Chapter Text
Chris walked into the security room and gave him a nod. John nodded back.
"So I hear you're leaving." Chris said blankly.
"Safer." John tilted his head.
"Understandable. But know you're gonna be smothered a bit until your legs heal up." Chris's mouth actually quirked into a smirk. John raised an eyebrow. "Moving down to Codhieu means you'll be in the Winters' care until you're healed up. And Ethan tends to be… fussy."
John looked a bit skeptical.
"You'll see. Since you're healing faster than normal, the docs estimate you'll be walking in two months, maybe one." Chris continued on. "Mia Winters will be by tomorrow to take you to Codhieu." Fortunately Chris seemed an expert at translating silent questions. "Due to his own bioweapon status, Ethan Winters is incapable of traveling more than a mile past a radius of the source of his infection. He retains one here and in Codhieu to keep in contact with BRRD. Otherwise, he can't make the trip up and down the mountain."
How he was in the mountain just yesterday without traveling up and down the mountain, Chris didn't say and John didn't feel like asking. He didn't understand half of what Chris said to start with.
Mia Winters was black haired, pale skinned, and with black veins tracing underneath her skin. When John tried to ignore them they disappeared from his sight. He figured it was either her own mutations or his own odd sight. He didn’t feel like asking.
"Hello. I'm Mia Winters, I'll be overseeing your care and helping understand your mutations." She introduced herself professionally, a blank smile on her face. "Ethan says good things about you."
"Strangling me is good things?" Chris said, sounding exasperated.
This time her smile was more genuine. "Good things."
The two bickered antagonistically for a few rounds, sniping at each other with an odd, casual seriousness that made John twitchy. These two hated each other. But they still got along. He didn't like it.
John’s wheelchair was loaded up in a 'truck'. At his confusion with the massive metal contraption Mia was amenable to explaining what vehicles were, and questioning his amnesia. They sat in the back of the truck as somebody else drove it down the mountain, with many turns and downwards slopes making his wheelchair jerk around in its locks.
John actually spoke with her despite his dislike of speaking. She seemed unbothered by his odd questions and wasn’t patronizing like many of the doctors, so he was more comfortable trying to puzzle out his memory with her. He could recall basic language, concepts, ideas- but supposed modern technology and anything about the current year were a blank. Mia even tried going further back in history to tell if anything was familiar. About the only thing he could state with any confidence was familiar was Great Britain.
Which was apparently quite surprising, as he couldn't name any of the damned countries in the United Kingdom except for scraping at 'Scotland..?'. Mia gave him a brief history of the country they currently resided in and the countries surrounding them. He really hoped she didn't expect him to remember most of it.
The drive was long, so once he grew tired of learning that he still knew absolutely nothing, John fell silent. Mia wasn’t bothered by this and they both sat in silence for the rest of the way.
Ethan met them at the front of a large, plain looking house that somehow looked stranger to John than the laboratories did. He had a wriggling child on his shoulders that was introduced as Rosemary. She seemed excited to see him, squealing happily when John merely nodded his head to her.
Due to the struggle of the long drive, being invalid, and the constant pain from his legs… John was inexplicably tired after a day of doing nothing. Therefore he was easily excused to go to his new room and rest for the rest of the day, with strict instructions to call if he ever needed anything.
Once he managed to get himself into bed - he'd firmly refused any help in doing so, and there were odd rails around the bed that quite helped - John fell into a troubled sleep. Pain and a constant state of confusion made for unpleasant dreams, of blood soaked streets and birds that laughed over his corpse…
He wasn’t quite sure what had woken him up at first. His eyes opened to darkness, only a dim light filtering through the curtains of the room. Somehow the darkness felt… comfortable. Like he was used to it.
Soft footsteps caught his attention, John tensing up and very slowly looking over to his side. He watched as a short shadow tiptoed over to his bedside.
A blond head of hair poked itself over the edge of his bed and John felt some strange painful ache of loss when he realized that it was only Rosemary. A blond child. That was familiar. He made sure to mentally note that down. Small detail it was, he didn’t have anything to remember. So that little detail was big to him.
Oddly enough, seeing that a child was standing at his bedside made the itching paranoia he usually felt simmer down a bit.
"I'm sorry if I woke you up Mister Doe." Rosemary whispered, hands going up to clutch at his blankets.
"S'okay." John mumbled. "Why're you here? Did you have a-" He almost asked if she had a nightmare. What did that say about him? Why did he almost ask that?? Did he have a child??? Children????
Completely ignorant of his internal crisis, Rosemary shook her head. "I wanted to see you up close! Mum wouldn't let me talk to you and she barely let me see you, she only let me 'cause I was with Papa." That explained the tight grasp Ethan had on Rosemary's legs.
"You should listen to your parents." John said, feeling a bit light headed from these new revelations about himself.
"But you seem nice." Rosemary tilted her head at him and suddenly John saw black mold, black vines, streaking across the room and enveloping all in sight.
He blinked, shook his head roughly. The blackness receded and stayed inside of Rosemary.
That was right. Both of her parents were bioweapons as well. She… must have inherited it from them, somehow.
Her head was tilted the other way now, looking focused on him.
"I scared you, why?" Rosemary pouted. "I didn't even do anything scary yet."
"I see a lot of things I'm not supposed to, apparently." John said briefly, looking her over with a slight frown. "And you should listen to your parents. I'm rather dangerous."
"But I'm dangerous too, so it's okay." Rosemary said simply, smiling. John didn’t doubt her. But still.
"That does not negate listening to your parents."
"Mum and Papa are worrywarts. Uncle Karl says so. And he's right." She nodded solemnly.
John couldn’t resist a snort. "Uncle Karl isn't your parent now is he? It's parents' jobs to be worrywarts."
Rosemary's nose scrunched up. "I guess. But I'm like, really hard to hurt and I can zoom places like Papa through the mold, so they don't need to be so worried all the time." She rolled her eyes. John had no idea what any of that meant and he was fairly certain he wouldn't know unless he learned a lot more about the Winters very quickly.
"It is still their job to take care of you and protect you. Don't make it too much harder for them." John chuckled.
Ethan listened curiously to the conversation taking place in John's room. He didn't exactly need to sleep anymore, so keeping an eye on Rosemary overnight was easy. She didn't technically need to sleep either, but she got cranky when she didn't, so they enforced a 'nighttime nap'. Mia, while technically able to go without sleeping, tended to get… erratic when she didn't. So she slept through the night most of the time.
Tonight was not one of those nights. There was too much tension with John Doe involved. He was dangerous, as much as Ethan knew they could handle him well enough.
The house wasn't even their house, per se. It was the house that they 'lived in' for convenience's sake. In actuality the Winters lived deep in the twisted caves and roots of the megamycete's host body. Right where they were safest and where Ethan could protect them.
Which was why Rose sneaking up from her real room was so noticeable. She even used the mold to do so, meaning Ethan noticed right away. He wasn’t able to find out where she'd gone though. He communicated with the megamycete. Rose breathed with it.
He hadn't realized where she'd gone until she was already in John’s room, coming in to the tail end of John lightheartedly scolding her. And then the two just… talked.
It was bizarre.
So far John had been nothing but stoically silent, often even a bit mulishly stubborn about speaking at all. While he spoke to Mia freely, he was still clipped and once he'd gotten what information he wanted he'd clammed right back up.
But he was perfectly fine with talking to Rose. He even seemed to relax, a barely noticeable tension leaving his body as they talked. He was incredibly patient with her, answering her questions without any hint of annoyance. Even though most of his answers summed up to "I don't remember".
Rose eventually climbed up on his bed with him, making Ethan tense and ready to snatch her out of the way in a heartbeat. John just winced as his legs bounced with the movement and asked her to be more careful. Rosemary sat cross-legged and cheerily rambled on.
Not about anything important. Just… about Codhieu. Once Rose's questions were all answered or deflected, John moved to asking her about her family and home. Rose was always happy to talk about her family. Nothing important. More just how Karl babysat on Tuesdays and gave her engineering lessons that were bordering on terrifyingly evident that Rose learned faster than a normal 9 year old. How Rose spent the weekends with the Dimitrescus and learned etiquette and "fancy things" from her cousins and Aunt.
Rose was all too thrilled to tell him all sorts of small things about her day, and she loved to ramble about her very large 'family'.
(Ironic, wasn't it? That Miranda had gone to such lengths for a family, and had ruined all of her chances for one. While here in her ashes the people she'd hurt had picked up the pieces to make a family anyways.)
John was pleasant and kind through all of it. He mostly just let Rose ramble as she wanted while occasionally prompting her with a question to clarify some things. The perfect attitude for someone who'd very clearly taken care of children before. He didn't even seem to realize he was doing it, truthfully.
And then Rosemary started to go on about how she hated having to sleep when it wasted so much time, and how she wished she could stay up all the time like Papa did.
"That's not very healthy for you." John said, glancing towards the curtains where no light filtered in. Just a faint flicker of the streetlamp.
"But I don't need to sleep!" Rose protested loudly. "And I'm a big girl! I'm nine years old, I can stay up if I want to!"
"I don't think nine is old enough to stay up all night. And I'm sure your Papa will be mad at you if you do. And mad at me." John's eyes turned directly to where Ethan was existing only in a thin strip of mold in a shadow.
Then again, Ethan hadn’t seen John squinting at all in the darkness. Either he had night vision like Ethan and Rose or he felt far too at home in the dark. The odd way John saw through things made Ethan uneasy.
Ethan stepped out of the mold and laughed a bit awkwardly. "No, I’m not super upset with you, just Rosemary." She winced at the use of her full name. Ethan crossed his arms and gave her a Look. "You know you get cranky without sleeping, Rosemary. And we told you to stay away from Mister Doe."
Rose crossed her arms back, looking stuck between pouting stubbornly or guiltily. "But he's nice, he's not gonna hurt me!"
"I'm very glad he's nice to you, and I really appreciate it." He gave John a nod. "But you need to be in bed young lady."
"But Papa!" She pulled out the overdramatic wobbly mouth and watery eyes. Ethan couldn't help his resolve faltering. He was not good at being the strict parent.
"You should go to sleep." John said simply, letting out a yawn. "I'm tired anyways, and I still need sleep. Lots of it, healing up like I am." He patted one of his casts tenderly. "If your Papa's okay with it you can come wake me up in the morning, okay?"
Rose lit up like a Christmas tree, turning to Ethan with wide eyes. "Can I? I'll be good and go to sleep- and we can have pancakes and-"
"Yes." Ethan blurted before he could stop himself. Damnit. "Just go to bed now, and maybe I'll think of not telling Mum about this." He gave her a pointed look. Mia was much better at being strict and unforgiving.
Rose nodded rapidly, bouncing in place.
John hissed in pain, clutching at her arm to stop her. His other hand went to try and stop the bed from bouncing so roughly.
Ethan’s heart nearly burst out of his chest when John grabbed her. But John was gentle and Rose stopped immediately, gasping and crawling off the bed with exaggerated slowness.
"I'm sorry!" She said, patting his hand once she was all the way down. "Are you okay?"
"Just- sore." John said, voice a bit pinched. Ethan couldn't even imagine. He literally had metal pins stuck through his flesh. "It's alright, just try to be more careful with me in the future? I'm an old man." He chuckled as he ruffled her hair. (Ethan had another heart attack.)
"You're not old!" Rose protested. "You don't even have gray hair! Unless you're like Auntie Alcina who doesn't have any gray hairs even though she's really old-"
"Rosemary. Bed. Now." Ethan said, rubbing his face.
Rose gave John another worried glance before sighing heavily. "Goodnight Mister Doe." She waved prim and proper before running out of the room. A ping from the megamycete told Ethan that she'd used it to deposit herself right back in bed.
"Goodnight Miss Rosemary." John managed to get out, sounding amused.
Finally the two men were left alone, Ethan sighing.
"I'm sorry about her- are you okay?" He glanced down at John's leg braces. John seemed to be gathering himself after the painful bouncing, rubbing at his thighs.
"Fine." John said wryly. "My apologies if you did intend to keep her away from me." He bowed his head slightly towards Ethan. "I assumed if you hadn't stepped in sooner, you didn't mind our interaction."
Had John known Ethan was there the entire-? Whatever.
"Not so much as I know you're going to have dangerous reactions to some things, and it won't even be intentional." Ethan said bluntly. "And I'd rather not accidentally kill you because you hurt Rose on accident, and then the megamycete reacted to my reaction- anyways." Most people at least seemed fazed when threatened with death. John just blinked calmly. "As long as you're supervised, I don't mind you and Rose hanging out. She seems to like you, and you're good with kids." Ethan leaned against the wall. "How's that realization setting in?"
"I have no memory of any child," John admitted, looking highly uncomfortable. "But when she appeared- I almost thought she was… someone. I don't know who, but…"
Ethan blinked. John looked as if he was in more pain than when Rose jerked his legs, curling in on himself.
"So a blond haired little girl is familiar to you?" Ethan asked softly, feeling like this required a bit more of a gentle approach.
"I… think so?" John looked down at his hands. He did that a lot, Ethan had noticed. Like they were foreign to him. They probably were.
"You've been speaking a lot more, too." Ethan pointed out. John looked up at him, surprised. Then let out a soft sound of understanding.
"I hadn't even…" John held a hand to his forehead, a sure sign for Ethan to stop pushing if his head was starting to hurt. "So this… this implies I… I have a family." He said, distant at first but growing firmer. "I… have a family." John repeated, anxious and hopeful and worried all in one.
Ethan was starting to realize what Chris meant by John keeping his thoughts under lock and key but his heart on his shoulder.
"I think it's probably best if you get some more sleep," Ethan broke in. "It's like… three in the morning, and you do need the rest." He smiled. "I'll let Rose come in for a wake up call, though I'm gonna make sure she doesn't go past the door."
John actually laughed. "That… that may be best." He seemed quiet now, thoughtful.
Ethan filtered back into the mold, disappearing through cracks in the walls that were maybe sort of there on purpose. Before long he could tell John had fallen back asleep.
He should really go tell Mia about all this. She'd have so many theories.