John stepped through the doorway in the back of the Gene Bank. It felt as though he had lived a lifetime for this moment, could feel in his bones that he was near her. Closer than he had ever been in two decades.

Through the gloom of the room's darkness, John searched, then he saw it, standing on the right side of the room. A large tube, ominous in the red glow that the ADVENT insignia stamped across the sarcophagus' face cast, John recognized the tech from intel gained nearly half a year ago. He wasn't even aware that he had walked to it until he was standing in front of the opaque tube, every hair on his body standing on end.

Everything in the last two decades had brought him in front of this object. Unbelievable though it was.

He wasn't aware that he had hit the lever, watched as the panels slid open to reveal it. The Package. That was what they called the mysterious item, hidden behind a locked door, sealed inside an ominous, dark little room. ADVENT had never thought that someone would ever be audacious enough to break in here, to enter this hidden sanctum.

The enigmatic thing had come via a tour that had seen the conspicuous ADVENT sarcophagus taken from Bank to Bank, meant to stay here until after the Unification celebrations had passed. A day when they could count on ADVENT's resources being stressed more than any other time of the year, barring a rebellion their overlords would have to quash. They had no intel on where the sarcophagus was to go—or what would become of it, once it was due to leave the premises. Taking the Package was going to happen tonight or it would never happen.

True, there was hardly any way of believing that this could be her, but what else would be under typically heavy guard, kept in the Gene Banks, facilities equipped with the means to maintain a person kept in near continual stasis? Anyone else who had ever been taken by ADVENT was expected to be dead, long dead. And it wasn't just John's desperate hope; Richard Tygan, the man who had made it his first big task to find out if the rumors were true, believed that the only person ADVENT would keep like a trophy for two decades—had—to be her.

As Shen asked him if the intel that had finally led them to this place was good, John felt himself take a step back, his eyes stuck on the image of the floating thing stuck in the pale green liquid inside of the sarcophagus.

It was a figure, which looked like it was wearing the sort of gear that immediately brought to mind the deep diving suit worn by old Jules Verne characters. In reality, John knew it was a Stasis suit, meant to keep the occupant stuck in whatever status they had when they were put into the sarcophagus. Once out of the tube, none of them were quite sure what they would find inside of the suit.

The thing seemed to move, then he realized that the liquid the figure was suspended in was beginning to drain, seemingly triggered with the lever automatically set to drain the contents of the fluid.

John pressed his hand to his headjack and confirmed to Shen that their intel had, indeed, been good. She started to tell him something about an access panel, but John was in the middle of readying his rifle, was bringing it against the glass as hard as he could, heard a soul-satisfying crash as it cracked open and Shen cut short what she was saying. The remaining pale green liquid sloshed out in a wave that soaked his boots; a powerful, reeking odor that pierced the sterile smell of the Gene Bank's meticulous hygiene systems.

John murmured, "Next time," then reached in, pulling the figure in the suit out.

He knew in his heart that he was looking at was a ghost imprisoned in a heavy, hermetic suit. If not for the fact that the weight and size of the suit and the body inside of it took him off-guard, John would have carried it out of the room in one motion. Instead he laid it on the ground, vaguely aware of Shen saying something sarcastic in response to his reactionary decision on how to remove the suited body. Soaked partially by the strange liquid that covered the suit, John took a look at the suited figure and thought: I can't believe we're really here.

Now he had to get out with it.

Staring at the hard-red glass of the thing's helmet, John prepared himself for the task of firefighter carrying this unwieldy body out to the evac zone with only the thought that inside of that suit was someone who had been waiting for him. Untouched by all of the ugliness, the death and subjugation that was nothing but normalcy for the rest of them.

As he carried it, John wished with every step that he could at least see her face, know that the reason they had risked everything was worthwhile.

It was pandemonium inside of Firebrand, and the one thing John was cognizant of was that he always kept a hand on that suited figure they laid on the gurney in the center of the aircraft. It took so much from him to not rip the helmet off of it—off of her. He had begun to fear what he would find inside of that suit, that they had only taken a disfigured science experiment.

When he wasn't on auto pilot, somehow managing to give basic answers to the people around him, John felt a non-stop run of thought course through his mind like an electrical current. Shit, shit, shit.

Space inside of the 'bird was hardly ever "spacious" to begin with, but with the necessary gurney kept in the center of it, almost everyone had barely any choice other than to huddle around the suited figure.

Tygan couldn't accompany them on this mission. After all, it was risky enough for one member of the Officers to be in the rescue vehicle, even if it was in the service of the Commander. In spite of John knowing, logically, why the man who could crack the suit open wasn't on hand to make sure the subject in the suit didn't die en route, he spent whatever mental energy he had left after being terrified for the fate of the stasis suit's occupant on damning the Biologist for not being on hand.

The last thing he needed was the off-hand comment he heard someone in Firebrand say. "How do we even know that she's still alive in there?"

John didn't realized that he had taken hold of one of the suited figure's shoulders, tightened his grip until he felt Kelly lean in close to him, murmuring for him to "Stop gripping like that."

John let go reflexively, horrified by his obvious reaction.

Was this how Central was supposed to behave?

It was a thought that had haunted the man, but it felt oddly more fitting as he sat over the hermetic suit. Painful though the thought was, it worked to steady John.

It felt like it took far too long for them to reach the Avenger, hidden in its canyon. For the rest of the time they spent in Firebrand, John hunched over the hermetic-suited figure, hoping that his every emotion wasn't reflected on his face.

Landed, he watched as Tygan's scientists wheeled the figure in the suit out of the hanger. John caught up with them as they moved the figure onto the prepared bed, everyone working with admirable speed. Acting as though this event were nothing out of the ordinary, rote procedure. It was funny; John felt rooted in place, as though he were either in a dream or a nightmare, and he wasn't sure which it could be. He heard Tygan and Shen half-debating their actions, then he heard someone bring up "atrophy".

John was too fried to feel the horror that term implied, unable to imagine a world where they would crack the suit open only to find a dying husk inside; that the act of pulling the suit out of the sarcophagus has set some sort of an automated shut down on the life support inside of the hermetic suit. That he had killed his mentor with his own hands simply by trying to pull her free from her prison. But within seconds of experiencing that chilling fear, they learned from the life support machines that at least whatever was inside was alive. Against all odds, someone lived inside of that suit. Someone that their every piece of intel told them was none other than the supposedly deceased Commander Ludovico.

But, as John overheard Tygan reminding Shen, they were far from being out of the woods. If what they heard about this mysterious figure in its sarcophagus had been true, they needed to perform a life-saving procedure and they needed to do it now.

Hearing that lit a fire under John's ass. "Good, then let's get on with it," he said, watching as Tygan wiped off the misting that had formed on the helmet's glass. John placed his hands behind his back, standing as if he were awaiting a new set of orders, then decided to just give in to what he wanted to do. As he quickly walked to the side of the figure, John watched Tygan disengage the mask on the suit, the thing making a pneumatic whine as it pulled away, and then he heard two soft gasps.

He was grateful that his hands were clasped behind his back to hide their shake.

"Remarkable," he heard Tygan say, breathless.

John agreed, adding, "Just like twenty years ago."

It was a perpetual nightmare that had no beginning or end. The only calm she was given were the brief respites of pure oblivion in between the forced periods of horrible consciousness. They looked at her without any thought for her humanity, let alone modesty, probing with horrible, sharp instruments.

A few times she believed that they weren't even aliens, imagined that it was her father leering over her, grinning at her with his crooked, stained teeth as she writhed in agony. But when the drugs didn't manage to terminate her ability to think coherently, Janis recognized the tight-stretched face of a Thin Man leaning over her, moments before an intense pain ripped through her entire body.

When she felt the mask disengage again, Janis wished that she could override her body's instinctive need to remain living, she could simply cease breathing.

Please, just let me die.

This time was different, strange. Worse than any other time, because somehow they had found a way to torment her with the faces of Humans.

If not for the shock of seeing her looking the exact same, with the exception of the death-like pallor of her skin, John might have thought he was looking at something his imagination had created.

John knew that Tygan was firmly resistant to the thought that this was going to be anything but a long shot. After all, their agreement to do this was due in no small part to it being one of John's contingencies for agreeing to give his all to this resurrection of XCOM.

When Shen voiced her concern at the erratic readings they got from the vitals, John was too fueled by adrenaline at that point to let the possibility of failure sink in. He felt a desire to take control overcome him, a drive that he had long ago lost a connection to. When he snapped at the two half-arguing scientists, it felt good, good to finally be able to do something, anything.

"No Plan B here, people. Do it."

At first Tygan's face betrayed shock, then a resolute glint replaced his uncertainty. The Head Scientist looked to Shen as though they shared understanding of what they had to do next. Wordlessly, Tygan brandished the evil-looking white tool, stolen from an ADVENT lab. The thing's sharp protrusions popped out at its end, looking like a wicked-sharp set of two monstrous mandibles.

As John watched the man lower the edges of the tool to the incision, he felt his stomach twist into knots. He had barked at the two to hurry, afraid that at any moment he would lose his own nerve. Growing surer by the second that they were going to kill her.

He feigned ignorance to the blind-eyed terror that he saw on the Commander's face, found relief when her gaze had sunk into a vacant stare. But as he watched Tygan pull out the implant set in her skull, he realized that what he had thought was her almost certainly falling into shock had been nothing but a desperate fantasy.

She cried out around the blocks that had been placed in her mouth. He could tell from the wide, dilated quality of her bright, bright eyes that if not for the blocks she would have been screaming.

After that it was only ten minutes that the team of doctors, a Chief Engineering Officer, and the Executive Officer spent over the slack-jawed (and, finally, drugged) body of the Commander. To John it of course felt like forever. He wanted nothing more than to take the hand still encased in the hermetic suit, hoped that somewhere in the dreams she was half-submerged in that she would know that he was here for her. Here, and would never again let her go more than one room away from him.

Finally, Tygan informed them that the Ludovico's status was stable. John didn't bother to hide the relief on his face.

As Tygan turned to tell one of his scientists something, John hovered over her, said, "Told them it would take more than that to keep you down." He leaned in closer to her, realizing that her gaze, earlier hazed and unfocused, had locked onto him, her pupils wide, as though with some drugged form of recognition.

"Welcome back..." He felt a shiver run up his spine as he said it, a smile itching at his lips. "Commander."

John watched her gaze falter until her eyelids fluttered shut before he walked away. He knew that staying by his superior's side had been an important duty, thankfully one that he could reason to anyone. Now, even though everything in him screamed to remain by her side in case even the Chief Scientific Officer had been wrong in his assertion that her condition had stabilized, he had enough work ahead of him before the Commander was expected to awaken, work that needed done, and not enough time for frivolities like sleeping. After all, he had just gotten what could be considered his promised payment for agreeing to do everything in his power to bring the Initiative back from its grave.

Every time Janis had been resurrected, she woke in an uncomfortable metal thing that she thought must have been a flat platform shaped like a bed. And, typically, someone was hurting her. It might have begged the question if the sadists had any knowledge of Human biology at all, or if they were doing it just to torture her. Except Janis had a pretty good idea of the reasoning behind it all. The obvious answer was that being able to torture the head fool who had thought to stand against them was nothing more than gravy.

After all, everything evil had the same set of protocol. She would know, better than anyone.

But this time she could feel bedding surrounding her, almost felt as though it were swallowing her whole, unused to anything resembling something soft or covering besides cold or lukewarm liquid. When her sore mouth fell open, her olfactory senses took in the smell, the taste of the air.

And then she heard it, the soft sound of something that made her pulse quicken in her throat. The soft, undeniable notes—a Human voice—something that didn't make sense to Janis. It was almost painful, alongside the tender, pulsating ache that seared in the back of her mouth, to open her eyes. Still, she—almost regretfully—let her eyes fall open. Her eyes nearly shut again before she heard his voice.

"Glad to see you're finally coming out."

Janis' eyes snapped open and she gazed at the Human who seemed, at first, to be standing in front of her.

With light tanned skin, long lashed brown eyes, and dark hair, the man looked a few years older than her. The only thing that seemed to be imperfect or abnormal on him was the long line of a scar on his face. But aside from the odd warmth—almost familiarity—she found in his eyes, it almost felt as though she were looking into a strange mirror that reflected the weight that her role and duties sometimes crushed her with.

Immediately she felt sorry for the man. He was here it was because of her failure, the thing she was continuously punished with by being trapped in this eternal limbo. She wanted to tell him that she was sorry she had failed him, that he was trapped with her. Sorry, like how she was sorry that she had failed the entire Human race.

Maybe he saw it, the desire she had to tell him that she knew it was her fault. There was an amused note in his words, unless she was misplacing it beneath the low, rough weight of his voice. "Don't envy the headache you must have, though." His gaze—stare—never wavered from her eyes, would have been pinning her down, if not for the warmth that felt as though it were radiating from him. "Still, can't fault Dr. Tygan. Especially as no one's attempted something like this before."

She turned her head, losing the stare that they shared, looked at her surroundings. Took in the foot of a bed where feet— her feet—protruded underneath a layer of blanket, then turned to look at the surprisingly large room she shared with the man.

Two black couches, facing each other, sat what had to be ten feet away from her. Just on the right side of the man was a monitor. On the monitor was something that told Janis that she was either dreaming, or the lifelong Atheist had nevertheless finally died and passed onto another layer of consciousness.

The insignia, badge-shaped, had two words in latin, words that Janis knew all too well.

Vigilo Confido.

I am vigilant.

Janis looked back at the man, still unsure if she was dreaming this, already feeling her stubborn desire to believe what she saw with her own eyes overriding any belief she may have had that she had died. But it was ridiculous, a poor fantasy, if indeed it was something she imagined. After all, this could just be a new psychological torture they've somehow buried me inside of.

She didn't realize that she had sat up to look at her surroundings until she felt the man place a hand on her abdomen, another hand cautiously barring her from—what, attempting to get up?

"Easy—we're not entirely sure what they did to you." He drew her attention to another monitor, this one on her left side. When she looked, Janis realized that she was looking at an x-ray, then some strange, sharp item that looked like it belonged in some electronic. "That chip was buried half way into your skull."

In spite of her still lingering belief that this was a fantasy meant to torture her, Janis turned to look at him, could feel her eyes widening.

She opened her mouth, then found that the man had placed his fingers to her lips, said, "Don't be in a rush to use your voice just yet. We had to... try something a little dangerous to disengage you from the chip. Way Tygan tells it, you're not likely going to be able to speak for a few more days. Else we risk damaging your ability to talk permanently." He let out a sound that Janis could have mistaken for a chuckle. "Can't have that."

She gazed at the stranger, mind swimming with questions she ached to ask. Tygan ? Who the hell was Tygan? Dr. Moira Vahlen, ever-curious oddball but persistent source of comfort—and, to Janis, was one of the rare people she could have considered a friend—was the only person she would have trusted to operate on her.

What happened to everyone the day I was taken?

Janis' eyes drifted over the room before settling on a display case to her left. An obviously un-Humanoid skull sat on a bottom shelf and on the shelf above it were models of ships, the kind that brought memories of days both glorious and heart-shattering. Above it were pictures, pictures of people that, even if she never admitted it aloud, meant as much to her as family would have to someone else.

As though guessing her line of thought, the man said, "Lost a lot of good soldiers looking for you over the years. Almost gave up hope you were still out there. Acted on the intel as soon as I got word." He didn't look at her directly for the first time since she had awoken, stood up, walking away from her.

She noticed it as though it were a broken rhythm, the slight hitch in the way he walked, like one of his legs were ill fitting. It was odd to see on him, a man that seemed to be well made in every other way, signs of defects like the scar and the hitching limp he walked in almost making him seem more real to her than if he didn't possess either attributes.

He surprised her as he flung his arms out, gesticulating for emphasis as he talked, his back turned to her. "Not sure what you remember, but a lot's changed." He turned, then faced her again. "Did the best I could, but the last twenty years... have been tough without you."

For the first time, Janis noted the hilt of the knife, a combat with finger grip grooves inlaid in the hilt and circular moons that gave it the sole aspects that weren't a cold black, set in a easy-grab holster on the side of his chest. It was too easy to imagine the man, a stranger, Janis was well, too aware, of, taking it out and slashing at her with it.

Seemingly unaware of the terror and confusion that played out in Janis' mind, the man motioned towards the monitor that he had been standing in front of previously. "While you heal, Shen has the archive up and running on your terminal." Janis turned, looked at the terminal, relieved to hear a familiar name, even if it was coming from this dangerous-looking stranger. "Otherwise, I'd go see Dr. Tygan when you're ready. There's some things you should know. He'll be better explaining them than me."

And, before Janis could even think of acclimating to the presence of the uniquely intense man, he walked towards the door. It surprised her when he stopped, turning around as he said, "It's damn good to have you back, Commander."