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Room 113 was empty.

Of possessions. Personal effects. Signs of life. The waterlogged furniture had been replaced, good as new, pristine and unused. It hadn't looked this way in a long time.

Lucky wasn't sure why he had retraced his steps here. The room was so clean, and he didn't belong here. Maybe it still held the connotation of safety in his mind, and better times before he had pulled back the veil. His memory of the last few hours was little more than a whirlwind of blood and regret. He was haunted by Caelius's piercing stares, and the idea that Sam was just suddenly gone. He could still hear the gunshots, the cries of Finn and Kostya, piercing through his sluggish thoughts. He didn't dare close his eyes for fear he would see them as well.

For a while he just sat in the middle of the room, in his torn and bloodstained clothes, back to the half-open door as if meditating. When even that was too much for him, he slumped slowly sideways until he was simply lying there in a state of shock.

He was screaming inside his head.

Song had long since walled herself off. He didn't keep secrets from her; he didn't know how to. She had seen the memories, the things he had done. The things he had seen. There was no comfort to her tone today. She told him he deserved it for fraternizing with the enemy, and believing their lies. And then, silence.

At some point he heard the click of the door, and knew he wasn't alone. He stayed where he was, unmoving, his eyes open but fixed to an unremarkable section of the wall. Maybe they would think he was sleeping, or dead, and leave him here. No such luck. The shape that moved to block his vision was familar...

He looked up at Mimsy with a thousand-yard stare. Gradually even that much was too much and his gaze roved back down to the floor. His lips moved to form almost silent words.

"You vere right."

He looked down again. Somehow he couldn't bring himself to be afraid of Mimsy today, not when he had burnt out his capacity for it. It was hard to feel much of anything. Just the sting of regret like shards of broken glass in his gut. If he'd been left alone he didn't know what he would have done by now, mired in his own worst nightmares played back repeatedly in his mind.

And Mimsy. He'd been cruel to her too. And for what? He'd dared to pass judgment on her for what she had wanted to do, and all along he'd been just as bloodthirsty when the time came. She still cared, in her own way, or she wouldn't be here. It was probably best to accept that this was the best he had and the best he'd get as far as friendship went. If she wanted to think of him as a brother, he could probably find it in him to see her as a sister. His left hand, with its calligraphic scar, moved tentatively to grasp Mimsy's other. At least he didn't have to suffer through this alone.

He missed Katarzyna.

The grip went slack at her next comment. He saw the smile creep across her features. There was no point in questioning how she knew - it was how she felt that made him worry. There was finally a shift in his expression, to one of a dawning horror - not at Mimsy, but himself.

"I had to try," he explained, as if to try to draw a line between what he'd done and what he knew Mimsy was capable of. It was a pitiful excuse, even to his own ears. His voice began to falter again. "Just one, to save all. I should have just- it vas a mistake-"

Kostya wasn't dead, but his intent was enough to make him feel like a murderer.

He nodded a few times, wordlessly, while Mimsy patted down his hair, still streaked with fading green from the last dye job so long ago. His expression was still pained, as the traumas of the last few days resurfaced in blips of vivid memory. Mimsy's words were that much easier to hide behind; anything to lessen the guilt. It was the worst thing he had ever done and she made it sound sensible, even necessary. Selfishly, he wanted to believe her. It would soften the blow that had been dealt to his pride and intellect in the aftermath of things.

"It felt..." It was hard to find a word to describe it. He might not have been keen to try, normally. But Mimsy seemed very interested, and he was far beyond the capacity to think before he spoke. "Easy. Easier than it should have been. Vithout a shield, ve are so fragile..."

"Yes. No. I do not know." How could he even begin to explain? The vision of an Insanity-corrupted future, being chosen by the Judge in some ceremony over one little white lie, fighting for survival in a competition, the looks Caelius gave him for doing so, or perhaps more than that. What had happened to Finn, and what he'd done to Kostya. Sam's death. So much had happened lately, he had just snapped under the weight of it. It was the easiest explanation. He didn't know how the others coped with it. Maybe they all just knew better than to ******** up as badly as he did. He sighed heavily and lowered his voice even further, so that it was only between them. "I think I am in more trouble than I thought. I had to stay behind to sign - I do not know vhat, I do not think it matters. Caelius made an example of Finn first for refusing, and then-"

"Vell, I did not make the same mistake. But even so, he- Caelius vould not stop staring. Like he knew something.. .or vanted to." Lucky carefully withheld what exactly that information might be. All he had wanted was to find out the truth. Both hunters and their circular counterparts kept it locked behind too many doors to ever hope to see it. He just gave another groan and hid his face in his hands, mumbling his words. "I liked it better vhen he did not even know who I vas."

"I do not- I did not read it-" he stammered, before breaking off into an incoherent sort of noise. The pressure of the situation still weighed down on him even after his escape, as a million million what-ifs.

Lucky's eye moved to follow Mimsy between the fingers as she spoke. Even from what little of him was visible, he looked uncertain. There was a time when she wouldn't have even needed to ask; but that was before they fought, and before she had carved her symbol into his hand. He'd been shaken, but Mimsy had become so nonthreatening since then that he had simply accepted it.

He heard a low laugh in his head. Song found Mimsy's offer amusing.

Her observation occurred to him a moment later. For a moment he startled, as if considering pushing himself away from her, unable to speak. He was putting Mimsy in danger she wasn't even aware of, the moment Caelius found out what was going on. As far as she knew, this was just about the 'trial'. She'd had nothing to do with his extracurricular endeavors with Sam, at least not since many many months ago. Maybe ignorance would be to her benefit; maybe he'd just been reading too much into all the staring and silence.

To refuse her offer was to let loneliness win, and give in to his paranoia to the point that he would rather die than accept help from anyone else.

What choice did he have?

"Yes, I remember," he finally agreed, hollow-sounding, slowly uncovering his face, "I trust you."

For once he could let someone else do the thinking.

He didn't protest Mimsy moving him, because he hardly had the energy for anything at this point. He still looked a sickly pale color, and his gaze remained distant and unfocused any time it wasn't following her sudden movements. He was tired of thinking, tired of having to deconstruct every situation to assess for potential danger.

She was right, and there was nothing he could do but play into her preconceived ideas. He didn't want to be alone any more. With Sam dead, there was no one else to turn to who could possibly understand him. No one but Mimsy. The sensation of loss drove him to overlook the future in favor of the present.

At first he didn't understand what she was implying, and that confusion was readily apparent in his expression. To him, the memories of recent events were more of a haze of desperation and bad choices. But Mimsy sounded happy; and she looked happy as well, almost too happy, the expression on her face almost dangerously so. Her hand pressed against his torn and bloodstained shirt, right over his heart.

He felt a prickling cold chill down the back of his neck, and did his best to ignore it.

"Oh. So that vas vhy..." he murmured to himself, letting her exert most of the effort in hand-holding but making no effort to free his scarred hand. He had never asked why she'd scarred his hand, only speculated. But who was he to take that belief away from her when it didn't hurt either of them? Figuratively. She had only ever been trying to help. Like Robert, but different; there was no malice, only misguided efforts he could easily forgive in this low-energy state. He let her lay out the plan, nodding periodically, and enjoying the white noise in his mind that came of choosing not to think about any of it.

He was a pro at avoidance tactics, in all kinds of ways.

"In that maze. They told me you vere -" he tried to say it, but the next word was impossible to speak without losing his composure. So instead, Lucky clasped her hand tightly back, as if loosening his grip risked Mimsy disappearing entirely. "Vhat happened?"