Dex waved them into an alley across the street as he continued down the road. Pink leaned into Justin and whispered, “ex-army” so low Justin thought he might have imagined it.

“Why does he follow you then?” Justin asked.

“He doesn’t.”

“But-”

“We’re fucking pop stars,” she said and he thought it might be something she’d explained before. “No more, no less. Just along for the ride. We mostly do what they tell us to.”

“But Chris…”

“They follow Chris because of you, your resistance. He’s a figure head, nothing more.”

Justin scowled. “Nothing less either.”

“Maybe. Without being activated, we’d all be nothing.”

Justin didn’t answer. Nothing. They were all nothing. JC grabbed his arm and Pink held up her hand as a Guard vehicle passed by.

“Shut up,” she said and Justin nodded, pulling against JC’s hand.

JC tapped on his arm and Justin turned his head, gaze following JC’s pointing finger, just as he heard Lance’s voice in his head.

Chris is making me practice with my eyes open.

Justin didn’t know quite how it worked, but he thought the words and Lance knew what he meant and it seemed to be all right. Is it working?

So far, and Justin thought he could hear Lance laughing in his head, which was a lot like his regular laugh, deep throated and a hesitant, even with them, and Justin thought that was really weird.

Look up, Lance told him, and Justin obeyed, finding himself looking in the direction JC had indicated earlier, before Lance popped in. Chris says you should be near our old building. Wonder who’s cleaning the toilets now?

Mandy Moore? Justin thought, and Lance laughed again. I don’t really care, he added.

Lance didn’t laugh anymore. Neither do I, he said, and then Justin’s head felt empty again, more his own, and he knew Lance had gone.

Back underground and he wasn’t hiding, wasn’t running away. He could tell himself that much if he asked. He needed to get away and Lance could find him if he was needed.

Not that he was needed for much anymore.

He didn’t know where he was going but he kept going because he knew that he could stop any time and ask someone to show him the way back. Anyone-

“Justin?”

He turned. He almost didn’t recognize her, wasn’t expecting to see her here, of all places. Hadn’t expected to see her ever again.

“Britney,” he said, because he knew.

She leaned against the wall, pulling one leg beneath her and Justin remembered her always sitting like that. She was sitting like that the last time he saw her, when it was just the two of them. When she said she was sorry, but she couldn’t, and he’d left. She hadn’t changed.

“I was with Pink, after… the War. We were taken together so they kept us together, because we supported your cause.”

“I-”

“No,” she said. “No, it’s okay. I believed, Justin, so it’s okay. I didn’t, after awhile. The things they made me do… I stopped believing that we deserved anything more, you know? I don’t think Pink ever did. When she first ran, she took me with her, and we found people that had never been captured. Can you imagine? People who never had to work for Him. They took us in and activated us so we could be useful, and we help them any way we can.”

“What do you do?”

She smiled and stood. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

Things grew, grew underground, and Justin smiled at the thought of it.

She picked up a seed and held it between her palms, up against her lips. He heard her whisper to it, her breath moving in soft puffs over the seed and he watched as it sprouted, green shoots bursting through the hard outer shell.

She laughed quietly, like it surprised her every time, and held the seed out to him.

“I give life,” she said. “I can make things grow.”

He kept staring and finally she nodded, turning sadly, and he turned away because he couldn’t be there with her, watching her give life to something when she’d taken it from him, from what they’d been together. He didn't say anything as he left.