Notes: Oh my god guys, I am SO sorry for the time delay with this chapter. It's a slightly shorter one here as I wanted to post an Umut head-space interlude. I love you guys. Thank you for each and every single comment and like. I am so happy people are still enjoying icerde out there and my story. It's my therapy because I miss them so much. So to all who have read this, thank you.

Next time: Sarp's ceremony day dawns and brings a lot of soul searching for both Sarp and Umut. And as Umut begins his jailtime, a prison riot inside brings terror for all.

Umut discharges himself on a Thursday evening. Sarp leaves half an hour before and he has no idea. Umut prefers it this way. He doesn't want fuss, and he needs a little thinking time. Not to mention there's something he really has to do and he knows for all they are a support to him, his family will never understand.

The nurses try to make him stay. He insists he's fine, he'll sign anything they want. He's a street kid, doesn't matter how many times they get knocked down, they always get back up again.

He leaves, the hospital, he walks, he walks. His feet ache. He keeps going. 'You have to keep going Mer…Umut…' he HAS to stop making that mistake. 'You have to' he whispers. He loses track of time, loses track when his legs give out.

He closes his eyes. He opens them. His stitches ache, he feels bruised from head to toe, wrung out. He stares at his fingers furiously, anywhere other than in front of him. He feels stretched too thin, containing all that he was, all that he is, all that he wants to be, it's too much. He is drowning in regret and remorse. And all because of him. Because of one man.

Footsteps echo across linoleum and it's crazy that after all these years, all that's happened, he knows instantly that tread, knows it like his own. It used to instil security, trust in him, used to comfort him when everything felt hopeless. Now it's the opposite. He swallows down bile, steadies himself and looks up.

'Hello son'.

When Mert was nine before he was sent away to school Celal taught him to read. He'd struggled on the streets to teach himself. Coskun had no time for children to do anything but beg. Mert would read the back of anything he could, tissue packets, trash, he'd stare and stare at the words, desperately trying to make sense out of them. He and Melek would try and imagine what the words were, try and figure out what it was saying. It was a fruitless task. Nobody was going to teach street kids and none of the other kids showed any inclination towards learning.

When Celal came, when it felt like Mert's life was saved it took him a long time to trust people's motives. Truth was, even with Celal taking them in, he never really truly trusted anyone. He let that wall down brick by brick, inch by inch with Celal. He was a scared little boy, a damaged little boy. He didn't know how to fix himself or even if he could.

So when Celal came to his room one day with a large book in his hand and offered to teach him, Mert looked upon it with his usual world weary childish cynicism.

'I don't know how' he'd muttered. 'I'm too big to learn now'.

'Son, you're never too big to learn and you won't get far without being able to read.'

Mert had mulled that over for a while, he didn't want to stay down, he wanted to survive and if reading meant surviving then he'd be willing to give it a try, for himself and for Celal who he was really starting to let in.

Celal had tugged him in close, had read line after line, his wrinkled finger tracing the cursive, making Mert repeat it, teaching him each letter, each word. They continued it for some time, for almost a year and in that time, in all those hours, Mert let him in, against all his 9 year old judgement, against all his instincts, he let him in. He started to love him. He started to trust him.

And all that time…all that time it was Stockholm syndrome. He was empathising with a man who'd stolen him, who'd broken him and ripped him from a home and a family. He loved that man.

He hates that man. Now he hates that man. He stares across at him. 'Don't call me that, I am not your son'.

Celal's eyes deaden, pierce through him. His eyes always had a way, a way of either making you feel like the most important person in the room (after Celal himself of course, always after the great all powerful Kebab Man) or like a piece of dirt on his shoe. Right now Umut is the latter. 'You're right, I don't consider traitors my son'.

'That's rich', Umut fires back 'coming from the person who betrayed me more than anyone else in the world'.

'Oh grow up child, it was you that wouldn't leave Meleks side. I would have left you with Coskun. You made yourself useful though, I let you into my home, I called you 'son' and this is how you repay me?'

Umut laughs. He draws the attention of other visitors and prisoners, who turn to look at the manic man at the table over. 'Would you stop acting like the victim for one moment you son of a bitch', he slams his hands down on the table, lowers his voice, leans in, 'you took me from my family, you had me beaten and abused and then you made out like you were this saviour', Umut's hands shake on the table and he clenches them into fists. 'One week you're calling me your son, hugging me, and the next you hang me from your ceiling like a kebab and try to carve me into pieces so I have one question for you, the great Celal Duman and then you are dead to me forever.'

Celal leans forward, meets Umut's eyes.

He steels himself,

'Was any of it real?'

The question hangs in the air, an uncomfortable amount of time.

'What you felt for me? The way you acted. Was any of it ever real?' Umut's voice breaks at the end and he hates himself for it but suddenly looking at Celal, feeling that intense pain, those warring feelings, he needs to know. He has to know.

Celal's eyes flash. For the briefest of moments there is a flicker, of guilt maybe, of question, Umut's life with him flashes before his eyes every second of it. Then Celal's stare hardens.

'You were my most useful tool' he growls 'and now my use for you has expired Mert Karadag'.

Umut swallows. He's got his answer; he's got his closure now. 'My name is Umut Yilmaz', he spits back, getting to his feet 'and fuck you from both of us'.

He's half way across the prison floor when the shout echoes back,'You won't be happy with them Mert! I won't let you, you know that right?'

Umut turns back slowly, 'I have people that love me now, that really, genuinely love me. I won't be lost like that again. I won't be played like that ever again. Stay away from my family.'

Celal laughs then. Climbs to his feet. 'And if I don't son? What then?'

Umut levels him with a stare, he learned from this son of a bitch after all, 'I'll be in here soon' he takes a pointed look around the area, 'maybe we'll be cell-mates, maybe you just wait and see what happens if you don't Kebab man.'

Celal looks unnerved for a moment, and Umut blinks, eyelids shut, he wins, he wins.

He wins?

Until he doesn't.

Because when he opens his eyes again Celal is swinging from the ceiling, lifeless, because Celal is dead isn't he? Celal hung himself. He took that closure away, he took those answers.

Umut doesn't win.

Mert doesn't win.

Celal wins.

He is grotesque, like some sort of melted waxwork figure before Umut. He swings, he swings. Umut puts his hands over his eyes. It's not real, it's not real.

But Celal doesn't go and when he dares to look again Aslan is next to him, blood drips from his mouth. The gunshot in his body has made such a gaping hole that Umut can see right through him. 'Why Umut?' He asks.

Celal's body bobs and weaves, his feet twitch. Somebody steps out of the darkness to steady him. 'I had such hopes for you. I had such trust in you'. And Umut's breath leaves his chest.

Yusuf.

'You turned out to be such a liar, so wrong son.'

Umut shifts on the balls of his feet 'Chief Yusuf, please you have to bel…'

'Believe you?' Yusuf interrupts, 'that's rich. That's exactly what got me killed Mert Karadag'. He places a hand to his bloodied chest, turns it palm up at him.

Umut freezes. He clasps his hands together. He is ashamed, he is so ashamed. 'If I could swap places with you I would'.

Yusuf moves closer, Umut can almost feel his breath on his neck, 'but you can't, can you son? You can't.'

From behind Yusuf Umut makes out the form of Melek, she looks translucent white, not her usual tan. She looks wrong. 'Was it him though?' she asks 'that is the question'.

Umut feels the tears on his cheeks, can taste the salt of them.

'Why don't you ask him?' she says, a sing song lilt to her voice 'why don't you ask him brother?'

'Ask who?' he thinks.

But there's someone else back there. Celal swings back and forth, back and forth, Yusuf starts laughing, 'Ask him!' Melek sings 'Ask hiiiiim', Aslan joins her 'Ask him, ask him, ask him'. Someone moves forward. Umut feels hot and then cold, filled with the darkest, deepest dread. He shakes his head. Footsteps echo. His palms sweat. The figure is a meter away now and as they emerge from the darkness he is staring at a bandage. The person's face is wrapped, mummified, like a replica of ancient egyptian times. Then slowly, ever so slowly a hand reaches up, begins to unravel the band around the face. Every layer. Umut is sweating all over now. He is shaking and sweating and he is rooted to the spot.

He knows without a doubt that this entity, this creature is by far his worst nightmare, the hardest person to face, the monster of the piece. The unwrapping continues, torturous and slow. Three layers, two layers, hair revealed, skin revealed, eyes revealed and then he stands before him.

He's naked, he's smiling, he's covered in whip marks, burn marks on his skin, and he looks insane, he looks totally and completely insane.

'Have you got a question for me Umut?'.

Umut went to the circus when he was 7, well he didn't go to the circus he was forced to beg there and he got lost for a while. He found himself wandering into a seemingly unpopulated, deserted warehouse. It hadn't been though. He'd turned and he'd been confronted with a thousand different, creepy versions of himself. He was in a funhouse mirror.

He feels that frozen terror now. Standing before him, staring back at him. It is the broken version of himself. The part of himself he can not face.

It's Mert Karadag.

Mert laughs, he laughs and laughs, his hands are covered in blood, he steps forward, puts his hands around Umut's throat. 'You can't be us both Umut,' he says, hands tightening 'and Mert Karadag survives'.

Umut screams.

Everything disappears.