Isaac was making it a habit, ending up in the Registry medical center. He was no stranger to pain, and this wasn’t even the first time that he should have died, though this time, how he managed to survive was not a mystery.

In fact, it illuminated how he had survived the burnout, as well.

The answer, of course, rested within Tyloki. That isn’t to say that it was what the wolf expected, either. What happened took everyone by surprise. Tyloki was a very old wolf, and even he didn’t know something like this was actually possible. If Tyloki knew what was going to happen, he may not have allowed the burnout after all. Some things aren’t worth saving even hundreds of lives.

And though he didn’t know it at the time, Isaac would have agreed to do it without a second thought, even if he had known everything that was coming. For Isaac, everything started the day of the burnout, and all that followed was a direct result. The question that was on everyone’s mind, of course, was not ‘if’ but ‘why’.

Isaac had lived so long with his feeling of worthlessness, that he didn’t see his life as necessary. Even when he found the resolve to learn to fight, to work with Tyloki and try to save lives, it was simply to see if he could find a more noble way to die. If he could find a new purpose, then he wouldn’t feel so empty anymore.

Then he found himself face to face with such a death, lighter in hand, villain at his mercy, and he didn’t do it.

“Would you have done it?” Tyloki would later ask him.

And Isaac would truthfully respond, “I don’t know.”

And Tyloki knew it was the truth.

Why didn’t he do it? It was easy to say that he was too afraid, that at that moment, death proved to be too frightening for him to go through with it. But that wasn’t entirely accurate. He hadn’t hesitated to burnout at InCorp months before, he hadn’t wavered running back into a building that was about to be cleansed with plasma by an illegal artificial intelligence.

The other possibility was that Tyloki had intervened before he had a chance. But it wouldn’t have taken a moment to light the spark and end it. And Isaac had no way of knowing that Tyloki was going to intervene. The wolf hadn’t told him his plan, and Tyloki had insisted on numerous occasions that he had no intention of saving him, if the need arose. Tyloki acted out of anger at Dominic, not out of love for Isaac.

Isaac said he wanted to die, and it was the truth. But something altered that truth, in those dire moments, everything changed. It was the next step in the inevitable events that were unfolding. Events that were being watched and manipulated unbeknownst to Isaac and Tyloki. What would Isaac think of Alkaid if he knew about the cat’s conversation with Dominic and Chase mere hours before his showdown?

It was a conversation that proved to have a follow up the very next day.

“He nearly died.” Alkaid shook his head, arms crossed in judgment.

“But he didn’t die.” Chase replied smugly.

“Again. This is the second time he’s brushed this close to death. The second time you’ve watched, while it’s been happening.” Alkaid accused, sitting with his legs crossed, on Canaan’s desk, defiantly.

Canaan was out at the moment. Chase sat in the desk chair instead, staring at Alkaid’s back. “I think you’re overestimating my influence in this.”

“I think you’re deflecting.” Alkaid stared around the office, searching for something, but he didn’t know what.

“I promised that no harm would come to Sera, and that came true. As for Isaac, he needed to confront Dominic himself. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have ever been able to grow into the person he should be.” Chase shrugged.

“We don’t even know if he is going to wake up yet. It’ll be hard for him to grow if he’s a vegetable.” Alkaid spat.

“He’ll wake up. I’m sure you know, but we’re getting readings from Tyloki’s Aer frequency again. Isaac might have an angry wolf to answer to when he wakes, but he will wake.” The kangaroo assured.

“Tyloki’s Aer frequency. So his fire…” Alkaid worried for Isaac’s well being, but there wasn’t much he could do at the moment. “So was that what it was about? Tyloki getting his fire back?” He heard something land on the desk next to him, and he turned to see what it was.

Chase had pulled something out of the desk drawer and put it in front of Alkaid. He waited for the cat to pick it up.

It was a file folder, Alkaid was familiar with them. It wasn’t often that documents were handled physically and not digitally, but when they were, they were kept in such folders. He picked it up and glanced at the label on the tab.

Isaac Edgar Walker Cross

He flipped it open to take a look at what was inside. A bio page, complete with a current photograph, listed his basic details. Date of birth, location of birth, blood type, ethnicity, eye color, hair color, height, weight.

“What is this? His Registry file? This is why we keep tabs on all the Collars. So you have an up to date index of their hair colors.” Alkaid stared at the page as he spoke. It had a photo of Isaac that showed him from sometime in the past few months. Knowing what he knew now about Isaac’s mental state, he saw a subtle sullenness in his eyes that he had never noticed before. He felt a brief flash of anger for Tyloki, who had known all along, and never told anyone.

“That’s why Isaac had to confront Dominic.” Chase said, dropping another folder on the desk.

“I don’t understand.” Alkaid said, noticing that the other folder was Dominic’s. The inside was similar to Isaac’s, but with Dom’s pertinent details.

“I wish I could explain it better, but all I know is that they are both important. Because they are both important, and they were heading for a confrontation, I had to let them meet, and see what would happen. To see if I can figure out why they’re important.” Chase explained, though Alkaid didn’t feel it was a very good ‘explanation’.

“I wish you could explain better, too. Because that’s nonsense.” Alkaid put the folder on the desk and stood up. “If I find out you’re intentionally putting Isaac into danger again…”

Chase laughed heartily, filling the marble chamber with echoes. “Alright.” He looked down at the floor and stopped laughing. “First Riley, now you. Listen, you need to let what is going to happen happen.”

“I care about him. He…” Alkaid bit his tongue, shook his head, and took a step forward, towards the door. “What is going to happen? What’s supposed to happen? The future isn’t decided yet. It’s decided every day, with the choices we make.”

“You’re right. The future isn’t decided. I’m not working from prophecy here. This isn’t about knowing what’s going to happen. I don’t have a clue.” Chase put the folders back in the desk drawer.

“So what are you angling for?” Alkaid asked, hopeful he might get a straight answer.

“I want to keep this world safe.” Chase answered, and he vanished.

Alkaid sighed, alone now in Canaan’s office. He would like to root around for awhile, see if he could find anything interesting, but right on cue, the door opened. Canaan’s receptionist, Leia, was standing in the threshold, silently waiting with a smile on her face. It was time for Alkaid to leave. Reluctantly, he tore himself away from the task at hand and went to find something else to distract him.

[Alkaid, the doctors figured something out. There’s something we’ll need to explain to Isaac and Tyloki when they wake up.]

What is it, Archer?

[It’s hard to explain. I want everyone to meet in the briefing room so we can go over it together.]

And so Alkaid at least had something to distract him.

Isaac had no clue about the conversations that took place about him. He didn’t know his importance, at the time. Riley had been sent to become his friend, and Alkaid had been limited from helping him in a time of need. Neither of them knew why. It was best that Isaac didn’t know, because in the last moment, before he lit the fire, he hesitated.

That hesitation was not inevitable, and everything that followed could have turned out much differently. But Isaac chose not to die, and Tyloki had his chance to take out his aggression on Dominic.

Dominic had been fostering his anger for years, convincing himself that it was Tyloki’s fault that his family was gone. He never understood that the world was a cruel place, and it wasn’t anyone’s fault, it was just circumstance. Over time, his anger even managed to take over Basel, and the ferret loved Dominic, so they were angry together.

But even when Isaac arrived at the Registry, Dominic was friendly. He showed no signs of his deep seated resentment. It wasn’t until Isaac changed his tack, started trying to become something better, that Dominic felt like he needed to prove his worth. If he had known Tyloki’s true feelings for Isaac, maybe he wouldn’t have been so angry, after all. But he didn’t know, and to him, it appeared as if he had graced Isaac with a blessing that had been denied to him.

And when Isaac burned out in the InCorp building, saving so many people, and became a celebrity, Dominic only got angrier. He didn’t know at the time what he was going to do, but when he learned that Isaac did it to save his family, a plan started to form. Tyloki let Isaac burn out to save his family, after letting Dominic lose his own. So he knew he had to take Isaac’s family to make it right. It was simple enough to find Sera, and he learned her routines. He followed the two of them for months, gathering the information and planning what exactly he was going to do.

Eventually, the perfect opportunity presented itself, when he met Sera on an elevator at the Registry. It wasn’t an accident, of course Dominic knew she would be there, and he was finally able to introduce herself. It was a stroke of luck that Sera had a thing for Indicia, so tricking her into going on a double date with him and Basel was simple. All he had to do was act like a gentleman and insinuate that she might get some private time with the ferret. Then she came to him.

What he hadn’t counted on was Isaac’s suicidal tendencies. The dumb bastard nearly blew up the station platform, taking them both down. Dominic’s opinion, and he couldn’t prove it, was that in his moment of death, Isaac wouldn’t be able to hold the shield, and that Sera would have died with them. But that was the gamble, and if Isaac was willing to take it, what Dominic thought wouldn’t have mattered.

In the end, the coward had distracted him long enough to let Tyloki sneak up on him. The biggest problem with being snuck up on by Tyloki, or anyone, was that Basel should have had his back. If the ferret had warned him about Tyloki’s assault, Dominic was sure he wouldn’t have lost the fight.

The ferret had gone silent since the incident, refused to respond to Dominic’s thoughts. Dominic wasn’t aware of the guilt that Basel felt for betraying him, so he directed as much malice as he could towards the ferret.

The other item of note from Tyloki’s assault was the wolf’s seeming inability to remain corporeal. It would appear to have been related to Isaac’s weakened state, but Dominic knew enough about dying Collars to know that it shouldn’t have made Tyloki have trouble materializing. It was simply there one moment, gone the next, when the Collar finally died. When Tyloki came to confront Dominic in his hospital bed, he showed the same difficulties. The wolf just couldn’t stay solid.

He had even said, “That runt is taking me with him.” Dominic only had a few minutes to consider what that might have meant, and at the time, his head was dull from pain meds. He taunted Tyloki, still refusing to back down, and moments before Isaac finally died, Tyloki found his fire.

And his fire he used. Dominic didn’t remember much of it, mercifully, but he did experience what came when he finally awoke. His body was burnt and ruined, but he wasn’t dead. The improved healing that came along with being a Collar could only do so much. They kept him sedated, as much to help ease the pain as to keep his magic suppressed, he was sure. His connection to Basel was temporarily severed, as long as he was so weak. That was if the ferret would ever speak to him again, at all. His head should have been silent, but he could still hear himself screaming as Tyloki burned him.

But Tyloki only had the chance to find his fire again because Isaac didn’t light his own. He hesitated. Before Isaac had gone through the hallway to confront Dominic, he had been with his friends. They had seen him off, they were there with him, as he tried to save Sera. Unlike the burnout, this time, Isaac wasn’t alone. He had always been alone.

After Edgar Walker died, Isaac shut himself away, thinking his life was over. He could live in quiet peace, until his days were done. His choice to join with Tyloki changed that, a choice he made because he wasn’t actually alone. He had his family to protect. And when it came to confronting Dominic, he was still fighting to protect them. But this time, he had allies on his side that could help him.

If Isaac had gone to that station platform alone, he would have lit the fire without hesitation. It was his friends that made him hesitate. He didn’t know that Riley, and by extension, Rain, Archer, and Alkaid, had been assigned to him by Chase and Canaan. It was planned that they would be friends, because Canaan wanted to keep an eye on Isaac. It didn’t matter, because regardless of the reasons why they became friends, they were friends in truth. Isaac didn’t know about the feelings that his friends held for him. He didn’t know what hid behind the unspoken intimacy he’d shared with Alkaid. He wasn’t aware of the reasons for Rain’s infatuation with him. But he knew they were his friends.

Isaac felt guilty, when he explained his desire to die as a martyr. He knew his friends could hear him, and it would change what they thought of him, what they had as their last memory of him. It was almost enough to ruin the legacy he hoped to leave.

The last thing Riley would have wanted Isaac to feel was guilty. He was sad to hear of Isaac’s true feelings, but he knew in an instant that if Isaac survived, he would do anything he could to fix it. Those feelings weren’t just his, either. Archer and Miria were in on it, too. They had all been his friends for months, and none of them knew how damaged he truly was. So they would all have to fix it together.

“Canaan wants me to go on a job out of the city. I’d be going with Darius, from I.A. You know, Everett’s guy.” Riley explained to Archer and Miria. “But I turned him down. I want to be here, for when Isaac wakes up.”

“Are you sure that’s okay?” Miria asked, “We’ll be here when he wakes up. I’m sure he’ll understand.”

“I’d rather stay.” Riley insisted, and Miria nodded.

“He told me that he didn’t want to die.” Miria blurted out, and her eyes filled with tears again. “Before they took him to surgery.”

Riley and Archer nodded. “So he changed his mind.” Archer said with a shrug. “That’s good, right?”

“I guess so.” Miria whispered.

Riley knew how Isaac felt about Miria, but Miria had never been willing to return his affections. She was too afraid to get close to someone who might die so suddenly. So they stayed friends. It was for the best, Isaac needed time to get used to being a Collar.

“We just need to be there for him.” Riley said with a helpless sigh.

“What happened, anyway? His infection was spreading. Collars are relatively immune to sickness and Aer infections.” Archer turned to Miria for answers.

She sniffed and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “I don’t know for sure. My only guess is that the healing capacity of a Collar is based on their bond with their Indicia. Tyloki hadn’t had an Aer signature in months. Maybe he just got so weak that Isaac wasn’t benefiting at all.”

“It’s hard to believe Tyloki could get that weak.” Archer had known Tyloki for nearly as long as he had known Alkaid. He knew what he was talking about when it came to the wolf.

“But that changed. Tyloki spit-roasted Dominic,” Riley paused for a second to allow that to sink in, “and he got his fire back. That’s when Isaac started to respond to the treatment, and they were able to pull him back. So I guess we have Tyloki to thank for saving Isaac.”

“We also have Tyloki to blame for putting him in that situation in the first place. Tyloki has known since day one that Isaac was trying to find a way to die. If he had told us before…” Miria trailed off.

Archer shook his head. “It’s not an Indicia’s job to go rooting around in their Collar’s head to share with the world. If I could read your thoughts, I’m sure you wouldn’t want me telling anyone else what they were.”

Miria shook her head, but didn’t say anything else.

“Riley, are you sure you shouldn’t go on the job that Canaan has for you? It’ll be hard for the two of us to take jobs here without Dominic or Isaac around. We’re going to have to find some fresh blood soon.” Archer changed the topic, thinking there was nothing left to be said about Isaac.

“I don’t want Isaac to wake up and find out that I’ve left him alone.” Riley took a moment to realize what it sounded like he was saying, and he stammered, “Not that you wouldn’t be here. But I just want to see him when he wakes up. I feel like it would be wrong to miss it.”

Archer nodded. “Alright, so we just wait.”

There was a knock at the door, and the three welcomed in the doctor who had come to fill them in about Isaac situation. Archer asked to wait while Alkaid made his way down. Once the cat had arrived, the doctor started. He explained to them that Isaac was stable, and that the infection was under control again. In other good news, Tyloki was giving off an Aer signature again, though the doctor did express concern that the two did not have a synchronized frequency.

Then the doctor explained how Isaac had managed to survive, both his wounds and the burnout. At first, he was met with disbelief. It was thought that Indicia and Collar relationships were almost fully understood, but here was something new. Something unexpected. And at the end, as the doctor left, the four sat, wondering how they were going to explain it to Isaac.

Isaac had changed his mind, decided he wanted to live, even in what he thought were his last few moments. This decision was a part of what had saved his life. Having the will to do something was an important aspect of gaining strength as a Collar. He wanted to live because of his friends. He didn’t have a purpose for living, but he couldn’t just leave them. In the last moment, before it went black, he knew that he wouldn’t be happy until he got Miria to be by his side.

The person who was currently by his side, unbeknownst to him, was his sister. She sat by his bed, holding his hand, also not sure what to say or do. In the moments when she wasn’t with Isaac, she was with Rufus. At first, he was reluctant to talk to her. He had left the family when they were young, even though he had only become a Collar to try and help the family out. Sera and Isaac believed that he had abandoned them.

But after all that had happened, Sera understood how wrong she was. She wanted to fix the family, to save Isaac. And she needed to get Rufus in on it if she was going to do it. She barely left the hospital, though she refused to admit it was because she was afraid to be alone. Around every corner, she knew that Dominic was waiting to snatch her again. Even when she went to see him, looked at him, burned and broken, through a window, she still couldn’t believe he wouldn’t come for her again.

So staying with Rufus and Isaac gave her a safe, comfortable place to hide. She waited, and when Rufus woke, she tried to talk to him. It was awkward, and strained, and at first, it went nowhere. Even after she apologized to Rufus, he was still guarded. He had wanted to reconnect for years, but it was harder than he thought it would be to accept her apology. Most times, they just sat quietly together, getting used to sharing the same room. Sera knew it would be worth it, in the end. She would bring Isaac and Rufus home, and the family would be whole again.

Isaac’s friends visited often, as well, and they were good company, even if they were as worried as she was that he wouldn’t wake up. They would come in, and hold his hand, and they would wait together. Eventually, they would leave, and she was alone again. Just outside the door, she knew Dominic was waiting for her. Sometimes it scared her so much she cried, but only when she was alone.

It was several days after the incident that Miria knocked on the door and asked for a moment alone with Isaac. Sera nodded and took a seat in the hallway, making sure there were nurses nearby before doing so. Miria went into the room and stood just inside the door, watching Isaac’s chest move as he breathed silently.

A machine that she was familiar with beeped on a regular interval. This was a common set up, something she was used to. But it felt foreign. And she knew that the reason it felt wrong was because it was Isaac in the bed. She had tried to keep herself at a distance from him, she didn’t want to feel anything for him. Not only were Collar relationships messy, they were bonded to another entire being, but they were volatile, and Isaac was particularly damaged goods. So she should have had no trouble staying well away.

But she broke down. When Isaac told her that he wanted to live, she shattered. She thought about what would happen if he died. How she would feel. She had started spending time with him because she liked him, but she always thought it was just as friends. That wasn’t the case.

She walked over to the side of the bed, and she looked out into the hallway. Sera was respecting her privacy, not spying on her through the window. Miria grabbed Isaac’s hand, felt how much rougher it was than when she had first met him. He was different now. She could see scars on his body that weren’t there before. Isaac wanted to die for the longest time, but he never took the easy way out. He was strong, even if he didn’t realize it.

A soft green glow pulsed in the veins of his right shoulder, the remnants of the infection he’d gotten at InCorp so many months ago. Isaac had had so many chances to give up and die, but he didn’t take them. He wanted to find something worth dying for. Well, that was bullshit.

Miria would give him something worth living for.

Grabbing a notepad from a nearby shelf, she scribbled a quick note to leave, in case he woke up when she wasn’t there.

I told you not to end up in the hospital again. You need to cool it with the heroics, daredevil. Call me sometime, when you want to do something a little less dangerous.

Isaac already had her LINK ID, but she wrote it again, so he would get the point. She slipped the note onto the bedside table, and grabbed his hand again. Checking to make sure Sera wasn’t watching again, and she wasn’t, Miria leaned down and gave Isaac a quick kiss on his lips. It felt strange, but it was what she wanted to do. The quick kiss didn’t prove to be enough, so she leaned down and pressed her lips against his for a long time, hoping that maybe true love’s kiss would wake him up.

It didn’t. She took a deep breath and stood back. Sera wouldn’t mind if she sat for awhile. She waved for Sera to come back into the room, and without a word, they sat by Isaac’s side. Sera looked shattered, though if what Isaac had said about their childhood was true, then it probably wasn’t just getting kidnapped that had hurt her. She was afraid to lose Isaac.

But Miria also saw the way that Sera kept alert, always looking around, making sure no one was sneaking up on her. After sitting quietly for awhile, Miria offered, “Do you want to go learn how to shoot a gun sometime?”

Sera looked up at Miria, and then slowly her lips spread into a weak smile. “Yeah, I’d like that a lot.” Then after a pause, Sera opened up. “I just want to get Isaac away from all of this, you know?”

Miria nodded. “I get it. The only reason I became a doctor was to try and make sure that Collars didn’t have to die. I want to get Isaac away from it all, too.”

“You care about him.” Sera whispered.

“Yeah.” Miria admitted. “More than I should.”

Sera giggled, and Miria joined her in their small laughter.

“There’s something I need to tell you about Isaac, though. And about Tyloki.” Miria said when the giggling finally stopped.

The tone of the conversation changed, the lightness of the laughter was gone.

“What is it?” Sera leaned forward, eager to learn.

“The doctors are still looking into it, but you remember when Isaac lit up the InCorp building like a bonfire? That was a Burnout.” Miria explained.

“Yeah, I know them. They’re in the trashy Collar romance novels I like to read.” Sera nodded for Miria to go on.

“So you know that Burnouts are usually fatal. It normally takes the life of both the Collar and the Indicia. In return, they get the power to pull off a miracle. But Isaac didn’t die, and neither did Tyloki. We didn’t know why. We thought it was just a fluke.” Miria took a deep breath before continuing. “I know you want to get Isaac away. Keep him safe. But something happened with the Burnout.”

“What do you mean?” Sera bit her lip nervously.

“Normally, an Indicia and a Collar can die independently. It usually leaves the survivor scarred, but they’re alive. But ever since the Burnout, Isaac and Tyloki’s vitals have been...intertwined. For some reason, instead of registering opposite waves of Aer, they’re right on top of each other. We don’t know how or why it happened. And we’ve never seen anything like it before.” Miria stopped and thought about the best way to explain it.

“There’s a lot of complicated science to it that even I don’t understand. But put simply, Isaac and Tyloki are more than just two separate beings now. They live together, and we believe, they die together.”

Sera looked down at her brother. She had nothing to say, so she didn’t speak. Isaac had changed since he’d bonded with Tyloki, but that much was expected. Indicia changed people. But the thought that Isaac wouldn’t be Isaac anymore, that was different. Tyloki was a part of Isaac, maybe an inseparable one.

Isaac had stumbled upon the death he had been waiting years for. He had everything he wanted, which wasn’t much. A death that meant something. And he let it go.

“Would you have done it?” Tyloki would later ask him.

And Isaac would truthfully respond, “I don’t know.”

Tyloki knew the truth of every thought that passed Isaac’s mind. Anywhere inside, if Isaac was sure of something, Tyloki would know. Tyloki could only be unaware if Isaac had not yet known. The boy had finally stepped out of the shadow of his father’s abuse. The reason that Isaac did not give his life that day was that he realized that his life could be more than he had ever believed before.

Isaac may not have been chosen to lead an easy life. And even if he was no longer shackled by the scars left by his father’s abuse, he was still chained to Tyloki, who was possibly a greater danger than Edgar Cross had ever been.

They would sit across from each other in the darkness. Isaac would see the flames burning in Tyloki’s eyes. He would feel the heat radiating from the wolf’s body.

“I guess we’ll find out when the time comes.” Isaac would whisper.

But that conversation had not yet come to pass. It would be some time before it did. For now, Isaac was lost inside his head.

The decision that he wanted to live brought about a change inside of him. A new feeling that was unfamiliar, something that he would have to overcome. Something he didn’t know how to deal with. Tyloki could feel it too, and Isaac knew it would garner him no sympathy.

Isaac was afraid, for the first time, that he could die before it was the right time. But to strive for something meant risking failure. He couldn’t use suicidal tactics anymore. He would have to learn how to fight without putting himself at such great risk.

Isaac was a fighter. If he decided he wanted to live, then he would live. That was a guarantee. He would wake up. The question now was, which direction would he go when he did?