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I have a burden to bear. We all do, I guess, but mine gets worse over time. You see, about a year and a half ago, I abandoned my best friend to die. It wasn't easy---I didn't want to do it---but it seemed the right thing to do at the time even though inwardly it hurt like hell. And I went home, mostly physically unscathed, and tried to forget about it, with very little success. It gnawed at me, wouldn't let me sleep, whispered accusing words in my ear whenever I tried to relax, and told me what an awful person I was. When I did sleep, I saw visions of my friends' corpses in my dreams.
I tried to fill the void with work, and went back to toiling for the government that had asked me to abandon my comrades. What choice did I have? They still held on to me as though I was a possession of theirs, telling me that I would be in their debt until I died if I didn't want to go back to prison. So I threw myself into my work and continued to do all the dirty little jobs they didn't want to soil their human operatives with.
Then I learned he was still alive, that he'd gotten out somehow. And this same wonderful government that believed it owned me, that had gotten some of our other friends killed and another maimed---Frank---decided to use Frank and my ties to him and Fred to crush their current organization. Johnny and Fred were now apparently members of a new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, and the government didn't like that. As far as the higher-ups were concerned, if those two guys weren't dead, they were traitors who had broken their deal and had to be arrested at the very least. Frank and I didn't like it, but our protests went unheard. Secretly, though, I was both looking forward to the mission as well as dreading it; I wanted to see Johnny again, but felt a bit ashamed to face him. What do you say to your buddy after you left him to his death? "Hi man, sorry about the nasty business in Kuwait...how've you been?"
I was also a little anxious about Fred's potential reaction; he doesn't forgive or forget on general principle.
But we had little choice, and so we went. We snuck up to the island they were visiting, and then ran straight into the Brotherhood's ambush. As much as I would have liked the rest of their team to join in the fun, to offset the discomfort of this rather uncomfortable Freedom Force reunion, Toad and that woman stayed back to let their considerably more angry teammates get in their licks. Johnny and Fred were as furious as we expected, and the scene could have turned ugly if not for their host intervening in the conflict. For whatever reason (for which I'm eternally grateful), they acquiesced to his urges for them to leave us alone, and the whole lot of us went inside for an extremely strained and hostile---but nonviolent---reunion.
However, for the rest of the day Johnny avoided me whenever he could. Fred made sure to harass Frank and I at every opportunity, and we had to be careful watching our backs for fear he'd lash out. I think all of us in Freedom Force were either threatened with or met with physical force from Blob at one point or another, so we knew he was capable of it! But Johnny was quiet and sullen, which was so unusual for him as to be worrisome. He'd sit by himself in the corner most of the time, saying little to anyone, and at times I'd catch him looking balefully at me. I really wanted to talk to him and apologize, to explain myself---I didn't expect he'd forgive me so didn't plan to ask for absolution, but I did want him to know why I'd done what I had and that I felt bad about it.
I finally had my opportunity at the end of the day, when he crept outside to the balcony alone. He was coughing pretty hard, but I didn't really think too much of it at the time, `cause he did used to be a smoker, after all. I came up behind him, and started talking to him, and he didn't try to run off so I got up the courage to apologize. We cleared the air, mostly. He seemed satisfied with what I said, much to my surprise, but there was a lot of bitterness in his words which I didn't truly understand. I didn't ask him about it, because naturally I assumed it was because of what I'd done. But later I discovered that he wasn't even really mad about that anymore, but rather his anger was directed at something else entirely....
I learned later the next day that he had the Legacy virus. It was a real shock, because I knew next to nothing about the disease, and it's always a stunner to find out someone close to you is dying. I didn't know what to say to him, which made me feel awful; once again I'd failed him as a friend when he needed me. All I could muster was the odd hollow platitude like "there will surely be a cure very shortly," to which he just turned away, explaining that he doubted he was going to live that long. I felt like an idiot, and worse, insensitive. The only thing that kept me from turning tail and running was the thought that I owed him something, though what this should be was not yet clear.
It was then that Frank and I decided to defect and stay with the Brotherhood. It was not an easy choice, for we well knew what the government could do when angry, but it felt like the right one. Frank never particularly liked Johnny, but he felt a bit sorry for him and him being sick made a pretty good excuse to leave federal service. Frank was a true patriot, but he too felt resentment towards our superiors for making him what he was and continuing to force him into dirty work. Most of the government guys we reported to hated mutants anyway; how's that for a bit of irony?
So we stayed, for a time. It wasn't long, though, before the Brotherhood finally splintered under the strain of Sauron's departure, Johnny's illness, and the general discontent with Toad's leadership that was pretty obviously there. Everyone went their own way; Johnny was broke and so he went off to find mercenary work and odd jobs to pay for meds while he waited to die. So I went back to the government, because it was clear he didn't want me hovering over him, and quite frankly, I didn't have anywhere else to go. The feds were holding a grudge against me for leaving but quickly got over that once I volunteered to return, though I was subject to a great deal more censure and restrictions than before. So I danced to their tune for a while longer, but did my best to circumvent their authority whenever possible: I did illegal activities on the side, such as dealing on the black market, the odd freelance job, and I helped Raven when she asked me. Rebellion, no matter how small, felt good.
After all this had been going on for a while, I heard from Raven again. She'd been forced into X-Factor and had more restrictions placed on her than I had; clearly she was chafing under the government's rather heavy hand and I considered myself lucky that in comparison I was freer than she. She'd heard some interesting information that she wanted to share with me, saying that one of the Iraqi guys we'd been fighting in Kuwait had died a while back of Legacy, around the time Johnny was diagnosed. She then trailed off into a pointed silence, but didn't have to say anything else because I knew what she was getting at. It appeared that Johnny had caught Legacy in Kuwait, and since he hadn't had much contact during the battle with the guy who'd died, it sure looked like he must have caught it after he'd surrendered. He'd surrendered after I gave the order to leave him behind.
So this was all my fault.
I wondered if he knew. It probably didn't matter. I became consumed with guilt, and started having those terrible accusing dreams again. Instead of condemning my best friend to a quick death in wartime, I'd sentenced him to a slow and painful demise that could have been averted. I felt horrible, and started wishing he'd died in Kuwait to spare me all this current stress, which only made me feel worse and more guilty. I spent an entire weekend full of drinking and self-loathing, when it finally occurred to me that all this angsting was not helping Johnny any. So I took a more proactive role in his life, acting as a support to lean on, running errands for him when needed, and just generally trying to be there for him.
But time passed, and it wasn't very kind to him. He didn't die right away like he'd originally believed, but rather lingered on. And the symptoms got worse and more debilitating, often requiring him to stay in bed and be very careful about the use of his powers, even prohibiting him from being present around any flames. I found myself having to help out more and more often, and more disturbingly, had to keep a close eye on him because of the mental troubles that emerged. I don't know if they were because of the stress of having a fatal disease or from Legacy itself, but his erratic and paranoid behaviour became more frequent, and Raven and I soon found it a full-time job to keep tabs on him just to make sure he didn't inadvertently hurt himself or others. In his saner moments he felt awful and embarrassed about it, but there was really nothing anyone could do outside of having him committed, and we were not going to do that. We cared about him too much to hurt him like that, so we tried hard to look after him as best we could, even though we failed every now and then.
I lied. I'm making it sound like all the mental instability, the pain, the out-of-control powers, the constant struggle to find the time and energy to watch over him and care for him, was in the past. But even though at times I wish the whole ordeal was over---for all of us---it's not. I made a mistake, and my best friend keeps paying for it, so I'm doing my best to try and compensate him for that though frankly nothing I can ever do will ever make up for it. I have a burden to bear, and even when it's over for Johnny, it will never end for me.
