Jack awoke again, but this time it was different.

At first, he felt the same as he had or the past two days. Scared, uncertain, and wondering if he was still truly alive.

But then he noticed something.

His arm.

Something was gone.

Jack sat bolt upright in the foreign bed he'd been sleeping in (but didn't remember lying down on), immediately bringing his arm up to inspect it. This proved to be a bad idea, as the sudden movement made his head spin and had Jack concerned he'd pass out once again.

Once the dizziness passed, Jack looked closely at his wrist, trying to find anything that was different. Anything at all.

But his skin was the same as it had been before.

On a different level, however, one that surpassed his own corporeality, Jack knew it wasn't the same. The thing that Alex had planted there not so long ago, the thing that had been responsible for all the weird pains, head static, and sudden muscle failure at the hands of Alastor, was gone. He didn't really know how at the moment, but it was a question that could wait just a little longer. There were other things going on and, to be frank, Jack was just glad that it was out of him.

He took the time to look around the room a bit in an attempt to figure out where he was. He'd definitely been moved from the room, and the tank, where he'd died, and that was the only thing Jack was sure of.

The space he was in was some kind of hospital, with vacant beds and unattended equipment all over the place. At one time, maybe all of it had been in use, but at the moment it seemed to only be serving ghosts.

Jack wasn't sure what option would have been better: a room full of dying and injured people, but people nonetheless, or the haunting relic of that, which he was presently stuck with.

The fluorescent bulbs overhead flickered, only adding to the chilling atmosphere. It was all-too easy to imagine someone rounding the corner with a plague-doctor mask and a chainsaw, so Jack resolved to get out of dodge before something like that actually happened.

Just as he swung his legs over the side of the bed, a familiar face entered the room.

"Jack!" PJ cried in what seemed to be surprise. "You're awake!"

"Uh, yeah, I just got up. I don't know what-" Jack began but was cut off after PJ hurried over and hugged him.

"God, I thought you were dead. I meant not dead, like dead dead, or something. You weren't responding and it shouldn't have taken you that long to come back so we all weren't sure if-"

Jack hugged him back. "You're not getting rid of me that easily. Takes more than a dude with a bad shower cap to keep me down."

PJ pulled away suddenly to look at him with confusion. "Wait, a what?"

"I'll explain soon," Jack said, brushing off the question. "I'm more interested in what the hell happened after I died, and where we are right now."

"Oh. Yeah, that." PJ laughed awkwardly after speaking, clearly hesitant to continue. "I don't think even I know what really happened."

PJ moved to properly sit on the bed next to Jack, his face sombre. Jack couldn't tell if it was because his mood had actually shifted that much or if the horror-esque lighting was just accentuating things a little too much.

"You died, and Alastor's people did some stuff before he collapsed. Without him around to do his weird power thing and immobilize us, we all attacked. It kind of worked, I guess. There were a lot of them and only so many of us, but we held our own decently. Lin and Egan went over to the tank to try and get you, but Alastor's grunts must've expected that, because there were already more people waiting. If things had gone on for longer than a couple of minutes, I don't think any of us would have made it."

"A couple of minutes?" Jack questioned. His battle with Alastor had felt like... well actually, he wasn't sure how long it had felt like. Time didn't really exist in limbo and he had been more preoccupied with stopping Alastor than trying to keep track of it.

"Yeah, about two or three minutes after the major fighting started, Alastor kind of... exploded."

"He what?!"

"I don't know! One minute he's lying there with a bunch of people protecting him, then there's this really bright light coming from inside him, and then he blew up. Like he swallowed a bomb."

"Considering all the souls he had inside him, I don't think you're far off with that description."

PJ considered that for a moment while nodding slightly, agreeing with Jack's logic.

"Anyways, the blast took out some of his own people, and everything was just complete anarchy after that. More-so than before, if you can believe it. Everyone ran in a different direction. We all went to get you out of the tank, and I have no idea what Alastor's people were doing. I suppose they didn't have a plan for if their leader's brains became soup on the floor."

Jack cringed at that description, almost happy to have been dead if it meant he missed that mess.

"What about Alex and Casey? Where'd they go?" Jack asked.

"They left during the chaos. We didn't see them go out because we were over at that tank thing, and considering there are secret passages in this place that we didn't know about, I don't think it's safe to guess which direction they went."

Jack couldn't help but find comfort in the fact that all of them, including people he'd only met recently like Egan, Lin, and Rory, had been over at the tank trying to help him. It further solidified in his mind that they did care for and trust him, and that they really didn't blame him for any of this. They had the opportunity to try and find Casey and Alex, but they chose to help him instead. As unfortunate as it was that those two had gotten away, Jack was at peace with the fact that it was not his fault and was touched that they'd decided he was more important than fighting those assholes.

"Just as an aside," PJ continued, "that tank was vile. I'm sorry you had to go in that mess."

"Dying kind of distracted me from how gross it was," Jack joked. It was morbid, sure, but making jokes about it was really the only thing he could do about it at the moment.

There was a long, heavy silence in the air for several moments. It was clear to Jack that neither of them really knew what to say next. What do you say next after something like that? You can't exactly just pretend it never happened but talking about it for too long would feel weird. There was this hidden middle ground somewhere, and neither of them were able to find where it was.

"So, there's something I need to ask you," PJ admitted after what felt like forever. Jack knew from his facial expression that they were still on the same topic as before. 

"After Alastor's people fled, while we were tending to people's wounds and... waiting for you to wake up," Jack noticed PJ's hesitation before the word 'waiting,' knowing that he was originally going to say 'hoping' instead, "we found some stuff."

"What kind of stuff?" Jack prompted.

"These blueprints for this telescope-looking device. We found what was probably only half of the documents about it, because we were missing a lot of information, but..." He trailed off.

"But what?"

"Alastor, or Alex, or whoever wrote that document, said it had been used on you the day you died the first time."

Jack looked to the ground, knowing exactly what device that was. It was the one that injected that device, the device that was now seemingly gone, into his wrist.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw PJ's expression shift to a mix of confusion and surprise. He must not have expected Jack to know about it. Which was fair, as Jack had never worked up the courage to mention it.

"You knew about it?" PJ asked. There was a sense of mistrust in his voice that Jack tried hard not to wince at. 

He regretted not mentioning it sooner now more than ever.

"When I died and went to limbo the first time, Alex was there with me. He said some creepy, vague stuff about other things happening, and pretended he was there to help. Then he used that device to stick some weird implant in my arm. Or I guess it was technically my soul's arm, or my consciousness' manifestation of the idea of my arm, or whatever the hell it was. You get the picture. It wasn't an actual physical thing."

PJ just stared at him for a few seconds, assessing what Jack had just told him.

"I think it enhanced my-"

"Enhanced your abilities, I know," PJ interrupted. "That was one piece of information we did have. It was the reason why you unlocked your abilities so early, and why you were able to levitate chairs after only a day."

"Speaking of which, can you lift chairs?" Jack said, trying to change the subject.

"With a lot of effort and concentration, yeah. But it took me years to learn how, and it's not a common ability. Most people don't have extra ones like that."

That stuck Jack as odd. "What about Alastor?"

"He's different. And you changed the subject," PJ said, deflecting the question. "Jack, why didn't you tell anyone? What happened?"

So, Jack told him. Jack told PJ about the creepy woman in the cafe that day, about how Alastor pretended to be a homeless man and messed with him. He told him about the truck that hit him whose driver mysteriously vanished. He told him more about meeting Alex in limbo and how he'd stolen Jack's memories of the encounter. He told him about how a woman, a woman he now knew was Casey, had pretended to be a paramedic, which he now knew was a cover for monitoring him. He told him about the weird pains in his wrist and static in his head, especially when Alex was around. He told him about the random words that had flashed through his head sometimes, like computer commands. He told him about how during his and Eileen's encounter with Alex in the cafeteria, Alex had pushed a button on a remote that had allowed him to remember meeting him before. He told him about his fight with Alastor in limbo, about the weird cap and his brush with almost having his soul eaten by the bastard. He told him about how he didn't feel the thing in his wrist anymore, how it had somehow disappeared after Alastor had died.

Jack told him all these things and, most importantly, the following:

"Even after I remembered what Alex did, I didn't tell anyone. Because I was scared. And because I already felt like it was all my fault that people were getting hurt. I know that's not true, at least now I do, but that's what I thought at the time. I didn't want to give people another reason to either worry about me or treat me like I'm a bomb about to go off."

Jack stopped there, looking down at the ground again so he wouldn't have to see PJ's reaction. 

At first, PJ didn't say anything in return. Jack didn't know whether this was a good or a bad thing. 

Maybe it was neither.

"Jack, I'm so sorry you had to go through that."

Jack finally worked up the nerve to look PJ in the eyes again. He looked genuinely distraught.

"I'm sorry that I didn't tell-"

"Nope, I'm not letting you apologize," PJ cut in. "You shouldn't have to apologize for other people being awful to you, and I get why you felt scared."

Jack wondered if that was why PJ never mentioned anything about that girl, the one Alastor said he'd loved. What had really happened to her?

"So... what now?" Jack asked.

It was a fair question. Jack had just died, a guy exploded, both sides of the war they'd just been caught up in turned out to be sketchy, and most of the people they'd been fighting had disappeared.

"I honestly don't know," PJ replied, kind of sadly. "I don't really know where we go from here. The IH is... well, I guess now I know the full extent of how bad they can be. The other guys aren't any better, considering the kidnappings and torture and murders and whatnot. Casey and Alex are still out there somewhere. You're probably going to need help with your abilities, seeing as that weird contraption is apparently not going to be there to do it anymore."

"When you put it like that, everything seems kind of fucked."

PJ laughed. "Everything is kind of fucked right now. But we can fix it."

"By trying to find Alex and Casey?"

"That, and dismantling the IH and rebuilding something new."

Jack was hesitant about that. "I don't know about that. Immortanimus organizations don't seem to have a good track record."

"I know, but..." PJ sighed. "As bad as the IH and Alastor's group turned out to be, we can't just not help people. We have all these abilities that can save lives in dangerous situations. Isn't it a bit unjust to not use them for good?"

Jack couldn't argue with him there. "Yeah, I think it would be a bit of a crime to not try and help people."

PJ stood up, indicating that he was going to leave. "I guess we'll think more about that on a different day. A day that does not consist of exploding people and strange shower caps. We'll figure it out."

"Together," Jack added.

PJ smiled. "Together."

PJ started walking towards the door. Jack tried to get up and follow him, but immediately had to sit back down after a wave of dizziness came over him. PJ must have seen him nearly fall, because he rushed back over to help steady him.

"Hey, easy. You should probably rest for a bit. I don't think you're going to be able to go anywhere anytime soon."

In different circumstances, Jack would have argued and left with PJ anyways. But he was so tired, and certain that he would pass out if he tried to stand up again, so he decided PJ was right.

However, there was still one thing that was bothering him. Jack finally decided to ask about it just as PJ reached the door.

"Did you really kill that girl? Peggy?"

PJ froze, tensing up like he'd just been shot in the back. Jack was convinced he was just going to walk out of the room without saying anything, that he was going to let that question remain unanswered forever.

But then he spoke.

"I knew he'd tell you that." There was a sadness in PJ's voice.

"I didn't kill her. The IH did a lot of messed up stuff, including those experiments, but I didn't want any part in that. I was trying to fix it, trying to work my way up to a higher point in the chain of command so I could change everything. They knew what I was trying to do, the higher-ups. So when they got Peggy killed, they blamed it on me so that no one would ever promote me. Not after that. I would never be trusted to handle a higher position, a position of change, if everyone was told I royally screwed up an experiment.

I didn't kill her. I told them not to go through with the experiment. I told them to stop testing people altogether. But they didn't listen.

I should have realized sooner that they never would."

And with that, PJ walked out, exiting the room and excusing himself of any questions Jack could ask him.

Jack lay down on the bed again, trying to make sense of what had happened to Peggy. He'd been given two different versions of the story. One where PJ was innocent, and one where he wasn't. He really wanted to believe PJ's, and a couple of days ago he would have believed his friend instantly. But things were different now. People were different now. So many people had been hiding things from him that it made Jack more reluctant to trust.

But he knew that he'd kept secrets, too. And that he'd had his own reasons for doing so, even if those reasons didn't entirely justify lying by omission.

That was what all of this had boiled down to, right? All of this conflict because two sides were doing the wrong things for what they thought were the right reasons. 

So maybe deciding who was good and who was bad in this situation wasn't exactly fair, because everything was shrouded in a morally grey mist.

Sometimes people make the wrong decisions. Sometimes people lie or keep secrets.

And so people are never truly good.

But like Jack had concluded before, he knew who to trust. And he knew that while things can't be sorted into just 'good' or 'bad,' he knew how to recognize when one outweighed the other. 

And both the IH and Alastor had proven to lean a little more towards bad.

So as Jack fell asleep, he was satisfied with the knowledge that all they could do now was try to do differently. Try to do better, even if things would never be perfect.

Because the possibility of evil should not prevent the desire to do good.

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AN: So, we've finally made it to the end. Took me long enough.

Thank you all so much for the support you've given me throughout this book. It's still crazy to me that so many people liked this story, and I'm so sorry for the inconsistent updates and long, spontaneous hiatuses. I'm proud of this story, especially now that it's been going on long enough for me to know what to improve on, and I hope you all enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

I've got some other stories in the works, but this one has reached its conclusion. So for the final time here, I'm signing off.

Thank you all so, so much for 4.5k reads, and thank you for sitcking by me.

-skittenninja