DISCLAIMER: Scrubs is owned by Bill Lawrence and the ABC Network (as of Season 8). I own nothing, not even the plot, which is more a combination of my favourite devices than any creative work conceived solely by myself. Lyrics in this arc belong to Breaking Benjamin, and all are from their new Dear Agony album which I still can't stop listening to.

AUTHORS NOTE: I don't think I just wrote a chapter—I think I just wrote a beast. This thing is literally the longest piece of writing I have ever attempted, and is approximately 9,000 words of pure, unadulterated My Trigger. Believe it or not, I actually have a legitimate reason for not being able to post this entire time. Other than life being ruthless in its attempts to distract me with its daily drama, I've actually been rewriting my outline for this story. Until now I've been a little sketchy on the details as to what's happening in this arc, because my plans for it are huge and the amount of preparation I had for it was, well, nil. So I've revisited just about everything from this chapter to the next interlude (from Jack's perspective) which is coming up in about three or four chapters time, depending on how these next few are received. Any updates will be added to my profile page, including information on My Sharpshooter, the story's possible sequel, and what my plans are for it. But I do believe I've rambled on enough! Without further ado, here is Chapter XV—The Divide.

Lyrics adapted from the song Dear Agony by Breaking Benjamin.

CHAPTER XV: THE DIVIDE

And I will find the enemy within,
'Cause I can feel it crawl beneath my skin.
Dear agony, just let go of me.
Suffer slowly,
Is this the way it's got to be?

The moment JD turned on his heel and disappeared past the threshold of the door, Perry's anger cooled into a heavy, iron ball that came to rest in the pit of his stomach. Suddenly unable to keep himself upright, he rested his body against the concrete barrier that separated him from meeting a gruesome death on the black asphalt below, and sighed loudly. He could already feel the crushing weight of the guilt that had lodged itself in his chest, and he didn't have to look twice to realise that it was settling in for the long haul. While he knew he should be addressing the elephant that had abruptly filled the room—or, well, what could pass for a room when you were standing on the roof of a building—he couldn't help but get caught up in his own frustrations instead. He'd waited weeks to receive the Harbinger's next message, so it stood to reason that he could wait a few minutes more before acting on it.

He shut his scarred eyes and tilted his head up to the sun, feeling its soft warmth press against his face like a kiss he didn't deserve. When his eyelids flickered open a second later, he found himself captivated by the ball of heat above and stared searchingly into it. It was the same thing he'd done that very first day he opened his eyes and could see again, marvelling at the simple ability he had to look at things, while his doctor marvelled similarly at his stupidity. He felt the digital corneas attempt to process the sudden influx of light, and it wasn't long before they adjusted accordingly. The stinging pain of looking into something so bright ebbed and flowed for a second before disappearing completely, almost like his body was telling him not to punish it for his mistakes—that this was something he was going to have to go through alone.

He didn't blame it for an instant, because above and beyond his complete lack of tact was the fact that the fight had been an undeniably stupid thing to start. Instead of treading patiently around the subject of Carla like he should have done, like he'd planned to, he'd charged recklessly into the black pit of emotion at the bottom of his gut and drowned himself in it. He knew it wasn't right to involve anybody else in this, he really did, but when JD had stared at him with that agonisingly hurt look on his face after he'd told him why, the suffocating guilt that formed the pit's lining had transformed into an overwhelming feeling of resentment—at the clusterfuck his life had become since the end began; at himself, for not being strong enough to keep his identity a secret from a woman whose life he had just made a hell of a lot more difficult; at the disappointment in the dark-haired doctor's doe-eyed stare, and the utter worthlessness he felt when he saw that look. It was the last one that sent him flying off the edge, speeding down the cliff-face towards the heavy and bottomless black that awaited him at the end of his freefall.

Perry flinched, an action which caused him to avert his gaze to the concrete wall across from him. Sunspots danced across his vision as the synthetic muscles in his eyes imitated their flesh-and-blood counterparts, but much like the former pain of staring directly into the sun, the discomfort faded quickly. It was only now that he had distanced himself from his anger that he remembered what had happened before the darkness hit him in his devastating fall from rationality. It was only now that he remembered what he had seen, felt and heard—a memory, erected in the forefront of his mind as he made his decent...

The man he was speaking to in the memory was exactly like all the other men, women and children on the frontline—another poor bastard who had seen far too much in far too short a time; another tortured, restless soul who had lost everything but his life, which would undoubtedly be the next thing that was stripped from him. When Perry had looked up at this man's words, however, he saw something in his eyes he hadn't seen in years. Instead of looking at him with an expression full of stunted, crippling despair or cold, unshakable silence, the man fixed him with a look of utter, consoling kindness, blue eyes sparkling with a warmth that could fuel the very sun Perry had spent so long staring at. The man wore a wide, charming smile that seemed the perfect complement to his vibrant eyes as he joked:

"If you suppress yourself any further, Perry, you're going to wake up inside out." The man paused, a contemplative look surfacing on his face. "Or worse—" he said, voice foreboding, "—you're going to turn somebody else inside out." Despite himself, Perry had let out a laugh. The man was right, of course, but it came as no surprise to him. This man was always right.

Then, as if he was able to pluck the very thought right out of Perry's head, those blue eyes had grown serious, urging.

"Tell me what you're really feeling—I promise you I can take it."

And as he contemplated his outburst at a safe distance from the thick fog of anger that had overwhelmed him earlier, the irony that was lost to him then was made open to him now. The irony that was the fact that the man in his thoughts—the man with the bright eyes—was, coincidentally, the same man that had stood before him only moments ago.

JD.

In the end, Perry wasn't sure if it was the guilt, the resentment or even his underlying sadness over the fact that the man he saw in his memories was no longer available for him to open up to—having been replaced by this earlier, alternate version of him, whose eyes hadn't seen nearly enough, and understood even less—but when he looked up to meet the kid's defiant stare in his simmering rage, something broke within him. He hadn't been aware that there was anything left to break, but break it had, and instead of seeing the man before him as who he really was, he saw him as the man he would become. In a lapse of judgement, he forgot entirely how painstakingly new the dark-haired doctor before him was to this level of reality, how unused he was to dealing with somebody as beaten and shattered as Perry. How was he to know that in 2018, Percival Cox was nothing more than a broken man, the twisted right-hand to the rebel command? How could JD even hope to fathom that he was the one they asked to do their dirty work for them—that he was the only one traumatized enough who would? John Dorian, in comparison, had become an integral part in all their lives, the man that they knew they couldn't live without. He represented the one thing that the people had lost: hope. But how was he to know?

He wasn't.

Instead, he believed that Perry's words were a sign that the auburn-haired man saw him as nothing more than a fumbling idiot. How was the kid to know that even in his misplaced anger, he'd never intended for it to come out that way?

He couldn't know...

...Because I didn't tell him, he realised. Even after Carla told me I should, even after I agreed to, however reluctantly that was. I didn't tell him. I couldn't.

Perry sighed, dropping his head into his hands and wondering why—why, in the name of Ayesha—he'd ever agreed to partake in this whole 'sharing your emotions' thing in the first place. He scrubbed the palms of his hands over his eyes, feeling the jagged edge of his scars, flanked on either side by weathered skin. In that moment, he felt every bit of his age, while every fibre of his being longed for the simple days. The days before any of this had ever happened—back when it was just him, his patients, and the bastard-coated bastards with bastard-fucking-filling that occupied the other 98% of the world. Even as the very thought passed through his brain, however, Perry knew that just wishing for it wasn't going to do him any good. If there was anything he had learnt, it was that these hardships weren't made for you to just balance on the balls of your feet in idle hope that the problem will just magically fix itself and be on its merry little way. No. You had to work for it. You had to fight, tooth and nail, for what you wanted. You had to fight, knowing full well that today may be your last... that today may be everybody's last. You had to fight, and never stop fighting, because the moment you stopped—the moment you hesitated—you were dead.

That was what life had become for him, and he wanted it to stop.

But he couldn't stop, not when there was still the chance that this bleak existence could become life for everybody, both in this reality and his own, if he stopped fighting. If he allowed himself, even for a second, to doubt what they were doing here. He couldn't afford to doubt, not until that option was swept right off the table. Not until every remaining member of the Collective stood trial for what they've done.

"So don't doubt," he told himself, even as his mind wondered if it was ever that simple for anybody anywhere.

But regardless of how difficult it would be, Perry knew was no room for doubt, now more than ever. Instead of focusing on what had happened between him and JD—though he was determined to set things right again—he needed to focus on the here and now. His mind, which had previously run amok with everything he had said and done, now fixated itself on what he had learnt. The Harbinger's next message was something he had been waiting for the moment they had set foot in the past. This man on the inside, whoever he may be, was the only reason they had found the technology to travel back in the first place, and while he and Jack had formulated their own plan, it was clear to the both of them that the Harbinger had other—grander—plans. Whatever he had set into motion would happen soon, perhaps even sooner than they had thought...

'The storm has come...'

Now he just had to figure out what the hell the storm was.

After walking down approximately twelve corridors, three flights of stairs and one abandoned wing of the hospital, JD came to a sudden and staggering halt in the middle of Sacred Heart, breath shuddering to a stop in his chest as the full and far-reaching reality of what he had just donesunk in. His eyes widened in horror as his mind replayed the mistake over and over again, and he was forced to lean over himself to calm the sudden and maddening rush of panic that bubbled in his throat at the thought. He was too far gone to care about the awkward looks he received from passing staff at his sudden mental breakdown in the middle of the busy hallway, but when he felt a hand fall on his shoulder and lifted his gaze to the worried eyes of the nurse on call, the idea of being comforted—him, being comforted—by anybody forced him away from prying eyes and into the empty patient's room on his left.

He brushed the nurse away with a smile that stretched too far across his face to be real, and a half-hearted mumbling of "I'm fine" when she followed him in. He couldn't quite remember her name; he couldn't quite bring himself to care.

Hesitating for a single moment before pulling away, the nurse left the room and was quickly lost in the crowd of people in the corridor. When he was sure nobody else would disturb him, JD shut the door softly behind him and moved towards one of the two patient beds in the room. Settling himself in for the long haul, he attempted to make sense of his thoughts, which wasn't exactly a hard task as they only consisted of one repeated sentence.

What the hell did I just do?

After analysing the sentence about a thousand times in his brain, the only response he came up with was one that made him flinch the moment he thought of it. But that didn't make it any less true.

What had he done? He'd insulted the intelligence and the integrity of a war veteran, that's what.

Because Perry was as about as naive as JD was a duck, and he sure as hell didn't have any subconscious urge to flap non-existent wings and yell "QUACK!" anytime soon. JD put his head in his hands, feeling unshakably miserable. After a moment of silently contemplating his own imminent demise—because there was no way Perry was going to take that kind of behaviour lying down—he scrubbed his hands over his face and released a low, drawn-out moan that he felt sufficiently covered everything that had happened to him in the past few hours. Then he spoke out to the empty room, as if somehow, someway, the shadows leaking from the corners could provide him with the answers he sought.

"Could this get any worse?"

The last thing he expected was that somebody would actually respond to his (quite rhetorical) question.

"Could what get any worse?"

For a brief moment, his mind entertained the thought that maybe the shadows were speaking to him, until he realised that no, JD, shadows did not talk, not ever. He jumped to his feet then, eyes searching the room for the source of the voice. He found it on the opposing bed, the privacy curtains drawn to hide the figure from view. JD certainly hadn't looked close enough if he assumed the room was empty, then. Past his initial shock, JD realised that he recognised the voice, and that simple fact was enough to bring the bubbling panic straight back to his throat again.

"Per—Doctor Cox?"

The privacy curtains parted in front of him, revealing a bleary-eyed, wild-haired, white-coated Doctor Cox. It took a moment for it to click in JD's brain that this wasn't the man he had just outrageously insulted, but his present counterpart, the same cantankerous man he worked with every day and constantly—somewhat desperately—looked to for approval. His body collapsed in relief, which was apparently quite obvious a change in posture, as it earned him a raised eyebrow and a questioning look from the auburn-haired doctor in front of him. When JD didn't speak (as he had, in fact, forgotten that he'd been asked a question in the first place), Doctor Cox sighed, brushed his thumb against his nose and crossed his arms over his chest, looking every bit the closed-off, intimidating mentor JD knew.

He motioned to the bed behind him. "Sit."

Unable to defy the man's orders, especially not with his mind in such a defective state, JD sat.

The next few moments passed in silence. It wasn't until JD flinched from his place on the bed that Cox spoke.

"I know I'm going to hate myself for asking this, Rebecca, and you will pay dearly for it if you tell any of your friends that this conversation ever happened, but what the hell's gotten your pretty pink panties in such a bunch," Cox shifted, managing to look both extremely uncomfortable and thoroughly annoyed at the same time, "and why couldn't it wait until I'd actually slept more than ten seconds in the last week?"

In spite of how obvious it was that neither of them wanted to have this conversation, JD found himself speaking, voice laced with sadness and shame. "I had an argument with Per—a friend. We didn't exactly see eye to eye about something, and I said some things that were completely out of line."

Doctor Cox frowned. "What kinds of things?"

Wow, JD thought when he realised that the man in front of him was actually encouraging him to continue speaking; he's really serious about this...

He hesitated only for a moment before saying, "I called him naive."

"So?"

JD averted his gaze from his hands, gyrating nervously in his lap, to stare blankly at the opposing wall. "Trust me, Doctor Cox," he began with a shadow of a smile, "if you ever met this man, you'd realise that he's anything but naive." Cox just raised an eyebrow at the statement, but nodded. "Then—well, then I dropped a bombshell on him that made the one he dropped on me microscopic in comparison." He dropped his head into his hands, flinching openly as he remembered the look of absolute shock that had crossed Perry's face when he told him about the Harbinger's message, and the desperation that had followed.

"And what did he drop on you to make you say all that to him?"

JD lifted his head from its place in his hands. "What?"

"He'd had to have provoked you in some way, Newbie, so what did he say?"

JD swallowed, but answered the question: "He told me that I wasn't ready to be trusted, that I wouldn't be able to handle the sort of things he had to deal with. I guess, in a nutshell, he called me naive first."

Doctor Cox's hands came up to rest behind his head as he shifted off the bed and began to pace the length of the room. JD recognised this as a sign that he wasn't exactly happy with the way this conversation was going, and was trying to summon enough patience and humanity to respond to what he had been told. While he knew what was to come wouldn't exactly be the mentor-protégé bonding moment he'd always dreamt of, the fact that Doctor Cox was even considering giving him advice was enough to make the bitter smile that stretched his lips a little more genuine. After another minute of walking the room's length, Doctor Cox's hands fell back to his sides and the older man turned to face him.

"I'll be the first to say that you're definitely na-hot the most mature person I've ever met—in fact, you don't even make the list, there, Susan—but this guy is 100% bastard material if he thinks that you can't be trusted. I mean, you have to have some appeal for half the people you're friends with to actually tolerate you, and I know at least one mutual friend we have that trusts you enough to tell you her secrets. Mind you, I'm not saying that that appeal is working for you in any way, shape or form, since Barbie and Ghandi are the last two people I'd be friends with in this dump—and before you faint in girlish delight, Newbie, I'll let you know you're the third last person on that particular list—but anybody who calls themself your friend and actually means it has an obligation to trust you as you trust them. With some people, it's damn near impossible to get them to confide in you, but they shouldn't insult you to get their point across, no matter how justified they believe it to be. You shouldn't have to feel sorry for the things you said if the person you said them to doesn't even have the common decency to let you down easily. And from what I've heard about this supposed friend of yours, this guy really is naive."

JD couldn't stop the gratified smile that crossed over his face right then, even though the irony of Doctor Cox's words wasn't lost on him like it was on the man himself. "Thanks, Doctor Cox."

Doctor Cox looked a little put out at the change in demeanour that overtook JD right then, but didn't say anything about it at least. While he still felt what he had said to Perry was wrong, he no longer felt the sharp stab of regret that had overtook him before. He'd apologise, definitely, but he wouldn't beat himself up so hard about it anymore. Not when the man himself—albeit from a different time—seemed to think he shouldn't.

After a lengthy silence—where JD sat, perfectly comfortable, while his mentor's face shifted from decidedly uncomfortable to irritated, harsh and vintage Cox all over—the man finally growled:

"Now get the hell out of here, Diana, so I can get some damn sleep."

But there was a smile beginning to tug at his lips when he ushered JD out of the room, and the dark-haired doctor couldn't help but smile back.

"Would I be crossing your proverbial line of morality if I shot your great uncle Argyle in the face?"

Jack snorted, looking up from the computer screen to see his mother resting her weight against the threshold of the door, arms folded across her chest with an eyebrow cocked in his direction as she waited for his response. The question wasn't exactly surprising, just humorous, and the fact that she looked pissed as hell was something he'd had his entire childhood to get used to. It didn't bother him much, not even when people shot him looks of sympathy at being the focus of one of her rants, because even in his most petulant of moods, he knew the anger was never really directed at him—and that when it was, it was for good reason, something Jordan never did anything without.

What did surprise him, however, were the lines of exhaustion he could see creeping up into her expression. He'd seen it before—many times, and on many different people—because nobody endured the horror of the future without losing some part of their soul to it. But to see it written so plainly on her face now, in the past, was worrying. Guilt smothered his thoughts when he realised that it was essentially his fault she looked like this—it was his idea to go back, after all, to play gay chicken with destiny (which was getting its ass handed to it, guilt or no guilt) in a half-hearted attempt to salvage what was left of his future. A noble pursuit, he knew, but one that cost the people around him—the people here and now, in the present of an alternate universe whose future had yet to be decided. Instead of one time line, he was now playing with two, in hope that the second one didn't end up exactly the same as his.

It won't, he told himself. We won't let it.

He didn't allow the concern or the guilt to linger on his face for long, because the last thing he wanted was to burden his mother with his problems when she already had so many of her own. Instead, he pushed it to the back of his thoughts to be pondered upon and worried about later. To Jordan, he smiled. "Unfortunately, yes."

She grumbled, and Jack's smile ventured into smirk territory.

Sparing a moment's glance at the monitor in front of him, and determining that it was pretty safe to leave it alone for a while, he turned to her and prompted: "What did he say to you this time?"

This appeared to be the exact opening Jordan needed to descend into a full-blown rant. He didn't exactly follow everything she was saying, but managed to get the general gist of it from what he could hear—she was mumbling under her breath, after all, speaking more to herself than she was to Jack, not that he minded. In fact, he preferred it. This way he could lean back and observe, drawing his own conclusions all the while, and only getting involved when it came to proving them right. After a full minute of gathering his thoughts and waiting patiently for a hole in the one-sided conversation Jordan seemed to be carrying out, he finally got it amidst her colourful description of the "double-crossing, back-stabbing bastardry" that Argyle Cox oozed "every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every week of..." well, you get the gist, he thought to himself.

"So," he cut in when she finally stopped at 'every millennia' to heave a breath, "Basically, he's making a decision that you don't like, but you're unable to full-out refuse it, because it actually seems to have some merit."

Jordan rolled her eyes. "Well, when you put it that way, Jack," she said, sarcastically. "I don't care if it's a good idea, because it's not happening!"

Jack's lips had definitely breached smirk territory. Hell, he was going for the grin.

"Is that because there's something fundamentally wrong with the plan, or because you don't like that he suggested it first?"

Jordan stifled an irritated scream, rubbing at her temples in aggravation. Then, right before his eyes, her anger deflated, as if somebody had undone the fine knot that kept it all together. Jack blinked in surprise, because his mother's anger never deflated—it exploded, more often than not after a sharp retort that stabs at the thin, rubber walls of her patience. The Jordan Sullivan he knew didn't deflate.

He was thinking that maybe he didn't know her much at all, then. Instead of the thought filling him with sadness, he smiled, because that meant there was hope for her yet. She didn't have to become... what she would be.

"Fine," she said quietly, but with a fine edge in her tone that didn't go unnoticed to Jack's ears. "You want to know the plan? Here's the plan: Argyle wants us to relocate to one of his bases. Need I remind you that there are two major flaws in that plan? One, we'll have to move all the technology that the Collective built here which, contrary to what your great-uncle seems to believe, is not easy, and two—and listen to me on this one, Jack, because it's important—we'll be under his influence, his control, we'll finally owe him something. He's gotten us this far just on what he's doing for your father, but that's all going to change once we accept this. I, for one, don't really like the idea of being anywhere near his circle of authority, because when you get in bed with Argyle Cox, it's a hell of a job getting out—the man clings to you tighter than a leech, and demands twice the amount in blood."

Jack nodded, taking this into account, but something about her words didn't sit right with him, because Jordan knew this—she knew what Argyle was like, what he would demand, how he would play the game and manipulate them so well they'd believe that it was their idea in the first place. But she'd still been willing to make a deal with him the first time, definitely more willing than he or his father had been. He knew her sight wasn't limitless, but if there was one thing she knew like the back of her hand, it was their family. It was the thing that mattered most to her, what she hadn't taken her eyes off since she was a little girl, growing up with a cursed gift.

Something in Jack stirred at the mention of her sight in his musings. Following his usual routine of observation, the gathering of data and discovery, he kept his thoughts to himself, but spurred her along with something that was equally as pressing to him, and would lead them in the right direction at the same time. He never liked the analogy of killing two birds with one stone, but if he had to use it, it would be here: "Really, though, what's so wrong with this plan? And I'm not talking about moving to his base in particular, but moving at all? We agreed that even though the enemy is far too smart for us to be hidden from them for long, that this warehouse right here would be the first place they looked—it's their point of origin, after all, so whether they like it or not, they'll always materialise somewhere in the area. Why do you want to be stuck in a dank, empty, decrepit warehouse?"

The look on her face told him everything he needed to know—he was right, again, but for some reason it didn't fill him with the same amount of confidence that it usually did when he figured something out about her.

"It's not the idea of moving that worries me," she admitted. When Jack raised an eyebrow, she shook her head. "Really, it doesn't. I didn't like the idea before now because I'd seen too much happen at this place that hadn't yet occurred, and I knew that moving would hinder what was to come—what was meant to come, and it turned out I was right. We met Sebastian Stark, and we've entered into a deal with him. That's what I saw—that's why we couldn't move. Now, though, we're offered this chance to get out of this place, to be safe, and it's not that idea that doesn't sit well with me, but the fact that it's being offered with no strings attached."

Jack frowned. There were unexpected variables to her confession, but his general hypothesis was still being proven correct. Still... "Have you seen anything? I mean, anything that would indicate that he's about to double-cross us?"

Jordan was silent for a long time. When she next spoke, her voice was filled with something he hadn't heard come from her in a long, long time.

Fear.

"That's what worries me, Jack," she began, eyes glazing over as she looked into a distance he couldn't even begin to fathom. "This is all coming together perfectly... too perfectly."

"So we're having some good luck for a change, what's so wrong about that?" The words flowed unwelcome, unbidden from his mouth. Jack didn't want to know the answer—the stakes were too high if his mother, his pinnacle of strength, was shaken by this. But he couldn't take them back now—all he could do was wait, as anxiety's cold chill crept up his spine, and as she formulated her reply.

Jordan turned her head to look at her son.

"I haven't seen a single thing, Jack—Argyle Cox is being a decent human being, and it scares the hell out of me."

JD was perturbed.

As he contemplated this, he realised that he hadn't spent a lot of time in his life feeling perturbed—oh sure, he spent plenty of time feeling anxious, worried, disturbed, agitated and all the other synonyms for the word, but when he really thought about it, as in really, really thought about it, the only reason he could come up with for his lack of general perturbation in life was the fact that he just wasn't a very perturbed person. He wasn't the type to feel troubled all that often, and whenever he did, he always found comfort in the arms or advice of a friend, depending on who that friend was. But standing at the base of Sacred Heart's emergency access ramp, thinking about how simple his life had been a mere three days ago, JD wasn't sure if any of his friends would understand what was worrying him this time around; probably because he didn't understand it either.

Despite having been put at ease by the present counterpart of the man himself, JD couldn't help but feel a resounding guilt about his argument with Perry. While he knew that the fight wasn't entirely his fault, he couldn't shake the feeling that there was more he could have done to accommodate Perry, to remember exactly who it was he was dealing with. He knew, deep down, that the auburn-haired man who perplexed him so was the same grouchy doctor who had just thrown him out of an empty room so he could sleep on his shift, but he couldn't help but get hung up on the differences between the two men—mostly because there were so many of them.

It took him a while to understand why it had hurt so much more when Perry had shut him out rather than Doctor Cox, but when he did; he found it all led back to those differences. With the Doctor Cox he knew, distrust was a given, and while it was a harsh thing to have to deal with—especially when you were expected to cultivate a working relationship with said closed-off, perpetually grumpy man—there was never any miscommunication there, no false sense of security. Perry, however, was a whole other story. With him, JD never knew where he stood, whether he was going to be treated like an old friend and equal, or if he was going to be completely stonewalled for reasons he was never really told.

That on its own was troubling, but even as he thought about it, JD knew that Perry's fluctuating emotions weren't the issue here. He didn't like not knowing which one he was going to stumble into the next time something like this happened—whether he was going to be greeted with an open expression or be given the cold shoulder for the day—but he knew that there was a reason behind it, whatever that reason may be. And while Perry might not see fit to entrust JD with his most personal thoughts, at the very least he may decide to open up to Carla, or Jordan, which would hopefully relieve some of the stress he knew the older man must be feeling—

And there it was.

JD blinked, once, then stilled. It made sense now, the reason why he was so troubled, so perturbed by this. The reason why, even after Doctor Cox had straightened him out, he had walked straight out of the back entrance to the hospital in a complete daze, unable to get Perry's wide, bloodshot eyes out of his mind. The reason why losing himself in thoughts of Carla peeling back the layers of Perry's psyche, getting to open up to her about how he was really feeling filled him with an odd, detached sense of relief he couldn't understand. The reason why guilt rose to the forefront of his mind the moment he thought about the argument, even though he was well aware that the fallout wasn't his fault alone.

The reason why he was so disturbed about this, the reason why his sadness, worry and guilt had taken over for him, wasn't due to the plethora of emotions he was feeling at the moment but, rather, the emotions he wasn't feeling.

The anger he wasn't feeling.

JD was perturbed because... he wasn't angry. He knew he'd been angry before. Hell, he'd been furious before, and even when that initial bout of fury had simmered down with the realisation of the rising panic of what he'd done, then calmed by Doctor Cox's unexpected words of trust and friendship, the frustration had still been there, building in the back of his mind, stewing in his resentment. But now, now it was just...

Gone.

Not lost, as he had eventually expected it to become, as every emotion eventually became. No, not lost, because lost implied it could be found, that it was still there, in the ether of emotion that harboured some of his most volatile thoughts and memories, as well as some of the most touching. His anger wasn't lost, because it wasn't there at all, like the emotion had not only been erased from the forefront of his mind, but eradicated completely. Well and truly gone.

The strangest part—the most perturbing part—was that he knew he should be angry. He knew he had the right to be angry, even. But no matter how much he thought about it, no matter how he allowed his mind to linger on how much it had hurt to hear those words tumble out of Perry's lips, the anger just wouldn't come. Instead, all he could think was how true those words were. After what he had said to the black-clad man in return—well, why should Perry trust him? He'd pretty much proven him right, hadn't he? He was naive. He was childish. Yet even as he thought those words, marvelling at how there was absolutely no anger behind them for anybody but himself, his mind rebelled against the, urging him to remember the conversation he'd just had with Doctor Cox, and the true meaning behind what he had said.

"Anybody who calls themselves your friend and actually means it has the obligation to trust you as you trust them..."

So he couldn't be angry at Perry, but he couldn't be angry at himself, either? So who could he be angry at? He sure as hell wasn't going to be angry at Carla, if that was what his mind was suggesting. It hadn't even occurred to him to be angry with Carla, so damning was the thought. JD wasn't even remotely frustrated with her, and couldn't be if he tried. Instead, he couldn't decide if he was worried or relieved when he thought about her part in the events that had transpired. Worried, because she'd been thrown head-first into all of this by the sounds of it, and relieved because... well, because there was a part of him that had fretted over whether or not he would be alone in this after Perry and Jack left. Sure, there was Jordan, but she had never been well known for her emotional stability. He knew she felt, because nobody could fake the look of despair that had flooded her features when she talked about the cursed gift she had been given, but she had never been adept in sharing those emotions, and certainly not with him. Carla being a part of this now was tragic, but if they could work through the tragedy together—create something good out of it, even—he couldn't help but think that maybe all of this would be worth something, that the emotional turmoil he was going through now would help to build on his relationship with her, with the trust between them.

Carla was the only one he was sure of. Carla was the only one he could be sure of.

As much as he wanted to, he knew he couldn't be sure about Perry. Everybody talked about the grand friendship they seemed to have where he came from, how close they were to one another and the mutual respect they shared, but the idea still seemed too surreal for JD. It was a pleasant thought, that maybe one day in the future he would be the one Perry came to with his secrets, the one person he immediately sought out when he needed advice, but what would that cost? Would it cost the end of the world as he knew it? Would it cost the deaths of hundreds, possibly thousands of men, women and children? Would he have to fight till his dying breath for it? Would Perry have to lose his family, his dignity for it? Would the future have to be drained of any and all happiness, any and all life, promise and potential, before Percival Cox could look at Jonathan Dorian with honest-to-god affection?

He had a sinking feeling that the answer to that question was yes, and JD wasn't sure if he could live with that.

He couldn't be sure about Doctor Cox either. Despite his advice and the way the two of them had slowly but surely gravitated towards one another throughout the years (though he suspected that the older man would rather jump off a building than admit to it), he'd never actually called JD his friend. Besides, as far as JD knew, Doctor Cox had absolutely no knowledge of what was going on, suspicions aside. For all he knew, the auburn-haired doctor would probably start to think he was fooling around with Jordan and Carla now, rather than the truth. Because anything—anything—was more believable than the truth.

No, the only one he was sure about was Carla, and even then that thought was littered with doubt. But it was littered with a lot of other emotions too, emotions that seemed to fill in the blanks where his anger towards her would have been if he'd had it, which he wouldn't have even if he had somehow deluded himself into thinking that it was justified. After all, it wasn't Carla's fault that she'd stumbled into this; that Perry had chosen her to tell. It wasn't anybody's fault, really, except maybe the Collective, but JD couldn't even consider thinking about them at the moment.

Rather, his mind was thinking about the many different parts of him that felt different things about Carla's sudden involvement in this whole ordeal. Part of him—the part that had been dreading the talk he had planned for the two of them to have about favours that couldn't be explained and that weren't exactly mutually beneficial—was sighing in relief that she knew, and how easier this made things for him from now on. Another part of him, an entirely different part, realised what this meant for Perry. While he was crushed that the older man didn't seem to believe he was trustworthy enough to let him in on his most esteemed thoughts, he was glad he would at least have somebody to confide in. Carla was a great person, and an even greater friend, and he was truly happy for the both of them that they had found each other, that they both had an ally in all of this...

Regardless of his jealousy, or any of the other number of petty emotions he could feel crawling beneath his skin, he knew she was the best—if only—person qualified to help him. Now, her mission would be two-fold, considering how he needed her not only to help him with the plan itself, but also to help convince Perry it was a good idea in the first place. As much as it pained him to admit it, since agreeing to this in any way, shape or form would inevitably deepen her involvement in this nightmare, JD needed Carla now more than ever. He felt slightly moronic, considering the fact that it had completely slipped his mind to ask her about the plan. He had been so caught up in the whirlwind of emotion that followed his and Perry's argument that he hadn't been able to spare a single thought to the plan, to the importance of finding the first carrier, and the part he needed her to play in its development.

Now, it was all he was able to think about. How could he have been so stupid? How could he have forgotten what he was doing there, especially when flinging insults into the face of the one man who could truly make it happen, whose support he needed like a crutch just to get through each passing day? JD sighed inwardly. First things first—he needed to find Carla. Once he'd found her, once he'd asked her if she was willing to help, then and only then, would he allow himself to think about what he should do with Perry. If he even thought about it now, JD was afraid that he'd never be able to pull himself away from the recesses of his own mind.

He never did have to confront that fear, because in the next moment—as if lifting his thoughts directly from his mind into her own, Carla's voice echoed across the parking lot.

"JD?"

The dark-haired doctor turned his head to see her standing at the top of the stairs, which she started pacing down with short, fast strides. She was wearing her magenta scrubs, the ones that were a few sizes bigger than her normal ones, and the only ones that seemed to successfully cover the baby bump protruding from her stomach. JD smiled at the sight, thinking (and not for the first time) that pregnancy really made the beauty in Carla's face stand out, even if the imbalanced hormones made her less than a pleasure to deal with when she was angry. He'd always thought Carla was beautiful, but silently, due to the fact that she was very much in love with his best friend, and Turk with her. JD would rather stab a knife in his own gut than interrupt the happiness he saw on both their faces when they were in a room together, and it was especially during those times, where the smile would simply light her face up from the inside, setting her warm, brown eyes aglow, that JD was taken by her in a way he had rarely felt for anybody he'd ever met.

The awe he felt around her, he knew, wasn't romantic in the least. It wasn't anything like the way he felt sometimes when Elliot looked up at him through the curtain of her hair, the sheer lightness of the stands making her eyes look such a deep, amazing shade of blue in comparison. It was nothing like that. Instead, it was the welcoming, affectionate wonder that he imagined a child experienced when they looked at their carer—a safety, a warmth, something... indefinable.

Her feet hit the last step, and the spell she'd cast on JD's mind was broken. The smile didn't leave nearly as quickly, though.

Carla's brow furrowed with concern as she approached him. She looked only seconds away from putting her hands on her hips, though JD had no idea why, until she asked him: "What are you standing in the middle of the parking lot for?"

Oh. "Just... lost in thought, I guess."

Carla raised her eyebrows, a single corner of her mouth betraying the rest and tilting upwards despite itself. Then she shook her head, black curls falling into her dark eyes before she brushed them away, reaching for his arm. "You really will become a deer frozen in the headlights if you keep doing that, Bambi," she said strictly, but the amusement that played on her lips had twisted into a full-blown smile by then

"Don't worry," she said, proudly, her smile growing wider. "Carla will take care of you."

For a moment he couldn't quite place where he'd heard those words before, but then he remembered his tentative—if somewhat painful—first months as an intern, back when he was scared senseless by anything and everything in his path. Support like Carla's had been a lifeline to him and, as he looked ahead to where the road had taken them, he was in no way ashamed of having asked for it. Both he and Carla had grown since those early years, in differing and numerous ways, but what was strikingly peculiar was how their situation remained exactly the same. Hearing those words pass Carla's lips relaxed a tense line in his shoulders that JD wasn't even aware of having, and he couldn't help but follow as she took his arm, directing him away from the open grounds and towards her car with a steady hand.

As they walked, JD spared a brief thought for Jordan's BMW parked on the other side of the lot, but figured he'd be back at the hospital again soon enough. If the plan was ever going to come to fruition in any way, shape or form, then he had to be—they had to be. He glanced down at the petite nurse pulling him along and smiled, the truth slowly dawning on him as they crossed the lot. Carla's part of this now, too. From now on, we're in this together...

JD's next thought made his smile widen.

As if she'd have it any other way.

It was on that thought that JD allowed himself to be tucked away into the passenger seat of Carla's tiny car, relaxing for the first time in weeks as they peeled out of the lot and down the street. In under less than a minute, Sacred Heart became just another nondescript building in the distance, and JD watched on with idle curiosity as it grew smaller and smaller the further they ventured from it.

Then it happened.

He had just turned to face Carla, lips burning with questions, when he blinked and the world was bathed in red. The interior of the car, the road, the oncoming traffic, the blue sky... everything. For a long and confusing moment, JD saw nothing but red. Then he blinked again, and the red was gone. Tentatively, he shrugged it off as one of the more weirder things he'd experienced today, since there was no way he could get worried about every single little thing that was happening at the moment—he suspected he'd never get out of bed in the morning if that were the case. JD turned his head back to face the front of the car as it rolled to a stop at a red light, questions forgotten.

Then it was Carla, it seemed, who had something to say to him. Her hands were still poised on the wheel, waiting for the all clear, but she had obviously craned her head towards him to speak. Instead of the light traffic chatter he'd expected, however, JD's ears were assaulted by a horrified scream. In the nanoseconds he had before he met her eyes, as his body turned, JD's mind raced through every conceivable possibility for her distress, each one as worrying as the last. Had she just seen a random knifing in the alleyway of the block in front of them? Was she feeling suddenly and acutely sick? Was the baby coming early? Was she feeling suddenly and acutely sick and the baby was coming early?

When his mind caught up with his body, JD was completely taken aback to see that Carla's eyes were wide and terrified, her face reaching a whole new level of pale as she stared—

Directly at him?

JD's eyebrows furrowed, but before he managed to open his mouth to ask her what could possibly be that alarming about his face, the light's bulb flashed green and Carla hit the accelerator. The few hundred meters that passed after that, before she indicated left and parked, felt like a small eternity. When the car finally came to a complete and total standstill, JD's patience finally snapped, having already been stretched taunt with concern: "What?"

Her voice, when she spoke, wavered slightly. That, somehow, conveyed the seriousness of the situation more than her widened eyes ever could, especially when she said: "Your eyes, JD—look at your eyes!"

Flicking down the sun visor above the front window, JD looked.

His heart sank at the sight of the blood. Two, small streams of red meandered their way slowly down his face, the crimson colour contrasting dangerously with the ashen white of his skin. Despite the overwhelming evidence, it still took him reaching up to his face with a softly shaking hand, brushing his fingertips across his cheek, and having it come back red and sticky for the reality to finally sink in. The defeat must have shown on his face, because Carla gripped his shoulders tightly in her hands and shook him, unrelenting, her panicked eyes staring into his imploringly. "What is it, JD? What's wrong?"

He knew what was wrong. He'd known it the moment he'd seen his reflection. All the other signs had fallen into place, corroborating his theory—the blood, the lack of colour in his face, the slight tremor in his hands... the symptoms had started to show themselves, which meant it had begun. The end—his end—had begun. Now more than ever, JD was aware of his biological clock ticking forever downwards in the back of his brain like a time-bomb armed to explode as its red numbers grew closer and closer to detonation time. A cold feeling in his gut, which he'd written off as the stone cold fear that was making his stomach do somersaults, suddenly grew to encompass his lower body. Then, as if somebody were flicking switches on a large box that said 'symptoms', JD's hands began to shake. Then his shoulders. Then his torso. Then his entire body.

Gasping for breath, which Doctor Diagnosis told him had more to do with shock than it did the Juvenile virus, JD fished around for his cell phone. His movements began to grow frantic as he felt the haze of darkness approaching, and when he finally found it, he pulled it out and all but threw it in Carla's direction. Before the darkness engulfed him whole, JD wheezed out two words—the only two words he could possibly think of that might help her:

"C-call Jordan..."

Don't bury me, faceless enemy,
I'm so sorry,
Is this the way it's got to be?
Dear agony.

AUTHORS NOTE II: I wrote until my hands fell off to finish this chapter in time, then wrote some more for good measure. Regardless of the fact that I can no longer feel my fingers, I'm so glad to finally be back on track with this story—I've missed it, and all of you, like crazy. A special thanks to everybody that left a review for last chapter, and those amazing few who took the time to PM me about this story. Nothing I can say does justice to your kind words, and I can only hope that these new chapters will help make up for the time and effort you've taken to read and comment on this story. JD fought tooth and nail against me for that last scene, and I think I literally rewrote it at least twenty times before he finally decided he was happy with this. The things I do for these characters...

As a four-month hiatus will do to you, I am indeed rusty with the characters of the show and this story—so if you notice any inconsistencies in the anything: the characters, the facts or even the spelling, grammar or punctuation, please feel free to let me know. As always, any and all comments and criticisms are welcome, but just having have read this is enough to give you my eternal thanks.

Until next time, (Which will definitely be sooner than the last!)

- Exangeline