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Chapter Text

Within the shortest measure of time ever thought of, Alan feels the Dark Place shift beneath his hand. It’s a little shudder, barely perceptible—yet mesmerizing during the moments he can still remember.

Blood underneath nails and soaked into his undone suit will be more temporary than the headache from the previous return.

But this one he can tell: it’s a failed loop.

Between bruises are spots the size of many fingertips, scattered over the places he had been touched. Some ghosts around his forearms, some are dullness eating his skin away, and all are remarks of carelessness. Alan’s feet don't stand him any longer. His eyes tire at the vaguest light above his head. They call him—Wake, Wake, Wake—and Alan has almost answered one. Almost. What if he wanted to give in? His hair has grown so much. This place pulls him deeper through establishments he recalls and forgets at the same time. It drags him bloody and tired and cuts his inspiration in half, only to resprout in doubles he must bleed again to make sense. He doesn’t even know if there is a key out. Doesn’t even know if they lie. Rain falls, dripping over his head, and he wants to give in. Only once. Begs forgiveness.

“Alan.”

His breath is caught, deep and hurting, and he leaves the self-made spiral. Her voice has never escaped the Parliament Tower before. It must mean something, it—it must mean anything. It must be the key out.

Alan stares down to where he has been touched. It would not kill someone who has always been there. He covers himself, gets up, and in the same way he’d heard Alice then, he tries to tolerate the light. The Oceanview Hotel is just ahead.

Chapter Text

Drowsy, Jesse sees an extensive desert at her side of the window; the wasteland of mountains and wire posts with no light, moonlight barely giving any signs of guidance, reminds her of Ordinary.

Noises alert her. The man comes from a shiny convenience store, bringing a bottle of water and cereal bars for what could be a trip. A trip. Polaris focuses on the pin of his suit as he removes his coat and, without hesitation—he should be careful—he covers Jesse despite how she automatically squirms away from him. Everything forces the question.

“We’re… going to the House…?” She voices out, more slurred than she wished. Forehead and throat eyes open narrowly, and her dirty sweater itches the remaining ones to awaken. “I… I don’t wanna go there.”

Trench locks the doors. His gaze is stern but he is not like them, apparently. Polaris recalls previous agents she has prevented and escaped from, abstract memories passing and blending and becoming a slippery warning inside Jesse’s head. It makes her dizzy; fingers trembling and visions tilting towards its edges, slackening her intentions.

“I know you don’t.” Trench touches her forearm with a wounded hand, suggesting he accidentally may have met the fangs on her collarbone—or she has bit him unconsciously. Jesse weakly chuckles and he ignores it. “But there’s no other place for you in this world.”

“You think you… you think you know me.”

“Yes, I do.” And Zachariah has something off and unexplainable on his gaze that unnerves Polaris, something justifying everything. “Better get some rest, Jesse. You’ll be fine. I promise.”

Chapter Text

Jaakoppi has always had this sincere look that needn’t words to support what he means. For Ilmari, it is the confirmation he seeks, the suggestion to think in another perspective, and the warning sign he never really follows before something unfortunate happens.

In contrast, Jaakoppi’s mouth barely moves as usual, but when it does, Ilmari is sure to hear everything.

…

There is only silence when Ilmari sees his brother’s face go pale and frightened, pupils abnormally compressed with the sight of his brother in a red-wet and bruised state.

He cannot bear to look at himself in the mirror through the rest of that night.

…

But Jaakoppi still cares. With all the headaches and sleepwalkings, with mindless rambles and strange behavior, even with the growl at the pit of Ilmari’s throat that comes when night is high and the forest breathes in its dense lungs of tall trees. He makes sure his brother eats, hydrates himself, and Jaakoppi always looks after him with the long gaze of local hunters, except that’s just Ilmari. His endeared and maddened Ilmari, only a blink away from staining his own hands with their neighbors of Watery.

…

Endeared Ilmari has already seen the expression Jaakoppi makes as he’s met with unrecoverable loss. He only doesn’t remember when, or where, or even if that life they share.

…

But as death arrives at the Huotaris’ door, Jaakoppi is not spared. Ilmari barely registers the act in his head—brother’s blood is already underneath his fingers and in his mouth, bitter as the perfect darkened frame of Jaakoppi’s wide open chest. Bitter, too, as the warning Ilmari did not heed because there was nothing to listen; his violence denied a word out of Jaakoppi’s mouth, but his lifeless eyes haunts him with the unsaid.

Ilmari cares for it for only a short moment during his grievance—until the body falls down the well and he turns away.

Chapter Text

“Let’s hope Estevez is at the monitoring station tonight,” Emily comments while speeding up on their way to Bright Falls. “And if she’s not, I will bring you back to the Oldest House and call Jesse.”

“No!” Logan protests beside her. “We’re gonna lose time skipping cities because of this stupid bureaucracy—”

“Logan! Please!” She glances at the teenager in a scold. “It’s not bureaucracy. It’s your safety. Everyone will be very worried about you, and your mother would not approve of it if you went to the Dark Place unsupervised like you’re planning to.” And Emily swallows, exhaling deeply, flexing her fingers as she’d do with her prototypes of Black Rock knives. Logan does the same, but with the handle of her backpack. Eventually, she gives up. “I’m sorry for that.”

Above them, striped clouds flush in and out of a darkening blue sky. This road seems endless. The amount of trees increases by the driven mile. It’s not a good or safe place, Logan knows; she remembers the stories Saga told her after the nightmare.

Dusk ends when they arrive before a metal fence hidden by bushes of leaves, the breeze not as gentle as an hour ago. The lack of light poles and the beginning of a mist gives it a different feeling. Logan shivers at whichever would lie beyond.

“We should get in,” Emily tells her. They’re sided before its entrance and worry is clear on Logan’s face.

“And if something goes wrong?”

Emily hesitates—but taps Logan’s shoulder and shows the two prototypes beneath her gray coat. “If something goes wrong, we will find a way out,” and Emily winks at her, “I’ve got plenty of training for those situations.”

Logan sees the enthusiastic but careful look on Emily’s eyes, and breathes, fiddling with the bracelet she shares with her mother. She gathers courage. They get in.

Chapter Text

THE INTERTWINEMENT RITUAL

-- CONFIDENTIAL --

SUMMARY:

It is an unknown process hosted by the Board and not completely researched upon yet. First occurrence happened at ██████ ██. Here is a brief description of the ritual, step by step:

FIRST STEP: the authorized duo enters the Astral Plane and presents themselves to the Board. The Board initiates a trial. Only one must have the Service Weapon in their possession in order to progress.

SECOND STEP: the Board may deem the duo suitable for the Ritual. Their true selves are exposed without warning.

THIRD STEP: the Intertwinement commences. The two parties of the duo exchange personal traits such as the physical and psychological attributes, extraordinary anatomical features, and other subjective qualities which may seem convenient most. These must be equal between the two parties, leaving no margin for flaws or later misconduct.

FOURTH STEP: after the Intertwinement, the duo return to their anthropological shapes. One which does not possess the Service Weapon is now engaged to the Director, becoming the second sacrificial lamb.

FIFTH STEP: they may now return home.

RESULT: Director Faden was meant to teach Doctor Pope, Head of Research, how to tread across the Astral Plane. They passed through the Intertwinement Ritual instead and are now married, or ████████.

RESULT IF NOT FOLLOWED STRICTLY: the authorized duo may be discarded properly.

Chapter Text

Tom regrets giving birth to Alan Wake—this foolish, innocent, doe-eyed man spending about thirteen years to leave. Every time they meet, Alan is startled just like the previous loop, and he asks: why do you look like me? Only for Thomas to reveal: maybe you look like me, you handsome devil. Because that is the easier way.

For how else would Alan trust him if not in a voice from beyond, a sort of fatherly figure, as the only guidance he could have—as a being with the light in its face to show there’s a way out? Impossible. Tom has tried otherwise a few times. He failed and was stripped out of his humanity, bit by bit. And in losing, he found out the greatest sacrifice should be the next in this space of entrapment: Thomas understood that, to escape, he must be the supporting actor of this film.

And so Alan opens the door. He doesn’t get it, never gets it. Thomas restricted himself to the rule too far for someone who failed too often; Alan’s lenience was always the same and his eyes, sweet little blue eyes of whom is now Thomas Zane’s creator, are so stupidly lost. Alan was granted everything. Even his skill for writing. Even the sad story of the absent father. The Dark Place ate through his sanity—Tom couldn’t say he expected better on Alan’s face.

But the boy… he sits his head over Tom’s lap, everytime. Never remember anything. He nudges and relaxes and Tom takes in his wavy hair, fondling a mix of softness and greasiness and letting him weak for a while.

(This is one of the brief moments Thomas wins: this company permits intimacy and permits a small indulgence that’ll end shortly, because Alan always refuses to stay. Always runs in circles.)

He’s never relayed a thank you when he pins Thomas down to the chair and aims the gun at him. Nicely staged. Even his anger is believable. But a few words and a little show to prove they are not different might change him and let his guard down, and maybe…

BANG. Alan watches, sighs, and leaves. Curtains close. Nobody claps.

Hm. How curious.

It’s not like he won’t return to his creator in the next loop.

Chapter Text

Door rings; people get in. Go out. Sometimes it’s a person in a suit. They don’t look at her. They only look because she is looking. She turns away.

Tremors spread through Jesse’s entire body as she tries to drink a cup of orange juice. In order to get in line, she does everything brute or nothing at all. Infinite thirst turns her rude while sipping large gulps of juice, but rolling shivers morph her normal behavior into that of a scared and untamed animal.

Door rings; people get in. Two strangers who catch her gaze and give a frowned look.

Jesse swallows the shame in this situation, pulling up the stolen sweater and feeling the blinking—the itch, the searing-hot skin, and the impossible urge to shred this form hard to control—erupting inside herself. Her mouth hurts, her teeth change. She wants to come out, alive, howling in relief and unafraid. Polaris swarms her eyes at the dream and Jesse holds herself back.

Door rings; people get in. A single man in glasses who sits right beside her but without looking.

He is spotlighted by Polaris’ judgment, shivering down Jesse’s fibrillating body. She forces more sips of the juice—eggs and pancakes are unbearable and she only wants to go.

“Feeling sick?” The man asks with a first glance.

“Y-yeah,” she refrains her thoughts from becoming true, “just a cold.”

“Hm. I know how that feels.” He tilts his head to broaden the glance, getting a nice and precise sight of Jesse. It almost feels fatherly if she cared for it. “I had one of these, before.”

Jesse exhales, incapable of continuing this conversation. It’s not safe here. For them, for herself.

Door rings; people get in. A single guy younger than Jesse, with the same stare as hers.

A jab gets her arm, and she gasps in terror at the man sitting beside, looking too calm to be someone normal. She should’ve heard Polaris; but she is being drawn back from consciousness. “You—What did you…”

The man holds her and keeps discretion—or else. “You’ll see a doctor, that’s it.”

Door rings; she exits, accompanied.

Chapter Text

Everything and everyone is made out of a word made out of many words. An all-encompassing expression, a term which creates what has been not created.

Alice is a word out of many words falling away from its nature—for she could never escape a paragraph wherein she has been shaped out of. Fingers wrote her; a hand thought her character; from the thought inward is the mind; and the mind remembers the feeling out of its soul.

Alan is a blurred face across waves of an ocean. She sees him: in her madness-inducing fear, in eyes filled with tears, in the memories she cannot wring herself out of. He is there in the middle of darkness. He is a perfectly framed picture, because he cannot be anything else but.

Is it not curious, this change in roles? Alice falls but never reaches the bottom. She’s suspended in this past-future rupture of a present, a halve of her heart wanting to save and another wanting to end, both regretting and spilling in love sentences cannot convey. Is it not paradoxical, to be a word without meaning? Alice should be a piece from a bigger whole of Alan’s own making, but placeless, she prefers to define the undefinable: whispering the memory of her pain as the man which may never return, and seeing how he stares at her with the same tenderness as if never lost.

Alice surfaces from her bathtub, runs a hand over her hair, and hears her name echo across the hall of her empty apartment.

Chapter Text

Light flashes Alex Casey in a different shade Saga has never thought of knowing. He kneels. Darkness encroaches him as if within the eye of a hurricane. Resists. The flashlight pries through the density. Her knuckles hurt, but her will is all she got against him.

“Casey!”

What are words against words from beyond? The Writer has established this beat as it should be. Scratch has Casey in a rope wrapped around his throat and pulling at the strings of his limbs; he grasps his partner’s wrists, attempting to hurl up and fight. Saga aims at the eyes to see, for a barely minute, a scared friend—although infuriated with what consumes him—and cannot let herself fail. Casey is still there and she can still save him. At this fact, Saga screams again:

“Casey, I’m not giving up!”

Her words prod, flicker against, and Casey’s pupil dilates. Saga hardly feels her fingers now—shivers run across her sides as she imposes more will, more want, all to bring him to his true self. She has been threading too close on almosts—her daughter, her husband, her life… she cannot. She won’t.

"Casey!” Those are her screams of the same repeated word meaning every single word. Light turns into a sword, a needle. It pierces right within his eye. “Come back!”

The hurricane undoes in a violent burst of wind, cracking wood and branches and fluttering out into the night, dragging with itself whispers of sentences scratched out and fizzing incoherently in its wake. Is it poetic license of a story writing itself or has the Writer decided on her victory? Saga doesn’t care. Casey falls on the grass, labouring breaths, and she drops the flashlight to hold her partner and let him ground himself. When he looks up, he is fragile—as if a part of himself may never be the same anymore.

Saga, exhausted and voice-hoarse against the rules of the Writer, thinks she herself might not be either.

Chapter Text

Dylan watches a short red book standing over a wood table underneath a cherry blossom tree. Alignments were done out of a rush, he thinks, and the very thought of it disrupts the flow of the scenario for milliseconds, a small twitch in wind and petals falling erratically. Too dreamy. Too strange. Sand comes in a breeze with the leaves and drags across his feet in a slow current. The book stands—it is the only immutable object in this room.

“Sorry for the fuss,” Darling appears behind him in a closing door. Dylan looks back and sees nothing. Casper sits, removes his glasses, and picks the book. “I had to come to an agreement with Tommasi about matters that—” And he sees the boy, finally. “That doesn’t matter at all, right now.”

He watches Darling open around pages 100 and 103; sand clutter around their ankles. As Casper searches the place he’s stopped in the story, Dylan swallows the feeling down his throat and asks: “Why are we always doing these meetings every Friday night?”

Casper looks up, brown eyes gleaming in a way Dylan can’t yet understand; or prefers not to if only to not raise expectations. “Call it tradition,” he answers. “It’s not any different from a normal movie night, if you think about it.”

“We are meeting in a dream. How is that normal to you?”

“I have been living in the Oldest House for over fifteen years and I never left it.” He finds himself and places a finger upon a paragraph. “At this point, nothing is strange to me anymore.”

But the answer itself doesn’t quell the uncomfortable—or relieving—sensation swallowed down. “So I keep dragging you into this.”

“I wouldn’t say that. You’re not the only one with tricks, Dylan.” And he smiles, fatherly, the way Dylan loathes. “Ah, but—let’s keep it a secret, okay?” The boy says nothing in return. “Now, where did we stop…”

Sand stops coursing, and ebbs down to the grass, becoming one with it. Their feet become uncovered. The story goes by.

Chapter Text

You pick up a pen drive somewhere forgotten in the Coffee World as your rough shift has ended. You bring it home and plug it on your laptop, finding a folder named “SCRAPPED IDEAS”. Curiosity gets the best of you and you open it, finding only a nameless file. Click it.

It’s a 32-second clip, starting off with a soft song you’d hear at a grocery store in the middle of an aisle, but there’s no pretty image. Just a bland list of places to visit in Watery—something that makes you think it is a work in progress and shouldn’t ever be in your possession. This goes on for five seconds, added with an unintelligible muttering that cuts short before being properly recognized.

Following next is the static image of a forest during three seconds. You hear nothing.

Then, two darkened silhouettes run on the frame, followed by a third undistinguishable figure that distorts the camera in its passing. One is caught by it: they are hooded with a mask, and they are dragged into the branches. Quickly they are undone and dismembered beneath the figure.

The camera zooms in—it is no longer a man.

“Jaakko!” Your boss, Ilmo, voices in. Amidst the splatter, the whimpered cries and gunshots, he screams again, pointing a gun at the creature: “You motherfu—”

Suddenly the tape is cut, leaving you in a state of utter discomfort for a moment.

Two seconds pass by in silence.

The image returns with a blue eye looking straight at the camera, all bled, blinking. It is not Ilmo, nor Jaakko. Its face turns into a smile with wrinkles and an unhinged laugh that you're uncapable of not hearing again and again.

All cuts to black and the song resumes. A text comes in: “COME VISIT US!!” and the clip ends.

Now you understand why your bosses have been so absent lately and why working at the Park has been uneasy since then.

But you also get a strange chill creeping down your spine. Suddenly, you are completely terrified to see what lurks behind you.

Chapter Text

A reprised episode of Night Springs airs when Rose hears the growling and rattling of a chain at the back of her house. She slurps her spoon of spaghetti before getting up and going outside, turning on a flashlight and walking across tall, uncut grass scratching at her knees.

“Babe?” Rose calls out. Weak lightning barely guides her, but she treads her way easily; it’s part of her routine at this point. “Sweetie, are you there?”

Full-mouthed roars answer her question. Under the sheen of a whole moon between trees, a figure of a wolf becomes flaunted in its wet black fur and impossibly larger size, teeth barely shining with all the blood and meat between fangs. A pair of famished red eyes watch her every move with high awareness, but no threat hides in its intentions. It’s adorable, honestly.

“You must be hungry.” She comes a little closer to inspect, and her face immediately twists in reprehension. “Not another Cult member again... Scratch, what have I told you?”

He swallows down a piece of an arm, growls in annoyance, and she growls back. They go on for a long time in this argument.

Until Scratch finally huffs, his lack of action meaning she’s won this time. Again.

But as damage is done, there’s nothing else Rose can do other than to wait for his meal to end and be sure he gets rid of the remaining bones; yet she trusts him with it. Rose always makes sure to put him in line.

“Hmpf. I will allow this tonight, but only for tonight.” She reaches out and caresses the top of Scratch’s head. When his tail starts wagging, she can’t help the smile from drawing her lips. “But you are such a good boy, aren’t you?”

Rose barely minds the red staining down her hands; Mr. Scratch is just a soft big pup in these moments. Just her good boy.

Chapter Text

“I heard you were expecting me tonight,” Arish calls out to the man sitting inside the containment cell, fiddling with his fingers. “Got anything to say?”

“Do you think I’ll say something different tonight?”

“Well, Dylan.” The Head of Security picks a chair and sits, relaxed. “I think you’re not that different from your sister. Which is, you’re gonna say anything straight away but not your exact point until eventually talking about Jesse because you have nothing left.”

Arish sees how Dylan eyes him in a way he’d see a little boy wounded; the sort of pain stretching through the years and hard to undo within two weeks or so. Glass mirrors stand between them and blurs what they should have been to each other. Dylan has been given comfortable clothes and proper distraction that does not trigger memories before and during the Hiss, yet all of it are only bare minimums of compensation and only because the other Faden is the director. And, above everything, it’s all because she is not there… as Dylan wished.

“However,” Arish turns it again, “it doesn’t mean I am annoyed with your company. I got excited knowing I’ll have to stay around instead of being at Logistics.”

Dylan looks at him again, this time with a frown. “You’re not being really honest, are you?”

Arish shakes his head. “I wouldn’t be there if I wasn’t.” And he leans over, crossing his arms over the chair’s back and resting his chin over it, giving a short but kind smile. “Now, go on. I’m all ears.”

The boy waits for a while as if to reckon the sincerity in Arish’s face, but as he finally understands it—no more than seconds later—he starts right at the recurring topic of their conversations.

Chapter Text

A week later, these two meet and word is already in Langston's mouth. “Have you heard the Director and the Head of Research are now married by the Board?”

Arish frowns, looking up to the man with two cups of coffee walking in his direction. With his foot, he pulls up the chair closer before Langston sits on it; it’s easier to whisper like that. And as he takes a sip of it while processing the information, he gets to say something. “No, but it impresses me more how you know these things earlier than everyone in the Bureau.”

“Working at the Panopticon has its privileges,” Frederick rests his back, likely not expecting a crack out of it.

“And why did no one go down… or up there? Normally people get invited to weddings.” Simon plays with the edges of the cup, feeling himself more awake. “Like, getting a best man and a best woman. We should’ve been their best men.” Another sip. “Or… brought some food, some balloons.”

“Um, I wouldn’t say that.”

“Why not?”

Frederick shrugs. “According to the report, Faden and Pope got, uh, morphed into each other. Biologically speaking.”

Simon whistles. “Phew. Forget what I said then. No guests, no party.”

“Well—their best men could be there.”

“For what? Do you want us to morph into each other, ‘biologically speaking’ too?”

They exchange glances for over two seconds, or three, or even five.

“Listen, it wouldn’t have been a bad idea…”

“But that’s their wedding, though.” Simon discreetly nudges his ankle against Frederick’s, a gesture reciprocated in good measure. “If we get to have time and some privacy…”

“And the Service Weapon.”

“Shit, even that?” Their knees brush now, but one of them will swear it’s unintentional. “Yeah, well. One day, maybe.”

“One day.” Frederick sips on his coffee, and the joke softens him. “Heh, sure.” It’s really not a bad idea. “One day.”

Chapter Text

This is not his smile. Not his mannerisms. Not her husband.

But he wears the skin too well for Alice to mistake them in the first years.

This Alan has the same poor drinking habits as the previous one, but other addictions appeared as news reached her through friends and she couldn’t sustain a surprised look anymore. Alice loved her husband yet was not naive. The rot grew after Bright Falls. Their fights increased in number but he never raised his voice—only twisted the conversation around her head and smiled, turning around and not returning for the evening.

This Alan cared for her fear, but wanted her to get close with it. He often said, “Look at that specific dark dot, you may think it’s something, but nobody is really there,” and Alice believed in him… for a while. Truly nobody was there. It was beside her all along.

This Alan had a haunting voice. Echoing in the empty places of her apartment, filling the gaps of her grievance, screaming out whenever she is alone—then coating it with lust and desire and such a want that Alice couldn’t taste without remembering how bitter and poisonous it was. Or how the rot spills and touches her arms, her lips, trying to compel her. Trying to consume the struggling sanity she has left.

Now, as she prepares dinner, he stands at the kitchen table with a glass of whisky at hand. This Alan looks as if he could devour her if she gets too close. And Alice…

Alice has a knife in hand, ready to end this lie.

Chapter Text

Logan recollects her awareness as if she was stuck in a static TV without someone to switch the channel. She blinks, and looks at the friendly host she just met. 

“Are we in the Dark Place now, Mr. Door?” 

Warlin leans against the sophisticated table with papers in hand, lining the stack properly, and says: “If this is the door you sought to open, then it might be.”

“I have opened too many and some weren’t what I was looking for.” 

He gives Logan a glance that makes her want to smile back if the circumstances weren’t poor. 

“And if I say yes, how will you find your way out of it?” 

She shrugs like any confident and reckless teenager would. Such a thing ignites a different sparkle in Warlin’s eyes which he purposefully leaves for interpretation; a little curious prying, a little guess for a brilliant mind. 

“Isn’t this a bitter coincidence?” He asks her, and for a moment, Logan ponders how much Warlin knows that she doesn’t. She once thought it was an annoying fact: everyone has a piece of life knowledge she can’t quite achieve no matter how old she becomes; yet with Mr. Door, this fact amuses, and her understanding of reality shifts gently. “Repeating the same steps your mother did years ago, stuck in a rule someone else created for you both?” 

“Yes.” Logan plays along so perhaps she can catch a possible clue. Rubbing her forearms, she adds: “I don’t think I could’ve done anything but take risks. She made the same decisions before. It’s fair to return the sacrifice.” 

Warlin comes closer, and he has a distant and briefly emotional glare this time. “It impresses me how you two are very similar.”

Chapter Text

Marvin curls over Zachariah’s chest as if it was his little nest. Waking up with this first sight in the morning makes it worth it to even start the day.

He gets up to make some coffee; a pinned note on the fridge that’s been there two weeks ago catches his eye and wraps around his head: “Always have a full meal!”

He obeys it. Toast with butter, at last. The rest will do. 

Journal opens and the news isn't bad. Same upsetting shit. Zachariah wonders what might be going on with the Bureau—what are the shifts inside the Oldest House and if someone got stuck. Are there any AWE alerts happening somewhere in this instant? 

Zachariah flips over a page and hears the birds singing. Going out for work at 5 a.m. never permitted him to appreciate the sound in the later hours.

He gets dressed for a walk with Marvin. It’s just a little snow around; chill blows over his face and the sky is lovingly blue with a few clouds. Sun hurts his eyes against glimmering white, but the warmth compensates. 

Marvin’s tail wags as he meets the red-haired Director waiting outside the House. Jesse kisses his forehead over a hundred times. “You’ve grown so much!” She tells him, “I missed you.” And she spares one for Trench’s cheek, taking the opportunity to inspect how well he is. Zachariah doesn’t speak due to shame—instead returns the affection as an apology. 

But later on he unravels everything to the Bureau's plants in his apartment, as much as it brings a bitter taste to his mouth. Tries not to cry, or feel apathetic, or angry at himself, yet they come as resent weighing his head down. 

The pup walks in, licking his fingers. Zachariah raises him to meet the dog in the eye. He holds Marvin close to his chest, and the promise... he will not fail it again.

Chapter Text

He has to stop the car midway the road and a storm forms overhead. Flat tire, no spare. It is certainly a good day for Tim Breaker. 

Tim kneels for inspection. Bright Falls is a good few miles away; can’t do all that just running his way down. Rumbles break within clouds, sparkle all over the grey sky. He raises and looks up—

—but a man is there without his call, and Tim’s eyes are pulled to his face as if something beyond drags them together. Could it be his curiosity of a face seen in dreams, could it be the man’s sudden apparition in the middle of nothing, or it simply could be destiny. 

“Warlin Door?” Is all Tim can manage at first. “How…” But nothing comes later. 

“It took you a while.” 

Tim frowns and shakes his head. “What do you mean? You’ve been missing since the 80s.” He walks around the car but the idea—it falters in his head and each step closer to Warlin gives a strange pressure at the back of his neck. The Sheriff palms it, sweaty, feeling overwhelmed and compelled to say more than the simple truth. “I dreamed about you.”

“I knew you would,” Warlin says. Rain begins to pour in timid drops. “I have dreamt of you as well.” 

“How did you even survive?” It all feels like a déjà vu. “Where have you been?” 

“Do you wonder why you have been kept safe in the Dark Place?”

“Sorry, what?” Tim asks, annoyed as the pressure increases. He recalls cozy corners of a wet not-New York where a board, all sketched and noted, stood. Presses his eyes shut. Warlin appears beneath his eyelids, imprinted on his mind, echoing many dreams prior to this encounter. 

As he regards the man once more, he’s gone. “Door? Mr. Door?” But no one answers his call this time. 

Chapter Text

Rose offers Kiran a drink and the agent refuses, justifying she’s at work. The waitress has a pretty face and a soft voice and words easy to catch someone else’s attention—a crowning of laurels and appraisal, making it impossible to say “no” immediately. 

It’s all in her looks, surely. With time, Kiran has a glass. 

...

Blonde strands curl around a finger. Rose doesn’t take her eyes off Kiran, and her beauty is a distraction Kiran tries not to dwell on, much less feel timid at it. Clearly she fails. And clearly—as all failures are prone to repetition—the agent outmaneuvers these emotions by dragging her own fingers on Rose’s hair, curling their smoothness where Rose has purposely left untouched. 

...

Kiran doesn’t know how to lie so well, so if anyone questioned her about the weight on her lap, she’d tell: it’s comfortable. Wrapping one arm around Rose’s waist and watching how it fits on her palm is comfortable. Getting held by the waitress, feeling her digits touch her neck and collarbone, warmth reaching places she hadn’t been tended to for quite a while… it’s all very comfortable.  

So is laying down her face on Rose’s chest and hearing her laugh vibrate through her entire body. 

...

She likes how their mouths dovetail easily against each other. The way Rose has her arms wrapped around Kiran, dragging her deep into their embrace. The passionate heat of something which shouldn’t even be this casual. She enjoys this more than she should. 

Kiran doesn’t forget the investigation, however. 

...

Or maybe she did. 

Getting up next morning with Rose at her side, sleeping in soft snores on the curve of her neck, made Kiran doubt her own sense of professionalism for a moment. 

Yet as she gets up to gather her clothes and exit, she picks up folded papers over a desk and reads them. They depict everything that happened yesterday, all Kiran remembers and all she does not. She reads herself. Reads this exact sentence detailing the exact words she reads now. 

Kiran shakes her head; leaves after pressing her lips on Rose’s forehead and with all her fiction in what will be now in the Bureau’s possession. 

Chapter Text

They are in a bedroom like the hotel bedrooms down in Night Springs, but this is the Dark Place. Alan still remembers: how Scratch had him dragged out from the hall and into the room, pinned against the wall, and they fought in a hand-in-hand combat only to be led beneath his weight on an once cleansed bed. Yet the red against white isn’t only Alan’s own. 

Blood slips out of Scratch’s lips, and for the first time Alan has his mouth parted to taste it. Feels like himself. He doesn’t lick them off—it oozes down the tongue and down the throat. Alan lets it go. They aren’t so different. Scratch tightens the hold around his neck without tenderness, instead with an insistence in keeping Alan laid down and defenseless.

Alan punches Scratch’s ribs. It’s just like hitting water. He tries again, and again, and the laugh comes growled. Hitches only when Alan manages to find the draft of it. More blood pours and Scratch spits it over Alan’s face. 

“You aren’t getting away,” the distorted voice threatens. “This is your end.”

A mouth clicks.

“I would never say that.” Another Scratch says whilst sitting on a nearby chair. He wasn’t there about three minutes ago. “Is this the version of me you want to be in your story, Wake?”

The other Scratch hisses, easing the hold to pay attention to his other self. “You are the weaker one.”

“You barely have any lines! All you do is whine, growl, roar… what are you, a dog?”

Alan, taken back by fear and anger all the same, tries: “He is a monster like—”

“Shh baby, we are having an important conversation here.” The elegant Scratch gestures vaguely. “Now, why are you stealing my role? I had it first.” 

“You lost it.”

The banter goes on, and Alan groans, sinking in the bloody sheets, hoping to find a breach against Scratch or that this yet another loop would end soon.

(It did not. At least, not as soon as he wanted.)

Chapter Text

Tim advances a threshold and finds himself in the same place once more: the middle of the road to Bright Falls, a storm forming overhead, the man of his dreams on the other side of the car. 

“Hey,” he says, walking around the vehicle. “I know you.”

“Do you remember who I am?” The man says in return. 

“Warlin Door,” Tim answers. “Disappeared near Cauldron Lake in the 80s. Been in my dreams since forever.” 

“I have dreamt of you as well, but this is only my name.” 

“Why are we—” But Warlin steps away from his vision and into the road. Tim follows him, trying to call, only to watch the scenario—the road, the forest and mountains, the storms overhead—fading out and bleeding into another one, everything melting and reconstructing again by how far they step. “What—what was that?” 

“I will ask you again, Sheriff.” Warlin turns around to present to him a motel lobby, yet they aren’t stopping, so the scenario isn't staying still either. “Do you remember who I am?” 

“Yes, the man in my dreams. Pursuing me.” Tim sees the black and white colors of the motel become a greyish dullness. “I don’t remember anything else but it.” 

Warlin chuckles. They’re in a wasteland full of empty recipients. It makes Tim feel frustrated and confused even more. 

“Where are we going?” Tim asks then. “Aren’t you gonna answer any of my questions?” 

His hand is held, suddenly, and Warlin drags him further into another cross only to stand in the midst of it. Tim hadn't noticed by then—too caught in the sudden changes and the surrealism of it—but a sea of endless waves stands between one door and another, and Warlin stopped right where a swirl of a reality brushed too close from theirs, ticking the Sheriff with echoes of someone else with his voice.

“I ask you instead,” Warlin says with amusement, a truth hidden in his tone that creeps the Sheriff’s bones. “Are you truly Tim Breaker, or someone in the wrong place at the wrong time?”

Chapter Text

A particular portrait stops Alice in her tracks through the filled halls. There, a woman hides beneath a dark veil, standing in an isle surrounded by tall and violent waves; she has a hole in her chest, and in her palms are the beating heart carried as an offering. Nobody seems to have minded this frame. Not a single visiting eye tried to find the woman’s own in the middle of a chaotic, though beautifully static, standing place. 

Alice stares at it for longer than many, and forgets the woman standing beside. 

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” She tells Alice. The photographer regards her with a smile. 

“Yes,” she agrees. “But… haunting, too.” 

“There is something unique to admire in the darkness,” the woman comments. “My husband used to tell me that.” 

Alice feels the bitter remembrance in herself and ignores it for the sake of her new companion. She doesn’t know anything. Doesn’t need to…

“And he is right,” Alice says instead, paying attention to the details of the woman’s stance: the pose of her arms, the black hair, the beauty and the youth, all an imitation of the portrait—or the other way around. The sight pins her into a state of inertia. “I’m sorry, but do we know each other?”

She gives a little laugh. “Don’t worry, and no—we don’t.” A hand is outstretched. “Barbara.”

“Alice.” They shake hands, but Barbara has a tight hold on Alice’s palm. Everything feels gentle about her. “Is your husband here tonight?”

“Ah,” she shakes her head negatively. “He’s gone. It's been over thirty years since the incident.”

Alice’s stomach twists by a bit, swirling down a question she wanted to make firstly. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to say sorry twice.” Barbara smiles at her—it is an assuring sight. “I always come back to look at this portrait. It reminds me of Tom.” 

By now, Alice looks down to the ring on her finger and itches to disclose her entire loneliness since Bright Falls, offering her own wounded heart: telling how she knows the feeling and how it has stained on her entire soul, one half of it tarnished and another missing, left on the Lake to never be found again. 

However, as she glances up, Barbara seems to understand every single word Alice has preferred to not speak through her expressions, and Alice offers instead: “I know how it is.”

They part from the hold. Alice gazes back to the portrait and believes herself capable of drawing the shape of the veiled lady’s eyes. 

Chapter Text

“I’m not sure this is where I should be,” Dylan admits as he picks two cups, one of coffee and another for hot cocoa. Caffeine suits the Prime Candidate better and sweeter beverages are Dylan’s preferable choice. The small curve of lips she has in return is not for his kindness. “Why did you choose this? You could’ve been…”

“Free?” Alice asks. “You don’t feel free in your position?” 

Dylan looks around in signs of the Director, the brief thought of him soaring on his left shoulder. Sometimes he still feels the burning palm over where only a mark persists. It hurts when an eye wants to open or a fang grows upwards from scarred skin. 

“No,” he says. “But I don’t think I have another choice.” 

“So you have your answer.” 

He focuses on Alice. She is far older than him, perhaps twenty years ahead or so, and seems worn of something other than just age. There are no peculiarities on her face as Dylan has with the countless shifts and growths, yet she has a look of someone with many plans under the sleeve, all with the Bureau being only a way through. 

Dylan only knows that because he is no different from her.

“And how did you get through Northmoor?” He has some easiness to ask that. It is an uncomfortable topic wherein rage makes it slip through his teeth quite effortlessly. 

“Patience. I have dealt with men like him before.” She gives her head a little tilt. “Not exactly this powerful, but his temper is not unfamiliar.” 

Dylan looks down. Alice follows his gaze and adds: “I see you struggle more with him than I do.”

“Being the next in line is terrifying,” he whispers, rubbing his forearm. No longer he wears the sweaters with “P6” written behind—now it’s all suits without a tie and a FBC pin for the incoming future. Alice, as P8, hasn’t reached this phase yet; and the image he has is quickly chained to his sister’s, making his stomach twist. “I’m scared of not doing the right thing… of taking too long to do what I’m supposed to do.”

Alice places a hand over his scarred shoulder. He flinches. Immediately she finds herself warily away from the apparent teeth and gets lightweight on her hold. Dylan breathes in relief at her caution.

“If you don’t know your next step, then come to me for aid,” she says softly. “After all, you’re not the only one who wants to save someone you love.” 

Dylan has never said that before in all his conversations with Alice. 

And, for this exact reason, he feels himself more and more like a piece unsuitable for a puzzle, struggling to fit in a place which will be always his.

Chapter Text

A deer wanders through the gloomy forest, seeking its way out, stopping only to sip water from a still lake. 

“Saga!” Tentacles wags beneath the surface, and a face emerges. “Saga, please! I don’t want to be alone… you have been my only company.” 

She looks at Thomas with stars in her brown eyes. “I don’t want to live here. This isn’t my reality and you know it.” 

Blue eyes then weep between wet curls. 

“And where else would we be our true selves? I thought…” His lower lip trembles. “I thought you were fine with what you became.” 

Saga sees the reflection on the waters Tom dives in: instead of a woman with loosen hair, a deer of great filigree-decorated antlers with a sparkle of incandescent light stood, and there, she protected him with its grace and judged all the same. 

“I feel free, but I also feel stuck,” she says without moving her mouth. “You may have made yourself comfortable, but… just look around. There’s nothing in the Dark Place. Only a loop.” 

Tom raises himself to touch her jaw; the light in her forehead draws swirls on his pupils and reveals truth. This love he holds is too damaged to be bearable.

Her snout presses against the top of his head. “You should leave. For your safety.”

“And where else could I be?” He whispers, and his voice softens, and softens… “Will you remember me, at least?”

Saga raises her head, her sparkle obfuscating her reflection to draw the tentacles, carcasses and bare skin of a friend submerged in a deep lake of unseen bottom. 

“I will,” she says, sincere with her own feelings, “but I will not stay.” 

Chapter Text

Visions of the Taken King swarm his dreams ever since Alan flew too close to the Dreadnaught. In one of them, he saw the Willbreaker swing and fall upon his shape, cutting him in twain yet not declaring his final death—instead, a renewal of the person he was reborn to be.

This morning, Alan only wears the hood. Clutches it tightly. Winter begins harshly and Hunters like him would find it a good reason to gather around a bonfire, play cards, but not dare or wish. So long Alan’s been distant from them, and he can almost, almost miss the comforting sight of the Traveler once hanging above the Last City…

[You’re reaping what you have sown, dear. Do you know how to learn from a mistake?]

Alan hisses and throws his head down, clutching the cloak. Hair falls on his forehead. It has grown more since the self-imposed isolation. 

One single twig cracks underfoot and he raises his gun, eyes flaring orange. Another man raises his hands in defense; Casper is all too familiar with this entire moody behavior and this is only the tip of the iceberg. 

“It’s me,” the Warlock says, “it’s just me, Alan. I’m alone.” 

Too drawn in the images of swords and darkness and blissful nothingness, Alan takes time to return to his senses, and when it happens, Casper already disarms him. The handcannon goes to his holster; a weight is lifted.

“I know you are,” Alan says through a heavy breath, lying to his fear. After a few seconds, he adds: “Did you find the place you’ve been looking for? The ‘Oldest House’?”

Casper takes a considerable time to part away from Alan’s gaze. “No… I haven’t.” He grips the Hunter’s forearm a bit tighter, anchoring. “I’ve found only wreckage and abandoned buildings up north, but something tells me it’s there. I can remember it. Maybe…”

Alan rests his head over Casper’s shoulder, just as sudden. That’s why Casper never strays too far from him.

“You had another dream,” he says without accusation, receiving a nuzzle in response.

“I would rather not talk about this,” Alan mutters against the crook of his neck. “It’s just the same thing, same torment. Nothing really changes.” 

Casper pulls him into an embrace: one palm sneaking beneath the hood to find his hair, diving on waves the Hunter has left uncared for; though every part of Alan has been forlorn from himself, and the more their days go by, the more Casper witnesses Alan becoming only a shell of the man he raised as a Guardian. 

Alan clings on his tenderness as if it is the last thing he can ever trust. 

“Is there anything I can do?” Casper continues trying. “I, uh—I can seek out the cryptarchs’ files. Research other methods. Hell, even speak with the V—”

“Forget it. I can’t drag more people into my mess.” 

Casper chuckles. “You’re not the first person to tell me this…”

The Hunter trails his nose across the Warlock’s shoulder and upwards into his neck and face, only so their lips brush. They press, but do not linger. 

“And I don’t want to be your last,” Alan whispers. “Stay away from this. Please.” 

Casper goes silent, because years living together has taught him better than to speak against his stubbornness; and turns him, at the same time, into someone more and more powerless in his own vicinity. 

Alan pulls him into an embrace and Casper latches on it. 

For a moment, Alan wonders, then, where the other half went.

[Ah, now you don’t remember? You wrote this. You made this. This is only about you, yet this story is not yours.]

Chapter Text

It’s high afternoon as they finish painting the walls and building the baby cribs. Jaakko was attentive to details as any father could be, but so quiet it began to concern Ilmo, who had been trying to lighten the mood ever since the day began. They’ve got light blue paint under their nails, instruction papers left aside (because a good Koskela knows how to trust their instincts), two hammers, bolts, and beer bottles nearby. And nothing cracked the surface of Jaakko’s thoughts.

Eventually, they stand side by side at the half-finished bedroom, and that’s the perfect opportunity for Ilmo to ask: “How does it feel?”

“Frightening,” Jaakko says, simple as that. 

Ilmo taps his back, rubbing thumb over the knot at the beginning of his neck. His twin’s shoulders loosen at each soothing and understanding circle. 

“You’ll do a great job; you have always done that, remember?”

Not as perfectionist as Ilmo, but precise and straightforward, never missing a hit. It is not the same, however, when it comes to children. And it’s a little hard to say this out loud with all the words, compelling him into becoming quick and unfiltered: “Do you seriously believe in what you say?”

“Yes!” Ilmo answers immediately and with a small laugh. “Without any doubt.”

Jaakko’s lips are pressed thin. He fiddles with the folded sleeves of his shirt, running fingers around the ghost of a button sewn there; Ilmo can guess it’s that feeling inside Jaakko’s throat, a continuous ache he can hardly do anything about.

“Even with these monsters running around at night?” 

Ilmo’s mouth dries, remembering the people at Watery and how the campaign to keep them safe has been on course for a good amount of years now. This fear has not ceased amongst worried parents, even with all their efforts after joining the Cult. Ilmo only wished this hadn’t extended to his brother—and himself, now soon to be an uncle. 

More taps are given at Jaakko’s back. 

“Even with them,” Ilmo says in a theatrical, though sincere, lightheartedness. “Jaakko, you’re not only going to be a good father, but a great protector to them. I know you will. I always knew that.” 

Jaakko seems more hopeful with the promise wrapped in Ilmo’s words, less hunched and with shine in his eyes. Good thing. Ilmo likes what he sees. And likes what awaits them in the future, suddenly very promising for the Koskela family. 

Chapter Text

He firmly grasps the steering wheel her eyes can only focus on. 

No.

She looks at him. Trench is not really worried. Thinks himself safe. 

Don’t do this.

Underneath the coat, Jesse clenches her fingers and barely moves her arms. Trench must think she’s having an agitated dream. It’s the only way Jesse has to know she’s not weak.

This is a bad idea. You will get yourself killed. He might survive. The Bureau cannot have you again.

She has only one guess to know if it’s true or not. 

The world spins, but Jesse manages to pin herself into it and escape the car. Her body is not fully strong for the task of running; a desperate pace can be achieved. She only needs to push further with it. No moonlight to guide, no poles—only stars. North star. Where is the north star…

A shot echoes in the desert and her arm is cut. Jesse screams, refusing to look back. More shots echo and blow the dirt beneath her feet. She fears her heart might thrum its way out of her chest. 

“Goddammit, Jesse!” Trench barks out. “Come back!”

“Fuck off!” She returns. 

“I will keep you safe!” He argues, then. When out of her grasp, Trench has only two options left; it only depends how far Jesse can keep on with this. Her body itches, fibrillates beneath skin, and she must continue. “Jesse! Jesse!”

Another hit, right on her ankle. She falls yet her anger does not. Polaris looks out into the lights on the horizon: someone is out, out there, just waiting. Her north star.

Trench comes closer. Jesse howls, frees herself out of the fear: becomes whole.

A figure of brightness and teeth and a thousand eyes of fractal shapes hovers before Zachariah. It resembles a mirror. A kaleidoscope, a biblical figure, or both or neither. Something he has been trying to maintain under his control for so long. Something unknown the scientists at Research are still carefully fiddling to understand its origin. It—she—whatever it now is—frightens the darkness that surrounds, flutters the dirt they stand on, and blows softly against his face. Its harm is not immediate—instead it's a heat that’d burn if he stepped one inch closer. 

Above everything, it is beautiful; and so it is a demand to cease. 

“Jesse—” He whispers hoarsely. “Is it still you?” 

A swift motion—a pulse around him. A threat; it speaks.

“YOU KNOW WHO I AM. YOU HAVE BEEN HERE FOREVER. I HAVE NOT. LEAVE ME ALONE.”

The warmth gnaws at something deeper within himself, and he claims in a throaty growl: “I won’t.” 

Brightness increases, encases the source and twists outwards in a gust of icy-hot pressure. 

The source is burnt. Brightness vanishes. Jesse leaves wounded, but freed. 

Her north star awaits.

Chapter Text

Logan pries through the slot in the wall with her left eye, seeing every act of a story repeating itself at her every wrong clue, every misstep in the dark echoing in layers upon layers. In her right eye she sees a greying man slurping whisky out of an umbrella straw, looking at his own notes whilst cross legged on the bed. 

She remembers him. 

He had been there, in the Oldest House, iterations prior to this one. Told her he was a visitor and what his true name was, though he pinpointed, Troubled like that you may not remember it later. Logan doesn’t, really. 

There’s an attempt to see right through him—something telling on his relaxed look, on the furniture in the room, or even how he uses a straw. Nothing comes. How did he come here if he’s not an authorized agent? This is not the Oceanview Motel she knows and her mother too. Is he part of this narrative? Did he create this all? To be alive through this hell of a place it could only be; or else Mr. Door has been guiding him all along like the host had done with Logan another few times before. If none of these possibilities are true, then it must be only a blessing that he is there. Wait…

Blessing… Logan narrows her left eye at him. Blessing, blessing… Chester? Chester. Sounds familiar. Chester… Bless-ed? Bless-ing? Bless, just Bless?

Lips still on straw, his eyes lock at the slot, and she is caught. 

Logan parts away and stumbles on the hall, covering her mouth to not make a sound. She quickly raises on her feet to wander off from the door—it opens at her first step. 

“Miss Anderson!” Chester announces loudly. “I see you are finally close to making a way out.” 

The teenager freezes, turning around to see the man relaxed against the doorframe with the glass in hands. Chester seems happy. Probably glad someone else’s playing this little game, too.

“Did you know this?” She says quietly, remembering the stories Saga told her. “Have you made all of this?”

“Me? Oh—no no no.” Chester shakes his free hand, smiling. “Maybe you should wonder what is inside your backpack that’s making all of this happen.” 

Logan narrows her eyes at his words and—she can finally see it. 

A keychain.

Leave it for her curiosity and she’ll take it. 

What better breach into the Bureau other than prying eyes that knows what is inside the House where most doesn’t?

“My backpack?” Logan nudges more. “What are you talking about?” 

Chester shrugs. “Better look at it.” 

She gets another intuition. 

The keychain I left. My property. 

It shapeshifts into whatever closest thing around, it doesn’t matter the form. 

It has been very useful before and now I miss it. But I must be patient.

Logan waits for a moment; then she opens her backpack, finding a Coffee World keychain attached with a tiny deer figure. Nothing is really off about it, yet Chester shifts in his stance in the corner of her eyes. 

“I think you should be careful with it,” he warns.

She looks at him. Raises the Item before her face. “This one? My keychain?” 

“You know how Altered Items work,” he says with a hand now raised in defense, “I wouldn’t play around with it like you’re doing.” 

Logan throws the bait. “Why are you so concerned? It’s not like it’s yours.”

“It isn’t yours either, Miss Anderson. Look by yourself. You still haven't found what you are searching for.” 

Unnerved, Logan starts to spin it around her finger. Chester clearly doesn’t like what she does—one slight twitch of his eye conveying a lot—but he wants to see how far Logan goes. Surely if he wants it so badly he could just do the trick. Reset it all. She can make it up for another time; she knows her mother will be waiting at the end of this road. 

Yet at the end of a road there is another one right after, just waiting. 

Logan has an idea. 

She clutches the keychain in her palm in a tight grip and outstretches her arm. Chester makes a scene: he pretends it isn’t his and stays shocked for seconds, unmoving. Even opens his mouth: “Why are you giving it to me?”

“You seem to know how to handle this better than I do,” she says, pointing at the Altered Item. “Take it.”

“Do I really know?” He looks at her hand and then at her face. “And if you regret this decision?”

“It depends what you’re going to do with it, Mr. Bless.” 

He hums… and smiles, wide-teeth-bare, reaching out for the Item. Placing it next to the glass with an umbrella straw makes it react, giving him now another glass with the same details, even the tiny green umbrella. Chester stares at Logan to see her expression, but she presents nothing—she even mimics his sarcasm. 

“You’re really smart, Miss Anderson,” he says, chuckling. “There’s a door with an inverted pyramid at the end of the corridor. It will take you back, I hope.” 

“And my mom?”

“Your mother will return from her work, don’t worry. Just go, or it’ll get late for you.”

Logan chuckles and catches the impression right away, but this one she lets it linger in her head. She turns around and walks off and into the door…

“Hey, goodnight. I came to see my mother.”

“Miss Anderson, Miss Anderson! You forgot your HRA.”

“Logan, glad to see you! Do you want to hear about a new use for Black Rocks?”

“How is Casey, by the way? I know he isn’t the same guy from the books or the movies…”

All the same questions. All the same as the beginning of this cycle. 

“I just came to see my mother.”

The answer leads her to be sat in an empty desk with constant, but not direct, supervision. Logan organizes her backpack in the meantime. She left in a hurry after school and wanted to spend some time with Saga; that’s all she ever wanted to do since. Books and papers are all placed neatly, and a sound calls her attention: her keychain lying on the table, waiting to be caught. 

Slowly and carefully, Logan taps inside her own backpack. Finds her keychain tucked in and untouched. 

“Logan!” The sound of Saga’s voice is grounding and makes her heart swell in relief. Before she even turns to look at her mother, arms are already wrapped around her and pulled tight. “I’ve been told you’re visiting me. Ready for some girls’ night?” 

She holds Saga’s arm firmly, and lets herself sink in the hug, in her warmth, in her comfort. 

“Yes!” Logan gets up and, as Saga turns around minutely to wave at a fellow colleague from the Investigations Sector, she opens up the last drawer from the desk and tucks the Altered Item inside it where no one would find so easily. By the time Saga looks back at her, Logan asks: “Where would you like to go?” 

“Anywhere you want to, sweetie.” Saga places an arm over Logan’s shoulders, guiding both towards the exit. “It’s at your choice.”