Chapter Text
Jon’s heart didn’t stop pounding as he stumbled out of his office, out of the Archives, out of the building. He didn’t even notice where he was going, his mind was full of nothing but the memory of the red mess at his desk, the blood dripping onto the dull beige carpet of his office (the carpet that had only just gotten replaced, the carpet that was still scattered here and there with tiny disks of paper from where he’d spilled the contents of his hole punch the week before). It wasn’t until he reached the door that he looked up and realized where his feet had taken him.
He was standing on the doorstep of the apartment complex where Martin lived. It made sense, really. The only surprise was that he’d managed to find his way there so mindlessly, given that he’d only been there a few times before. (Martin had only briefly been at the top of his suspect list, but Jon had still felt the need to perform a bit of surveillance.) Before he could think better of it, Jon slipped inside and made his way to Martin’s second-storey flat.
He knocked. There was no answer. He knocked again, louder this time, before finally deciding to check the time.
It was past midnight. He’d sent Martin home hours ago, and he was almost certainly asleep by now.
Jon weighed his options. He couldn’t stand here in the hallway all night, waiting for one of Martin’s neighbors to pass by and notice the bloodstains on his shoes. He couldn’t go back to his apartment - the police would be on their way there soon, if they weren’t already. And he couldn’t go anywhere else - he’d burned just about every bridge he could in the past year, and there was no one left he could turn to.
Still. His time in Research had left him with a few worthwhile skills, chief among them the ability to pick a lock. He didn’t feel particularly good about the morality or legality of the action, but he was facing some rather severe extenuating circumstances, so he shoved aside his guilt and got to work. It was slow-going, and he was convinced the entire time that at any moment one of Martin’s neighbors was going to come out and catch him in the act, but after a bit of fiddling he managed to get the door unlocked. He stepped inside cautiously and closed the door behind him, careful not to make a sound.
It took some time for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. In the dim blue light that came in through the window, Jon took stock of the room, taking in the lumpy couch and matching armchair, the television, the bookshelf, the potted plants on the windowsill. The flat’s tiny kitchen was separated from the living room by a half wall, and beside it was a narrow hallway. Jon could see two doors in the corridor - if he had to guess, one leading to the bedroom and one to the bathroom. Both were closed.
He ought to wake Martin up. He knew that. He wasn’t sure how Martin would react to finding him looming in the doorway, bloodsplattered and raving about a murder, but he’d need to find out.
Still, Jon didn’t feel like he was in a fit state to explain anything to anyone. He was confused, and exhausted, and he’d never gotten the chance to recover from the initial adrenaline spike of running from the Not-Them - let alone the more recent shock of finding Leitner - and his heart was still hammering in his chest in a way that made him feel dizzy and faintly sick, and he was certain that if he tried to tell Martin what happened he would only succeed in convincing him that he’d finally lost whatever vestiges of sanity he had left.
So instead, he sat down on Martin’s couch. He told himself he was just taking a moment to compose himself, but when his eyelids started to droop, he didn’t bother trying to resist the pull of sleep.
He woke up to the feeling of fingers, warm and calloused, pressing lightly against the pulse point of his throat.
“Oh, thank god,” a voice breathed, very close to his ear. Then it cleared its throat and said, “I-I mean, stay back!”
Jon was groggy enough that it took him a moment to place the voice. “Martin?” he asked sleepily, dragging open his heavy eyelids and doing his best to sit up.
“Stay back,” Martin repeated, “I’m warning you. I don’t know what you’re here for, b-but-” Martin had retreated a few feet away and was holding out one of his hands as though Jon was a dangerous animal that he was trying to keep at bay. Jon glanced around. The sun still hadn’t risen, though the sky outside the window was a soft, pale, pre-dawn blue that told Jon it would soon, and Martin had switched on the floor lamp in the corner. In that light, he could see that Martin was still dressed in the work clothes he’d been wearing the last time Jon had seen him.
“I’m sorry,” Jon said, voice still hoarse and cracked with sleep, “I didn’t know where else to go.”
Martin softened at that, lowering his hand and risking a step closer. “How did you get in?” he asked cautiously.
“I picked the lock,” Jon admitted. And then he said, “I’m sorry,” again, because he had a lot to apologize for.
Martin put his head in his hands as a shaky, hysterical laugh bubbled out of his lips. “Of course you did.”
“Martin…? Are you alright?”
Martin shook his head as though dispelling something. “Fine. It’s just-” He sighed. “It’s been a long day.”
A bit of prompting got Martin to recount the events of the very long day in question, which included:
Following Jon into the tunnels with Tim,
Being chased by both the Not-Them and Michael,
Spending a period of time he was later assured could only have been a few hours but which felt like several weeks wandering through corridors where time and space stopped obeying any coherent rules,
Finding the badly beaten corpse of a stranger in Jon’s office,
And being subjected to a lengthy police interrogation about said corpse.
And, although Martin didn’t mention it, Jon added, ‘coming home to find the most likely suspect in the murder sleeping on his couch,’ to the list.
“I didn’t kill Leitner,” Jon whispered. “I know you have no reason to believe me-”
“Wait, Leitner? As in, ‘Library of Jurgen Leitner,’ Leitner?”
“Yes.”
Martin once again buried his head in his hands. “Sasha’s gonna have a lot of catching up to do when she gets to work tomorrow,” he joked wearily, and Jon’s heart plummeted.
“Martin… Sasha’s been dead for months.”
“What? N-No, I saw her earlier today, she can’t-”
Jon explained the Not-Them as best as he could, listing the case numbers of statements Martin could check before remembering that he still had a recorder and several tapes in his pocket. He pulled them out, slid the tape of statement #0051701 into the recorder, and rewound until he found what he was looking for.
I thought it was pronounced ‘Ka-lee-o-pee?’
Sasha? You’re… back early - I thought you were trying to get hold of those police reports for the Harold Silvana case?
Jon cleared his throat over the sound of his past self. “That’s what her real voice sounded like,” he explained gravely.
Martin said nothing, just stared at the tape recorder where the Sasha both of them had known and forgotten was still debating the pronunciation of ‘Calliope.’ When the conversation ended, Jon clicked the recording off, but Martin still said nothing. After a minute, Jon went on, telling Martin about the table, his… miscalculation, Leitner’s intervention, Leitner’s death.
“Who killed him?” Martin asked, finally speaking up.
“I don’t know. I- I think it was Elias.” It felt absurd to say out loud, but Martin just nodded, looking a bit dazed.
They lapsed into silence, but Jon caught Martin staring at the tape recorder in his hands.
“For months…” he whispered, barely audible, and Jon felt a lump forming in his throat.
“I’m sorry,” he said yet again.
“Don’t be sorry,” Martin mumbled, but it seemed to be an instinctual response more than anything. He still looked dazed, and so tired and hurt and so desolate that Jon felt the urge to reach out, to place a sympathetic hand on his shoulder or perhaps his hand, but he didn’t know if it would be any comfort. He and Martin didn’t exactly have that sort of relationship.
“You should get some rest,” he said instead, taking in the harsh dark circles under Martin’s eyes that he didn’t remember seeing when they’d spoken just a few hours before. “You’ve had a long day.”
“You, too,” Martin said, finally looking back at Jon. “It doesn’t sound like yours has been… much shorter.”
“In terms of actual time, I think it must have been. Given the, uh. The corridors situation.”
Martin laughed - a short, exhausted laugh that was barely more than an exhalation of breath, but a laugh all the same. “This couch pulls out into a bed,” he said. “We can figure things out in the morning.”
A swell of relief and gratitude swept over Jon, and he once again felt the urge to reach out and put a hand on Martin’s arm or his shoulder. His hand drifted toward Martin of its own accord, but he managed to stop himself.
“Thank you,” he said instead, voice heavy with sincerity, and Martin flashed him a weary smile.
“Goodnight, Jon.”