Time ran away from them. It felt like Victor had been walking for days...months...years, even. At the same time they were aware that it had only been a few hours. It was a slow and maddening torture; forever moving forward but never getting anywhere. She could hear Victor's strained breaths as he willed himself on and knew that her own weight on his back was only worsening the situation.

"Maybe we should stop for a while." Harper suggested but somehow she already knew the answer before Victor had even replied to her.

"I'm not stopping until this damn road changes." He said inbetween loud pants of air. It was unlikely that this dark and ever-extending path was going to alter in any way, at least not any time soon. You had to applaud his resolve, but it wouldn't mean much if he worked himself into unconsciousness.

The silent hope that this road would end was swiftly forgotten when a figure appeared in the distance. Harper squinted, but still couldn't decipher who exactly it was. Victor must have had the same problem because he immediately picked up the pace. With every step the image came closer, and with that same translucent shimmer that Victor's deepest fears had produced...only this time it wasn't his. It was Harper's. A perfect reflection of herself stared back at them like an empty husk.

Harper's eyes widened. "I don't understand..."

" 'Fear made real' remember?" Victor answered, but despite his dismissive tone he was sympathetic. He had still failed to overcome the fear that knitted its way into his mind at the sight of that car wreckage...and of his legs. The end of his football career. The end of a lifelong dream.

The only problem was that this image was nothing so easy to decode or understand. This...ghost of Harper Reid wasn't missing a leg or an arm. She wasn't covered in spiders, or snakes, or beetles, or moths. She just stood there. Emptily. Then something appeared behind her. A flicker that soon turned into multiple, all morphing into the familiar faces of the Justice League. Victor's breath hitched. He didn't recognise all of them, but he'd seen the founding members on everything from newspapers to the news. They were the World's mightiest heroes, so why was she scared of them?

As Victor pondered this question closely, one of them stepped forward. Batman, and he spoke with such venom in his voice towards the fake Harper that it could shake anyone to the core. "You're an abomination."

"Disgusting." Wonder Woman added. "You should not even exist."

"I can't believe we trusted you." Now came the voice of Superman with a hatred that didn't suite him at all. "You're not real, you're a fake. All of your accomplishments...your talents...they're not yours to claim."

"What are they talking about?" Victor asked with burning curiosity, but he got no response. He wasn't even sure if he'd heard Harper breath in the last few seconds.

The group of Leaguers parted in the middle, and from there stepped out a vision that almost knocked Victor unconscious. It was himself...but not. Similar but different. The same face, or half of one, stuck inside a body of metal. It was a monster. And that monster spoke in his own voice, as if it had been stolen from his very throat.

"Harper...is that even your name? What gives you the right to use it if it doesn't even belong to you?"

The Harper on Victor's shoulders shivered and lowered her head. This show of anxiety was enough to propel Victor back to reality, and as he stared at the Cyborg's face, he dropped the frail woman onto the ground.

So it wasn't the Justice League personally that Harper was afraid of, but she dreaded their reaction to something...but he couldn't figure it out. It didn't matter either. He was too focused on the machine staring into his soul.

"That's...me? H-How...Wh-What's going on? That can't be me." Victor muttered knots incoherently before turning to meet the real Harper's eyes. She was on the floor, too stunned to even groan from the pain of the fall. "Tell me that's not true..."

Harper could do nothing but look at him with uncertainty in her eyes; she didn't know what to say or how to say it. All she knew was that she hadn't wanted him to find out like this. That silence was enough to confirm it, and brain running a mile every second, Victor felt like he was going to throw up.

"And why the hell didn't you tell me?!" He yelled so loudly that the sound echoed in the empty space around them. Harper still refused to respond. "What happened to me?!"

Finally, the woman shifted onto her knees and tried to push back to her feet but it was useless. She had no strength. "An explosion...at S.T.A.R labs."

The memory flickered into his mind for the briefest of moments, then it was gone just as quickly as it had come. He recalled the pain, and nothing else but that. Not what came after that or even a few days before. Just the unyielding agony of being blown apart and his innards painting the floor.

The realm they were in no longer mattered. Neither did getting out. All that Victor could think of was that torture that kept playing in his mind on repeat. He ran. He ran so fast and so far that Harper was nothing but a small and insignificant speck in the distance.

She yelled but the sound never reached him, and if it did he certainly never returned for her. She was stranded, weak, and incapable of standing on her own. After what felt like an hour of trying to get her damn legs to work, Harper found herself in the utterly humiliating position of having to drag herself down the road. It was exhausting, and she could feel her skin scraping against rocks as she pushed forward. She had hoped that, if she kept going, she might find Victor sulking on the road...but Harper soon realised that he was beyond her reach.

She stopped. Alone and badly bruised from the strenuous crawling. Harper knew that it was impossible. She was weak, and fragile, and sick...so sick that she could barely stop herself from throwing up. It was pathetic, how useless she was...and then it hit her. Harper's own self-pity had acted as a mirror; reflecting back her own thoughts and analysing them as she would a new mech design.

'You are what you believe yourself to be'. Raven's one sentence had been an answer to all of her problems. As terribly ridiculous as it sounded, Harper had to restructure her mindset. She had to convince herself...make herself truly believe that she was no longer sick. An early grave was difficult to forget, but if Harper had one strength in life it was her brain power and imagination.

She took a deep breath, trying to swallow down the nausea coating her throat. She wasn't frail. She wasn't useless. She wasn't sick. Harper Reid was completely healthy in every single way. She replayed those words so much in her head that it started to lose meaning, and that must've been because it was working.

By some force that Harper couldn't even begin to understand, she found herself standing on her own two feet again; without the threat of her knees buckling beneath her. She felt stronger than ever before...and faster, though still limited within mortal confines.

Walking after such a long time was more of a relief than she could ever express. Her legs, that had not long ago been aching from the lack of use, were now sprinting down the path with a strength she'd never known; not even in the real world. Exhaustion never claimed her, and it was for this reason that she almost plunged herself right off the end of the road.

Harper yelped and skidded to a halt, and as her feet almost tipped over the end Harper fell onto her back in a panic. Each breath was sucked into her lungs so quickly that she was almost hyperventilating. It was like she had discovered the end of the world and it was nothing but an abyss...threatening to drag her into everlasting darkness.

From that void came a rumbling, and the ground beneath Harper shook like a magnitude 5 earthquake. From the vast emptiness something emerged. Something so massive that it towered over Harper like a skyscraper. It was a demon...red and horned and adorning four eyes that glowed evilly in the non-existent light. Harper scrambled backward as if she had seen the devil made flesh...maybe she had.

"Wh-What the fuck?!" She screamed in a potent mixture of confusion and absolute horror.

The demon spoke, and it was the most bone chilling sound that Harper had ever heard. It was like thunder rippling through a tsunami...or the earth cracking open in one foul swoop. "Bow before the power of Trigon."

"T-Trigon?" The name was foreign on her lips, as was everything to do with magic. Any willpower that she had gathered to travel this far quickly left, and rendered her paralysed.

Hellfire consumed the creature...but it was more like mystical energy that appeared like flames. He pointed at her and that same magic started to trail down his arm...moving swiftly towards Harper. Her mind screamed at her to move, but she just couldn't. The terrified woman squeezed her eyes shut, and that's when she felt someone tug her to her feet and out of the way.

"It's not real." Victor's voice spoke, the noise forcing Harper's eyes back open. He was right in front of her, not completely recovered from their previous encounter, but sane enough to help her. "Just...calm down and think logically."

"Not real..." Harper breathed. Her whole body was trembling, but she knew that he was right. The fact that she had made it this far was proof. She just needed to remember that he was a figment of someone's imagination...materialised from their worst nightmares. Most likely Raven's. Once this had finally registered in her mind, she turned back to the empty space that Trigon had once been standing...but he was no longer there.

Victor let his hands fall away from her, and without even a second glance, he turned his back and started walking to the end of the road. He stared over it and sighed in exasperation. There was no portal here. Maybe they had been walking the wrong way.

"Victor..." Harper spoke but he ignored her. It were as if she were a wisp of wind in the midst of a hurricane; inaudible and barely worth paying any attention to. "I'm sorry about earlier."

Victor scoffed. "I don't care."

"I know, but I do." Harper muttered quietly.

"Could've fooled me." He hissed. "You've been keeping my whole life a secret. You misled me."

Harper chewed on her bottom lip. She had never been particularly good at hiding her emotions, and so she never tried to...but it was hard this time. It always was with Victor. She never quite knew what emotion she was feeling or why. All she knew was that she wanted to know more about him. She shifted on the spot uncomfortably. "I only did that because I didn't want to upset you... I always said that you should accept your situation. I never tried to be sympathetic or filter my words, but seeing you here was difficult. You're so carefree and...happy without those memories haunting you. I just wanted you to have that for a little longer."

Victor turned to face her with a cold, almost cruel stare. His jaw was clenched and his teeth gritted together so roughly that Harper could hear it echoing around her. "Don't pretend like you care. I bet it was because you were hiding something else...something you don't want me to remember about you. So what is it? Why don't you want me to get my memory back?"

"I already told you why... I have nothing else to hide."

"I don't believe you." Victor snapped back. "You needed me to be your stupid fucking taxi service, so you needed me to trust you. And I wouldn't do that with my memory back."

Harper's gaze didn't falter this time. She stood tall, without regret or guilt. "No, you wouldn't have trusted me. You're right. But you still would have helped me. I know that much."

Frankly, Victor was surprised by her honesty but it still wasn't enough. Harper knew that too and so she continued, stepping over to join him near the edge of the realm.

"I betrayed you...well, the other you. The technology keeping you together could have saved the lives of thousands, and improved many more. I was contacted by people willing to make that happen and I lead you into their trap. I freed you once I discovered that their goals engender much further than helping those that needed it. Instead, they planned on altering the human race entirely. I didn't agree with that and so I turned back against them."

"A little indecisive on which side you're on, aren't you?" Victor said with a familiar hatred soaking his tone.

"I'm on humanities side, no matter where that takes me. The needs of the many, not the few. I don't regret what I did. I told you that before, but that doesn't mean that it was an easy decision for me."

"I'm so sorry that selling out one of your only friends was a little inconvenient." Victor growled, unimpressed by her obvious lack of conscience.

Harper averted her gaze, stepping closer to the tall man and exhaling heavily. "I've betrayed many people in my life. Friends, comrades, leaders, but all in everyone's best interest. I know it's not morally correct, but the world can only withstand a few people willing to put personal emotion over the greater good. You can pretend that makes me a bad person if you like, but if I had to choose between killing the person I loved most, or watching the rest of the world suffer, I'd always choose the first option."

"How noble." Victor sneered. His voice was almost like a dagger digging into her chest; twisting with each word. "There's only one problem. Someone like that doesn't know what love is. You don't know what it is. How could you? If you're willing to discard it so easily."

"I know more than you think." Harper gulped down the harshness of his words, ensuring that they were buried away so deep that they'd never resurface. Knowing that this was her last chance to get him to understand, she placed both hands on his shoulders and without any warning at all she crashed her lips against his.

It was at first almost as if he hadn't wanted to kiss her. His mouth was hard on hers, unyielding; then he put both arms around her and pulled her against him. His lips softened, and he kissed back as if she were oxygen and he was dying to breathe. He didn't know why he returned the gesture...all he knew was that he couldn't bare not to. She was so warm for a cold-hearted traitor, and her lips an irresistible toxin to him. Much like she was.

If Harper were to plunge some hidden knife into his stomach and betray him once more, he would die contented. That's when he realised the true extent of his apparent feelings for her. Victor remembered nothing about her...but he recalled the adoration. The pain. The anguish at wanting to touch her but knowing that it was selfish to do so.

Harper's lips left his and he missed them already when she whispered "Trust me."

His brow furrowed, and before he could even react Harper had sauntered away from him and thrown herself over the end of the road; into the dark nothingness below. Panic and shock flooded through Victor's body like adrenaline, but he didn't waste any time debating whether to follow Harper or not. He simply jumped, blindly, into the void after her. Perhaps because the ghost of their kiss had sent him into a temporary state of insanity. The bittersweet and strange taste stayed with him the whole way down, swaying and sleepy and the starry ache prevented any instinctual fear from developing.

He hit the ground, but it didn't hurt. The sound made a metallic 'ting', and Victor's memories flooded back like a tidal wave. He tried to force them back out of his head but it was no use. They returned regardless of his resistance.

"Good. You're not dead." Raven said in her usual monotone. Victor glanced up and saw that he was back at the entrance of her room.

Victor forced himself back to his feet and frowned. "Why the hell didn't you help us out?"

Raven didn't answer. Her eyes were blank and completely unreadable. Victor sighed. He should have expected her to ignore the question. Raven never felt the need to explain herself. No matter the situation. It had been inspiring at first, but now it was just plain annoying. The Titans member floated towards the door, and with a dark expression she slammed it closed in her old comrades face. Victor huffed. He should have expected that too. At least it was a little friendlier than the welcome Harper probably received when she returned.

Victor seemed to freeze at the very thought of Harper. He was still unbelievably upset with her, but it was hard to remain that way with the memory of her kiss carved into his skull. It had been so long since he'd engaged in any sort of intimate contact that he'd almost forgotten what it felt like... He'd never expected anyone to even want to be with him in that way. He was a freaking glorified computer, after all. Nothing but tubes and metal and integrated systems. Still, there was no hesitation in her act. There never was with Harper. He knew that it hadn't been a kiss of distraction or pity. She had done it because she wanted to, and that was the most bewildering part of all.