Chapter Text
Three makes sure to be at breakfast so it can tell everyone what it’s decided in the morning. It holds the piece of paper with its command words in its pocket. It is terrified of being told no. Jimmy has said yes already, but Martyn has not, and while Martyn may not technically be Three’s current handler, and while Three thinks it should leave whether he wants it to or not, it hasn’t had to stand up against a past handler before, either.
“I want to leave,” it says, because anything else makes it too complicated.
“We don’t have another safe house lined up yet,” Martyn says. “I can work on doing that, we had gotten a good list of servers—”
“I want to leave on my own,” it clarifies.
Everyone is quiet while they process this, except perhaps for Jimmy, who had already known, and who had already processed it. Three does not look away, because Three does not naturally look away from people, even when it is not sure what it will do when they inevitably tell it that it can’t.
“You can’t,” Pearl says, as Three thought she would. “We just reunited, you can’t—you can’t just leave! It’s—we can stay somewhere else. I guess seeing something this unfinished, I just—it was left to me in his will because I was also a part of the Empire, and I never felt like I could change anything, but now that you’re here we can—we could finish everything, fill the interiors—” Pearl starts saying.
“Hey, wait, if Three wants to leave here, we can leave,” Martyn says. “We don’t have to stick to Evo. I mean, uh. Honestly sorta concerned about you still living in here too, it’s—it can’t be healthy. We can go somewhere else. I don’t have somewhere lined up, but one of the places we were looking before is probably fine. Or, I’m sure you have some places. I think you mentioned anarchy? Jimmy wouldn’t do well on an anarchy server, of course, but…”
“No,” Three says.
“Hey, man, they’re just worried about you,” BigB says, looking at Three sideways. “Have you ever lived on your own before?”
“I am designed to be able to sustain solo missions until check-in with a handler. I will be fine,” Three says.
“Until check-in with—I won’t be here to check in with,” Martyn says.
“I will be fine,” Three says.
Pearl slams her hands against the table and stands up. “No. No! We just watched Watchers attack you! I’m not—the Watchers aren’t allowed to kill you a second time! I won’t allow it! I won’t allow it! You aren’t allowed to go off on your own and get killed! I can’t—I can’t mourn you again. I can’t. I can’t, even if you say—you say you won’t remember but what if you do?”
Three watches everyone. Its heart pounds. It has to say, it does not like making people upset with it, even if it thinks it has to. It makes its head spin. It makes it want to apologize. It should apologize. It should explain to its handler that it will follow the order and stay. It should put the phone with Mumbo’s number in its handler’s hands and tell him that it has been communicating with someone attempting to suborn it against its handler without proper code words.
It does none of these things. It stands there, feathers occasionally flaring.
“I have retrieved my own code words,” Three says.
“Wait, really?” Martyn says.
“I have made multiple copies,” Three says. Its feathers are visibly flared outwards, making itself as large and unsettling as possible. It is trained to smooth them down when unsettled, but it finds it hard to do right now. Its heart is racing. “You will not be able to take them from me.”
“Three,” Martyn says.
“Because I have my own code words, I—I do not know what happens. I read them out loud, before we started talking, and I did not feel anything at all,” Three says. “But I think that makes me my own handler.”
“Three,” Martyn says again. “Shit. Fuck. You shouldn’t have to—”
Three’s feathers cannot flare much further out, but they make the attempt.
“Three didn’t have those?” Jimmy says.
“I forgot! I forgot! Look, you know what it was like when we first got it,” Martyn says.
“And it had to steal them as a result?” Jimmy says. “Martyn!”
“I didn’t mean—you could have asked,” Martyn says. “Fuck, Three, I wasn’t trying to—I don’t know, I wasn’t trying to do whatever this is. I didn’t think to. I forgot you would need them. Honest. It’s like I told you last night. I’d destroy them if you needed me to.”
Three thinks for a minute. “You’re both calling me Three.”
“Yeah, you asked us to, didn't you?” Martyn says.
Three considers that. It’s not enough to make it stay, not now, not after everything. It’s enough to make it think, though. It’s enough to make its feathers smooth down some. It’s enough to soften the blow of stealing the code words.
“Okay,” Three says.
“I don’t really understand, but is it, uh, exactly safe for Three to have its own code words? Like, I know it was once Grian and all that, but it’s also dangerous, you know. We just watched what happens when it goes rogue. Are you sure you want that?” BigB asks.
“Hey, Three’s its own person. That’s what we’ve been trying to get it to figure out this whole time. You don’t get to just decide it isn’t because you think it’s dangerous,” Martyn says. He pauses and squints at Three. “You know—you know even if I fucked that up, you are a person, right?”
Three takes a deep breath.
“I know. That is why I am leaving.”
It tries very hard to keep its feathers smooth when Martyn looks back with a heartbroken expression. It hopes Martyn isn’t mad. It’s not sure it can stand it if someone tries to forbid it from leaving on its own again. It probably wouldn’t leave then. It would stay here, and…
“If I stay here, you will try to make me Grian, instead of my own person. Maybe I am Grian; I do not know. I do not think so. I probably have some of a Grian personality, although I do not know what. You said that Grian’s favorite color was red. My favorite color is also red, so maybe that is because I was once Grian. But I have been trying to figure out how and why to count sheep, and I have seen no proof Grian would do that. I want to build interiors, and knit, and I also like fighting. I like explosions and pranks, although only explosions for warfare or that won’t make anyone upset. I don’t like it when people are mad at me. I hate ugly things. These are all things that I am. But they are not all things Grian was.
“I will not get back memories that are no longer there. So I do not want to stay here and—I want to be a person. I want to be a person who is Three. I don’t know who a person who is Three is. I am grateful, because you all showed me I had that choice, but now if I stay here, I think I will not learn who a person who is Three is. I will learn who a person who is Grian is, and that’s not—that’s not—I need to leave.”
Everyone stares at Three. It doesn’t know if it’s explained well enough. It doesn’t have much practice explaining itself. It’s not been expected to all that often, because it hadn’t been designed with emotions, or free will, or any of the things it has learned to have since it’s been stolen. Mostly, it sits there, looking at the great grey pillars around it so that it does not have to look directly at the people who want a Grian who is not there, who are its friends, who need something Three is not. This does not succeed, because it is a Watcher, so even if it points its eyes away from the table, it still Sees everyone around it.
“You know,” Martyn says. “You know. That’s the most defiant you’ve been since we found you. Proud of you, really. Hurts, but… fuck.”
Three focuses on Martyn again.
“Yeah, true,” Jimmy says. “Or, the most openly defiant? It’s always been cheeky.”
“Right? It’s just—huh. You’ve said no. Really, truly, firmly said no.”
“That’s new?” Pearl says.
“Oh yeah, it’s new,” Martyn says.
“Didn’t even like telling me no much,” BigB says.
“Oh. That’s not what I’d expect from Grian,” Pearl says.
“It’s not Grian, it’s Three, isn’t it?” Jimmy says, like that answers the question. Since no one argues, it must. Three tries to settle. It has established why it doesn’t need permission. It has stolen its own code words, and it has established it can say no now. It wants permission anyway. It does not like upsetting people, and it really, really doesn’t like upsetting people it cares about. Even if it can avoid these people having power over it now, it doesn’t want to make them mad.
Finally, Martyn sighs.
“Fine,” he says. “We really have just been…”
Pearl looks away. “It told me it didn’t remember from the photo album. It could, though. That might not be dead.”
“Do the memories really make Three Grian, or Grian Three?” Martyn says. “I don’t know. I didn’t ever really get philosophy. Probably why the Listeners have me stealing stuff and stabbing people instead of anything intellectual.”
“You’re also more expendable,” mutters Jimmy.
“Geez, thanks, Jim,” Martyn says.
“You know it’s true,” Jimmy says.
“Yeah, I do.”
“Cheery,” BigB says.
“My point is. Gods. We really have just been sitting here since we found out and expecting Three to be… different,” Martyn says. “Doesn’t make sense to… I’d be pissed too.”
“I’m not angry,” Three says.
“Yeah, you are,” Martyn says.
“I’m not. I am leaving but I am not angry. I am sad, but I am not angry,” Three tries to explain.
“Fine,” Martyn says, not sounding like he believes Three.
“But it is,” Pearl says. “It should get to know what it’s like being—even if it’ll never remember, it should get the chance to be our friend again.”
Three tilts its head. “I have already had the chance to be friends with Martyn and Jimmy. I can try to be friends with you all, but not from here, because you will try to convince me I am Grian. I do not want to be Grian. I want to be—”
“Okay, okay,” Pearl says.
“I—I am sorry. It is an inefficiency, to be unable to follow that command,” Three says.
“Don’t be,” Pearl says. “I’m being—I’m just doing the same thing I was doing to Jimmy again, aren’t I?”
“Our eggs are cold,” BigB says. “Just thought I’d point that out.”
“I can go make more eggs,” Martyn says.
“Yeah, yeah, let’s—I’ll help you,” BigB says. “We’ll make more eggs.”
“I feel like the world’s just shattered and here we are with cold eggs,” Pearl says.
“Nothing new’s shattered. We’ve already been like this,” Jimmy says. “We’ve been like this. Don’t—I’ve been like this too. All of us have—all just jagged pieces and nothing else. That’s us.”
No one seems to have anything to say to that. Instead, they get more eggs, and they eat breakfast in silence. Three keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop. It waits for someone to forbid it from leaving, It waits for someone to try to insist it’s Grian again. No one does. It eats its eggs. It realizes it is over, and that is that.
It had expected more of a fight. If it had been the Watchers, it would have been more of a fight. Even the Listeners would have given more of a fight.
Then again, Three would not have tried to tell them no, or explain why it said no, or anything else. Its eggs taste like rubber in its mouth as it wonders if, all along, it would have been different had it said no. Maybe it would have changed something. It probably would have changed nothing at all. Watchers don’t give choices, and Listeners only pretend to give choices, and Three only knows how to say no now because people kept on saying it could. Because these people kept on saying it could. It has been told it can enough now that it even knows it does not like saying no.
Grian apparently said no all the time. Grian said no when he saved Jimmy’s life and died. Three does not want to die, and Three does not want to be Grian.
Surely, it wouldn’t have all changed if Three had just still been able to say no.
It doesn’t matter. It’s changed this time. It’s leaving.
Packing this time is a strange affair. Three can pack whatever it wants. It would probably be rude to join a friend’s server with a hidden weapon smuggled across server borders, but Three does it anyway, finding a diamond short sword so short it’s more a dagger than a sword and placing it in its belt. It will take that in case Mumbo’s friends are actually dangerous, so it can fight its way back out with Mumbo, and perhaps bring him back here. It will not let anyone tell it that they told it so, because Martyn and Jimmy are just as bad if not worse when it comes to judging if things are safe.
When it comes back outside, it can see that Jimmy has also packed. Martyn is staring at Jimmy.
“You had someone else all along? And you were just… still here?” Martyn says hoarsely.
“I didn’t want to leave you alone. I know you would have told me—I mean, it’s fine,” Jimmy says.
“Gods, Jimmy. I’ve fucked you up. And to think, this all started because I didn’t want to leave you alone either,” Martyn says.
“I fucked myself up pretty good as well,” Jimmy says.
“Look at you. You’re even swearing.”
“Hah.”
“I guess this is it, then,” Martyn says.
“We’ll always be the Property Police, but I—I can’t. Not here. Not like this. And I want to keep you safe, but—”
“Just give me Netty’s number?” Martyn asks.
“You won’t call it,” Jimmy says.
“Maybe one day I’ll get the nerve back.”
“You really should. She’s worried.”
“After all this time? About this asshole?” Martyn snorts. “You really should have gotten out sooner. What changed?”
“I realized—I realized that Grian’s—it’s closure, Martyn. I know now. I never could have done anything. Just… just have to convince myself, first. He’s dead and I never could have done anything and they were always going to take him, one way or another. Now I’ve just gotta find a way to… I don’t know. Figure out what to do after that. Somewhere where I’m not afraid all the time? So. X Life.”
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“It won’t be hard.”
“Jimmy, I—I love you.”
“Stay in contact, yeah?”
“Yeah. Just call me, you know I forget.”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, shit, Three,” Martyn says, “how much of that did you hear?”
“I do not technically hear conversation. I read lips.”
Jimmy, inexplicably, starts laughing. Martyn and Three both look over at him, baffled. “Sorry, sorry, that’s—that’s just one of the first things I mentioned to you about Three. Watchers technically can’t hear so much as read lips. Said it like an insult at the time. I don’t—I don’t know why I remember that.”
“Okay, sure,” Martyn says.
“I’m just—we’re all splitting up here, huh? All three of us.”
“It’s for the best,” Martyn says.
“Yeah, it is,” Jimmy says.
“I’ll still—”
“I have a phone number now,” Three says. “I will give it to you all. I do not think we can talk about the same things as I do with Mumbo, and I do not know how often we will talk, but I will answer, if you contact me. I’ll come help you, if you need it. I have realized I am good at texting, but I am also still good at fighting.”
Three trades phones with Jimmy. It looks down. In the call history is a litany of names. It realizes that Jimmy must have called everyone even after the argument about it. Some of them have called back. Some of them have not. Taurtis’s number is still disconnected. It’s an awful lot for Jimmy to take on, but Three will do the one thing it can, and give a number that will always answer back when Jimmy calls. That is the most that Three can do.
“You’re staying with Mumbo?” Jimmy asks.
“Yes,” Three says.
“You trust him, if someone comes for you—”
“Yes,” Three says.
“Okay,” Jimmy says. “Okay. This really is just it then. I don’t—gosh, I wouldn’t try to keep you anyway. It’s just funny. You’re still—I can’t live in the same place as you. Not until I have my head back on again. But still, the idea of you leaving…”
“I will also miss you,” Three says.
Jimmy laughs. “I don’t know about that.”
“I will,” Three says.
“Yeah, don’t say that Jimmy,” Martyn says. “Only one of us is the one who’s hard to like. You’ve just got, uh, an albatross around your neck?”
“Did you just try to make a pun about Three?” Jimmy says.
“What, it’s not like it’s not fitting!” Martyn says. “Don’t look at me like that! It was right there! It was easy!”
“I love you. I’ll miss you, you, you jerk,” Jimmy says.
Martyn and Jimmy hug, tightly. Then, to Three’s surprise, Jimmy moves to offer Three a hug. Three does not know what hugs are like, and decides to try it. It’s mostly, as it turns out, tight, and sort of warm, and very strange. Three does not move for the entire ritual. It is not sure it is up for doing that again any time soon, but it did not dislike it.
Jimmy looks at Three, and something in its feathers makes him laugh, this time a little sadder.
“You know, I—I wonder. You know, I actually didn’t get along with Grian that well. Then he died for me. And I—you know, I don’t know how to explain it. I’m about to sound really silly, but I’m actually a genius, so you can’t laugh.”
“Okay,” Three says, because it is not particularly attached to laughing.
“No promises,” Martyn says.
“It’s just—I don’t know. We’re not going to fix this. We’re not. We’re all leaving. And they say that some Listeners, they can hear the echoes of other worlds, and… is there anywhere we fix this? Is there a world where we’re friends without baggage? Where—I don’t know. I didn’t go to the dragon fight. Everything didn’t break. I want to think somewhere we’re—we’re free of all this but I, I don’t… I don’t… There’s no fixing it, is there? Not in this universe?”
“Jimmy,” Martyn says.
“Don’t answer unless you’re being honest,” Jimmy says.
Three thinks very hard. “Some handlers called conditioning breaking me in. I think that it was the kind of breaking that destroyed some of the pieces. I’m making new ones, though.”
“Okay,” Jimmy says. “Yeah. The worst part is now I think about a world where none of this happened, and I’m just…”
“It’s okay,” Martyn says. “Me too.”
“We should act happier. We’re just… all going on to fun new things, is all,” Jimmy complains.
“You’re the one making it morose,” Martyn says.
“Yeah, well, well… you’re morose!”
“Wow. What a fantastic comeback, Jimmy. I’m trembling.”
“Shut up!”
They continue on like that. For a moment, it feels almost like what Three imagines it would have felt like if Martyn had brought it home to a house where Martyn didn’t kill people for the Listeners and Jimmy didn’t constantly stumble under the memories of the very thing that made Three exist. Three doesn’t feel like a weapon, and doesn’t feel like Grian, and doesn’t feel like anything other than itself, and it’s good.
Three wonders if what it’s feeling right now is exactly what it feels like to be a person.
They go to Evo’s spawn. They pass through a city of buildings that Three now knows Grian helped build, and past the remnants of things it only recognizes from the photo book. They walk along the railroad tracks, and they get close enough to spawn that they will not need Martyn’s amulet, because they are all going separate ways. Three trades numbers with BigB and Pearl. It is not sure how much it will use those, in comparison to Jimmy or Martyn, but it does not mind having them, just in case.
They all stand around Evo’s spawn together in a circle.
“I’m setting up a reunion,” Pearl says.
“A reunion?” Martyn asks.
“To make up for the favor you all owe me now, you’ll show up. Everyone from Evo will. I don’t know what we’ll do. It won’t be in September. We’ll talk. We’ll just… talk.”
“I was not in Evo,” Three says.
“You’re showing up too. It’s rude to talk about people who aren’t there, so you’ll show up too.”
“Okay,” Three says.
“And—and you’ll tell me if you remember being Grian?” Pearl asks.
“I will not,” Three says, because it knows how memory works. If it could remember the things wiped from its mind, it wouldn’t be worth wiping it in the first place. The memories are gone.
“I know, just—just give me time,” Pearl says.
“Okay,” Three says.
“If I come to the reunion, Netty—” Martyn says, slightly quickly.
“You should have thought of that before owing me a favor.”
“Oh, come on! You wouldn’t even be trying this if I hadn’t brought Three here!” Martyn complains, and then he goes quiet.
There’s a light breeze. It’s a nice day at Evo’s spawn. Compared to some of the weather Three’s stood outside for, it’s just about perfect. The sun is shining, there’s nearly no clouds, and the temperature is neither too cold nor too warm.
“It feels like there should be a fanfare,” BigB tries to joke.
“Has there ever been fanfare for us?” Martyn asks.
“No reason to fanfare a new beginning, right?” Jimmy says shakily.
“I’ll come back,” Martyn says. “Help you make sure Grian’s bonfire doesn’t go out. Help maintain it. We all should have helped with that. We shouldn’t have left you here alone.”
Pearl takes a moment to nod her head. “I guess we do have to keep it lit. Once—once Jimmy’s gotten everyone to understand, I’ll make a schedule. Before the reunion. I won’t ambush anyone. It was hard enough to do the four of you at once.”
“Can’t guarantee I won’t crash here again. The dead Watchers make a good deterrent,” Martyn says.
Pearl sighs. “I’m not not still mad at you, you know.”
“Right,” Martyn says, grimacing.
“I haven’t jumped to a server with a whitelist in ages,” Jimmy says. “I can never remember if I have to hop through a hub first or not.”
“It’s easier through a hub, but you can do it from anywhere,” Martyn advises.
“Hey, man, don’t leave before saying goodbye,” BigB says.
“I don’t know if I like goodbye,” Jimmy says. “I never get to say it when it matters, anyway. Not worth it.”
“Okay, no goodbye it is,” Martyn says. “Just—call?”
“Call,” Jimmy agrees.
“Yeah, I’ll be in touch,” Pearl says.
“Always will,” BigB says.
They pause, and Three realizes they’re looking to it to answer too. “I will do it before counting any sheep,” Three decides.
“That’s good,” Jimmy says. He takes a deep breath. “Uh, just in case—I’m releasing my claim on Three as a handler. I think that leaves no one alive? That leaves no one alive. Realized I ought to say that, just in case. Yeah. Have fun, Three.”
Before Three can process that, Jimmy’s gone.
“Geez. Dramatic goodbye for a guy who doesn’t like them,” BigB says. “Uh, thanks, Pearl, for hosting us.”
“You still owe me,” Pearl says.
“I’ll pay it back in something better than just the reunion,” BigB says, and he’s gone too.
“I don’t have anything sappy, so uh, peace,” Martyn says, shuffling his feet. He grins oddly, and he’s gone.
Three and Pearl stand next to each other in spawn. Pearl doesn’t say anything else at all, so Three just salutes the decaying center of Evo, and then it’s far away, all at once.
Three is well and truly alone for one of the only times it has been in its life. There is no mission. There is no handler. There is no next step it must do, and there is no Watcher over its shoulder. It is in the hub world it met Mumbo in, because it will be easier to finish jumping to Mumbo’s personal world in a way that will not require breaking any whitelists or firewalls from there. Once it’s done that, it will find out if Mumbo has successfully gotten Three space on the server Mumbo is staying in or not. Apparently, it won’t be the first person Hermitcraft gives shelter. Three does not care if it’s the first or the last or anything in-between; Three just appreciates the opportunity.
It stands there, adjusting to the sensory input, and it is alone to do that, too, so it doesn’t bother looking stoic. It checks its bag. Everything is there. It has its knitting, it has its code words, it has the clothes it does not want to lose, and it has its phone. The dagger is still in its belt. A tiny piece of paper with the notes it remembers about the sheep it had counted with Jimmy is there. It hasn’t lost anything trying to slip them across server borders.
It won’t be alone much longer. It will be going to someone else who it will give an emergency copy of the code words, so that it can have them overridden if just knowing them itself is not enough. Right now, though…
It takes a deep breath. It closes its eyes once, then opens them again. It checks on the sheep from the family tree. It texts Martyn and Jimmy ‘thank you’, because it thinks it forgot to say it, even though it has wanted to for some time now. It does not get a response back yet, because the two of them are also still traveling, but that is okay. It does not need one. It just needed to say it.
The words properly said, it takes a deep breath, and it jumps again, away, to something new.
It does not look back.