Pain. Yes, there was a searing pain on his right side. And on his left side. Damn, there was pain everywhere.

Tiredness. He was tired. Exhausted, physically and emotionally. The days had been hard, harder than anyone could reasonably expect to handle.

The snow fell around him, creating both a soft bed and a blanket for him. How nice. And comforting.

The steps were covered in white snow, clean and untouched. Idly, he wondered how polluted and dirty it all was. Like everything was now.

Darkness intruded the edges of his vision. It was warm, almost welcoming. It wouldn't be so bad, to give in just once…

Time… to sleep.

Time to die.

Then the chance was torn away from him.

Words. Loud, some harsh, some caring.

Orange hair fell on him. Fur.

Piercing blue eyes.

His vision wandered in and out as he uttered some reply. The words slurred. Already, even as quickly as he was jostled, he was now falling again, the familiar darkness coming back to take its prey.

And he was gone.

Memories flitted across and away at the speed of light, the reaction of a thousand, a million, a billion, a trillion synapses firing with no apparent rhyme or reason. He jumped through time and space, visiting truths and lies alike. As if he could distinguish the two anymore.

There was a small fire. People huddled around it. He could feel the pain of his chest, the rips in his skin that littered his face and made every facial movement feel like hell. Everything felt congested, like breathing was an impossibility, like there was no air.

He turned, coughing as he struggled to stay awake. He came to view a face – a familiar face. She hovered over him, like a protector keeping watch.

Why? Why was she here?

Questions that didn't matter. She was there. A confused mix of apathy, care, and concern formed itself on her face, though ultimately it was a lot like how she normally looked. He couldn't keep it anymore, couldn't strain against the inevitable tug any longer. He was already fading once more.

He focused on what he could. Those eyes. Brilliant jewels against the darkness of the world. Yes, he could focus on that. To the end.

They were that last thing he saw before darkness claimed him again.

Lights. Bright lights. They burned his eyes. Still, they were shined on him, and they didn't move.

Voices. Indistinct, garbled. Distant, yet near.

"Who are you?" a voice ringed out. A reply came, perhaps, but one that was too far away.

A blurred face came near. "What the hell do you think you were doing, Joe?" That same voice again.

Another face came near. "Don't leave us, K. Don't close your eyes." A different voice.

But it all hurt so much.

A blur of time and figures. Voices. Sounds.

"I think he's stable."

And then darkness once more.

K yelled in pain and shock as he returned to the world. A flare rushed through his chest, like a tear across his torso, and he coughed as struggled to push himself up. Two sets of hands – one coarse and large, the other smaller and softer – pushed him down. He gasped at the feeling of hands against his own bare skin, realizing suddenly that he was largely naked, apart from a pair of pants that he wore. A thick blanket covered him, but it had shifted off as he struggled to sit up.

"Just relax," Mariette whispered in his ear, her breath hot against his ear. He accepted her words and fell limply into the bed. It wasn't particularly soft or comfortable, but it was welcome – more than welcome. A real bed, for a change. Even though it had only been days since he last slept in one, it was a return to normalcy, and K could almost pretend that things hadn't changed and events hadn't transpired.

But they had. He had found the child. He had found Deckard. Madam, he learned from the news, had been murdered. Joi had been destroyed. Things were irrevocably different. Events had been set into motion that couldn't be taken back. People couldn't come back after being killed. Jois couldn't come back after being destroyed.

And did he even truly want it back? In the end, wasn't that all a lie?

K didn't know. And frankly, at this point, he didn't care. His life was one massive mess, and he wasn't sure if he could sort it out, even if he wanted to.

"Where am I?" he hoarsely scratched out, his voice raspy from dehydration and disuse.

"A friend's," the second figure said, coming into view. Deckard stood at the foot of the bed, his arms crossed and his expression indignant. "You're lucky he's still doing this, and that he owned me a favor."

"What the hell were you doing?" the former Blade Runner angrily asked, staring right into K's eyes. "I came out to find you bleeding all over the snow and this girl standing over you. You should've told me that you were injured."

"Dying for something you believe in is the most human thing we can do…" K whispered, remembering those words from a distant part of his memory. Deckard raised an eyebrow.

"And who told you that? Freysa? Damn woman's always been crazy," Deckard muttered. "What a load of crap. Not dying and living your own life is the most human thing you can do. Your humanity doesn't need you to be a martyr to, what," Deckard gestured wildly, "some vague cause. Were you even dying for something you believed in?"

K had no good answers for Deckard, and instead just lay back into his pillow, feeling defeated on all fronts. Mariette had a similar expression, but she still hovered over the hospitalized replicant.

Deckard shifted between the injured Joe/K and the woman standing over him before nodding. "Well, I'm just going to step out, leave you two to, I don't know, figure out whatever is going on between you two." At that, the man stepped out of the small makeshift hospital room, closing the door behind him.

K grunted again and turned to the waiting Mariette, who was still hovering over him, albeit with a more confused expression than she had earlier. Evidently, Deckard's words had gotten to her, and she was trying to reconcile his words – which had some truth, she had to admit – with Freysa's teachings.

"Why are you here?" K grunted.

Mariette looked shocked for a second, before she realized that he was referring to why she was there at all, rather than why she was still there.

"Freysa told me to keep an eye on you. To make sure you carried out your duty."

K rose an eyebrow at this.

"She didn't explicitly trust you, definitely not after one meeting," Mariette clarified. "I saw everything."

Closing his eyes, K rested on his pillow. "So what are you going to do about it?" he asked, eyes still closed. "I didn't kill Deckard. You stood right beside him. Gonna finish the job and report back to Freysa that I was a failure?"

Mariette stood silently as she contemplated her potential choices while staring at the resting K.

"I'm not sure," she admitted, almost whispering. "I don't think I can. Deckard… hasn't done anything to warrant death. It's one thing to plan about killing someone. It's another to actually try and do it while looking at that person in the eyes. I'm not that kind of person."

K mirthlessly laughed. "Assuming that, as replicants, we count as people at all."

Mariette looked indignant at K's brash words. "We're both as real as any humans. In any way that matters."

"Are we? It doesn't seem like that sometimes."

"That's why the Replicant Freedom movement exists – so we can always feel that free. So that we can prove that we are the masters of our own fates, not just servants and toys."

A silence fell over them.

"Are you going to tell Freysa about Deckard?"

A pause.

"No." A whisper, almost as quiet a slow-moving wind. Her voice was unsteady. To her, it almost felt like a betrayal of the cause, of Freysa's trust. But at this point, she had to deeply question whether Freysa was to be trusted. After all, she had shown little regard to one of her friends' lives, and even less to K's. All were disposable tools to the 'cause'. "I'm not sure that I want to tell Freysa about anything anymore."

K coughed, but he had a macabre smile on his face. "Well, that's good. He doesn't deserve to get shot and killed. And Freysa can go jump off a cliff for all I care now."

There was another silence.

"I'm sorry about your hologram. Joi, was it? I saw what happened when we found you," Mariette whispered.

K breathed in and out deeply, his lips tight. "I'd rather not talk about that."

Mariette continued, undeterred. "What happened? A falling out?"

K didn't immediately respond, instead breathing in and out deeply as he lay there.

"You know what it feels like, sometimes, when something you thought was so real, and true, and genuine, turns out to be complete bullshit?"

"No."

K laughed, a half-wheezing parody of humor, only stopping when he started coughing. "At least you're consistent." He paused. "Well, let's just say that I'm not into holograms anymore."

Mariette looked confused at K's near-ramblings, trying to piece together what he meant. Before she could, however, K stretched over and pulled her into a kiss. Unable to force herself to tear away, even though she easily could against the weakened former Blade Runner, she stayed where she was, enjoying the sensation as it played out across her lips. When he finally pulled away, K slowly opened his eyes and stared into Mariette's blue eyes. The one thing he remembered most consistently throughout his fractured memories. Easy to remember.

"Consistency…" he whispered. "That's all I want right now."

Mariette breathed out deeply, trying to figure out what was going on inside her head. "I can do that," she replied, her voice little more than a breathy whisper as well.

K flashed another smile, this one a smaller grin that didn't look so out-of-place. "I think we have an understanding, then." There wasn't really any 'love' between them. They were simply two people that were lost in a hailstorm of emotions and confusion. They could offer each other something that the other needed and wanted. They could be constants in each other's lives, however much longer that would be.

Consistency would serve them both well.