The epilogues can be read in any order, but, chronologically, this takes place before SynTracker's epilogue.

☰☱☲☳☴☵☶☵☴☳☲☱☰

They'd locked Quentin inside the bedroom with malicious intent. Worse, to add insult to injury, Ian had been the one to lock him inside the bedroom. It was Symons day — one more thing Jax hadn't been kidding about — and there was something going on, in the briefing room that doubled up as a living room, that Ian didn't want Quentin to know about.

The bunker was decorated with every allusion to Symons they could think of, from holo lights to 3D schematics. Ian's contribution had been to hang each tracking chip he'd replaced, now short-circuited and harmless, from the ceiling. A reminder of the freedom they'd been fighting tooth and nail for, but also of how far they still had to go.

Ian was always thoughtful in every gesture. He didn't think Quentin noticed, so Quentin pretended not to. But his nexus was loaded up with books on bot construction and repair, as if he'd set himself the task to learn more than just chip replacements. He hoarded every reference on code he could find, had written everything he knew about every model and shared it with all of them, had resigned himself to staying in the bunker for safety until they had at least one more human who knew how to operate the chips.

Quentin was the one going on dangerous missions now, meeting fellow BioSynths they came across on the web, tracking Trackers and rescuing their captives, hitting installation teams whenever Ulla's contact had a way of letting them know what was happening. Ian never brought it up but Quentin knew was eating him up inside; this wasn't what Ian had envisioned when they'd promised to do this together. Quentin wanted to wrap his arms around him and tell him it was enough every day; that he didn't have to carry the burden of guilt any longer.

He knew it wasn't his place.

Forgiveness would have to come from those he'd wronged, or from within.

Were they redecorating the entire bunker while Quentin was locked up in here? He swore all he could hear was furniture being dragged.

Quentin's files had no memory of ever setting up this bunker or the corresponding cover identity, but he had to hand it to himself, he'd chosen well. Though he didn't see it as his bunker, the Misfits didn't not see it as his bunker, so they'd tentatively agreed to share and call it their bunker. Jax continued his incessant search for Mia with no results so far, but there was a dissonant note to his obsession, something Quentin couldn't quite pinpoint.

Ulla dropped by every so often, with tips and intel, or sometimes just to visit, her partner and their children in tow. She didn't think it'd be healthy for children to grow up below ground, so had declined the offer to join them.

He supposed he couldn't fault her there.

She'd been the one to make this possible, to alter her appearance and pose as the legal owner. For all Quentin had been afraid the two halves of his world could never coexist, Ian and the Misfits had settled on mutual respect; Jax took it a step further and actively liked him, something that pleased Quentin to no end.

Photography was the one thing missing from his life.

Ian had set up a darkroom in the bunker for Quentin, but Quentin had only been there once. He knew it was pathetic and ungrateful, but his left hand made it hard for him to both take the shots and develop the film, and... No, that was a lie. Plenty of others had done it with just the one arm. Quentin hadn't gotten over its loss enough to try yet. To relearn and then go on as if nothing were amiss.

Yet to reclaim some of his identity as a BioSynth — to go on those missions, weapon drawn, to contribute to the fight he'd turned his back on for far too long — without having his photography to fall back on made him feel empty; made him think he'd never be complete.

He still had nightmares of that night, his system processing and reprocessing memories, trying to accept them as valid so they wouldn't cause unnecessary problems. Sometimes it was Connors he saw, and that acid bath; others it was Maxine, dying by his hand.

Ian would hold him close those nights, kiss him, let him know he was there for whenever Quentin was ready to talk. He'd do the same on all the others, really; those were just the ones he did it twice.

Clementine's laughter floated from the living room. Had they forgotten all about him, locked in here? It wasn't as if he couldn't break down the door, so Ian had better hurry and come get him.

As if in answer to his thoughts, the lock beeped and his husband's head peered into the room. "It's time."

"You locked me in here, and now you think you can just unlock me?" He grinned. "I'm sulking and not going."

"Not even if I tell you there's something waiting for you in the living room?"

Quentin looked between Ian and the bed, a smirk playing on his lips. "And you think it's better than what I have to offer you here?"

"Come on, man," Jax yelled from down the hallway. "We're starving. Eat now, shag later."

Ian's face turned a predictable shade of beet red. Quentin had every intention of teasing him for the rest of the night, but then he walked in the living room and forgot all about it. Nestled in a corner, near a hover-cart filled with colourful drinks Quentin could mix to his heart's content, was a familiar cream-coloured sofa. It clashed horribly with every hi tech feature of the bunker, and couldn't have been more perfect or more appropriate in a place that housed Misfits.

"You..." Damn it. His eyes were leaking. "It's going to be dirty by this time tomorrow," he went with instead of 'thank you' and 'I love it' and 'I love you'. "You should have picked something grey."

"Don't worry." Ian's deep blue eyes smiled wider than his lips. "I'll keep it clean."

Quentin crushed their lips together as Lara said, "Tears, check. Kiss in under two minutes, check. Pay up, losers," amid a chorus of groans. "I thought it'd take him at least three." Clementine. "Should have known he's easy."

They'd have to resume their kiss later. Their own laughter made it all but impossible, and the smell of all sorts of delicious foods — some cooked by Ian, reminding Quentin once more of why this was home — beckoned.

"That was a success," he said hours later, slightly tipsy and far too happy to care, as they went back to the room. He wished Ian wasn't quite as good at fading into the background — a clear tell he was ready to contribute to the celebration, but not to feel like he deserved a part in it. It was unreasonable to want everything at once, Quentin told himself. In time. Right now, he wanted everything of a different sort.

"It was." Ian locked the door behind them. "And I have one more surprise for you."

Quentin let his eyes roam all over Ian's body before lowering his tone. "Oh, I bet you do."

"That wasn't— mph." Whatever that wasn't could wait, now that Quentin had Ian pinned against the door. Anything short of the bunker catching fire could wait; maybe even that as well.

☵☲☵

"Am I allowed to give you your real surprise now," Ian asked, sprawled on the floor, one arm shielding his eyes, in the most enticingly obscene pose Quentin could think of, "or will asking this lead me to an early grave?"

In fairness, it was tragic that Quentin could now control his recovery time to the point it was almost non existent, while Ian was still constrained by the limitations of the human body. But those weren't the limitations that chaffed the most. "No graves," he replied in between kisses, trying to keep his tone light. No graves. Not for many, many years at least.

Ian removed a box from underneath the bed; having retrieved his prize, his courage seemed to desert him. He opened his mouth, closed it, cleared his throat, tried again with no success. The box was narrow and long, as if to fit an oversized bottle of wine, but that wasn't the kind of gift that would leave Ian in this state.

"I don't want you to get too excited," he began at last, "because this isn't what it looks like. It's... It's not going to be something you'll want all the time. It just serves a function, and I'm hoping it serves it well, but it's meant for short-term use. And it might not work at all. I've been trying, but—"

"Will you get over here and give me my gift? I'm getting antsy." He was, but he also wanted to put Ian out of his misery. Gift-giving wasn't intended to be this excruciating.

Ian sat down next to him, box between the two of them, his eyes glued to it rather than looking at Quentin. "Okay. Open up."

Quentin's smile froze on his face. Inside was a metal left forearm shell, slightly dented. With five fully formed digits and a palm shaped the right way. It was a good thing Ian was still talking, because Quentin couldn't find his vocal processor.

"It wasn't designed for BioSynths, originally. And it doesn't have touch sensors. But I've been adapting it from old manuals, and I think I've managed to have it interface with your system for short periods. An hour, possibly two, before the drain becomes too much to sustain." His voice lost some of its strength. "You can't wear in in a fight, but It'd be enough to hold your camera the way you used to..."

It was true at all times, but it still hit him out of nowhere, sometimes, how much he loved this man. So many others would have left Quentin behind once they'd learned of his true nature, but not Ian. Never Ian. He could have had every luxury if he'd chosen to do the easy thing. Instead here he was, living underground amid people who had reason to hate him, his name and face plastered on the government's list of targets because he'd chosen to do the right thing, and he was learning unfamiliar tech so Quentin would stop being a baby and take up the work he loved again.

He pulled Ian to him with his shaking right arm and held him there, trying to calm his heartbeat, but Ian's was racing too. "Thank you," he managed to say, and this time he followed it through with, "I love you."

Ian was still acting as if the forearm was a poisoned gift. "We don't know if it works yet."

"Do you really think that matters?" With his right arm around Ian, all he had was the left. He hooked a skeletal finger under Ian's chin and, very gently, tilted his face. "Look at me. Do you really think it matters?"

"It matters to me." Blue eyes widened. "I don't mean— I understand if you're not ready to try it—"

Quentin knew what he meant. Ian wanted to give him his photography back, something Quentin missed like a core function of himself, because he always knew what was going on in Quentin's mind. At the same time Ian was trying to let him have space to decide when and if to go about it, and he'd just decided there was no time like the present. He held out his left forearm. "Put it on."

"Are you sure? I—"

"I'm sure."

It wasn't a perfect fit. He'd have to ask Ian to trim the portion where it touched his actual arm, so it wouldn't chafe, and the moment he'd interfaced with it, Quentin registered the drop ratio in his energy level. Ian was right. One hour, possibly two a day, or he'd spend more time sleeping than working. He opened his fingers, closed his hand into a fist, mimicked holding the camera.

With this, he didn't have to relearn his art from scratch. It might not have touch sensors, but it registered pressure the same way his skeleton did. It was enough.

There'd be no more excuses.

"How does it feel?" Ian still looked painfully unsure of himself.

Quentin often hid behind salaciousness, behind walls that didn't so much conceal him as they reflected his best side to the world. With Ian, he never needed those. "It feels like you go out of your way to remind me I'm more than the sum of my parts every day."

He didn't go into the darkroom that night; he didn't even get out his camera, even though Ian would have made a lovely test model, naked and diffident, a study in contrast. Knowing that he could, that he had literal fingertips for photography to be at, was enough for the night.

Tonight he wanted to lie in bed and listen to Ian's heartbeat in the silence and darkness of the bunker, certain that that, too, was a gift

Tomorrow they'd adjust all the moving parts of both the prosthetic and his self image, and they'd find a balance between fighting and creating. There was still far too much work to be done.

Together.

☰☱☲☳☴☵☶☵☴☳☲☱☰

I can't believe this is it. We've reached The End. Of these novellas, at least — I still have a lot of stories left to tell in this universe, as it turns out. Anyway, I'll have a few questions ready for you in the next chapter, if you're willing and able to spare a few minutes.

Thanks for reading this — I hope Quentin and Ian's journey kept you company and provoked thoughts, feelings, the works.