She was going to… She was… I had to end it. I killed her, Clarice. I fucking killed my best friend," John sobs.

Clarice hears Lorna take a shaky breath. "He thinks−" she starts, but her voice breaks. "He thinks he killed me?"

"I don't know," Clarice murmurs. "Yes. I think so. I don't−"

"Oh my God," Lorna murmurs, letting herself slide down against the door frame.

Clarice hugs John tightly, wishing she could tell him that Lorna is right here. But she can't, not yet. John is too doubtful, too shaky. He doesn't believe his own mind. She needs to gain his trust first, make him accept that she's really back, or he'll reject everything.

"I killed her," John repeats. Clarice buries her head in his shoulder, watching Lorna weep. She watched John mourn for her for months, and yet it's like now they're finally reunited, they've never been farther apart.

Lorna meets her gaze, tears running down her face. This moment of communion in pain and shock is the closest Clarice has ever felt to Lorna, the woman she never really got to know before she walked out on them. Clarice never really understood John's deep love for her that had him still looking for her desperately after months of absence, but she can see the same love reciprocated in Lorna's eyes, as she processes the idea that John thinks he killed her.

Clarice only moves when she feels John sag in her arms. Without letting go of him, she takes a proper look at him. He's lost a lot of weight, more than Clarice thought was possible in just three weeks. Despite his strength, he feels almost feeble in her grasp, his hands trembling uncontrollably.

"Oh my God, John," she murmurs. "What happened to you?"

She knows, and knowing just makes it worse. John's eyes should be brimming with pain and anger−instead they're empty. Not just unseeing−empty. It hits her like a punch in the gut.

She's too late, isn't she?

John's hand goes to her ear again. "You can't really be here," he murmurs. "You don't want to see me again."

"I'm really here," Clarice says desperately. "Please, John, I'm really here."

"What I did was unforgivable," John continues over her. "You wouldn't come back."

Clarice looks at Lorna again, but the other woman is still in shock, sitting on the floor sobbing.

"I'm tired," John says. He sounds delirious more than anything, too far gone from reality. He lets himself lie back down. He still weighs too much for Clarice to hold him back, his body density still present. "Please make it stop."

"Oh, John," Clarice sobs. I-M H-E-, she starts, but John pulls his hand away.

"Make it stop," he repeats. "Just let me go. I'm too tired."

"I won't," Clarice says−and it gives her a strange sort of determination. She turns her head to find Lorna looking straight at her. "I won't give up on you. We'll find a way to get through to you."

"He's been like this the whole time?" Clarice asks a bit later. She hasn't left John, her hands still in his, but he's fallen asleep. Lorna is sitting on the edge of the bed farthest from John, not wanting to risk disturbing him, and Marcos has joined them at the door.

"Pretty much," Lorna answers. "He sleeps a lot, and when he's not sleeping he's not responding half the time. Dissociating, I think. He doesn't have a lot to anchor himself to."

"And you haven't seen any improvement?"

"It's hard to tell if his senses are healing, but his body isn't. It's more like the opposite. And as far as his mind goes...well, you've seen. He's not rational. We've tried everything, but every time we had hope that he'd recognize us, he just thought he was hallucinating. He keeps having nightmares and flashbacks, and I don't think they're helping him figure out what's real."

Clarice bites her lip. Even in his sleep, John is frowning, and his hands haven't really stopped shaking. He looks pained.

"What's up with the...bracelets?" she points at the metal bands around John's upper arms.

"We've had to...restrain him a bit," Lorna answers. "He's figured out where he is by now, but he won't let any of us close since the first day, and he tried to escape or fight back a few too many times. Sometimes he'll wake up from nightmares really confused, and we've had to remove the furniture because he destroyed most of it. This is the only way I could come up with to keep everyone safe but still let him have some freedom."

"And when you're not there like today?"

"Lauren can wrap her shields around the bracelets and do essentially the same thing, but she can't hold him for long. Her powers are still recovering from what happened."

"His arms−"

"Lauren and Andy did that when they cut him off the table he was strapped to," Marcos says. "It's mostly superficial, but his body isn't healing like it usual. They should have been nearly healed by now."

"We found something out," Lorna tells Marcos quietly. The vibration of anguish in her voice is almost too much to bear.

"What?"

"John recognized Clarice for a bit before he started thinking he was hallucinating again, but he told her something. He seems to think that−" Lorna's voice breaks.

"He thinks he killed Lorna," Clarice finishes for her. "That she was going to...do something, and he had kill her."

Marcos looks like he wants to throw up, which is not far from how Clarice already feels. He puts a hand over his mouth. "Shit," he murmurs. He opens his arms to Lorna, who buries her face in him chest. "I fucking hate the Frosts."

"You and me both," Clarice murmurs.

Lorna doesn't say anything, and Clarice wonders how she reconciles having lived with those people for months with what they did to John. She remembers John's despair, after he saw Lorna in the psychiatric hospital.

She suddenly remembers their conversation, the night before that.

"Oh my God," she mutters.

"What?" Marcos asks.

"You said you think the Frosts took his fears and made them real for him, right?"

Lorna nods, frowning.

"I don't think John told anyone else, but...one of his deepest fears the last few months was that he'd have to..."

"To what?"

"When he went to see Evangeline, she said that if you stayed with the Inner Circle, he'd probably have to kill you and Andy."

Lorna opens her mouth in shock.

"What?" Marcos reacts. "He never said−"

"Of course he didn't," Clarice interrupts him. "How do you think you'd have taken it? But he tortured himself with it for so long. He kept having nightmares about it, and...I don't know, I think part of the reason he drove us away was that he was trying to...prepare himself. I didn't really see it at the time, but...it was eating him inside."

Marcos closes his eyes, as if in grief. "I missed so much, didn't I?" he says. "We should have been there for each other, but I could only think about myself."

"Evangeline−" Lorna starts, angrily.

"Evangeline is dead," Clarice stops her. "I don't think now is the best time to assign blame, or God knows we can all take our share."

"You're right," Lorna deflates. "I just...I had no idea John was thinking that way. When I left...it was never against you, and I could never fight you, not really. I just wanted to do more than we could do with the Underground. I never thought it would come to this."

"None of us did," Clarice says, looking back at John's sleeping form. "I thought I left because I couldn't watch him tear himself apart anymore, but knowing that I wasn't there when he needed me is even worse."

She doesn't feel the urge to defend her decisions in front of Lorna and Marcos anymore, not when she sees the raw guilt and grief on their face.

It's like looking in a mirror.

I hope you liked this reunion, though it was dark and heavy. I don't yet have a next chapter, and very little time or drive to write more at the moment, but I still hope to be able to continue this soon.

Please tell me what you think! Comments are always a huge encouragement.