For a moment, Alex can't say anything. She can't even think of something to say which almost feels a bit like some sort of mental crisis when they were talking about this. But the sensation of being punched in the stomach doesn't go away when Alex wraps her arms around herself and studies him. It would be easier if it did go away, but nothing about this has ever been easy and Alex Reagan knows that nothing about it ever will be. It can't be when you look at all of the moving parts and people who are involved with it.

Her voice is soft when she replies: "he never wants to believe, Simon. Would you if like you were him? I don't think I would want to believe either. Hell, I'm not even the Mantle and I don't want to believe this. I mean I do," which is where the difference between Alex and Strand happened to be, Alex does believe and Strand religiously and devoutly refuses to believe in it, no matter what happens.

But before Simon can be snide about Strand (there's never not enough time to be snide about Strand when it comes to Simon Reese though) Alex focuses onto something else. "How come he's psychic here where as he could block it back home." Alex isn't saying that this is some newly found power; she knows that this ability was one that Strand has had the entire time and he'd been too frightened to use.