Archive of Our Own

Jon's stomach plummets through the floor and his ribs collapse inward. He struggles to keep it off his face. "What do you mean, gone?"

Diana expression is restrained but contented, bubbling through the neutral mask she adopts in the Library. "They've been banned. I've already had them escorted off the premises. They won't be bothering you again, Jon."

This is his fault. The only reason he didn't flee directly to his rooms when Melanie mentioned Martin's feelings was exactly this. That was the first time they've truly upset him in plain view of cult members, and Jon abandoned his post at the front of the Library because he told himself it didn't matter as long as he was only gone a minute. 

The research Melanie and Martin do at the Institute is their livelihood. Jon could spend all day in bed and have reading material brought to him on literal silver platters if he wanted, and he took away a tool that keeps Melanie and Martin's lights on because he wanted to get a book from the other Library himself instead of waiting or asking for help.

Their work was what got them access to the Institute's Library in the first place, but Jon can't pretend that absolves him. He knows enough about their research to know that the Institute has become a resource they rely on. Being able to replace it or do without doesn't make what he did right. 

"They aren't coming back?" He hates how small his voice sounds, and how everyone is going to use that against him, to support a conclusion that couldn't be more wrong. 

"No, they aren't coming back," Diana says.

Jon curls inward and Gerry quickens his step. Whatever has him looking like that, Gerry's hope of getting the measure of Jon's Martin for himself is unlikely to be realized today. He slows down when he's nearly there, trying to telegraph his movements, but when he sets a light hand on Jon's back Jon startles. When he sees it's Gerry he doesn't smile or say anything. Gerry feels preemptively sick to his stomach. "What's wrong?"

"I was just telling Jon the outsiders who have been harassing him have been banned," Diana says, voice sweet and as pleased as Tibby kneading the blanket in her favorite hideaway.

Jon droops further. Gerry tries to bite down anger, because no one will understand why he's angry. He'll just be reinforcing everyone's hatred of the outsiders. He doesn't think he entirely manages it, catching a gleam of vindication in Diana's eyes. He looks away. "Come on. Let's get you back to your rooms."

Jon lets Gerry gently herd him out of the Library and back into the hidden part of the Institute. Gerry tries to bite down his feelings. Jon doesn't need Gerry's useless ire to make him feel even worse.

They're halfway there when Jon says, so softly Gerry knows he isn't meant to hear, "I didn't even get to say goodbye."

Rage bursts into full life in Gerry's chest. He clenches his teeth and starts scanning for a passerby he can bully into running errands. 

Jon is blinking a lot when Gerry spots someone, a man whose name he doesn't recall. Blinking that much is usually a sign that the tears Jon's holding back won't be staying back much longer. Good thing Gerry has the perfect way to drive off nosy bystanders before they can get a good look at Jon and notice. "Hey! Send Sasha and Michael to Jon's rooms as fast as they can get there. Michael's helping Jonah with the new recruits, and Sasha should be at work in Research right now." Their current whereabouts should be an easy guess, but Gerry doesn't want to waste time if the guy is denser than he looks.

He nods, wide-eyed with surprise that quickly becomes joy at being given an errand directly related to Jon, and sprints off before he can see anything he shouldn't.

They manage to make it the rest of the way to Jon's rooms without encountering anyone else. Jon's hand shakes so badly when he tries to unlock the door that Gerry pulls out his copy of the key and does it for him.

He takes a single step in behind Jon, swallowing down anger until he's sure there's no sign of it on his face or in his voice before nudging Jon to turn and look up at him. "Hey. I'm going to fix this, alright?"

Jon's eyes slide back down to the floor. "Alright."

"Michael and Sasha will be here soon, you'll need to let them in," Gerry says, because if Jon goes and collapses in a corner they'll be stuck outside and the gossip about the entire episode will only get worse.

Jon nods. It'll have to be enough.

He means to go straight back to Diana until he's halfway across the lobby and Rosie's desk catches his eye. He's prepared to do whatever it takes to force everyone to do what he wants, but it'll be easier if he gives Jonah enough warning to pretend that it was all his idea. "Rosie!"

Rosie eyes him warily, which is fair. Gerry doesn't generally bother her unless he's bringing her an outsider dessert or asking after mail on Sasha's behalf. She arches a perfect brow at him. "Yes, Gerard?"

"Can I use your computer to send an email?" He waves off her no before she can voice it. "Jonah's busy with the new recruits, but I need to tell him something as soon as possible, and I can't wait here until he's finished."

"I can pass the message on for you," Rosie says.

"It's confidential." Not actually going to happen, seeing as it's Rosie's computer, but he has to at least try.

"It's my computer," Rosie says, expression firming. She watched him lead Jon away; the math isn't hard. 

"Which is much more confidential than using my voice in the middle of the lobby." Gerry just has to hope the information is enough to tempt Rosie to his side. The connection to Jon is just as easy for everyone else to draw; they probably have at least a dozen eavesdroppers lurking on the fringes of the lobby.

Her lips thin, and Gerry is running through where Jonah's most likely to see a handwritten note without anyone getting to it first when she clicks her mouse a few times, shifts her chair aside, and says, "You can use the in-house message system."

Gerry hurries around the desk before she can change her mind.

He can feel her watching him type. He supposes she doesn't need to look at what he's typing when she'll be able to read the message itself once he's gone, but that doesn't mean he has to like her judging eye being aimed at his slow, clumsy fingers instead of the screen. He's rusty; he only types when Jonah's making him coordinate with visitors like Xiaoling, and he wasn't exactly his thirdhand educational game's star student when Mum made him learn as a kid. 

The message is short, at least: lift the ban, stop Diana from banning them again, and don't do anything Jon will feel guilty about. Plenty for Jonah to act like the whole thing was his idea with minimal blowback. Rosie reads it quickly enough, when he steps away and she can slide her chair back. 

"Confidential, Rosie. If it leaks, I'll know it was you." For all the good that will do them once it's out.

She frowns at him. "I didn't tell anyone about... about the Web," whispering the word like Annabelle Cane might jump out from behind one of the pillars in the lobby, "did I?"

Huh. She didn't. "Thanks." 

He could probably get what he wants from her, for the sort of insight on Jon he just gave her, but it'll be easier to go to Diana. That's where everyone will expect him to go.

The information isn't worth much now that Melanie and Martin are banned, and when Gerry stops stifling his anger Diana is happy to give it to him. When he storms out of the Institute, everyone is already speculating on what terrible thing he's going to do to them for their crimes against Jon. He ignores the feeling of eyes following him.

-

Gerry grants, as he talks another inhabitant into letting him into the building indicated by the address he got from Diana, that he's being impulsive and possibly a bit reckless. For all he knows, he'll wind up needing to chase Melanie and Martin off himself before long, if Jon's fears about Martin are confirmed. 

He doesn't care. Seeing them makes Jon happy. Jonah's never mentioned knowing they exist, and he'll be able to pretend this was always his idea. Beholding is just as curious about Jon's interest in them as anyone.

Jon wants this, and Gerry can actually do something about it.

He knocks, not expecting an immediate response. Whoever's inside probably assumes he's a neighbor, or- well. That he talked someone into letting him in, which he did. 

He hopes they assume neighbor; they're less likely to open the door for a salesman.

The door opens a sliver, the chain keeping it mostly shut, and a woman- Melanie King, he assumes, though he doesn't know how the aura of End hasn't been put through the rumor mill's ministrations yet- peers out. "Can I help you?"

And... maybe Gerry should have waited for Michael and brought him. He's much better at things like this.

Oh well! "I'm from the Magnus Institute."

She looks supremely unimpressed. "They're banned. We get it."

They, not we? 

Right, he thinks he remembers something about a third person on their show, maybe. Gerry does his best to keep his words from sounding how they feel, which is like having an appendectomy without anesthetic. "There's been a misunderstanding. If they're here, I'd like to discuss setting things right." Not just with her, and he doesn't want to do it in the hallway where anyone could hear.

Maybe they aren't even here, and he's making a fool of himself to a woman who has no idea what's going on. 

He really should have brought Michael.

"Just let him in," someone says from within.

The woman glances over her shoulder before returning her skeptical eye to Gerry. "Fine."

Gerry blinks. He didn't expect that to actually work. Not this easily. He can try to compose himself while she shuts the door and takes off the chain, at least.

The door swings open. "Well?" the woman asks when he doesn't immediately step inside.

Gerry hastens to do so, wandering in a few extra steps. How far, exactly, should he be coming in?

Now that he can see more of her, it's obvious that the woman who answered the door can't be Melanie. Physical descriptions are too objective to be distorted too much by the rumor mill. Another woman and a man are hanging around a few feet away, not looking particularly friendly.

"Misunderstanding?" the man, Martin, asks. The other woman just glares.

"You shouldn't have been banned," Gerry says, the easy part. "Jon was upset that he didn't get to say goodbye."

The woman he's fairly sure is Melanie rolls her eyes and says, "Oh my god, is this the nepotism thing again?"

Gerry gawks stupidly. His brain skips. They're all staring at him. "The nepotism...?"

The unidentified woman puts her hands on her hips and rescues him. "So! You know Martin and Melanie."

"Never seen him in my life," Melanie says.

"Well he knows you well enough to find- actually, how did you end up at my flat. I've never been to the Magnus Institute." She doesn't look as alarmed as Gerry thinks someone who's just learned a stranger has mysteriously acquired their address should. He didn't pay attention to the address, really, aside from writing it down. He assumed Martin or Melanie lived here when he saw it was a flat instead of an office.

"We put it as the business address," Martin says. "Sorry."

The woman shakes her head at him and smiles, apparently exonerating him, before turning back to Gerry. "Anyway, you know our names, but we don't know yours." She sticks her hand out for him to shake. "Georgie Barker."

He gets halfway to taking her hand before all the blood drains from his face and he freezes.

Where did the Magnus Institute find this guy?

Melanie makes an irritated noise and comes over, waving her hand in front of his face. "Hello?"

The man jumps and staggers back a step. Belatedly, Georgie drops her hand and takes a couple steps back herself. It's hard not to feel a bit insulted.

"I should go." Georgie isn't really between him and the door, but apparently she's too close. He starts to stumble in the right direction, but then their eyes meet and he jumps away like she's the crumbling edge of a cliff.

"Are you alright?" Martin asks.

Mr. Magnus Institute shakes his head. "This was a mistake." His chest hitches with shallow breaths.

"So we're banned again?" Melanie asks, dripping disdain while her eyes seek Georgie's like Georgie can make any more sense of this than she can.

He jerks in place, still rooted to the spot. "No. Yes. I need to-"

"Go, you said," Martin says like the scent of chamomile tea. "You don't look well, is there someone we can call? Or you can just... sit down, for a minute, and see if you feel better?"

Mr. Magnus Institute shakes his head, then stops with a flinch when his eyes stray too close to Georgie.

She should probably feel unnerved or something, but when she reaches for what she should feel she finds frustration instead. It's not like she's trying to hold him here against his will, the door is right there! "What, did I do something to offend you at, at some party in uni or something?"

He flinches at the mention of uni.

"You know me from Oxford." Another flinch, but the confirmation doesn't surface any half-forgotten faces in her memory. "I don't remember you."

He laughs. It isn't a happy sound. His eyes are darting around like he's debating whether he can escape out the window or the air ducts instead of just walking past Georgie to the door. "You wouldn't." His breath whistles in and out.

Something tugs at her memory, something he said. She turns to Melanie and asks, "Is the Library Nemesis named Jon?"

Mr. Magnus Institute twitches.

Melanie looks at her like she's lost her mind alongside the Uni Weirdo, probably on track to earn a place alongside the Library Nemesis. "Yeah?"

"Do you know his surname?"

A wheeze, almost a cry; a sound that should probably make her feel something.

It doesn't.

"Does it matter?" Melanie asks.

"We don't," Martin says. "Why?"

Georgie scrambles for a description. The Library Nemesis has no existing description in her memory aside from "weird," "tattoos," and "cats". (But two of those- 

She's supposed to be over this.)

How do you describe someone you haven't seen in five years, in a way that someone who barely knows them might be able to identify conclusively?

She had his things down for the anniversary not too long ago, she should...

Should be smarter.

She nearly drops her phone taking it out of her pocket. The digital copies of her pictures of Jon are buried deep in a labyrinth of nested files, meant to keep her from coming upon them accidentally and spiraling, and finding them with grief-numbed fingers is almost impossible.

She chooses the first one where Jon is close enough to the camera to be easily recognized and sort of bumps the phone around. Martin, fortunately, gets the idea and moves closer. "Wait, you know him?"

"That's him?" she asks. It isn't. It can't be. "You're sure?"

"I mean, we told you about the tattoos, but other than that?" he says, looking at her with just as much concern as he was offering to the stranger a minute ago. "Georgie..."

She brandishes the phone at Melanie. "That's him?"

"Stop," Gerry says, a flash of the screen pulling him somewhat back into his body. He needs to stop this, needs to-

Melanie takes the phone gently, studying it for an aching moment where he silently begs her to lie before saying, "That's him."
"Don't," Gerry says aloud a beat too late, but he isn't sure they even notice. He has to go- but she knows, she'll just follow, he-

He's supposed to be helping Jon.

"Where's my purse?" Georgie asks, spinning like she's never seen the flat before. "I need to-"

"He isn't there!"

She jerks around to look at him. There's something wild to her, but no fear.

There should be fear. A little, at least. He tries to examine her more closely, he should be able to tell even if it isn't Eye, even if it isn't properly supernatural. He should be able to tell, with the weight of sick fascination and doomed knowledge pressing down on him hard enough he feels glued in place. There's nothing.

"You have to- do you have his number?" Georgie asks. "His address, when he'll be in to work tomorrow. Something, you work together you have to-"

"You don't want to do this, Georgie." He should have run the second she said her name. Why didn't he? Why did he freeze up instead of getting out before he can do anything worse than puzzling and annoying them? Why?

Something lights in her eyes, mocking the fire that fueled his journey here. "You know."
She rushes toward him and Gerry should turn, should go, hope that he can get out of the flat and home and make sure Jon doesn't leave his rooms until she gives up, but instead he's driven backward until his back hits the wall.

"Please," falls from his lips. His throat keeps trying to close up.

"Where is he?" Georgie grabs handfuls of his jacket and tries to shake him.

"Maybe he just didn't want to see you anymore!" Please.

Georgie laughs. "I don't care! Neither would you if you- did he tell you I thought he was dead all this time!"

"Dead?" Melanie says.

Her voice doesn't come from where he last saw her, and he follows the sound only to find she's slipped between him and the door while he was distracted by Georgie; she doesn't look as unfriendly as Georgie, but he doesn't think he's going to persuade her away with words. Even if he could force something coherent out before Georgie goes on.

Should he try to keep her from leaving?

Would that help anything?

Melanie wavers, but doesn't move, searching Georgie's face. The contextless fragments the two of them have been throwing out are probably confusing in a way he would find funny, if it mattered less. He's nearly as dizzy as they must be.

"What's going on?" Martin asks with a calm Gerry would kill for.

"We can just- he was there when you were, the Institute hasn't closed yet, he'll still be-"

"He isn't in the Library anymore!" Gerry says, cutting her off so quickly his words trip over each other just as much as hers did. "He isn't there, he's locked in his rooms!"

Georgie's shoulders drop and she turns to look at him. Gerry can feel the energy of the room shift and freeze, focus shifting from Georgie to him. Her whole body trembles like a fist clenched too tight. "What?"

He shakes his head. "I didn't mean it like that." He keeps saying the wrong thing and every wrong thing is known and-

Georgie gives him a revolted look and turns away again. "Where's my phone? Melanie, give- we need to call the police."

"They won't do anything," Gerry says, like that will make any sense to someone who doesn't know all of it, like that will make him look less suspicious. "Nothing good." As if he can salvage that, "locked in his rooms" like that's a normal thing to say, a simple misunderstanding. 

As if he can salvage any of this!

He was supposed to give Jon this one thing, there was one thing he could actually give Jon and now instead he's going to bring a nightmare down on Jon's head because they won't listen and he isn't good with people he knew he was being stupid knew he should have brought Michael but it's too late and Jonah will notice and his vision is going gray as if he wasn't having enough trouble seeing clearly and-

There's a thud, and Georgie's phone is nearly fumbled to the ground halfway between Melanie's hand and hers. When she turns, the man from the Magnus Institute is on the floor, semiconscious.

"Georgie, what's going on?" Martin asks, staring down at him.

"He- Jon- I, he-" How does she? What does she? What...

The man blinks sluggishly. Can't he just stay a heap on her floor until she figures out what to do? What to demand from him? How many of his teeth she needs to punch out when she finishes shaking him down for information?

"He, I, Jon, he- he was alright? When you saw him he was-" She thinks she should be afraid, anxious, but it isn't there and so she just wants to cry.

"He was fine," Martin says. He doesn't look away from the stranger. She needs to explain, needs them on her side before he's up again and she can't think-

The man groans and flails up on his hands clumsily before hitting the floor again. "He..."

"He died, I thought-"

Georgie hears a sob. It shouldn't be his, but hers follows half a second late.

The stranger sits up, listing dangerously to the side, with a hand over his face. "You're going to hurt him."

She clenches her teeth. The fuzz that comes of her brain reaching for burnt out connections is difficult, keeping a cool head in the face of overwhelming grief is difficult, but anger, anger is easy. "He's been missing. It's been five years, I thought he was dead!" Her voice shrills at the end, and she briefly longs for the utter numbness after Alex. Anger is easy, but it hurts.

"Missing- how?" Martin asks. "He's... he isn't!"

The stranger shakes his head, expression inscrutable behind the curtain of hair the fall shook into his face. "Seeing you would be a nightmare for Jon."

Something fractures and Georgie's entire body feels red hot. "I never hurt Jon."

He sniffs and shakes enough hair out of his eyes to give her a contemptuous look. "But they did."

The space between her ears fills with a wail instead of thoughts. It isn't fair for a fear being realized to cause agony like this when she never felt the fear itself in the first place. 

She wants to kick him before he picks himself up from the floor, this stranger who knows what happened to Jon and never bothered to help him, but she wants answers more. Good things to those who wait.

"They said you'd be next. So he stopped trying to escape." Even with tears running down his cheeks, he manages to sound detached from both Jon and the nebulous "they" he's trying to distance himself from. 

He could have helped Jon. He could have brought him home, and he didn't. An innocent man wouldn't be able to look at her, weeping in front of him, with so much hatred.

"We don't even know your name," Martin adds. 

Georgie knows him too well, but the man from the Magnus Institute probably thinks Martin's as invested in this conversation as he would be a conversation overheard a table over in a restaurant.

He wobbles to his feet, scrubbing the back of his wrist over his eyes. "Gerard." He snaps a hand out to Georgie.

She doesn't want to touch him.

Gerard lets his hand drop. "I wouldn't be here if I didn't care about Jon."

"So you came here to tell me he isn't dead, but I can't see him," Georgie says. It doesn't sound as strong as she wishes it did. It doesn't condense her rage and grief into a beam she can use to destroy him. "Because you care about him."

He scowls. "I wouldn't have come if I knew you were here."

"Then why come at all?" Melanie asks. "Everyone at the Magnus Institute has made it pretty clear they hate us."

He stops snarling at her to snarl at Melanie instead. "Jon likes you."

"Why?"

Gerard about jumps out of his skin; Georgie didn't realize Martin had gone into the kitchen either, but doesn't startle. Irreversible emotional damage has its occasional perks.

"Felt like he made it pretty clear he doesn't, today, actually" Martin adds.

Gerard's face twists. "Melanie hates him."

Georgie expects him to add something to that, but he doesn't. "And?"

A tear drips off his chin. "No one hates Jon."

Melanie scoffs. "What, Saint Jon never meets a stranger on the Tube on a bad day? Loses his temper with a waiter? Argues with anyone online?"

Gerard shakes his head and sniffles. "You wouldn't understand."

"Tea." Martin has an impressive ability to turn it into an order. Gerard only looks conflicted after he starts to follow Martin into the kitchen.

Melanie lags, probably planning to block Gerard if he decides to go for the door; when she joins them, Georgie is already staring at Gerard over her kitchen table. His shoulders are  trembling over held-in sobs, lips clamped together and the odd tear escaping down his cheek in spite of his efforts.

 Melanie pulls out a chair with a screech. "Got a last name?"

He rocks his head back  and either laughs or hiccups.

He doesn't like using Mum's name. He usually tries to get away with nothing at all, rarely brave enough to try on his dad's. But if he says Keay, they can probably find out about Mum, and then everything will be even worse. 

He feels the focus on him spike at the thought, the dread of discovery.

If it's this focused on him, has it told Jon where he is? Who he's with?

Please, no. The fragile emotional control he's clawed back quakes at the thought. He throws a beseeching thought at something that probably isn't even listening, the closest he ever comes to prayer.

"Because that isn't how someone with something to hide would act," Melanie says. 

Gerry almost laughs; he sees why Jon likes her.

Martin sets the last mug on the table and sits, completing their square. "We don't have to hear you out, if you're just going to lie to us."

Gerry snorts and lets his head fall, pinching the bridge of his nose and shaking his head so his hair will give him an obstruction to cower behind. "You aren't going to hear me out at all." 

And why would they? He's never quite gotten rid of the old air of juvenile delinquent, if the suspicion he still occasionally feels aimed at him when he goes into shops is anything to go by, and he's done nothing but act like a criminal lunatic since they let him in the door. 

If there was no impact on Jon, could he honestly claim he deserves less? That they shouldn't be hostile, when he drugged Jon into unconsciousness before they exchanged a single word? When Jon went for the door, went for the open hallway, went for the tunnels, and Gerry dragged him back?

"I might."

His neck clicks, he looks up so fast.

Georgie is only keeping a lid on her emotions slightly better than Gerry is, but she meets his eyes calmly despite her welling eyes. Not a whiff of fear off her. "If you have Jon's best interests at heart, prove it."

It's not like they can find anything worse than what he's done to Jon. If there's anyone he can convince of the truth of his story, it should be Georgie, with the Mark of actually managing to survive something like what Mum became, shouldn't it? 

What does he have to lose that he hasn't already jettisoned?

He scrubs as much evidence off his face as he can, and tries to stop the flow of tears with renewed vigor. Making them see him as self-pitying will only make his explanation more suspicious. They won't believe he isn't crying for himself. That thinking of this happening to Jon after all he's suffered just tears a wound into him so wide his eyes can't help overflowing.

If there's a chance...

"I was falsely accused," he says, weighing each word. He should be better at talking to outsiders. It's not like he doesn't get enough practice; he just doesn't car what they think of him, most of the time. 

"Of." Georgie doesn't twitch. There's something wrong with that Mark, above and beyond the wrongness of any Mark, on anyone, existing. Not a comforting thought when taking advantage of it is the only way Gerry can see a way out of this that doesn't end in disaster.

What else can he do? "Murder. If you put my name into your phone you'd find articles." 

Right? 

"Probably." 

But if they can't.... 

"Maybe. I dunno." 

Every word is true, but he sounds dangerously close to how Jon sounds when he tries to lie. He doesn't think Georgie will weigh that similarity in his favor. Not for this.

"I feel like you should probably know that!" Martin says, pitch rising with each word.

Gerry crosses his arms, looks away, and feels his face heat against his every attempt to persuade himself he shouldn't feel ashamed about this, of all things. "I don't know computers!" Tracking down rare books they could resell at a profit, keeping up Mum's business correspondence, and arranging things for international guests when Jonah's feeling lazy are about the extent of his skills.

Sasha would know, if she was here. She might even have the articles about it filed away somewhere already.

"You don't know Google," Martin says as if it means something. "Sure."

His face must be scarlet. "It isn't allowed!"

"You're a grown man," Melanie says. "What, does Mummy still give you a bedtime, too?"

"Er," Martin says, looking down at his phone with a frozen expression.

Gerry makes his arms uncross and clamps his hands around his mug of tea, hoping it'll hide how they shake without looking too vulnerable. Or worse, aggressive.

"Er?" Georgie asks.

"Mummy decided to skin herself," Gerry says before Martin can. "The police thought her estranged son seemed like a more plausible explanation."

"Yeah," Martin says, eyes still fixed to his screen. "Because why would a little old lady skin herself? There are easier ways to kill yourself!"

Gerry yanks his eyes down to meet Georgie's instead of barking out something defensive, forces himself to speak slowly. "What happened would be a... familiar sort of fear. For you."

Georgie stiffens. She should be afraid, being confronted so directly, but still nothing.

"She was trying to make herself immortal. If it matters."

"Right," Melanie says, clearly firing up a fresh slate of sarcasm and accusations.

Before she can, Georgie asks, "Did it work?"

His mouth twists into a brief smile in spite of himself. Melanie and Martin are crackling with disbelief, but he thinks it's about Georgie buying into it just as much as it is him. "Not the way she hoped. My fault, obviously, for being in Leeds instead of still home doing her bidding." He was at the university doing Jonah's bidding instead.

"You could've said you had an alibi instead of trying to feed us a ghost story," Melanie says. "Just because we do a podcast instead of working somewhere like the Institute, it doesn't mean we're idiots."

"Jon escaped," he says instead of answering her. Georgie takes in a tiny, sharp breath. "A couple people helped him. I kept the house when I inherited it, and they overheard me talking about it at some point," Gerry of course has no idea when or how, "and took him there."

"Well he obviously didn't go home," Melanie snaps. Georgie gasps again, just as sharp, and her expression is flooded by anguish that eats into him like acid.

"No," he says. "He didn't. Mum was still... She had this book." 

No reaction; Georgie's Mark, whatever it is, isn't from a Leitner, then. 

He looks down, into his mug, and watches his hands' tremors spreads endless rings of ripples across the surface of the tea. "That's what the, the skinning was for. Make a page out of a corpse and... Mum thought she could modify how she used it, make herself something more than a ghost at someone else's mercy. It didn't... she thought she didn't finish enough pages. Maybe she was right, I didn't really listen..."

"You say that like you regret not being there to do it yourself," Melanie says, which, no he doesn't! 

He doesn't sound like that. "I don't!"

"You've put a lot of thought into what could have happened, if you were," she says, managing to look down at him despite being half a head shorter.

"Stop," Georgie says, barely audible. Gerry's response dies in his throat.

"Georgie, he's trying to convince us that, that Jon was murdered by a ghost when we've met him." Martin rakes a hand through his hair, the other clenching the handle of his mug with white knuckled force. "Unless he's supposed to be a ghost now, too."

"I'm not," Gerry says, shaking his head. Maybe he can get in front of Georgie agreeing if he can shoot down Martin's idea fast enough. "I'm just, I'm not, but you wanted to know about the murder, and Jon was, I mean-"

Georgie opens her mouth, and Gerry braces himself for her answer. Her phone is too far away for him to grab, and he definitely can't get all three before one of them manages to dial the police. "What happened?"

It takes him a moment to process that she wants him to keep going. "Um. I didn't... I know she thought it would've worked if I was there to help because she told me. I didn't- I wouldn't." His breath still wavers with the ghosts of tears, but it's almost imperceptible now. He can almost put up an actual calm front.

"Alright," Georgie says. 

Is she getting impatient, or is Gerry just too mixed up to realize whatever she really means?

"She had the book in a safe I couldn't open," he says. His lips want to draw up into a smile, which is probably the worst thing he can do when they were just accusing him of being on Mum's side. "She stayed in the shop, mostly, and she wasn't going out murdering people, so I just... left it."

Georgie's eyes widen. "If Jon..."

Gerry nods. His head wants to stay down, with the feeling of something immense still smothering him with its attention. He can't stop himself from smiling; the movement dislodges a couple leftover tears, just when his face was finally dry again. "He couldn't go with the others to get groceries, so he was alone. Mum was going to..." His voice dies, and he has to clear his throat. "She was going to add him to the book. And he burned her. Jon burned her!"

They won't understand the gleeful wonder the memory fills him with to this day, but he can't keep it off his face. Which is worse, helping Mum become an evil ghost, or being this happy about her death?

Why not both? It's not as if they have much reason to trust him.

"So you're on Jon's side because he exorcised you mum," Melanie says flatly. She's holding her phone with her thumb poised to tap something out on it. "Right. Police, Georgie?"

"N-"

"No!" They all jolt and stare at him. He doesn't know what his expression is, but it certainly isn't a smile. "When he- Jon didn't make it back to Oxford. Jonah had a police contact track them down and drag them back. All calling the police will do is make Jonah notice you."

He can tell they don't believe him. Georgie was solemn, but she was listening. Now she just looks surprised. She'll pick up her phone to make the call any second, and Martin is already just as poised to do it as Melanie.

And he can't stop them.

"Is this Jonah person one of," Melanie sets her phone down so she can physically sketch out massive quotation marks, not that that improves his position much, "'them'?"

"Melanie," Georgie says. She shakes her head at Martin. Gerry almost hopes she won't turn her attention back to him. 

She does. "Who are you to Jon? You didn't help him escape, you know all of this, but you act like you have nothing to do with- with any of it!"

(He can't think about wanting to want to correct her with his patron so close, so he doesn't. He has plenty of practice.)

"Jonah's the Head of the Institute," he says to Melanie. She's least open to believing him, he thinks, but hers is the easiest question to answer. "He's always the one calling the shots."

"I thought the Head of the Institute was named Elias," Martin says. "That's what Jon said. That was the, the thing. Why he was allowed to bring his cats to the Library."

Georgie flattens her palms against the table like she's about to launch to her feet and swings her gaze between them.

"He is," Gerard says. "I mean, he's both. He doesn't go by Elias with... Jon doesn't usually call him Elias."

Martin frowns. "Jon did... remember?" he asks Melanie.

"Did what?"

Martin shakes his head. "When we were talking about the nepotism thing. He tripped over himself trying to give us the name." 

"He also tripped over every other part of that conversation." Melanie glares as Gerard shifts uncomfortably. "What, does the Magnus Institute have Bring Your Kidnapping Victim to Work Day?"

"It isn't. I..." Gerard grimaces. It looks like he half wants to laugh as he says, "The Institute is a cult. Most of the building isn't accessible to the public."

"Oh good," Martin says, "now there are cults to go with the ghosts."

Georgie glares at him, even though her belief is starting to shake as well. Gerard shouldn't have been able to guess about Alex, but she didn't see any way he could have known instead. The story about his mum explained why he might be familiar enough to figure it out somehow, but this...

"A hippie cult?" Melanie says. "A weird science cult? A murder cult? Just a church people don't like? Where do you fit in, as their next virgin sacrifice? Pull the other one."

Gerard looks down, studiously avoiding even the implication of potential eye contact with any of them. His voice is quiet when he says, "My dad grew up in it. Figured out a way to leave, ran off with Mum. I didn't think anything else could keep me safe from her."

"What, you couldn't use 'my mum is a psychopath' to influence the custody decision?" Melanie asks, voice snide.

Gerard looks up a bit, though still nowhere close to them. It gives Georgie a decent enough angle to see something broken in his eyes. Could he really be faking that? "She didn't want a family. She wanted an heir, and probably someone to handle the hard bits until she could turn her back on me without me managing to kill myself choking on a dust bunny or something." He laughs. "Mum didn't keep useless things around."

Georgie looks to the others and finds them slightly panicked, and the pit in her stomach says she probably should be, too. Instead, all she has space for is guilt.

She doesn't owe Gerard anything. He still hasn't given a straight answer about Jon.

(He doesn't owe them this. Georgie doesn't even know what it is, exactly. Is he really saying his mum killed his dad?)

"The Cult of Beholding," Gerard says, wrenching Georgie's attention back to him. He's smiling bitterly at the floor. "A cult of fear. Of worshiping it. Devotion to something old, and incomprehensible, and evil. The Eye, the Watcher, It Knows You." 

Georgie opens her mouth, though she doesn't know what to say aside from what and you're joking and stop.

Gerard looks up and pins her eyes before she can say any of that. "I was away with Jonah. Recruiting. Jon was upset, so I came here as soon as I had him back in his rooms."

"Recruiting?" Martin asks. He looks worried, now. Not calling the police worried; he looks like the worry that should have kept her and Alex far, far away from the Medical Sciences building.

Gerard's eyes burn and devour his face. "People find us. If something supernatural happens, where better to report it than the Magnus Institute? From there, they have the first clue, if they want to follow it. To prove themselves worthy by Knowing It Knows You. And... we go to universities."

Georgie's breath catches.

"We aren't the only ones. If a cult makes the news, even odds it started at a university. Young minds, searching for direction and ready to be molded." He smiles. "We're normal enough to pass. Trusted. Powerful, compared to most, enough to spot the easiest prey. I'm not the only one who joined to escape something else."

She thinks she should be afraid.

"We've proven our devotion one way or another, so we wander around campus waiting for Jonah's networking and guest lecture to end."

No. No.

"It's greedy. It watches, it isn't watched. It knows, but it doesn't teach. It is and feeds on fear; what else can you expect?" Georgie shifts, trying to escape Gerard's eyes, but they're unerring, glued to her. "We didn't think it cared about anything but fear. But it does."

Melanie says, "Cut it-" and then Gerard looks at her and she turns pale.

He returns his eyes to Georgie, intense and, somehow, desperate. "It likes Jon. It. Loves. Jon. So it had to have him."

Georgie speaks, and is surprised to hear tears in her voice. How can she cry in the face of so much sick certainty? "You took Jon. You, Gerard."

"Can't you feel it?" He laughs, and finally looks away. "It knows why I'm here. It knows who you are. Can't you feel it?"

Martin and Melanie exchange horrified looks, but Georgie can't reciprocate. She doesn't know what makes her say, "I can't."

"Good." Gerard's eyes tear away from her, and his face becomes a picture of misery, whatever demoniac light glowed within him doused. "I don't know what's wrong with you, but hopefully it'll make it leave you alone once I leave."

"We aren't just going to let you leave when you just confessed to kidnapping Jon," Melanie says, but she struggles to keep up the appearance of the determination and doubt she was filled with a minute ago.

"The police won't do anything." He shrugs. "They'll tell Jonah, and he'll..."

"What?" Georgie asks.

Gerard meets her eyes, his now full of torment and exhaustion. "Ask me what happened."

Georgie shakes her head. He could just tell them. He could just tell them, he could have told them the moment he stepped inside, he could have left Jon alone, he could have brought him back!

His shoulders draw in like he's trying to make himself look smaller. "Sometimes... Jon has trouble saying things. Without someone giving a starting point."

It's twisted, comparing himself to Jon. Does he think she'll fall for such a transparent attempt at manipulation?

She should refuse. She should throw him out. She should pick up the phone and call the police, but...

If they call the police, and he's right, she'll lose the only shot at answers she's glimpsed in five years. "What happened the night Jon disappeared?"

"He attended Jonah's lecture," Gerard says, and she expected it. She knew it the second he reminded her of the lecture.

She was supposed to be with Jon. At least before, she was unsure enough of the timeline to pretend it could've been something else, some other time between seeing him for the last time and realizing he was missing. What would have happened if she'd gone like she was supposed to?

"Jonah told us, as soon as he decided we'd be taking him. As soon as he saw him."

"While lecturing?" Martin asks, and she can tell it's supposed to be strong but it's just as twisted up as everything else.

Gerard shrugs. He has the nerve to look like he's about to cry again. "Yeah. He can force thoughts into your head. Usually things like that. 'Stay away from the south wing.' 'Bring me this book.' 'Help me kidnap this student.'"

"And you were just on board?" Melanie asks, voice filled with all the horror Georgie can't feel.

"Worse things, if he's angry with you," he says like she didn't. "But... You don't understand what it feels like." He squeezes his eyes shut. "What it felt like. Michael drove. I found someone who'd sell me something to knock him out. We waited up the street until Jonah followed him into your building."

Georgie puts a hand over her mouth to muffle a sob.

"Jonah grabbed him by the throat while Jon dug for his keys," Gerard says, opening his eyes and staring blankly. "I went in to help carry Jon to the car. I drugged him. I carried him into the Institute. I sat by his bed. I waited for him to wake up and explained what was happening and brought him his meals and locked him in and I can't change any of that. But neither can you."

Georgie stares at Gerard as he pants and reaches for anger or disgust or even fear. This man is a violent criminal. She should be afraid.

Gerard's inhale shakes. "Jon is my best friend."

Georgie wants to scream.

"He was the first friend I ever had," Gerard continues, as if that means anything. "I never want him hurt. I try..."

He wipes his eyes. "We're all tied to the Institute. We sign something when we join, or as a teenager if you grow up in it. The people who helped Jon got sick from being away too long, that's part of why they never made it to Oxford. I don't know how my dad left, but," his voice breaks, "Jonah wanted something a little more permanent." He holds up one hand and drums the fingers of the other over the knuckles, over a line of tiny speck tattoos. Tiny eyes.

Georgie doesn't understand why he's telling them that, but Martin gasps. "Jon's tattoos."

Gerard nods. "After they were brought back, they had to come up with a new way to lock Jon up." He shakes his head. "Clearly the door wasn't enough, and something had to be done until Jon could be Bound. There wasn't any other reason, the damage was an unfortunate side effect." Gerard's voice drops, and Georgie isn't sure whether they're supposed to hear him add, "As if he thought any of us would believe that."

It takes three tries to gather enough of her voice to make a sound. "What did you do?"

"I didn't want to," Gerard says. As if he expects any of them to believe that. "But it had already been decided. If the tattoos had to happen, at least I knew I wouldn't let Jonah walk all over me. I started designing them before the escape, but... I think Jonah or Gertrude, or both, thought I was dawdling."

"I'm glad I'm not your friend," Martin says. 

Georgie can't look at him to see his expression, because if she looks away from Gerard he might stop. If Martin keeps going, he might stop. Everything Gerard says is a clue, something they can potentially use against the monsters who stole Jon.

Gerard wilts and shakes his head. "I stopped, obviously. There were bigger problems. If they didn't come back in the middle of the night, if I was there, if someone woke me I would have tried..."

"Tried what?" Melanie squawks. "To kiss it better?"

"You should have let him out!" Georgie can't help but say.

He won't even say what it was. What they did to Jon for days on end.

Gerard tears his hands away from his face and tries to clear enough tears to look at her. "That's the point! Do you think I liked listening to that, knowing that I was the only one who could get him out? We couldn't get the key. I tried, I know the others tried, to think of a way, but we couldn't. Jonah wouldn't let him out until the tattoo designs were perfect. The only way for me to free Jon was to build his cage myself."

"Whoever was in there hurting him could've stopped if they wanted," Martin says flatly. "You could've gone after them. You could've- could've- done anything to help him!"

Gerard laughs, then hiccups. "They locked Jon inside an artifact. He was buried alive. You could tell it was raining because his voice would shake, it was so cold. When it got warmer, it kept going until the mud baked too solid for him to move. When he could, he pounded and scratched at the lid, and when he was out his hands-!"

Georgie should find a bowl, in case she's sick, but she can't move.

"Michael cleaned him up, when Jonah finally took him out," Gerard says. "Got some food in him, bandaged everything. He asked for me, and he couldn't bear to be alone. I spent the night, and the next morning-"

His voice cracks. Georgie vaguely observes that it's convenient timing. "Spent the night."

"Spent the night." Gerard gives her a disgusted glare. "Let him sleep with his head on my chest, so he could hear my heartbeat and know he wasn't alone. I would never...." He shudders, and Georgie doesn't know if she believes him. "That's not the point, the point- you have to choose it. If you didn't, Jonah would tattoo eyes on the babies and call it a day. He had to make Jon agree. He wanted me to leave, but Jon was petrified of him." 

"Is that supposed to convince us you care about Jon?" Georgie asks. "You stayed with him so he didn't have to face the kidnapper he was even more afraid of alone?" 

"No. But I was there, I know firsthand what Jonah said." He sniffles and wipes his eyes, then picks up a pen she must have left on the table at some point and takes a bit of paper out of his pocket and starts doodling. Like anyone asked him to prove he designed Jon's tattoos, to show off. "Jonah told Jon he had to do something to ensure Jon wouldn't run again, and magnanimously allowed him to choose what."

Georgie laughs. Gerard gives her a commiserating smile that makes her freeze. She doesn't want to share anything with him.

The moment passes when he shifts, putting his arm between them and his drawing. "It was Jon's body and soul- Jonah's words- or your freedom."

Georgie blinks and thinks, again, that she should be afraid.

"Somewhere in the Institute," he continues. "Wherever he had the Stokers stashed at the time, probably, we never did figure that out. Brought out for special occasions. As a treat. Leverage to make him let Jonah have his way, probably. And if Jon ever left, Jonah would have no reason to keep you alive."

"You were going to snatch Georgie off the street and bury her alive?" Melanie asks, saving Georgie from picking apart Gerard's phrasing and ambiguities for a measure of the true depth of Jon's abuse.

Gerard shakes his head. "Artefact Storage has a lot of things that will keep a person alive indefinitely, that we wouldn't be able to get them out of without Jonah or Gertrude cooperating. I think letting Jon imagine what else they could use was the point."

Georgie shakes her head. She can't compute it, can't imagine that life. Can't imagine what Jon must have felt, sitting between someone he barely trusted and someone willing to torture people at the drop of a hat.

"Seeing you in the Institute would be a nightmare," Gerard says. "The last time he had it was two days before Michael and I left for Jonah's recruiting trip. Unless he had it again while we were gone."

Martin catches her eye while she's trying to decide how to react. She doesn't want the grief, not now. Not in front of Gerard. She appeals to Martin with her eyes.

"What exactly did you think was going to happen?" he asks. "If Georgie hadn't been here, what was the point of all this?"

"Library didn't seem especially hidden to me," Melanie says. "Unless you count the application process to get in."

"He's only been allowed out there for a few months," Gerard answers easily. He has an answer for everything, doesn't he? It probably helped cement his place in Jon's life, being something solid to hold on to amidst chaos. "Since around the anniversary. His door locks both ways. He's locking everyone else out."

"Seriously?" Melanie asks, trying to maintain scoffing disbelief instead of sickened disbelief. Georgie has no idea if Gerard can see through it as easily as she can. "Jon?"

He said so before, but it didn't feel like this.

"I can't fix anything," Gerard says. "I can't. The best I can do is to try to keep Jon's mind off things, and be there to pick up the pieces. Getting Jonah to give him permission to visit the public Institute took months and a couple dozen people. But I told Jon I would fix this."

"Have you tried? Have you tried fixing everything else?" tears itself from Georgie's throat.

Gerard takes a wet breath and has the nerve to give her a look of pity. "Yeah. I have. But most things require more than sending Jonah a message so he can pretend lifting their ban and stopping Diana doing it again was his idea, and coming here to tell them they're welcome back. This was supposed to be easy. I promised I would fix it."

"So you're going to break your promise," Martin says, and the realization pierces Georgie's heart. "How many times have you done that?"

Gerard freezes, and when he starts moving again he does it strangely. "No. I'm not. Not if you can agree to three conditions."

"What, do you want my firstborn child?" Melanie asks.

Gerard doesn't turn away from Martin. "The rumor mill thinks you're interested in Jon. Romantically. I don't care if it's true, but he never has to worry about it again. If you come back and become one more person who wants more than he wants to give, I won't be held responsible for what Sasha does to you." 

Is that supposed to be some kind of joke?

Martin leans away slightly, face flushed. "Done. What else?"

Gerard takes a moment, thinking over his words. His voice is stilted. "You keep in mind what Jon knows. He doesn't find out anything about Georgie from you that he doesn't already know."

What, is he too good for Don't mention you know Georgie? 

Or, presumably, most of this conversation.

"Fine," Melanie says.

Gerard turns to Georgie. "Don't come to the Institute. Please."

She wants to hit him. "Get out of my flat."

Melanie jumps to her feet. Gerard holds Georgie's gaze. "Please, Georgie. Don't do that to him. Please."

Melanie and Martin get him out. Georgie doesn't listen to whatever parting remarks he makes. If it's important, they'll tell her. 

She doesn't know how to process any of this. It already feels like a fading dream.

Can she convince herself it was? 

Would that be better?

No, it would be a betrayal. After all this time, she can't flinch from what happened to Jon. It isn't unimportant just because now the mystery is solved. 

Not that that gives her a plan going forward.

Her eyes drifts down from the wall past Gerard's seat to the paper he left on the table. She leans over and picks it up, expecting to see a page full of eyes, or something similar.

"Georgie?" Melanie asks, skidding into the kitchen at top speed.

Whatever noise summoned her, Georgie makes it again.

"What?" She leans over Georgie's shoulder, looking at the paper.

It's Jon. Gerard's a good artist. It's Jon as he must look now, or an idealized version of him.

He's happy. There's a cat draped around his shoulders, as Melanie and Martin have described, rubbing its head against Jon's cheek. He's looking somewhere to the side and laughing.

His hair is longer. He looks older than he should, only five years after she last saw him. The tattoo on his throat is there, but the crown isn't. His hair is sloppily piled on top of his head instead, and he appears to be wearing a ratty t shirt. 

She doesn't know whether to cherish it as a last memento, or hate it for being a pretty lie Gerard thinks she'll fall for. 

"Alright?" Martin asks. He trots into the kitchen, the Admiral dangling unhappily in his arms. Georgie accepts the cat dropped into her lap and lets Martin pull the paper from her fingers. 

"Oh!" Martin says after looking at it for a moment. "Where's your phone, or-"

 "What?" She has to twist in her chair to look at him. She isn't sure the police are worth calling, now, and assumed the others would be unsure enough to realize they should at least discuss it first.

Martin looks bewildered. "The note?"

Note? "What?"

"I didn't notice one either," Melanie says, leaning into Martin's personal space to look again. 

Martin sets the paper on the table in front of Georgie, where they can all see. "Here, look."

At the bottom, hidden where Jon's shirt breaks into looser scribbles and the picture ends, is a note in tiny handwriting, beginning with a phone number and vague enough to fill Georgie with sickening hope.

Quincy's on Washington DC time, schedule accordingly. Tell him your name, and that Gerry told you to ask how Danny sends letters.

"'Don't tell Jon anything he doesn't know,'" Martin says. It takes a minute for her to connect it to Gerard's second condition.

Georgie stares up into her friends' faces. "Do you think...?"

Melanie shrugs, and squeezes Georgie's shoulder. "Only one way to find out."