Chapter 22

"If you could go back in time to any?—"

"The 1969 moon landings," Newt replied without opening his eyes. They were lying towards each other on the bed during another three-day lockdown. Newt had his face pressed against Leo's throat, and whenever Leo laughed, his Adam's apple knocked his cheek. It was perfect. So perfect.

"Do I need to ask why?" Leo chuckled.

"Can you imagine it?" Newt breathed. "Being able to see the Earth like that. This marble of blue, green and white suspended in darkness."

"Sounds kind of terrifying to me."

"Maybe you have spacephobia."

"I'm pretty sure you've just made that up."

"It's a real phobia." Newt tugged the top of Leo's vest. "It's an intense and irrational fear of space, the magnitude of it all, the unknown, the inconceivable."

"Or…I'm scared of marbles."

Newt snorted. "No, that's marblephobia."

Leo squeezed him. "You can't stick phobia on everything and claim it's a real condition."

"I can and I will."

"What would your words have been if you were the first to step on the moon?"

Newt hummed, brushing his nose against Leo's skin. "Something profound and worthy of remembrance."

Leo pressed his chin to the top of Newt's head. "Like?"

"This is one small step for gingers and one giant leap for gingerkind."

Leo's whole body vibrated when he laughed, shaking Newt pressed against him. Newt smiled, pleased with himself. He nuzzled deeper into Leo's neck, and the arm at his back instinctively tightened, drawing him impossibly closer. They were breathing in sync. Newt would've bet his life on their hearts being in sync too.

"What would you have said?"

Leo hummed. "I've stepped on it, so it's mine."

It was Newt's turn to laugh. Leo traced the star shaved into Newt's hair. Newt's eyes slid shut.

"That reminds me, I bumped into Riley when I went to my medical. He said there's a new shipment of donated books to the library."

"Yeah?"

"He said there are ten pristine copies of some book about the universe. He's put one aside for you."

Newt smiled. "That sounds good."

"I think it's called The Universe Illusion."

Newt slowly opened his eyes. "By Professor Timothy Boulderdash?"

"I think so, you've read it?"

"I'm going to kill him."

Leo's fingers paused in Newt's hair. "Who?"

"Mickey."

* * *

Newt scowled at Mickey as he crossed the visiting room to get to his table. Stone gave him a bear hug, but even over Stone's shoulder, Newt continued his stare at Mickey. Leo sat down at the table in the corner, greeting Aaron with a handshake.

"No hug for me?" Mickey asked. He leaned back in his chair with his hands behind his head, smiling broadly as Newt took his seat. Newt kicked him beneath the table.

"Ow!" Mickey shouted, pointing at Newt. "Officer! I need an officer."

It just so happened Jude was monitoring visits that day. It was the first time all four of them had been in one room for over a year.

"What is it?" Jude asked, striding over with his poker face fully intact.

"This one kicked me. Maybe a spell in the seg unit will sort him out."

Newt gasped, Stone sighed, and Jude looked Mickey up and down.

"I don't know you," Jude said finally. "But something tells me you probably deserved being kicked under the table. Something tells me one kick was perhaps not sufficient."

So Newt kicked him again.

"Ouch!" Mickey shifted his seat back.

"Refrain from shouting," Jude said. "Or I'll have to put you on the naughty bench."

He gestured to the bench pressed up against one side of the room. Not for naughty prisoners, per se, but prisoners had to sit on it if their visitors needed to leave.

"I'll behave," Mickey said.

Jude strode away, but Newt still heard him mutter, "I doubt that."

"How've you been?" Stone asked. "You look…well."

"All pranks aside," Mickey said, "you're looking great. It's the first time in my life I'm jealous of your hair."

Welsh had outdone himself. He'd used the ink from a felt tip pen to dye the short sides of Newt's hair black before shaving in the stars and staining the skin with yellow ink.

Next time he'd promised to try shaving in planets, Jupiter and Saturn, and of course Neptune.

Newt couldn't wait.

"Thank you," Newt said, stroking the side. "And I'm good." He glanced over at Leo, deep in conversation with Aaron. "I'm really good."

"Not long now," Mickey said, and it was like he'd flung a bucket of ice water at Newt's face. He lowered his gaze to the table. "Yeah, not long now."

It had been over a year since he'd been sent to Brixton. Fourteen months, two weeks and three days to be exact, but he didn't know that because he was counting down the days. He knew after working out how long he'd known Leo.

Newt felt Stone and Mickey staring at him, and Jude's eyes prickled his skin from his position by the door.

"Any new books in the library?" Mickey asked.

Newt lifted his head. "You're an arse."

Mickey burst out laughing, earning him a savage glare from Shaw with his mother across the room. Whenever their visits coincided, Shaw put distance between them for a few hours afterwards before reassuring Newt with a shoulder squeeze, or a knuckle knock, or some kind of small touch that meant the world.

"That's two nil to me." Mickey smirked.

"You wait until I'm out of here. I'll get you so good."

"I can't wait until you're out of here."

"You haven't got tired of Leo then?" Stone asked.

Newt sensed the loaded question, and he smiled, acting oblivious.

"No. Why?"

Stone shrugged. "It's inevitable. You're locked in with each other; sometimes things get tedious no matter how much you get on."

"We're good." Newt bit his lip. "We had one…misunderstanding, which we sorted out, eventually, and one argument."

"What did you argue about?" Mickey asked.

"Cindy."

Mickey's eyebrows jumped up his forehead. "Cindy from The Street?"

Newt nodded. "Did you know they've started writing fanfiction together?"

"Oh, I know." Mickey rolled his eyes. "I'd break up with Aaron if I wasn't so in love with him."

Newt shifted in his chair. "Have you read it?"

"No."

"It's rather good. Sometimes I read it to Leo. He hates me reading his stuff aloud, but he quite likes me reading Aaron's passages to him. We did an omnibus on Saturday. I need to work on my Cindy, though. I couldn't get her voice right. She sounds like a snotty teenager whenever I try."

Stone smiled softly. "You didn't happen to be locked down on Saturday, did you?"

"Yeah, but?—"

"The confinement crazies," Mickey mumbled. "How could I forget?"

"What was the craziest thing you did during a lockdown?" Stone asked him.

"I pretended I had a pet dog, but it was really just my pillow I was stroking and calling a good boy. What about you?"

Stone sighed. "I helped my cellmate perform an autopsy on a moth."

"And?" Mickey pressed.

"It was inconclusive."

"Can you look something up for me?" Newt asked.

Stone frowned. "What?"

"Can you see if marblephobia exists?"

"Marbles? The small glass kind?"

Newt nodded. "That's right."

Stone glanced at Mickey.

Mickey sighed. "That proves it then…"

"Proves what?" Newt asked.

"You've lost them…"

"What?"

"You've lost your marbles."

Mickey tipped his head back laughing.

Newt lowered his eyelids to dangerous slits. "Jude was right; you are a yeti."

Mickey threw himself at the table. "Jude said what!"

Newt turned his head at a rattling on one of the tables. He could pick out the sound of Leo's vibrating watch anywhere, and sure enough, Leo lifted his arm. He blinked, and blinked again, not in a comical way like he couldn't believe the time or whatever reading he was faced with, but like he struggled, like he wanted his eyes to focus and they just wouldn't.

"Leo?" Aaron said, and even though chatter filled the room, even though Mickey and Stone were exchanging ‘confinement crazies' stories, Newt still heard Aaron say Leo's name.

Once calm.

The second time worried.

And the third time, alarmed, like he'd realised something was wrong.

Leo shot to his feet, sending his chair flying backwards. He wavered, tilting as he slapped his hand to the table to steady himself. He continued to blink as if willing his eyes to work.

What happened next played out in slow motion, and the noise came at Newt like it was travelling through water, rippling out, dull, except for the sharpness of Stone's chair's legs scraping the floor, the scratch of Leo's nails as he clawed frantically at the tabletop to keep his balance.

Leo fell to his knees first. The impact sent a shockwave through his body. It shook his slack cheeks and parted his lips with a surprised hitch. Newt heard that sound through the murmurs and the muffled voices.

Leo's eyes found Newt's, and the fear in them took Newt's breath away. He was scared, and Newt had never seen him like that, wouldn't have believed it possible. Leo was a giant, brave and strong like a lion, unable to feel pain, but his body was failing him.

He tipped forward, and Stone caught him around the chest, stopping him from smashing face-first into the floor.

"Mickey!" Stone yelled.

Mickey wasn't far behind Stone, skidding to a stop at Leo's side. "I'm on it."

He helped Stone turn Leo onto his side. Leo's eyes were closed, and Newt knew he was still breathing by the disturbing rattling sound in his chest and the horrible, stuttered breaths he kept taking.

"Leo, can you hear me?"

Newt didn't know which of his brothers asked the question. Everything in the room began to merge and confuse itself. Newt got out of his chair on trembling legs, trying to keep it together. Hands ran over Leo, taking his pulse from his wrist, then his neck, before checking the watch on Leo's wrist.

Newt curled his toes in his shoes, willing himself to stay on the ground.

"Have you got a defib?" Stone yelled.

Jude darted across the room, hissing into the radio. He disappeared through the door just as Riley started encouraging the other inmates to leave and return to the wing.

It was rushed, and chaos, and happening all around Newt faster than he could process, so he tried to go back, to slot events in an order to understand what the hell had just happened.

Leo's watch had vibrated.

Leo had sprung from his chair like he'd received an electric shock.

Leo's doomed eyes settled on Newt across the room.

And all the terror in them had frozen Newt in place.

Leo was scared.

What Newt wanted, was to go to Leo, but he couldn't move, couldn't take a step. Stone's and Mickey's chairs had both fallen back in their haste to assist Leo, but Newt's chair stood up, no haste, no rush, no force, like he lacked any desire to get to Leo at all.

It was a strange thing to dwell on when Leo was sprawled out on the floor, unresponsive with blue-stained lips, and deathly pale skin. But Newt didn't get to choose what he focused on, not with his head stuffed with cotton wool and the room filling with fog and the prickling in his brain. It was cold, and gloopy, like egg white sinking into all the gaps and numbing the output.

Stay on earth.

Even if it hurts, stay on earth.

His hand curled into the chair, biting his nails into the plastic hard enough the cuticles pushed into his skin.

A firm chest pressed to his back.

An arm wrapped around him, elbow at his hip, hand on his shoulder, taking his weight as he began to pitch forward.

He kept hold of the chair, though.

He had to keep hold of the chair.

"I've got you, Starman."

Newt should've been able to remember the face that belonged to that voice. He should've at least been able to glance over his shoulder and identify him, but he was locked in a bitter battle with himself.

Leo's watch had gone off.

He'd sprung up.

He'd fallen.

He'd stopped breathing.

The arm across him was covered with a long-sleeved top, and the hand on the end of that arm gripping his shoulder wore a black glove. It clung to Newt, keeping him upright.

"Here," Jude said, bursting back into the room with the defibrillator. He joined Stone and Mickey by Leo's side, rushing over when Newt hadn't even managed to take one step in their direction.

Stone ripped Leo's vest, opening it from top to bottom.

So much of Newt's weight pressed against the arm. Without it, he would've fallen straight down. It saved him from gravity's clutches, but it couldn't save him from the white noise in his head.

It couldn't help when it came to reality melting away at the edges.

Stone twisted, glancing back at Newt. His mouth opened in shock, but he wasn't looking at Newt, but the face by Newt's shoulder.

"Keep going," the voice ghosted Newt's cheek, and he wished he was the one to say it, but he'd gone mute as well as still and numb and useless, but that voice barked an order at his brother, "Don't stop!"

And Stone responded, turning his attention back to Leo.

"You both need to go back to the wing?—"

"But, Riles?—"

"No, Shaw. Back to the wing."

"Come on, Newt, let go of the chair."

If the voice had known how important the chair was in that moment, he wouldn't have pried Newt's fingers from it, then tucked Newt's hand to his chest as he pulled him away.

Away from Leo.

Away from his brothers.

Newt dissociated in the corridor leading to E-wing.

He didn't know whether Leo was dead or alive, but why was that important? Nothing mattered when he'd gone from his body and watched events play out like a fly on the wall, unable to pick himself out in the crowd.

Nothing was real, therefore everything was meaningless and it did not matter.

There was darkness, and numbness, and an immeasurable amount of time.

The shell of him was down on earth, hollow, unfeeling, but the part that made Newt Newt, that had gone, drifted into darkness without his tether to hold him back.