This is how we live life
This is how we say goodbye
We can't say it by ourselves
So we tell it to a friend
This is how we like to end

The door to the strange house clicked open, after a few minutes of footsteps and the rattling of several locks. Paranoid sort of guy, Edgar figured, to have locks and fences and a security camera, too, if that blinking lens above the molding was any indication.

"Can I help you?" asked the man, opening the door a few inches. Wide enough to show a dark eye shielded by goggles, overhung by jagged, Johnny-black hair and the high collar of a labcoat.

"Maybe so. Are you Roger?"

With a creak the door opened further, revealing the man in his entirety. He was tall, especially with his hair included, and skinnily built. Beyond him, Edgar caught a glimpse of a tidy living room and the sound of a TV blaring some cartoon that Gaz liked to watch.

"I would feel more comfortable if you told me who you were. I don't have any interest in buying bibles today, if that's what you're after," the man said, distrust lining his face.

Why did people always think he was selling bibles?

Edgar did not say this. Instead, he said: "Of course. Sorry, that was a little awkward of me. My name's Edgar Vargas. We're looking for a Roger because he's related to my friend here."

He tossed a thumb over one shoulder, but the man didn't look at Johnny and instead kept his gaze leveled at Edgar.

Finally, after careful consideration, the man said: "Yes. I am. Although I haven't gone by that name in quite a while."

"What else would you go by?" asked Johnny, from somewhere behind Edgar as he shielded Gaz with his scrawny body.

"I go by -"

Midway through, mouth still open, Roger stopped. He tilted his head slowly to one side to get a better look at Johnny, and Edgar felt his friend shift behind, trying to hide. Roger's face twitched, his black-gloved hand slipped from the doorknob, and his brow furrowed into exaggerated wrinkles around his goggles.

"Johnny?" he said softly. Edgar was aware of being between them and couldn't decide if that was good or bad.

"Sometimes I go by 'Nny,'" Johnny said, a scoff heavy in his voice, but nothing in Roger's stunned expression changed.

"Johnny! Where have you...? But! We thought...We thought you were dead!" he choked out, finally, with an unsteady lilt in his deep voice that suggested he wasn't used to being caught off guard by anything.

Johnny sniffed. "I'm not dead anymore. I got better."

"I haven't seen you in - in years. Not since the..." Roger's voice trailed, and to replace it he took a step forward and waved them all inside, oblivious to the way that Johnny had taken two steps back. "Please, come in. Pardon the mess, I wasn't expecting company, you understand."

Edgar took Gaz by the hand and obliged, determined to compensate for Johnny's obtuseness. He couldn't imagine how weird this must be for them, especially not since...well, Edgar would not have been so put off at seeing his long-lost sibling for the first time in years. He envied them this, in the slightest way, although it was no joyous reunion. Johnny trailed behind them, huffing beneath his breath.

The living room was sparsely decorated but neat, and Edgar's mind flickered to the picture in the photo album of Roger's tiny motherless family. There was no woman's touch here. On the couch a little boy was watching television, and he peered over his shoulder to gawk at them through thick glasses, with a strange spike of black hair waving over his head.

"I-er- this is my son, Dib," Roger said, as they passed by behind the sofa.

"Hi!" Dib squeaked. "Are you guys from the CIA? I was reading in this book the other day about how sometimes people get in trouble for researching too much into the paranormal, and then these guys in black suits show up at their door. You're not wearing suits, though -"

"That's enough, Dib." Roger clasped a hand to his forehead as if he were used to cutting his son off mid-sentence.

"But I think I've seen these guys before! I really do! Especially you, mister," said Dib, tilting his largish-head in Johnny's direction and earning a feral growl from him.

Roger stepped between them, placing a hand on his son's shoulder and nudging him down on the sofa. "Dib, that's very rude. I'm so sorry, you'll have to forgive my son's...eccentricities. It's just a phase, as I'm sure you're familiar with, having a daughter of your own."

Edgar felt a lurch at having Gaz mentioned, but managed to recover. "Of course. Say hello, Gaz."

She squeezed his hand unhappily, but managed a grunted "hi."

"Perhaps," said Roger, shooting a not-so-subtle glance in Johnny's direction, "Dib and Gaz could play for a while we converse in the kitchen. Dib, why don't you show her one of your...collections."

"Sure!" Dib yelped, leaping over the sofa to join them on the floor. "I've got this really cool gummy bear stash."

"I don't want to -" Gaz started, looking up at Edgar with her large eyes shining half in annoyance and half in desperation.

"I think that would be a good idea."

Gaz's face fell into a very Johnny-like look of annoyance and Edgar ached, but he forced himself to pry her tiny fingers off of his. The cold air of the house rushed up against his palm and emphasized the emptiness, and to quell it he smoothed down her ragged, purple hair.

"We'll be in the kitchen if you need anything," he told her.

Roger led them to a spotlessly clean kitchen - so spotless that there was little doubt in Edgar's mind that no one ever actually cooked in it. The professor waved for them to take a seat at the round kitchen table, and Edgar watched Johnny's real-time struggle as he tried to decide which seat left his back the least exposed. He finally chose one facing toward the living room. Edgar sat down beside him.

"Coffee?" Roger asked, fiddling with a white mug and the only well-used appliance in the kitchen.

"Ugh. No. Coffee's disgusting," Johnny snapped. He wrapped his arms around himself.

"Not for you, Johnny. I remembered that you don't like coffee. I meant for Mr. Vargas."

"It's just 'Edgar,' if you don't mind," Edgar corrected, noting how Johnny's eyes widened and his posture tensed at Roger's familiarity with his idiosyncrasies. "And yes, I'd love a cup."

From two feet away on a spindle-thin Ikea chair, Edgar could feel Johnny's badly-controlled nervous energy. He did not like this. His knee was bouncing as he tapped his foot against the floor and his fingers were clasping for a knife, which Edgar had cleverly taken away from him before they'd left the apartment.

Edgar managed to meet Nny's gaze. He gave a helpless shrug and a half-hearted smile, hoping to calm his friend the slightest bit, but Johnny only stared blankly at him. The smile slid off of his face and Edgar found himself staring at the formica table again.

Things were likely to get worse before they got better.

With a polite cough, Roger got their attention as he carried two mugs of coffee over to the table. Edgar took one from him and uttered "thanks," before taking a sip of the strongest coffee he'd ever tasted. No flavoring at all; just overpowering bitterness. He wondered if perhaps Roger worked late shifts.

"So, Roger -" Edgar began, biting back a grimace at the acrid coffee.

"Professor. I go by Professor Membrane now."

"Gesundheit," Johnny barked. "Jeez. You want your family to call you by some lofty academic title?"

The professor's expressions were hard to read behind the thick glasses as the collar of his coat, but he seemed to soften at the word "family."

"I suppose I would have still been a student the last time we saw each other. Maybe not even that….'Roger' is fine."

He took a seat across the table from them, sweeping his labcoat out from under him as he did so.

"So, to what do I owe this unexpected visit?"

"That's it?!" Johnny exclaimed. "No 'how are you doing?' or 'what've you been up to?' for your long-lost brother? Just a 'what are you doing here?"

Against his better judgement, Edgar put an arm out just in case Johnny decided to lunge, and felt Nny's heavy, angry breathing against his sleeve. "Calm down, Nny, please. Try to be polite; you don't even like small talk, remember?"

Nny's expression softened, and he leaned back against his chair. "Oh, right."

"It's no problem," Roger said, with a wave of his black-gloved hand as he took a swig of tar-coffee. "You haven't changed so much, Johnny. I didn't think you'd want to waste time with formalities, and I surmised you would only turn up on my doorstep if you had a goal in mind. Idle chit-chat was never our family's strong suit."

"I am not going to apologize," Johnny's voice was surprisingly even. "We shouldn't be here. This is stupid. It's wrong, Edgar."

"Nny, please. Please. Don't make this harder than it already is."

"It's hard because it shouldn't be happening!"

"What possible way is there without -"

"Gentlemen, I'm sorry to interrupt, but perhaps you wouldn't mind letting me in on what you're discussing? I have a sinking feeling it involves me, somehow." Roger crossed his legs and leaned back in his chair, steam eeking from his mug. He really must be related to Johnny to be so unbothered by the scrawny man's erratic behavior.

Edgar sighed and sipped more coffee and winced, hard, at the flavor. "I'm very sorry. You're absolutely right. I'm not normally so scatterbrained, but under the circumstances..."

When they were all quiet, staring at one another, he could hear Gaz and Dib out in the living room as they conversed in little voices. Gaz was likely being rude, perhaps with a punch here or there, and he'd have to coax her to apologize later. Edgar wanted very badly to see her, just once, right now, so he could be reassured of what he was protecting, but the wall of the kitchen might as well have been separating Berlin for how thick it felt.

Instead he looked over at Johnny for the dozenth time and could not understand why he kept hoping for reassurance in Nny's broken-backed posture and familiar sallow skin, but Nny was all he had right now in this sterile kitchen. Johnny's presence was reassuring the way that all familiarity was.

Edgar had always known, deep down, that the caretaker needed their charges just as much as the helpless needed their tenders, but he felt it suddenly and sickly and wished to be anywhere in the heat of hell or the cool of heaven except for here.

He swallowed hard, rubbed the flavor of bitter coffee with his tongue, and tried, again, to speak.

"We can't keep our daughter anymore."

Edgar choked. He wished for sickness instead of those words that stung so badly. Oh God, it was real now. His fingers trembled against the tabletop and so he hid his hands in his lap.

The professor tilted his head, as if inspecting a specimen. "I'm sorry?"

Edgar was not sure that he could force himself to say those awful words again.

"We…" Language failed him and he looked helplessly to Johnny, who gave the tiniest merciful nod.

"I'm bad luck, Rog. You ought to know that if anyone does. It turns out that Edgar isn't much luckier."

"I fail to see what superstition has to do with parenting," Roger said, his brow furrowed seriously as he leaned to one side to check on his son in the living room. Whatever he saw must have been acceptable, because he settled back down in his chair after a second or so.

"It's not superstition. It's something stronger than us. Something even stronger than Edgar's so-called God. And the longer we keep Gaz with us, the worse off she'll be." Johnny forced his voice to be steady and Edgar was thankful for it in his weakness.

Roger's voice hardened. "Johnny, if you've started doing drugs, then I'm not about to help you and your junkie friend here out of some bad debt or likewise - "

"This isn't about us!" Edgar gasped, at once finding his voice. "This is about Gaz. She's not safe with us anymore. You can believe what you want about that, about these awful circumstances, but I ask you to at least believe that we would never be here if it weren't necessity."

"Necessity -" Roger took a drink of his coffee, totally unbothered by Edgar's breathy outburst "Of what?"

"We need for you to take her, Roger. Keep her safe. Raise her like we would have, if the fucking conspiring, asshole universe hadn't gotten in the way." There was a solidness in Johnny's words, and he'd pulled himself up and squared his shoulders and Edger wished he could hide in his friend's sudden strength.

Roger looked as overwhelmed as Edgar felt. He glanced back and forth between the two of them, his face tightened into a look of bewilderment that a good scientist didn't often wear, before finally saying:

"Me? You want me to take your daughter? We haven't spoken in years, Johnny!" He jabbed a black finger at his own chest.

Nny gave him the same blank stare he gave Edgar when he knew full well that he was being difficult. "So?"

"So?! I-I...this is - I should-should have..." Roger stuttered, casting about for logic in this place where it had never flourished. "What about...doesn't she have a mother?"

"No. We're all she has, and we're an asbestos security blanket. You're the only one we could find who we thought could take her. Not that there's many people I trust. Or remember, for that matter."

"Pardon me?"

"What Johnny means," Edgar tried, "Is that there aren't many people who we would trust with a request like this. You're a father; you must understand how incredibly difficult it would be to admit that you couldn't...to give up your...these are the things we love so much, you understand."

He wasn't sure what he was trying to say, wasn't sure where the jumbled words were coming from, and his face flushed red and hot with embarrassment and distress.

"No, I don't. Because I would never," Roger murmured, and Edgar felt somehow sicker and hotter than before. Dizzy. He leaned back, hard, into the cheap kitchen chair, fingering the armrest and unsure how to proceed amidst all this.

Johnny bent and wrapped one hand around Edgar's forearm and left it there. His palm was cool and soothing and Edgar stared at it while Johnny spoke.

"You wanted a daughter, didn't you?"

In an instant Edgar's head snapped up from his dazed staring at Johnny's hand. Roger's expression was unreadable.

"That is neither here nor there," Roger finally stammered, but Johnny was not one to let things lie. Especially not the dead.

"Yes, it is. You and...Robin, right?"

There was a falter on Roger's hard face, something like nausea that quickly passed and left stiffness in its wake. "...Yes."

"Nny, I didn't think you -" Edgar whispered, sideways.

Johnny spoke deliberate and careful, the way you'd talk to a frightened child. "I don't. Just little bits. Something about the way the house smells, I don't know. But I remember this. You and Robin always wanted a daughter. You told me that, once, a long time ago. Before -"

"Yes. We did." He paused, his goggled gaze finally, for the first time in the conversation, slipping down to the floor before clicking back up to stare out into the living room. "It's troubling, you know. Being a doctor and still unable to save...You're right, Mr. Vargas. There are things we care about enough that logic and reason seem meaningless in the face of them."

Edgar wanted very badly to glance over his shoulder and look there, too. To see if the kids were within eyesight, to catch a glimpse of Gaz's messy purple hair or dark shining eyes because Lord knew how much longer he had, but he stayed still. Johnny's hand remained tightly around his arm, sensing his urge because the boney fingers tensed ever so slightly.

"Love is agony," Johnny said.

"Love is beautiful," Edgar finished.

"Both," said Roger, looking back up at them again. "You must understand, I am not a risk-taking man. To take a child into my family, suddenly, without any planning, it's very...unusual, regardless of my particular feelings on the matter."

"I've got money!" Edgar lurched. "I can pay for anything you want. Clothes for her, food, tuition, whatever you think she'd need."

Roger shook his head. "No. That's not what I meant. Finances aren't an issue here. Just uncertainty."

The noise that Johnny made was somewhere between a laugh and a snarl. He ran the bony fingers of this free hand through his black hair, a mirror of his brother's.

"You know I hate asking for shit. I always have. I haven't got a lot going for myself other than my ability to be alone. Gaz, out there...she needs us, you know. Me and Edgar. But we can't be there for her, because fate is a cruel bitch and she decided so. You're the next best thing, Roger. You've got the same blood as me, for whatever that's worth. I don't put a lot of stock in it, but Edgar does."

Edgar wasn't putting much stock in anything at the moment; he was busy being stunned by Johnny's calm. Thank you, he wanted to say, to whisper, to hug the skinny maniac around the shoulders, but not now. Later, when the world was done falling apart.

Across from them, still buried in his coffee, Roger was thinking. Johnny had a way of stringing himself tight and still like a canvas when he was deep in thought, so much so that Edgar often mistook him for being asleep or (on darker days) dead. Roger was doing that now; that same philosophical stillness.

And Edgar wondered what they would do if he said "no." The more selfish parts of him would rejoice. Those base animal instincts that Johnny alternatively praised and cursed would throw their hands in the air and explode joyously behind his too-thick glasses and Edgar would have to feign disappointment and then, later, tamp down his horrible guilt.

The guilt was pressing out of him even now, building pressure in his ears and choking his nose. He'd failed, he'd failed, he'd failed again to protect what he loved, and even the knowledge that he was trying, now, to fix things was a tiny hiccup of comfort amidst the hurricane of torment.

Even if he won, his reward was to have his beloved taken away from him.

And then, in a voice so soft and Johnny-still that Edgar didn't know where it was coming from at first, Roger spoke. He said:

"I cannot think of many reasons to turn you down. I don't think you would come to me for help if it wasn't a great necessity, as you insist. And I would be lying if I said that I didn't wish for Dib to have a playmate, or for a little girl to remind me of..." Roger must have said more than he intended, for he cleared his throat before continuing on.

"I'll look after her for you, Johnny. I'll do my best to keep her safe and raise her as my own. And with a healthy love of science, of course."

"Thank you," Edgar blurted out, before he had the chance to scream 'no!' and curse them all and gather Gaz in his arms and run to the end of the earth, which is what he felt like doing. Johnny's hand held him grounded.

"Thanks, Roger. You're a good guy. There aren't a lot, you know," Johnny added, whispering beneath his breath: "although I've done my best to weed out some of the assholes."

"I'll do my best."

"That's all we can ask. I think she'll be safe here. Happy. I hope, at least."

"She's a wonderful girl," Edgar said, "Very smart, and funny, though I think she gets her sense of humor from Nny. She loves to draw."

"I've got an extra room upstairs, plenty of spare resources...she'll go to college if I have anything to say about it. But if you've brought some of her own things, I'll be glad to take them. Just to make her a little more at home, you understand." Roger crossed his legs and leaned back comfortably in his chair, and Edgar got the sense that he was much more at ease now that emotions were over with and the discussion of facts could begin.

"Of course. I've got a few boxes of her things in my car. We can go get them," Edgar said, moving to stand. Johnny's hand finally released his arm. He was desperate to move after all of this sitting, desperate to do something that would keep him from brooding.

The other two followed his example, albeit quietly. They cleared the room, leaving cold coffee behind, and filed through the living room like pallbearers.

"What are you doing?" Gaz asked as they went by, alarmed and ignoring whatever Dib was trying to show her in a little plastic cage he'd fetched from somewhere.

"We're going to bring your things inside," Johnny said, his voice neutral in a way that made Edgar simultaneously angry and grateful. Finality was here.

"What?! My stuff!" Gaz yelped. She leveraged off the carpet and jumped to her feet, seemed to notice how inappropriate it was to get so excited, and then dusted herself off. "I'll help."

Johnny eyed her with a familiar mock-distrust. "No, you won't. You'll watch and complain."

"Close enough."

She hustled over to his side and Johnny's hand grazed her shoulder in an accidental-intentional way that made Edgar ache as they all turned for the front door. Edgar followed at the back and nearly ran into the back of Johnny's head when the other stopped abruptly.

"We don't need four people for three boxes. Stay in here, why don't you?" Nny told Edgar, rising hiccuping protests from him.

"I can help!"

"We'll just be a second," and Johnny lowered his brow and flashed his eyes, making Edgar wonder if he didn't half suspect that they'd get out there and Edgar would throw them all in the car and take off for Mexico. A bit astute of the maniac, admittedly. Plus he had a point.

"Alright."

"We'll just be a moment," Roger assured him. "Please, make yourself comfortable."

He waved his gloved hand in a wide arc around the unfriendly living room, before clicking open the front door and ushering them all out and away from disgruntled Edgar. In a second or two he was alone in the strange house, staring at the closed front door and trying to keep the panicked angst that fluttered at the edge of his thoughts at bay. This was no time or place to fall apart, not in some stranger's foyer.

"I like your glasses," said a little voice, with a hint of a whine that sounded like it didn't ever really go away. Edgar turned and saw Dib there behind him, still sitting on the floor, and felt a rush of embarrassment at forgetting that the kid was there.

"Thank you," Edgar said, nodding, dropping himself down onto the sofa near Dib's play spot. "I like yours too."

"Thanks!" Dib beamed, holding his big head a little higher. "My dad made them for me! They're out of reinforced bicarbonate steel with automatically focusing lenses and they get radio!"

The words rushed gushing out of Dib's mouth, not bragging, just excited, and Edgar had spent too much of his life alone not to recognize the spasm of loneliness unsettled. It must have been hard for this kid, with no siblings and no mother, living in this big cold house with his well-meaning but probably distant scientist father.

"That is very neat. And what have you got there?" He nodded toward the little box in Dib's hands, and the boy sat up excited on his knees to show it off better.

"Oh! It's a smoke fairy nest," he said. Edgar peered into the clear plastic box and saw what looked like a few wads of gum stuck together in one corner. There was an anemic stick with a single leaf in the box as well, with a wet sponge and a few handfuls of dirt.

"I see. Is it...supposed to hatch, or...?"

Dib grinned. "Yup! Just a few more days, I think. Although last year I brought a few lightning spider eggs home and they hatched while I was at school and shot the breakers in the basement for five whole days and dad was really, really mad. So I'm trying to keep these with me all the time. I want to be the first thing they see when they hatch."

Edgar liked this kid's enthusiasm, and thought his talkativeness might be a good thing for Gaz to be around. The icy center of him that resented why they were there thawed a degree or two.

"Wow. It sounds like you know a lot about that sort of thing. It's too bad I won't be here to see it when those fairies hatch. I'd like to know what they look like."

Dib settled back down, sitting on his heels. "Yeah. What're you here to see my dad about, anyway?"

Edgar felt cold at this question, his hands getting clammy as he fisted the knees of his pants, but he'd never felt that lying to children was a good tradition. This boy seemed genuine and eager and didn't deserve it.

"My daughter Gaz - the little girl that you were playing with - I think she's going to stay here with you for a while. Johnny is your dad's brother, you understand. I hope the two of you will get along," he tagged on hopefully.

Dib rubbed the back of his neck and made Edgar panic. "Oh, really?"

"Is that alright?"

"Yes! I mean..." he looked uncomfortable at getting so excited, and Edgar wondered if Dib was at that awkward age where maturity was becoming imminent. "I've always wished that I had someone to play with, and to talk to about my projects."

"Gaz is a good listener, although she plays a little rough."

"Oh, that's okay. I'm used to it - the neighbor kids pick on me all the time," Dib said, and Edgar couldn't decide if he winced because of the words or the nonchalant way that the young kid said them. This boy needed something else in his life to look forward to.

"Hey, Dib. Would you do me a favor?" Edgar said, planting his elbows on his knees.

"I guess, I'll try."

"Can you keep an eye on Gaz for me?"

Dib leaned back the slightest bit and furrowed his brow. "Like during an experiment?"

"Huh? No," Edgar shook his head. "I mean, would you mind looking after her? Would you make sure she's safe when you're playing, and that she makes it home from school okay, and that there aren't ever any monsters in her closet?"

"I always check for monsters," Dib said seriously.

"Good kid. So can I count on you to look after Gaz? Would you mind being her big brother?"

Dib seemed to consider this, rocking his head from one side to the other, scratching at his chin with chipped and dirty fingers that indicated a child who played outside, before finally saying:

"Sure."

"Are you certain? Being a big brother is hard work. Lots of responsiblity" Edgar said, coughing to clear the cold tickle in the back of his throat and the hot pinpricks beginning in the corners of his eyes.

"Yeah, I am. I'll try my best, Mister Vargas."

"Thank you, Dib. That means a lot to me," and Edgar leaned over and put his hand on the kid's shoulder, keeping his muscles tense in case Dib pulled back, Johnny-style. He didn't; only smiled appreciatively and nudged up into the touch like maybe hugs weren't the most common thing in this house.

So at least when Gaz fell down and screamed, there would be an earnest kid here to pick her up. At least when she heard monsters, she would have a big brother to check her closet for her. When she needed help beating a particularly difficult level on Super Plumber Deathmatch, there would be someone in the house with wiser, defter hands to aid her.

Abigail had needed all of this and more, and Edgar had failed her. The torch was being passed, and even though it burned his hand until it bled Edgar still fought tooth and nail at having it taken from him.

Behind them, the front door rattled a bit and then clicked open, letting Roger, Johnny and Gaz spill into the living room and beckoning Edgar to his feet. The adults brought their boxes deeper into the foyer before setting them at the base of the stairs, while Gaz tagged on behind.

Edgar watched her, smiled unconsciously, and was jarred when she looked up at him and smiled back. He blinked hard, shook his head, and asked:

"Is that everything?"

Roger turned from setting his box delicately at the foot of the steps.

"I think so. Everything should be taken care of. Except for, well..." Roger let his gaze slide to the floor, leaving Johnny and Edgar to exchange unhappy looks with one another.

"Could you give us a few minutes? Please?" Edgar asked, choking back shame.

No social cue went lost on the suave Roger; he must have gotten all of those genes and left Johnny behind as a Brainfreezy-sucking lunatic. He nodded gravely and motioned to Dib.

"Son, help me take these boxes upstairs, won't you?"

Dib nodded once and vaulted himself over the back of the couch to join his father, and within a few seconds of rustling cardboard and failing footsteps they were gone. Only Edgar, Johnny and Gaz remained in the quiet living room; just the way that the universe had always meant it. Crazy Johnny, calm Edgar and stoic Gaz. The perfect balance would be ruined soon.

"Am I really going to stay here?" said Gaz, before Edgar could get going. "For how long?"

Edgar looked at her, at his beloved daughter, and distracted himself by kneeling onto the ground in front of her so that they were at eye level. He reached up to brush some messy purple hair behind her ear as Johnny stood beside him, silent and watchful as a wraith.

"Yes, I'm afraid so. It will probably be a long time. I'm not sure, honestly."

"Why?"

"Why" was one of those questions that Gaz asked that Edgar loved to answer. "Why don't chickens fly?" "Why do the trees change colors?" "Why doesn't Vincent kiss her?"

Answering those sorts of questions made him feel wise and proud of passing on wisdom to his little charge. This might be the last "why" question he'd ever answer from her, and he felt no pride in trying to piece together something simple and painless.

She stared at him expectantly, eyes narrowed, and he tried to answer her.

"Because Johnny and I don't think that you're safe with us anymore. The dark thing - the evil monster that lived in Moopy, you remember? - it's going to hang around us forever. You'll be safer here. Roger is going to take care of you. You'll have everything you need, and a big brother, and -"

"NO!" the Johnny-tinge to Gaz's words was unmistakable. She grabbed his hands and yanked his fingers, darkness flashing in her hazel eyes. "I don't want to! I don't! I WON'T! Just because you guys don't want me -"

Edgar felt a pang and wrapped his fingers around Gaz's little hands to silence it. "We will always want you, Gaz. "

Her eyes shone with tears and her voice hitched with hiccups, but she fought for stillness. "I want to stay with you and Nny."

"I know. I know, I know, I know. I want that too. Gaz, I would give..." Hic. "I would give anything to be your dad forever. But I just don't think - the universe doesn't -"

He felt himself starting to falter, starting to give, starting to entertain thoughts of scooping her up and running again. There was a soft whoosh of air at Edgar's side and then Nny was crouching next to him, his pointed knees jamming into Edgar's ribs.

"It has to be this way, kid," Johnny said, very softly with a voice that normally would hint at danger but right now was merely stern.

"But -"

"No. The arguing's already been done for you. I know I'm not the poster boy for accepting unpleasant things, but we're wasting goodbye daylight. Edgar loves you so much that he'd rather you be safe and away than near and in danger, and that's the plainest version of things you're going to get." Johnny met Gaz's harsh and watery gaze, saw her try to look away, and nudged her chin with his knuckle. Edgar got the distinct feeling of watching two very rare and skittish birds.

"Okay. I believe Egar. What about you, Nny?" Gaz did not push his hand away, which was something, despite how the bony joints must have been poking her cheek.

Sighing, Nny broke eye contact. His shoulders seemed to give, and that look of fragility that so well suited his skeletal body passed over him like a shadow.

"You little demon. Of course I don't want to leave you. You're the only thing besides Edgar that doesn't make me want to rage-vomit."

"Ew."

"I know, right? But Edgar's got a point. You've still got some sanity left. Be a shame to waste that pretty brain of yours on love and bullshit like that."

Gaz giggled, and rustled up a toothy smile from Nny. His shoulders stood a little stronger.

"Yeah, that's it. Shit! I almost forgot. I got something for you."

Nny fished around in his pockets for a moment or two and retrieved something small and white that Edgar couldn't quite make out through his thin and crowding fingers. Both Edgar and Gaz fell silent in fascination as Johnny started undoing one of his shoelaces, evidently as part of the gift. He put the white thing and the black lace together, and held the combination out for Gaz's judgement.

It was a necklace, made from the small skull of a rabbit.

"It's Nailbunny!" Nny explained, slipping the cord over Gaz's head as she stared dumbfounded at the gift. "You needed a necklace to replace your old one, anyway."

Gaz picked the little skull up and turned it over in her fingers, her chin to her chest as she inspected the jagged teeth and chipped eyesockets of one of Johnny's most prized possessions

.

"It's Nailbunny," she repeated, speaking to the ground.

"Yeah. He'll look after you, since I won't be able to anymore. He always looked after me, anyway."

Johnny traced a little circle on the carpet with one finger, done explaining, and looked very stunned when Gaz let the macabre pendent fall back to her chest as she threw her arms around his neck. For a second he froze, wide eyes darting around the room, before he hesitantly returned the embrace.

They clung to each other like drowning victims, like torn-apart immigrants, complete with the shuddering of withheld tears and wincing of want, all crammed into their muscles. Edgar couldn't stand being left out, God he loved them both, God this was so hard. He didn't ask for permission but joined in anyway, one arm around Johnny's skinny, shaking shoulders and another around his little Gaz.

Neither of them protested. Gaz wrapped a hand around his elbow and pulled him closer. The strange, tidy house vanished around them as Edgar buried himself in the warmth of his little family, in the familiar flower-milk smell of Gaz's hair and Johnny's distinct blood-tinged sweat.

Edgar shut his eyes and felt Johnny's tiny hitching breaths and Gaz's strong, growing self. His breaths were deep and steady as he tried to take in the feel of them, to remember every instant that would never exist again, to memorize their smell and touch and essence because even though he'd known only them for months and months the reality of forgetting was suddenly so, so acute.

Some quieter part of Edgar wanted to die there. Some louder part finally let them all break apart, by then sweaty from body heat and soaked in each other's smell. Johnny leaned back and crouched a bit away, giving Edgar and Gaz some space.

This couldn't last forever. Even Johnny knew. Edgar ran a hand through Gaz's hair, tucking it behind her ear like he'd done a thousand times but never properly savored until now. He nudged her chin, and she peered up at him through soft brown and watery eyes, identical to those he'd seen as foreign all those ages ago when Johnny had dropped her on his doorstep.

"I love you, Gaz," he said. She blinked, took hold of his hand, and said:

"I know. Me too."

"I'm so, so sorry."

"I know."

"Do me a favor, okay? Please be happy. Please be safe. Johnny and I did the best we could, but you might be on your own sometimes now. So don't forget that, okay? Don't forget that you're tough and clever and wonderful and that we love you so, so much. Always. No matter what. Through a million miles or a million broken glasses. You can't disappoint either one of us. So never be afraid, alright?"

"Fuck fear," Johnny said softly, and Edgar had no idea whether to laugh or cry so he just choked a little instead.

"Fuck fear," Gaz echoed, smiling,

"That's my girl."

Edgar kissed her on the forehead. Then he let her go, feeling her fingers slip from his hand as he got to his feet and Johnny joined him at his side. Had she always seemed so small? Gaz stood stone-solid at their knees, the faintest hint of the smile still hovering on her face. It faded as they turned, Johnny refusing to look behind him but Edgar glancing back all the way, and left their daughter standing in Roger's living room.

They slipped out the front door, blinded by the screaming outdoor light, and Edgar shut it slowly behind them as he managed to catch one final glimpse of limp purple hair.

He made it all the way to the middle of the walkway before turning back and smashing squarely into Johnny.

"What in the hell are you doing?" Johnny barked, throwing his hands up.

"I can't," Edgar said, honestly, trying to push past him.

Johnny would have none of it. He grabbed Edgar's wrist with that frightening sudden strength you wouldn't expect of someone who weighed a hundred and ten pounds, and held Edgar riveted to the walkway like a dog on a tether.

"No."

"I can't," Edgar repeated, pulling and scrabbling at his arm. "I can't. She's mine. I promised to take care of her, I can't go back on it. I can't! Don't you understand?! We'll find away around it, I don't know, hire and exorcist or something."

"It doesn't work that way," Johnny said, standing firm. "Believe me, I tried. Wasn't this your idea, anyway?"

"I was wrong, then. Delusional. Scared. But I was wrong and I can't - we can't - just leave! We're leaving, Johnny! We're abandoners!"

And much to Edgar's horror, Johnny began pulling him slowly toward the car. His shoes scraped pitifully against the concrete, and Edgar seriously contemplated striking Johnny to distract him before running back to the house and would have done so if not for the certainty that he would be killed afterward.

"We're not abandoners. We're doing the best we can."

"No! It's not our best! It can't be. If we did our best she'd be here with us!"

"The universe doesn't care, Edgar!" Johnny snapped, stopping mid-drag, as he turned and stared Edgar down with the barely-controlled rage that he'd become so known for. "This is the way it has to be. Do you understand? It has to be this way. There's nothing we can do."

"But -"

"No! Shut it! Shut the fuck up! If you can't find a way to deal with this, then I know I never will, okay!? So pull your shit together. I can't look after us both."

Bared, pointed teeth and narrowed eyes punctuated Johnny's statement, punched through as it was with truth and agony. Edgar felt himself go limp in Johnny's vice-like grip, suddenly losing the energy to pull against him. It was a miracle he didn't collapse right there in the middle of the yard, since every bone in his body became meringue-fragile.

He let himself be led to the car, let Johnny open the driver's side door for him before going around to the other side and taking his place in the passenger's seat. The leather had gotten hot in the sun, making the seat belt buckles burn and the air conditioner whine in protest as Edgar turned on the ignition.

The "drive" gear wouldn't come to him. Not quite yet. He looked back at the house, even amidst Johnny's frantic shuffling to get comfortable in the seat next to him and fiddling with the radio, until he clearly couldn't stand the silent staring any longer.

"It was the right thing to do, asshole. And I should know because I never do the right thing, but you always do. You're such a dickhead, Edgar. You're always fucking right and I hate it so goddamned much."

"So do I," Edgar said softly.

"We need to go."

"I know."

"Stop it."

"Stop what?"

And exaggerated sigh. "You're impossible, you know that?"

Edgar finally forced himself to turn. Johnny had his arms crossed tightly over his chest, his knees pulled up onto the seat along with the rest of him, and all of his body somehow crammed unsafely under the seatbelt. He bit once or twice at the fabric that was too close to his mouth and twisted up his face at the unpleasant taste.

"You're not going to leave too, are you?" Edgar asked, because Johnny was all he had left.

Nny didn't even look at him. "What? Pfft. Fuck no. You're the only other thing I can stand. I told you. Plus, you clearly need me to keep you from going home and putting your head in the oven. Double plus, you're a fucking maniac if you think I'm going to start doing my own laundry again."

Edgar felt a laugh force itself out his mouth despite his better judgement. It cracked the surface of the smooth numbness he'd pulled over himself, despite the fact that nothing was funny and that, yes, the urge to floor the gas and run the Volvo directly into a tree was very strong in him right at that moment. He had Johnny to look after, unfortunately. Fortunately. The most fortunate.

"We still have each other, I suppose."

"You didn't think you were getting rid of me that easy, did you? We fit each other, you know. A waste-lock and a glitch. Fuck-ups belong together.

"I'm not a fuck-up."

"The universe disagrees."

Rolling his eyes, looking away from Johnny's smart-ass expression, Edgar managed to slowly click the car into "drive." He circled the cul-de-sac at four miles an hour and inched down the street, staring at Roger's house as it faded in the rearview. Agony trailed behind them like a mist, quiet but impossible to ignore,

Edgar was surprised to see that the city was still intact as he drove through it. He was surprised that the lights were still changing, that buildings weren't burning down or earthquakes ripping the ground in two. No one else seemed to know. Everyone seem so oblivious to the fact that the world had ended - only Johnny's voice carried the proper edge.

The last time Edgar had felt pain like this, he'd been alone. Fourteen in a stranger's house, forced to sob into his pillow late at night so as to not wake his cranky foster parents. He felt no more mature now, no more suited to coping, no more better-adjusted or less traumatized.

But Johnny the maniac, the murder, the voilent theif of pants and ice-cream, of children and late-night hours, he was here. Breathing raspily in the passenger's seat as they drifted away from their daughter and felt the cords between them tighten as hers was drawn away.

They reached the apartment complex, and slowly climbed the stairs home together. It was home for them both, and Edgar felt certain that Johnny would not return to that filthy shack of his. He felt a bony hand slip around his own, fingers intertwining as they stepped into the apartment and closed the door behind them.

Angst angst angst. Lyrics at the top belong to Atomic Tom and their song "How We Like to End."

Still have the epilogue left.