Seeking solace - to seek relief from grief or disappointment. I hope that you're all staying safe in lockdown wherever in the world you may be. This fic has been one of the things keeping me busy and since posting the last chapter, I've come back to my notes and now have the rough plot of the whole fic outlined and as long as my current motivation continues, I should be updating no less than monthly. Also, I've been going through starting with old chapters and adding illustrations to them, which can be seen on the version of the fanfiction on AO3

It had been at least a week, but it couldn't have been more than two that she had spent here. Food supplies were starting to run low and her patience was wearing even lower. Tempers, however, were running very high. It was astonishing just how fast dwindling food, stale water and stinging sand could pit otherwise friendly faces against each other. Mix that together under the broiling desert sun and tensions begin to bubble over.

"For pity's sake Agura, just come off it already!" The pitched irritation in Stanford's voice pinched a raw nerve inside Agura who was simmering with frustration. "Not all of us have had it as easy as you!"

His words struck a chord and she found herself narrowing the space between them and leaning into his space, a dark scowl spread across her features. Stanford - who could be rather cowardly at times and would almost always back down from a challenge - brazenly matched her step. "You know, Stanford," she growled, "Not everything is about you. Maybe you should consider that there are other members of our team. Innocent people who haven't made it this far."

For a moment, he recoiled, and she caught the flash of guilt on his face. Was it guilt? Regret? Or hurt?

If he was going to take the fears that she had confided in him and throw them back in her face; he'd have something else coming. "You're being selfish."

"I'm being selfish?" His voice was quiet at first, but she heard it crack as regret warped into anger. "Tell me Agura, how am I selfish? Do you have any idea what you managed to escape from?"

Anger subsiding for a moment, Agura's frown flatlined. "You're absolutely right, I don't." Her face softened for a moment. If only he wasn't so stubborn, she could get him to open up to her. "Maybe if you told me, Stanford-.

"If it was that easy, Agura, do you not think I would try? Do you know what I would give to not be totally helpless? To have gotten away with just a few scratches on the backs of my hands? If anyone is selfish, it's you."

That shouldn't have stung her as hard as it did, but the traces of envy and almost-jealousy in his voice ignited her anger. Part of her knew that there were more mature, more responsible ways to contain the situation, but another part of her wanted to serve him with an even sharper sting. Give him a taste of his own medicine.

"Really! With everything I've done to help you, all the patience I've given you. And for you to accuse me of taking that for granted? You know what Stanford, maybe if you hadn't been sheltered and spoon-fed for your entire life and didn't expect things to be done for you, maybe you wouldn't be in this situation. Maybe this is on you."

Maybe you deserved it.

Those words left a putrid taste in her mouth and she wished she could have buried them. Buried them and stopped such ugly thoughts from leaving her mouth. She knew that her poisonous words had bitten Stanford – because he drew silent and suddenly became very interested in scuffing the rubble on the ground with his boot.

He looked up, "You know what? I don't need you." He scowled at her, turning on her heel. "Just leave me alone."

She berated herself for not apologising, for not admitting there and then that her words had been way out of line. She clenched her fists. "Fine"

"Fine," he spat, storming off into the desert.

She didn't follow after him. It had only taken her a second, but one second of lost control had possibly just cost her only friend left.

"That was the wrong thing to say, Agura. This isn't his fault; this isn't your fault. He's not being selfish; he's reacting to trauma."

Going after him now wasn't going to help. Stanford needed time to stew over what she had just said, and cool down. She had plenty of time later when the waters had calmed to find him and patch things up. She dragged her drained form towards the steps to the watchtower and began to climb. He wouldn't go far. He wouldn't leave without her.

With the grimy skylight propped open, she had spent the past few hours up on the roof, sitting on the corrugated metal with her knees tucked up to her chest, the rock face looming behind her and shielding her from the full force of the sun. She stared out onto the horizon with brooding eyes. She couldn't even remember why she had been so angry with him in the first place. There wasn't really any use in getting Stanford to open up about anything, he kept his secrets as tightly bound as the cloaks that he was constantly bundling himself up in. She could judge his upbringing however she wanted, but she knew it was wrong to say that because of it, he had doomed himself to the wrath of Krytus. It would be easier to empathise with him if she had known what his fate had been. Though, looking at the grotesque wounds on his body sent her imagination reeling. And the worst part? She could almost guarantee that were innocents all over the multiverse suffering a worse fate at the same hands.

It wasn't just their food stores that were running low. After their initial rejoice of finding one another alive, Agura had felt their morale slowly draining away. Stanford's gloomy outlook on life was contagious and it clung to her like a pair of iron weights. She could see it in the way he struggled in his sleep and in the despondent look on his face whenever she mentioned the thought of home. She had lashed out to protect herself. Protect the few shards of hope she had left. She had always tried to surround herself with strong people, who were a living, breathing reminder that her efforts weren't in vain.

War broke people, that much Agura knew.

But had it broken Stanford?

Not past the point of repair, she hoped.

She caught sight of him, wandering along one of the far walls. Despite the fact that the figure was hooded, the dirt encrusted violet boots and the familiar limp in his step provided her with ease. She watched him ascend along a thin path, up towards one of the caves, located a few meters up. She watched him hesitate for a moment, look around and then become enveloped by the darkness as he slipped inside the rock maw. He had never pointed that area out to her before; what was he up too?

Curiosity was gnawing at her, egging her on to follow him, but common courtesy also nagged at her mind. What if he had gone in there for some time by himself, where she wouldn't be able to find him?

At the same time, if he didn't want her there, he was sure she would make that very clear. Besides, he shouldn't be hiding anything from her.

She slowly inched her way down towards the skylight, holding the frame and lowering herself down to the attic floor. She was out the door and down the clunky steps in minutes. She jogged across the sand and made it to the gravelly path that Stanford had walked minutes before.

She peered into the jaws of the cave. Bizarrely, the smooth rocks covering the floor of the cave were slick with water that moved sluggishly in small streams and then evaporated when it reached the sight of the harsh desert sun. Other than watching her steps on the soaked rocks, the cave was easily large enough for her to move around in. It wasn't completely dark, either. The rocks were illuminated by a deep blue light that seemed to be emanating from deeper in the cave. She trod carefully, avoiding the series of metal chains hanging from the ceiling. She tried to keep her footfalls soft, as to avoid waking anything living in there and not startle Stanford…however far ahead he was.

There was a soft, rumbling sound being echoed between the walls, accompanied by dripping, and the gentle clinking of the chains as they swung in the soft breeze. Ahead, she could see what she thought was the back wall and end of the cave. Light was shining or reflecting across from an opening elsewhere and projecting onto it. The further she moved; the rumbling sound became clearer. It was running water, painting the image of a small, sub-surface waterfall in her head. There was a bigger stream of running water deeper within the cave. Light was hitting that water and creating wavy, blue-tinted shimmers of light on the back wall. Maybe this was where Stanford was getting their water from?

She could feel the water beginning to seep through her well-loved boots, and she bit her lip as she found herself stepping in one too many puddles and creating deep splashing sounds that would be drawing attention to her presence.

Speaking of which, not all of the splashing sounds were coming from her. The back of the cave was indeed what she was looking at, but it opened out into a room, where the sounds were emanating from. She peered around the corner.

A series of large boulders sat to one side of the area, framing the ledge when the ground dropped down to hold a small lagoon. Water entered from a small stream on one side and exited through a small gap in the rock on the other. There were small gaps in the ceiling rock, allowing light to filter through and give the water its brilliant light blue glow that seeped up the walls.

Stanford was sat on the ledge, legs dangling over the edge into the water. The source of the splashing sounds – Stanford washing his arms and cupping his hands to the water to drink.

She cleared her throat, just loud enough to announce her presence but not startle him too hard. He jumped slightly and turned his head, but not enough for her to be out of his blind spot.

"Uh…hey," she sighed, waiting for some kind of indication that she was allowed to approach. He turned his head in her direction, but that wasn't to say that he could see her.

"Hey," he said dryly. She climbed across the rocks, slipping down onto the ledge with him.

The silence was jarring. She needed to say something. "Look, Stanford, about earlier-." She swallowed the lump forming in her throat. Anger and bitterness were missing from his expression, but his eyes – even the blind one, drooping from soreness or fatigue – held apprehension. "I know we said no more apologies, but – you deserve one. What I said was way out of order. You're not being selfish, and this isn't your fault."

There was silence for a few moments. He cocked his head at her and sighed. "You're not selfish either; you've been the one keeping us alive. I didn't mean what I said, I…I can't do this by myself."

She smiled. Agura reached down and slipped her hand into the pool. The cool water brought instant relief to the sores on her palms, soothing her nerves and her body from the relentless humidity of the cavern. The water had to be safe. It was running and she had seen Stanford drinking it. She stopped swishing her hand around in the water. It was almost completely clear, so much so that she could see the ebony pebbles resting at the bottom. Aside from a few rocks large enough to stand on, the centre dropped a few metres. Deep enough to swim across.

"So, we're cool?" she asked.

He paused. Despite her apologies easing his worries, there was evidently still something on his mind. Something that he couldn't quite put into words, which led to a long silence. A nail-biting silence that Agura was determined to break. She pulled off her ruined boots and shrugged herself out of the remainder of her shocksuit. Her shorts and thin t-shirt underneath clung to her skin. Stanford watched her quizzically as she stood up on the ledge, and then dived in, headfirst.

The water was a reprieve, not just from the sunburn and wounds, but it eased the grime, harsh sand and grease from her skin. Being submerged, her senses relaxed, creating a temporary, silent bubble of space. She heard the distorted sound of Stanford calling her as she surfaced, rubbing her face and removing her bandanna and tossing it aside so that her dreadlocks fell carelessly around her shoulders. She laid back in the water with a sigh, opening one eye to glance at Stanford. He looked surprised, raising a brow at her in disbelief.

She smirked. "What? Do you know how long it's been since I last had a bath?"

A thin smile appeared on his face. "Gross." She playfully splashed water in his direction, causing him to lean away in surprise.

She sat up, bobbing in the water, her smile fading for a moment. She extended her hand towards Stanford. "Coming in?"

He chewed his lip indecisively, looking her up and down.

"The water's fine, Stan," she assured.

"It's not that," he admitted. "I don't want to get it in my eye."

"There's a ledge to stand on about a meter in and I can grab you if you slip." She teasingly added "I promise not to pull you under."

"That's very reassuring," he muttered, sluggishly pulling his tank top and cloak off and lowering himself into the water with her. She watched him visibly relax as he sunk into the water up to his shoulders, closing his eye and leaning back against the ledge. She took time softly massaging her fingers into her hair, dipping her head below the surface. When she looked back at him, he was holding himself up on the ledge with his elbows.

She knew she had never seen his arms uncovered before, because she would have noticed the bold, black scripture printed onto the inside of his right forearm. It was of sentient origin, that much she could tell.

"How did you get that?"

She watched his gaze follow her eyes as he self-consciously pulled his arm back under the water.

"Stanford." She gripped his arm to prevent him moving away. He sighed. "Are you sure you want to know, Agura? Because that's not the worst of it."

Agura felt her heart sink.

He moved to a side of the edge where he was standing waist deep in water and upon turning around, Agura brought her hand to her mouth. Down the middle of Stanford's back was a series of thin white lines cut into his skin. They crisscrossed one another as they stretched across his torso. She reached out, but hesitated. She didn't want to say it out loud, but she was very conscious of what kind of weapon could have made those marks.

Stanford seemed to pick up on her hesitation. "They don't hurt…at least not anymore." He didn't even flinch when she ran her fingers over the slight bumps on his skin, albeit with extreme care.

"When we were in that battle zone," he broke into speech and Agura moved away, motioning him to continue, "…my car may have gone up in flames, but that wasn't how I got the scars. Any of them."

"I don't doubt that." She put a hand on his shoulder in reassurance.

"I was stranded. I," she could hear him starting to choke up. "I was thought I was going to die there. But they didn't kill me. They…they took me back to their homeworld."

She just kept listening, silently nodding to keep pace with the information rushing through her head, and the many gruesome questions that clawed their way to the surface.

"I, I don't know why they kept me alive. I don't know why they didn't take me where they took the others, I don't know why but I soon thought that I would have been better off, y'know, dead."

"Stanford." His eyes were glazed over. Like he was talking to her, but he wasn't truly hearing her because his mind was somewhere else.

He swallowed thickly, drawing in a hard breath, "I tried calling for you lot over the radio, but nobody would answer me-."

"Stanford," Agura warned, trying to snap him out of it.

"Everyone else was gone!"

"Stanford!" As soon as she'd raised her voice, he'd stopped. He looked right at her, not just right through her. Agura started again, fiddling with the hem of her shirt as she tried to think of a different question to draw his focus to. "How, how did you end up getting out?"

The haunted, deer-in-the-headlights look never quite left his face. "Shocking I know, but apparently not all of the unfrozen Reds want war with humanity, or the multiverse. Some of them, they still think like Sage did – enough to trust humans and…help prisoners escape."

Agura's mind was racing, trying to take in all the information that it had just absorbed. Stanford seemed to slowly revert back to his usual state of mind once he had relayed his vague story to her.

It might have been vague, but it left hundreds of unanswered questions to Agura, and the fact that she knew he wasn't in the state to elaborate on those horrors just made the abyss inside of her swell larger. Stanford lowered his hand down to the water, and then brought it up to his face, swiping his thumb across his cheek and revealing a section of clear skin underneath the layers of soot and grime.

So, he'd been saved by a sentient. A red one at that. "I'm…surprised to hear that your saviour was a red. Going against the wishes of the rest of their race."

He nodded. "She wanted to help. She took pity on me. She put herself in harm's way, I mean, enough to save my other eye." He sighed, regretfully, sinking back down into the water "that doesn't stop the bloody wound from burning, though."

She peered at his face. "There's a lot of dirt collected around the edges, maybe if you bathed it-."

"That makes it hurt more."

Agura turned, ripping a strand of fabric from her t-shirt – the only clothing article not covered in mud – rolling it up into a wad. "Here, why don't you let me try?" He gave her an incredulous look, scoffing.

"Do you think I can't wash my own face?"

"I'm not saying that. I'm saying that you can't see where the edges are without looking in a mirror." He still looked hesitant. "What? I'll be as gentle as I possibly can, I promise."

She soaked the strip of fabric and slowly began dabbing away at where skin met thick scar tissue. "It might sting a little." She felt him judder underneath her fingertips, wincing slightly as she pressed down. Agura was being as gentle as possible, but Stanford still had one hand curled around her wrist as she worked. She wanted to hope that it was a gesture of solidarity, but it could have been self-defense, waiting to yank her hand away when she pressed too hard or clipped one of the nasty scabs on his face. She had wiped it clean all the way up to his scalp when he sat up and gently pulled her hand away.

"That's enough, but…thank you."

"Don't mention it. I can't see any signs of infection, but I don't think the skin can heal more than it already has, sorry Stan," she said with an air of empathy. "How…how's your eye?"

He didn't keep it open very often, which was a smart move to avoid infection getting in. She watched his discoloured eyelid flicker before she caught sight of cloudy grey as he cracked it open. His wounds had become increasingly easier to look at the longer they had spent time together, but she still got a chill from seeing the silvery pupil and the vicious whorls and coils of scarred skin around it because each time she looked - she was reminded that the damage was irreversible.

"About as good as it looks," he said dryly.

"At least it's not infected. Trust me, it's not fun."

"You speaking from experience?" he asked with a grimace.

She looked down at her right arm and began unwinding the tightly bound fabric around her bicep. Yellowish and raw, the cut had become infected at some point after it had been sliced open by glass from the tangler's cab during her last battle with the sentients. There wasn't anything she could about possibly alien bacteria other than bind it tightly and bear it. Stanford looked concerned.

"It's okay, really. It doesn't hurt unless I touch it," she half-lied. Her friend was paranoid at the best of times, no need to bring up worse case scenarios now.

"Is…there anything I can do? To help I mean." She smiled. No matter how many squabbles they picked with each other and how many times they got sick of each other's company – she knew that she had someone she could trust to watch her back. One problem at a time. She still had more jump crystals. If they ran out of food or water or this place became too dangerous, they could go look elsewhere. It wasn't worth fighting over. She needed somebody to trust now more than ever before.

"It's okay, I got it," she replied, wrapping it away, out of sight, "but thanks." She bound it back up and hauled herself onto the smooth ledge that the water was lapping away at gently. Stanford leant with his back against it, sinking deeper into the water with a tired sigh. She looked at the trembling water, watching the dark outline of her face shimmering in the ripples. Even with the deep blue of the water, she could see the faint outline of scars on her dark skin, some shining like spotlights now that the mud and grime had been washed away.

"I wish I could say that I recognised my own face…" she muttered under her breath.

Stanford gave her a quizzical look, hauling himself up to sit next to her. Upon looking into the brook, the corners of Stanford's mouth twitched up with a smile, but not necessarily a happy one.

"You know, by some miracle that we were able to assemble the team and get back to our past lives on earth...it would never be the same."

Stanford shook his head in silent agreement with her. "That's- that's probably what scares me the most." he added quietly. She swished her hands through the water, watching her reflection rematerialise. She had to agree with him. No matter how many times she stirred up waters or smashed mirrors, the image of gaunt cheekbones, weary eyes and the distinguished marks of Kyburi's claws across her face could only fade. Just like the glaring wounds on Stanford, they would never truly be expunged from her subconscious or her skin.