Nobody in the Archives says anything, but a subtle change starts coming over the team after Michael’s unexpected visit. Jon starts spending more and more of his time in his office and seems tense and fidgety whenever they go in to talk to him, or he comes out to talk to them. Tim’s body language becomes more and more closed-off and his jokes become rarer and with an edge to them that’s never been there before. Martin seems mostly himself, but there’s a desperate, almost frantic eagerness to please about him that hasn’t been there since the first few months they were all in the Archives when he was trying desperately to earn Jon’s tolerance, if not approval.
Sasha makes it three weeks before she cracks.
It’s Tim that’s the final straw, Tim and the look he puts on Martin’s face. They’re winding down for the evening, tidying up their desks and the statements they’ve been dealing with—mostly false, to be honest—and Martin ducks into Jon’s office to remind him of the time, then comes back and informs Tim that Jon is “finishing something up” and won’t be ready to leave for a bit.
Tim shoves a drawer shut. “Fine. He knows the way home then.” He snatches up his files and stomps off to put them back on the shelf.
For just a second, Martin lets his emotions loose from behind the placid look he’s had plastered there lately, and Sasha sees the genuine shock and devastation in his eyes. Tim’s only left Jon behind once in the almost six months since the infestation of the Archives, and she still remembers Martin’s mock-stern look, Tim’s teasing smirk, and Jon’s sheepish grin as they told her about having to literally talk him out of the building. Hell, he barely lets—or let, anyway—Sasha walk out of the Archives alone after she stopped living with them; his protective-slash-herding instincts have been in overdrive. And both he and Martin worry about Jon’s health and safety, a lot. Bad enough that Tim is—seemingly—willing to leave Jon behind. Worse that he’s essentially making Martin choose between them. Sasha actually can’t guess which way he’ll go.
“Right, that does it,” she says abruptly. She looks at Martin and waves at Jon’s office. “Go get Jon out of his office.”
“He’s in the middle of—”
“He’ll come if you ask him,” Sasha says certainly. “But you’ll have to ask him.”
Martin frowns. “Why?”
“Because you’re the one he trusts most right now.” For a second, Sasha feels a little…not lightheaded, exactly, but the same sensation she gets when she drinks a glass of champagne too fast. It’s a feeling that’s been increasingly common lately, so as usual, she ignores it and keeps talking. “The only recording he has of Tim from before that table was delivered is the one we did the night after Jane Prentiss attacked, and he can’t bring himself to relisten to it, so he’s got no real proof Tim hasn’t been taken over by that thing the Primes mentioned. And even though he knows you and I are still ourselves, he’s a little on edge around me because I’ve been more distant than the two of you have been. So while he doesn’t really think any of us are out to get him, you’re definitely the only one who’s going to be able to pry him out of his shell like the stubborn mollusk he is.”
Martin stares at her for a moment, then nods. “Yeah, okay,” he says quietly.
He gets up from his desk and goes over to Jon’s office. Sasha gets up, too, puts on her jacket, and then goes over to the trapdoor and unearths the handle, but doesn’t open it yet. Instead, she heads back to their cluster of desks, grabs a torch out her drawer, and waits.
Martin, accompanied by Jon, comes towards her just as Tim comes back out of the shelves. Sasha doesn’t hesitate. She grabs Tim’s arm in an iron grip and jerks her head at Martin. “Come on. This way.”
“Sasha, what the hell—” Tim begins, but Sasha doesn’t give him a chance to argue further. She drags Tim over to the trapdoor, yanks it open, and half-shoves him down ahead of her.
“Come on,” she repeats over her shoulder, then starts down the steps herself. Behind her, she can hear Martin coaxing Jon into heading down under the floor, and then the door shuts behind them, leaving them in darkness for a split second before Sasha clicks on her torch.
She doesn’t bother knocking on the first door they come to, just turns the knob and opens it. The Primes start up from a nest of blankets, blinking sleep out of their eyes, which, okay, she should have expected. They aren’t exactly nocturnal, but they also don’t have cell phones anymore—not that there’s service in the tunnels anyway—so they tend to sleep when they feel like and get up when they want, and since they can’t come out into the Archives safely during business hours, they ordinarily don’t wake up until close to the time the team is usually packing up to leave. All of which is something they’ve certainly told her at some point and she’s filed away for later use and just never thought about until now. They both look slightly panicked, likely because neither one of them has the slightest clue who just barged in.
“This,” Sasha announces, releasing Tim’s arm and pulling the door shut behind Jon and Martin, “is an intervention.”
“Sasha, Christ, you scared the piss out of us.” Martin Prime sighs.
“Sorry,” Sasha says, even though she isn’t particularly. “I just thought we ought to do this somewhere the Ceaseless Watcher…couldn’t.”
Jon Prime feels about and locates two pairs of glasses. He slides one of them onto his face, then hands the other to Martin Prime before getting to his feet. “An intervention for what?” he asks, sounding weary.
“Yeah, an intervention for what?” Tim echoes. He sounds pissed. Tough.
Sasha folds her arms over her chest and glares at him. “That’s part of it. You’re acting like the world has personally offended you and you’re taking it out on the three of us. And you”—she turns her glare on Jon and waves a finger at him, which he flinches back from like she’s flung a knife at him—“are twitchier than the most neurotic statement-givers we’ve ever had down here. It’s getting ridiculous and it stops now.”
“Oh, does it?” Tim snarls. “What makes you think it works like that?”
“It’s going to work like that if I have to knock your fool heads together,” Sasha snaps back. “You can’t keep going on like this. We don’t deserve your attitude—”
“My attitude?”
“—and you don’t need to be so suspicious—”
“I beg your pardon?” Jon bristles at her.
“—so enough is enough—”
“You expect me to believe—” Jon’s voice is rising with every word.
“—anything to worry about—” Tim is waving a finger at her.
“Guys, come on,” Martin says pleadingly, but it gets lost under the flurry of words from the others.
“I’ve got one of those, too.” Sasha brandishes her own finger at Tim. “You can’t—”
“—what you’re hiding—”
“—all calm down and—”
“—don’t even care—”
“—trying to work while you—”
“—never see what you’re—”
“—lack of oversight—”
“Everybody shut up!” Martin Prime shouts.
The silence is almost deafening as all four of them turn to look at Martin Prime. His eyes are closed and he’s massaging his temples. “Look, if you’re in here having this talk, it’s because you want us to be involved in it, and I cannot follow the conversation if you’re all talking at once. Frankly, I doubt any of you can either, but I can’t focus on who’s saying what and it all blends together. If you don’t want us involved, fine, go find another room to argue in, but if you’re going to do this in here, knock it off. You are going to have to take turns.”
Sasha’s never actually heard Martin—either Martin—raise his voice, which definitely serves to make her pause. They all stand in silence for a long moment before Tim speaks. “Fine. I’ll start. You want to talk about my attitude? Let’s talk about my attitude. Or better yet, let’s talk about your attitudes, towards this whole…situation.”
“What?” Martin and Jon speak at the same time, Martin sounding confused and worried and Jon deadly calm.
“We are working for the evil embodiment of knowledge,” Tim grates out. “You know that. You know the more we learn about this shit, the deeper we go! And none of you are even hesitating—”
“Tim, it’s our job,” Martin tries. “We—”
“You’re not even trying to resist it!” Tim shouts, wheeling around to face Martin as he clenches his hands into tight fists.
Martin flinches. No, that’s too mild a word for it. Martin recoils, cringing back away from Tim and curling inward on himself, shoulders hunched, arms wrapped protectively around his midsection, head turned sharply to one side, eyes screwed shut, lips pressed tightly together. He looks up just as quickly as he looked away, eyes wide and wet. His pupils are so blown out they almost swallow his irises whole, and his skin is paper white, throwing every freckle into relief so stark they look almost three-dimensional. It obviously costs him a great deal to make eye contact with Tim, but he manages it, and something about his posture…
It hits Sasha in the same moment it hits Tim, judging by the sudden shift in Tim’s expression. Martin has braced himself to take a blow. He actually expects Tim—Tim—to lay a hand on him. Since Sasha knows it’s not anything Tim has ever done in the past that makes Martin think that, it must be something from further back, and she’s struck with a sudden, powerful desire to take a trip up to Devon and find out if all the true crime stuff she reads in her spare time will make it easier for her to commit a homicide and not get caught.
The anger drains out of Tim’s face, replaced with shock and remorse. “Oh, God,” he chokes out. “Martin, I—I didn’t—” He starts to reach out, then evidently realizes that won’t help and runs his hands through his hair. “I’m sorry. It’s just…I’ve been watching all three of you. I-I told you the other day, I see your face—all your faces—when you’re looking into some of this stuff, and…I’m scared. I’ve already lost one person I care about to this. I don’t want to lose anyone else.” He takes a deep breath. “And—I feel like I’m watching you all die right in front of me.”
“Oh, Tim,” Jon Prime murmurs. He sounds—and looks—heartbroken, and Sasha remembers the careful way the Primes picked around talking about Tim that first day. She wonders if Tim Prime felt the same way, and if they ever got this conversation. From the pinched look on Martin Prime’s face as he wraps his arm around Jon Prime’s waist, she somehow doubts it.
Martin’s lip trembles, and he swallows twice before he manages to speak in a small, shaking voice. “It’s not—i-it’s hard, Tim. I’m t-trying, but…I think it’s too late for me. Even before…even before we knew, I was…” He closes his eyes and turns his head away for a moment, evidently fighting back the tears. “I thought it was just wanting to prove myself. Now I don’t know. But i-if I don’t dig into things deep enough, it hurts. And I don’t know how to stop it.” He looks up and turns to Martin Prime, but without, Sasha notices, relaxing his protective posture. “Was it…was it like that for you?”
Martin Prime hesitates, then nods. “I think so. It’s hard to be sure, since, you know, I didn’t know what we were up against for longer, but by the time I started thinking maybe this wasn’t a great idea and I should stop…I couldn’t.”
“My God,” Jon Prime breathes. “I-I didn’t realize…was it like that for the others?”
“Maybe? It’s not like we sat around and compared notes. And I was definitely in it deeper than everyone else, even before things got bad.”
“Jesus.” Tim tugs at his hair for a moment, then lets his hands drop to his sides. “I am sorry, Martin. A-and you, too,” he adds, looking at Jon, then at Sasha. “You’re right, you don’t deserve…I just, it’s always been an issue with me. I get scared and it comes out as anger. I’m not angry at you. Not really. I mean…maybe I was, a little, but mostly it’s the whole…situation. I feel so damned helpless. I didn’t know anything about what Danny was involved in, so I couldn’t do anything to save him, and I lost him. Now I do know what’s going on, and I still can’t do anything to stop it.” He takes a deep breath. “I—I’ll try to talk it out before it gets this bad again.”
“Thank you,” Martin says softly.
“That helps,” Jon mutters. “A bit.”
“Right, your turn,” Sasha says, turning to face him. “What’s got you so on edge?”
Jon stiffens. “I beg your pardon?”
“Come on, Jon. You’re as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a rocking chair factory. I half expect to go into your office and see you with a map covered in pins and string. And I don’t get it.” Sasha ticks off points on her fingers. “You know who killed Gertrude Robinson, so it isn’t like you suspect one of us, let alone suspect us of trying to kill you. You’ve been obsessively playing every tape you can find from before that table got delivered that has one of us on it, over and over, so you know our voices by heart and know we haven’t been taken over, except for Tim because you can’t bring yourself to re-listen to the tape you made after Jane Prentiss attacked, but you’ve got that Polaroid we took on your birthday last year stuck in the bottom drawer with your backup recorder, so—”
“How do you know that?” Jon interrupts, a slight edge to his voice and his eyes widening.
Sasha stops, runs through what she just said, and covers her mouth with one hand. “Oh, shit.”
“You say things like this and I’m supposed to, what, not be suspicious? Not worry that I’m just…hearing what I want to hear on the tapes and you’re not—” Jon waves a hand at her.
“No, I’m—I haven’t been snooping through your office or anything. I just—” Sasha winces and glances at Tim. “I guess I’m…in too deep, too.”
A despairing look flits through Tim’s eyes. “I was afraid of that.”
“Jon, I swear to you, nobody in this room has it out for you,” Sasha says, turning back to her boss. “And I think the evidence is on the side of ‘I would know’. You know that, too. I told Martin earlier you don’t really suspect any of us, I know you don’t. I’d even go so far as to say I capital-K Know it. The Not-Them isn’t in the Archives. We don’t even have any real evidence that it’s anywhere, that it’s taken over anyone, and if it has it isn’t bothering us—”
“But we don’t know that!” Jon bursts out, gesturing in a way that has Martin taking a half-step back to avoid his flailing hands. “There’s no—it could be anyone in the Institute, it’s not like any of us went around gathering tape recordings or taking Polaroids or anything, so how would we know? How could any of us know? I-it could be anywhere, it could—and it’s not just that thing. Michael just appeared in my office, and even if he was after Helen Richardson, he could come in at any time. Jane Prentiss was living in the walls, my God, she—she was right here all that time, for all those weeks, a-and she could have come in at any time and we never would have known. Breekon and Hope just appeared—Rosie said she had no idea how they got in to deliver the table, and then they came down here and—they could have done anything and I wasn’t even here—” He draws in a sharp breath. “You think you can’t—I-I’m supposed to be in charge. If, if these things can just waltz in whenever they please and I can’t even detect them before it’s too late…it’s bad enough when they come after me, I-I almost want them to come after me, because that means they aren’t going after you. I don’t know what else to do. I can’t keep any of you safe.”
Jon Prime closes his eyes and turns his head towards Martin Prime’s shoulder. The tears brim up in Martin’s eyes, but he blinks them back fiercely. Tim lets out a hiss between his teeth. “And you think we’re going to be okay if you get hurt?”
“No! No, but—God.” Jon closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “I’m scared, too. A-and I’ve never—I’ve always had to deal with this sort of thing alone. So I—I suppose I went too far that way. I was trying to handle it all myself, and…” He looks up and looks at the other three. “I am sorry. I never meant—I thought I was doing the right thing. I didn’t realize I was—”
“Shutting us out?” Sasha supplies.
“Folding in on myself. Scared of things getting down into the Archives, and it started translating into being scared of what was already here. I-it all…compounded.” Jon gives a small, bitter laugh. “I was so desperate to protect you all that I didn’t realize I was making things worse. I-I’ll try to open up a bit more, too.”
Martin’s shoulders sag slightly in evident relief. Tim manages a smile. “Tell you what, boss. I’ll let you know if you’re being an asshole if you’ll do the same for me, deal?”
Jon actually smiles back, a little. “Deal.” The smile fades, though, as he turns to Sasha. “I—while we’re being honest, Sasha…I’m not sure how much I trust you these days. It’s—it’s not that I think you’re…I know you’re still you. You’re right. I know that. But…you’re keeping secrets. I-I’m not saying you’re not allowed to, but…the way you avoid us, it makes me worry about why. What you’re up to.”
A stab of panic hits Sasha, for no real reason. It’s not like it’s a dangerous secret or anything, it’s just…she doesn’t tell her secrets. “It’s not about the job, Jon. I promise.”
“I believe you, but…that doesn’t mean it can’t hurt us. Or you, for that matter. I worry that you’re involved in something that might be…” Jon gestures vaguely at the universe.
“You’re the one with the ability to just know things about people,” Tim points out. “Which means our ability to keep secrets from you has just gone down drastically, not that you weren’t the type to dig them out anyway. Hardly seems fair that you’re the only one who gets to have secrets.”
“Wow, okay.” Sasha frowns at him.
“Sorry, I don’t—” Tim closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “That wasn’t nice. I’m sorry.” He pauses. “Or at least, I’m sorry for how I said it. I think I meant it. Maybe not that harshly, but…”
“Sasha,” Jon Prime says quietly. “Take it from someone who’s been there. It will be a lot easier on you—on all of you—if you trust them with…whatever it is now.”
Sasha is about to say that he doesn’t have to be cagey when she realizes that he doesn’t know either. Her counterpart never told them, and then she was dead and it didn’t matter. Which means their Sasha took her secret to the grave. Something else occurs to her about that, and she can’t hold back a gasp at the sudden lance of pain, covering her mouth with her hand. Oh, God, that means…
“My uncle,” she half-whispers through her fingers. She closes her eyes for a minute, takes a shaky breath, then lowers her hand and tries to speak in a more normal tone. “My mother’s baby brother—he’s only about ten years older than I am. My parents died when I was six and he…he raised me. He taught me everything I know—especially about computers and, well, hacking and all that.” She takes a deep breath. “He’s in prison. Something to do with something he unearthed that he wasn’t supposed to. I don’t know all the details, he won’t tell me and I haven’t wanted to risk digging for them, but he’s been there since 2010. It’s why I came to London in the first place, and it’s why I live where I do—so I can be closer to him.”
“Sash.” Tim sounds shocked and sad. “Why didn’t you ever tell us?”
“I—I don’t know. I’ve always been like that, I suppose. Uncle Wade used to tease me about the way I would dig up secrets, he’d say I should have been named Harriet instead of Sasha. I never did anything with them, I just…liked having them, I guess. But I’ve also always been big on keeping them. It’s like…like it wasn’t a good secret if anyone but me knew it.” Sasha lets out a blow of frustration. “I can’t explain it, Tim. The only answer I can come up with is that I didn’t tell you because then it wouldn’t be a secret. And it’s stupid, and I know that. I should have told you all a long time ago and I’m sorry.” She bites her lip and looks over at the Primes, who both look stricken. “I…I’m guessing, um, Sasha Prime never told you that.”
“No,” Martin Prime says softly. “She never talked about her family. We never knew…” He trails off.
Which means Uncle Wade, in their time, probably never knew what happened to her, Sasha thinks miserably. She suspected as much before, but to have it confirmed…it’s painful. She presses her lips together for a moment, then looks at the others. “If anything happens to me—”
“Nothing’s going to happen,” Jon says sharply, a flash of panic in his eyes.
“But if it does—you’ll make sure he knows?” Sasha swallows. “Wade Copper. HMP Pentonville. Just…promise me that if something happens to me, one of you will tell him. Please.”
Tim swallows, but nods. “Cross my heart.”
Sasha relaxes. “Thank you.” She looks back to the Primes. “I’m sorry. I know I’m technically not the one who didn’t tell you, but…I kind of am? So I’m sorry I never told you, either. I—I don’t know if that would have made things better or worse.”
“Worse, probably,” Jon Prime says, a little distantly. “The Not-Them never went to visit him, or at least not on days when I was…well, stalking it, instead of Tim or Martin. But if I’d known…if I’d thought for a minute about…” He sighs. “There was a lot going on, and I’m afraid I didn’t give a lot of thought to who might need to be notified of our Sasha’s death.”
“Think Elias would have told him?” Tim asks. Sasha can’t tell if he’s joking or not.
“I doubt it,” Jon Prime answers. He sounds bitter. “He probably got more delight out of the uncertainty and fear and anguish your uncle felt, not knowing why you’d suddenly stopped coming to visit, not understanding why no one would talk to him about—”
“Jon,” Martin Prime warns.
Jon Prime pulls up short. “Sorry.”
Sasha shakes her head, not sure what she’s denying. Maybe that he needs to apologize at all. She thinks she’s starting to get it. It’s probably not going to be uncommon for any of them to suddenly blurt out a truth that has the potential to hurt at least one other person in the room, because that’s what the Eye thrives on, is the fear of knowledge. The fear of secrets exposed.
“Is that why I’ve got that aspect of it?” she asks aloud, surprised by the direction her thoughts are trending.
“What?” Jon Prime frowns at her.
“The—you told us that you’ve got all sorts of…weird Archivist powers. You can compel people to tell you things and sense when people have statements for you and sometimes you just Know things without knowing how you know them, right?” Jon Prime nods cautiously, and Sasha continues. “I haven’t noticed me being able to compel anyone, I don’t think I can force people to tell me things or anything like that, but I-I think I’m developing the ability to just…Know things. Like about that Polaroid. I get this weird…fizzy feeling in my mind? Like it’s full of bubbles, or—”
“Or static?” Jon Prime supplies.
Sasha closes her eyes briefly. “God, how did I not think of that?”
“Probably because it never would have occurred to either of us that you might…that that might happen.” Jon Prime glances up at Martin Prime, then back at Sasha. “You’re right. If you’ve all been sharing the recording duties as well as the research duties…well, Jon is still the Archivist and still going to get the lion’s share, but I suspect the rest of you will at least develop something. Possibly not you, Tim, if you stop now.”
“Yeah, not happening,” Tim says, sounding reluctant. “I might not like it, but now that I know…I’m not going to leave my family to do this alone. I’ll help. Damn the consequences.”
Jon manages a small smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “That’s the spirit.”
Sasha smiles, too, then turns to Martin. “What about you?”
Martin blinks, evidently surprised. “Me?”
Sasha gestures around them. “We’ve all been…acting like this. You’ve been acting like yourself, or more accurately like you did when we all started out in the Archives, when none of us knew you yet and you thought you had to prove you belonged here. I don’t need freaky Eye powers to know that you’re trying too hard. We put the burden of…everything on you, and none of us thought about how the way we were behaving might have affected you. So, it’s your turn. What do you need from us?”
Martin stares at her, then at the other two. Tim’s face is still ashen, Jon’s eyes still wide, but they’re both looking at Martin intently—like they can see something about him that Sasha can’t. Which they quite possibly can. Sasha may have been given the gift, or curse, of being able to ferret out secrets and hidden knowledge, but the friendship these three have developed, especially living in such close proximity to one another, has probably given them an understanding of one another that is beyond anything an entity of fear can see. His shoulders slump slightly, his protective posture eases back, and he actually smiles—it’s small, but it’s genuine.
“Actually,” he says, and while his voice shakes, it’s not as bad, “just you having asked means a lot.” He takes a shuddering, steadying breath. “I-it’s just, well, I don’t…do so well alone anymore? I-I mean, I’m trying, but…I don’t think I can actually…” He trails off and doesn’t finish.
“You’re not alone, Martin,” Jon says, his voice cracking slightly. “Not anymore. Not ever again.”
All the tension seems to seep out of Martin in one rush, and his arms drop to his sides as he straightens, like a burden has just dropped off his back. Sasha isn’t sure who moves first, Tim or Jon, but they both reach Martin in almost the same instant and wrap him tightly in a hug. Martin hugs them back, his eyes squeezing shut, but Sasha sees the tear force its way out of the corner and the relief in his face. She realizes he’s been suffering these last few weeks and wonders—have any of them touched him, even briefly? Have any of them touched one another, or have they all been keeping separate and distant?
Whatever the case, Sasha decides that, just this once, she wants to be a part of it. She lets the torch fall heedlessly to the ground and crosses the floor to join the group hug. Someone’s hand curls around her arm, she’s not sure who, but she feels the warmth of her friends—her boys—soak into her body and wonders why she’s gone so long without this.
She raises her head briefly and looks in the direction of the Primes. She can just see them in the torch light glowing up from below; Jon Prime is watching them with a look of mingled warmth and longing. Giving in to impulse, she jerks her head to indicate that they should come closer.
And, for a wonder, he does. They both do, and suddenly there are more arms joining the pile and six people instead of four. Six broken, lonely pieces slotting together to make a single picture. Not quite complete. It may never be complete. But at least there aren’t any holes. Not anymore.