Finn started awake. He opened his eyes to an unfamiliar place; satin wallpaper he wouldn’t be surprised had flecks of actual gold inside. When his fingertips twitched, they brushed Egyptian cotton. The air was tempered; not too hot, not too cold. Orchids scented the air and, when he turned a stiff neck, he saw a slender pot in one corner of the massive room.

He took a moment to realize he was hearing music; he’d assumed the steady thump he’d been feeling had been his heart, but it was a bass line. It had to be loud if he was hearing it through the walls.

A headache pulsed sullenly in his head, but it felt more familiar than the room or the strange bed he lay in.

Maybe he’d had it for a while.

A fragment of memory; Cora’s body ricocheting backward, her mouth an ‘o’ of shock. Eyes drilling into him, demanding to know what she’d done to deserve his bullet.

Finn blinked, squeezing moisture from his eyes so it would stop stinging him.

Where in the name of fuck was he?

He pushed himself into a sit, wincing as that did something painful to one of his ribs. His breathing came with difficulty, and several stripes of pain lashed out across his body when he swung his legs over the side of the bed.

He wore bandages on each leg. More around his waist. Three on one arm, and one on the other. An IV drip speared into the crook of his elbow, although the pain of jerking it out was insignificant compared with the whole-body ache he had to contend with.

As if summoned by his waking, he heard a door open and turned to face it.

Fuck. He was hallucinating, wasn’t he? Or was this another of those crazy dreams he kept having?

Cora stood in the doorway, radiant as an angel.

The same Cora he knew and loved, but different. Her hair cropped just below her ears, sleek and shiny how it lay against her scalp. Her neck, now swan-like, curved delicately into narrow shoulders. She wore a strappy dress that came just above her knees, showing off a round scar that marred the skin just below the curve of her deltoid.

They stared at each other, Cora with a hopeful smile, him with what he assumed was resignation.

The dream was always the same. She came to him. Whispered loving words in his ear. And was torn away seconds later by soot covered hands.

Like always, he couldn’t look away. He was forced to watch her step tentatively closer.

He tentatively lifted his hand. Fingers touched uneven flesh on his jaw, his neck. He’d thought it was just his blurry vision, but now he knew he was covered in burn marks.

Confusion and wonderment warred in Cora’s golden eyes the closer she came.

And no wonder; he truly was a beast now.

“You’re awake.”

Her voice was as he remembered. Perhaps a little huskier, as if she was fighting back emotion.

It could only be disgust.

He turned away, pressing his eyes closed in an effort to make the nightmare end, to suffocate it with his despair.

When cool fingertips touched the back of his hand, Finn flinched. His eyes flew open, darting to Cora where she stood by his side.

“Lars wants to see you,” Cora murmured, tears brimming in her eyes. “Can I send for him?”

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Cora was meant to kiss him, whisper something sweet in his ear, give him hope before being torn away by an anonymous evil.

But the touch to his hand was real.

The love in her eyes was real.

She caressed the bridge of his nose with a fingertip, her eyes darting over his face. “You’re magnificent, you know that?”

“I shot you,” he murmured, voice hoarse from disuse.

“You saved me. You saved all of us.” She straightened, blinking hurriedly, and then turned away to wipe her face. “I’m fetching Lars.”

“No—” he tried to grab her wrist, but she was too nimble. Darting back, she gave him a girlish smile and hurried from the room, closing the door behind her.

He wore only loose boxers, which made it easy to tally up his wounds.

That fire had chewed him up and spat out what was left. It had ruined his body. He got his legs back up and just tugged a sheet over the lower half of his body before Lars barged through the door.

The man was at his side an instant later, crowding against Finn’s legs as he tried to find room to perch beside him.

“Je-sus!” Lars crooned, his eyes taking in Finn with a greedy sweep. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?”

Heat touched Finn’s face. He’d never in his life felt embarrassed by his appearance, but this wasn’t his body anymore. It was a desolate husk.

“My fuck, am I making you blush?” Lars asked, cocking his head to the side. His hair was shorter, too. It made him look younger where Cora’s shorter hair made her look older.

Lars ran a self-conscious hand over his head. “Yeah, thought it was about time I stopped looking like a hippy.” His green eyes glimmered with mischief as he reached over and tweaked Finn’s nipple. “Doc says you’ll be on solids later this week. Exciting stuff, right?” Lars leaned closer still, his mischievous expression filling Finn’s world. “Says you might even be able to get rid of your blue balls before the end of the month. Believe me, I’m counting the hours.”

Finn shifted, dropping his eyes. “Where are we?”

“You don’t recognize this place?” Lars sat back, frowning at Finn. “Should I get someone in here to check if you lost any ducks in the fire?”

“Lars—”

“Cora’s place. Swan Manor. Oh, right…” Lars pointed a finger at him. “You’d only ever been in her bedroom, not the master.”

He waved a hand at the vaulted ceiling. “This is daddy Swan’s. Or, was. It’s hers now. Ours, I guess.” Lars looked around, pouting a little. “Well, soon as you’re off the drip, anyway. We’ve all had to try and fit into Cora’s little bed. It lost its appeal pretty fucking quickly.”

“Zachary?” Finn asked through a cough.

Lars brought a glass of water closer, manouvering its straw between Finn’s lips.

“He reincarnated into a plate of crispy duck. Except, less edible.”

Finn sagged back against his pillows, letting out a long sigh.

“I know, right? Cockroaches and all that? But he’s definitely kicked the bucket. I saw what was left. It wasn’t pretty.”

“Island?”

“Aren’t we a chatty Cathy today?” Lars said, taking back the water glass and having a sip himself. “Luckily for us, Zachary had a spare phone. ‘Cos, the other one got fried, just like him.” Lars let out a short laugh and then sobered immediately. “Believe it or not, 911 can’t reliably trace satellite phones if they’re not actually in America. Go figure, right?” Lars shrugged, and began toying with the edge of one of Finn’s bandages.

“Luckily, Kane managed to convince the last guy Zachary phoned that he did in fact want a supply run. We were ready to overpower the fuckers when they landed, and made them take us all back to Mexico.”

Lars tapped Finn’s arm. “Fun fact: getting over the border is so much easier when you have a tunnel going under it.”

Finn laughed, but it came out more like a croak.

“Kane?”

Lars let out a long sigh. “There we got us a buy-one-get-one-free deal. Kinda cool, actually. See, Ana—real stand-up chick, that one—she managed to keep her cool until we got back to Z’s farm.”

He gave Finn a quick, interrogatory glance. “Z is for Zachary.”

Finn rolled his eyes.

“Just checking we’re still on the same page, big guy. No offense, but you took quite a pounding recently. And then there was that fire and everything.”

Lars’s wicked grin faded away, the man sobering as he carried on speaking.

“Kane was willing to take Neo off our hands. I had to convince Cora not to skin him though. She takes after you a little,” Lars said, giving him a playful tap on one pec. “Fiesty, violent little thing. Anyway, he said he would hand Neo over to the DEA’s office and, in trade, he’d say we all just disappeared into smoke.”

Lars let out a dry laugh. “You see what I did there?”

Finn smiled at him, and Lars pressed his hand against Finn’s cheek as he leaned in close. “None of us thought you were gonna make it. I’ll be the first to admit that I made a call to find out how much life insurance cover you had.”

Finn let out another croak as Lars patted his chest.

“Seriously, Milo, you gotta get some life insurance, okay? We would have had to borrow money from Cora to put you in the fucking ground.”

“I want to be cremated,” Finn said.

Lars stared at him.

They both burst out laughing, Finn cutting off a second later at the pain.