Last night. The memory of the previous evening hit him and suddenly, he found himself searching for reassurance that his dreams or nightmares were in fact, just that.

But it was real. No, it couldn't have been. But he was laying on his couch, in clothes that were covered in mud and grime. He smelt almost putrid, of sewers and worse, a very vivid reminder of his time in the tunnels. Last night did happen. But it was impossible. There was a fall, a green creature, running, unconsciousness, a gun, a tunnel, an explosion, running, more running, a vile drink, sewers, and that woman. Except she hadn’t been a woman at all. God, that woman. Then a nightclub, a car and lastly here, falling asleep on this couch.

It had happened.

Sure he was strange, everyone knew that, but not you-are-part-of-a-mutant-species-with-magical-powers strange. He wasn’t human, he remembered now.

Henry sat up and finally located his phone in the pocket of his torn jacket, that now lay on the floor. 6pm — where had the time gone? He was late for work, in fact, the time for work had come and gone. Five messages and eighteen missed calls, all from Dixie and Elle. Bloody hell. What would they think, in fact, what would everyone in the lab think? There was another missed call from Matt, which made sense, he had been AWOL all day. He didn’t want to think about him though, he couldn't. The bastard who had slept with Elle, cheating on his wife and forcing Elle to cheat on her boyfriend. Elle, what would she think? They hadn’t ended on the best of terms yesterday, he had told her to go away, that he didn’t need her. The truth couldn’t be further from it.

Humans and alternates, that is what Gabriel had said. Henry was an alternate, but something slightly different. He was an Ink, an Inquisitor, because his father had been before him. And his father, his real father, was dead.

Emotions are weird things, stranger still to someone who tries to deny their existence. They sneak up on you and when they decide to hit, there is no escaping the tidal wave. Henry sat and sobbed ashamedly, for he detested such an over the top expression of emotion. He cried for the man he didn’t know and he didn’t know why. He cried for the man who sacrificed knowing his son so that he could be safe, who had tried to protect him. He cried because he was angry at the man who was his real father, for dying and not being there to help him with this. Then he cried because, in some abstract way, he was happy.