Chapter 1
He just wanted to be loved. He just wanted affection from those he thought of as family, but he never received either. Nicky and Joe were too absorbed in their own relationship. Andy was grieving on her own, not wanting to let go of the woman she had lost over half a millennium ago. Desperate to see those who loved him and those he loved, he decided to turn himself, just him, in for experimentation. He requested Copley for one last mission, one last chance to do some good, one last chance to see his family before he tried to figure out how to die.
Copley betrayed him. Merrick corrupted Copley. Sudan wasn’t his doing, but he took the blame anyway; he was the one who had informed Copley of their existence.
He had hoped for less but expected more. A hundred years. A blink of an eye for Andy. Ten times the time it took for Joe and Nicky to love each other. Half of his life.
He would never see Andy again. Joe and Nicky would never forgive him or trust him fully. Nile may have, but that would be because she pitied him.
He would have to make something of himself if he wished to be let back into the team. They would never love him, that he had accepted, but maybe, just maybe, trust could be earned. After his exile, maybe they would forgive him enough to let him help out.
In the meantime, he would try to live. To do what Andy had told him to do. To heal on his own.
And so, he tried. And so, he failed.
He had inflicted much pain, yes, but so, so, so much pain had been inflicted upon him when he had been refused the affection of his family. Even worse was the fact that they did not realise the true reason for his melancholy even now. They assumed that it was because of the loss of his sons. They were wrong. It was because he was denied the love and affection of the family that had been thrust upon him. The family which had been together for the better part of a millennium.
But he was desperate, desperate enough to live off whatever scraps of tenderness offered to him, so he never uttered a word, scared that if they thought him weak, they would abandon him and yet that happened anyways. So, he had to live to show them that he was worthy, even if he did not believe that he was.
And so, he tried again. And so, he failed again. Fell back into the bottle the way he had before. So, he drank and drank till he found the strength to stop.
Problem was that without the drink, he could not move and with the drink, he did not want to. And so, he stayed sober. Not eating, not drinking. The good thing about this existence was that he did not dream. He did not feel. He died many times before he was found.