eyemind | event } was there somethin' that made you come back again?

Entry tags:

event } was there somethin' that made you come back again?

WHO: Everyone!
WHAT: Missing passengers return to Navi, trauma recovery begins (or not).
WHERE: Anywhere on Navi.
WHEN: March 21 until the next event (date TBD)
WARNINGS: Add these to your comment subject lines as needed! And if you end up getting lovingly strangled by another passenger, please record it on the death page.

There’s no fanfare to signal the return of passengers who’ve been missing for the past few weeks, just a sudden influx of familiar faces, returned to their respective cabins like they never left. Anything that was on their person at the time when the shift occurred came along for the ride, so those bellbottoms from the magic closet? Yeah, you’re stuck with them now.

Another thing the returning passengers will be stuck with is their memories of their time in Xanadu. Add those to the memories of their time on Navi, before their “death,” which have all now been restored. Ain’t the multiverse a wacky little thing?

Have fun getting to know your new neighbors and reuniting with old friends! Oh, and watch out for goose droppings - the feathered menace’s reign of terror hasn’t entirely been cleaned up yet.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

So she was here before. He knew Richard Strand was lying, didn't even need to pry for that. Simon's quiet for a time, digesting what she's saying. He doesn't entirely know how to process this information. That they're both there, in space, somehow. That of all the things that could happen somehow Alex Reagan was offed by murderous space robots in fake Heaven. That she was somehow now alive again, fully healed, and able to remember.

It was a lot to take in. Too tired to keep up the looming and deciding it was probably not the best way to have a conversation anyway Simon eventually moved to slide down the wall next to Alex. Not too close, but close enough for solidarity. This was all... insane. Just flat out insane. And her story definitely made his just sound downright stupid in retrospect.

Almost killed by a goose. What the hell?

"Strand would say something about shared hallucinations," He mused. Even though Richard was also there, Simon's fairly confident he'd still try to brush it off as something like that. After staring at the wall for a time Simon dared a glance over at her. "How are you feeling now?" Simon's bad at emoting like a normal person, that doesn't mean he doesn't care.

"Well, Strand doesn't get to have an opinion about this." There's a sharpness in Alex's voice that hadn't been there in a while--it was as bad as it had been before she'd apologized and Coralee had shown up; how it had been when Strand threw her out of his father's house. In her tone there's also a defeatist note that she really doesn't like and Alex knows that given how expressive her voice is that it would be hard to miss. For a long moment until he asks how she is, Alex just keeps her head resting on the top of her knees before she turns his attention to him.

"I don't know, honestly. I've never died and been brought back before." Which was probably an understatement considering everything in her once relatively normal life. But looking at him more clearly causes her empathy to kick into high drive and it's always easier for Alex to care about other people or a story rather than herself and her wellbeing. "What happened to you? How long have you been here?" Because of course Alex was going to ask every question that she could, even if it was with less of a spark than it might have been before; it'll come back eventually.

But at least he knew who she was, Alex is relieved to see honestly. And when she looks at him, she can see that he's grown more than a little bit from the skinny malnourished kid at Three Rivers. Which of course makes Alex wonder: "when are you from?" And she slightly wishes that he's at least from the voicemail he'd left for her.

That just earned something of a quiet chuckle out of Simon. It would seem Alex and Richard weren't on great terms right now, interesting. Then again he's not surprised, knowing roughly from when Richard's from and his temper it's easy to guess he's been typical abrasive Strand. Abrasive, and occasionally mean-spirited. Hell even he and Simon got into it, and usually Strand managed to maintain professional with him. "That bad?" Yeah, he heard the tone. It's impossible to miss with Alex, one didn't even need to be a psychic for that.

"We could ask the ship." He suggested, choosing not to point out how absurd talking about dying and coming back as though it was something completely normal was. She knew, he knew, no need. Oh, right, of course she was going to notice he looked like he'd lost a fight. He really needed some new clothes. "There was... a situation," Typical Simon vaguespeak. "It's been less than a month." He thinks, it's hard to tell. Seeing Alex worn down like this is upsetting, but he knows she's resilient. She'll bounce back.

Of course, that's the question isn't it? When is he from in comparison to her? He considers how best to answer this: It's one of those times where direct answers could be as confusing as indirect ones. Then again... they were stuck on a space ship with no known way home at the moment. It wasn't like he needed to point her in any particular direction right now.

Maybe she can have one direct, for free. "September, 2017." He's feeling generous.

"You know Strand." Alex just says it softly but matter-of-factly. Her shoulders stretch up and down and she takes a deep breath not wanting to conjure up another fight with the man like a magic trick. "He's angry that I'm from so far beyond him and that I know things that he doesn't want me to know, and things that he doesn't even know yet. It's... hard. Feeling like we're so far back at square one." Then there's a pause and Alex tilts her head realizing something, and she says it quickly. "He didn't know who you are because he's from before Three Rivers." It doesn't sound like a gotcha moment, but it is Alex feeling like there's a bit of a lightbulb going off over her head in that.

But everything else slips when he says that he's from thirteen months after Alex is. There's a little bubble of relief that manifests itself into a laugh as mountains and canyons of fear are shorn off in pieces. "Then I didn't do it. Playing the Mysterium at the axis mundi didn't cause the end of the world. It's still there. Oh my god it's still there!" Alex rolls onto her feet quickly, and she just is a whirlwind of opening the door to her room and heading to her dresser rummaging through it for clothing for both her, and for him. Finding a shirt that seems big enough, Alex tosses it to him. "I mean I still have a lot of questions about all of that stuff you said in your voicemail, but.." Is she flying? Alex may in fact be flying right now, if nothing else it seems like it and Simon has probably never seen her like this before. "Here. I don't think any of my pants would fit though."

Simon simply nodded his understanding, he did know Strand. While he didn't have to deal with him on a personal level beyond their one and only meeting he knew more than enough through Alex and her experience with him. And now through his own more personal encounter, which hadn't particularly endeared him to the man. "He doesn't like it when someone knows more than him," Simon confirmed. He'd already butted heads with Strand over that fact. "He doesn't want to face the truth."

Even if his eyes have been forced open much wider than back home.

Oh, oh Alex... Simon only offers her something of a strangely unreadable look. Not quite sad, but almost. It was still there, for now, but very close to not. Had she not had her conversation with him yet? Probably not. "What's the last thing you remember?" That will help him gauge where she might need to be caught up to. Then, like the wind, she was up and moving.

Simon was more sluggish, pushing himself up from the floor to follow after her more gingerly. Still hurting, even if the worst of the injuries were on the mend. He managed to get there in time to catch the shirt she tossed to him. Swapping off his torn up bloody shirt without a second thought. He just wanted out of the damned thing. "What would you like to know?" He leaves a lot of voicemails, but by her reaction he's getting a vague idea of where in the timeline she was. Still earlier than him. A lot has happened, or not happened as the case may be.

Simon has definitely never seen Alex this excited. He's going to really hate to be the party pooper here. But... all might not be lost. With them here, the world might be safer over all. Strange as that might be.

"Thank you." No, really, he's very glad to have a not blood-stained shirt. He tried washing the thing in a sink before he realized there was in fact a washing machine in this place but it's too far gone.

Whenever Alex has dealt with Simon, she's always known that he was keeping things back and that he didn't even offer her a tenth of whatever information that he'd had. Oh, she knows it's because he liked being mysterious and that he didn't want her to be distracted but it's still frustrating nonetheless. But as much as Alex is in the same position as Strand with not knowing all of the things that Simon does, she doesn't feel all that much sympathy towards him right now. Granted, most of her anger has cooled given the memories that were now slammed confusingly back into her head, but Alex still wished that she could make Strand open his eyes and see things for the truth.

Also there was the fact that he'd thought that she was sleeping with Jon even though they're partners. Honestly, Alex is hoping it's not going to be something that she needs to explain again.

"I'll talk to Mammon." Well that wasn't going to be awkward at all considering the whole soulmate thing, "I know he's got some extra clothing that people have left since they've been here. But for now that'll work." Is Alex avoiding the question about when she's from because she knows that she's absolutely not going to like the answer that Simon gives her? No of course not in the slightest.

(She definitely is.)

"August." Which isn't helpful considering that she doesn't give the year, in anything other than a sigh. "2016. We'd just met with Thomas Warren and you'd called and left the voicemail about well... you know 'the dark being darker' and all that stuff."

Simon is frustrating like that. Alex, however, is wise enough to understand that trying to force information out of Simon will only make him clam up tighter. He'll say what needs to be said when it's time to say it. Some things have to be experienced before they can be explained. She was quick to dismiss what he was talking about early on, understandably, it wasn't until she started experiencing for herself that she began to parse what Simon was talking about, for example. Don't feel too sorry for Strand, his stubbornness is of his own doing.

If she does have to explain it, Simon is so going to be a fly on the wall of that conversation. He told Strand to listen to the recorder, he could have all the answers without confusion if he only tried.

"Mammon?" Wait, was Alex consorting with demons now? That's very concerning. "How long have you been here?" She seemed very familiar with their current situation. Why, and how, had she gone elsewhere? Those questions will be answered in time he expects.

Not helpful, but Simon's patient. He won't be able to answer her question until she answers his. "Yes. About the end not being what you think." He remembers now. She's so close, yet still so far. "It's been a year." Which really makes him wonder how this place interconnects with the rest. Clearly they're all three here, Richard Strand from the earliest point. Was there a reason behind it all, or just happenstance?

“Five months.” Alex just pauses and counts the time out on her fingers because her brain isn’t working all that well right now. “Yeah. Five months counting the time I spent in Xanadu, I think? It’s what it seems like anyway. I’m pretty sure.” Is Alex more than a little bit worried because she doesn’t have a more concise time on that? Of course she is. It reminds her all too well of how it feels to become lost in a story where the only way that Alex knows what’s happening is by the pressing calendar on her phone and the appointments that she’s got for the show. It’s odd how quickly she could fall into that here too but she doesn’t want to think about that.

"This is the first time we've been on a planet and haven't remembered being so though. I mean we've had some rough times on planets before..." Alex just frowns and she rubs her fingers across her temples because there's a lot going on there that she doesn't want to talk about, not the least of which was her nightmare of things that she'd not remembered when she was a kid before she was adopted. It was probably nothing more than the ship.

It had to be.

Taking a long slow breath, Alex just looks to Simon. "It's been a year but things aren't over? The world hasn't ended? Like am I just still doing the show with no answers and stuff, even after everything that we found out about Warren and Coralee?"

Five months. His brows furrowed thoughtfully. Alex certainly never disappeared for five months after August of 2016 back home, nor did Strand disappear for any extended length of time immediately after the show started before meeting Simon. It stood to reason, then, that whatever transpired here would hold no influence over what happened back home. It would neither stave off, nor guarantee the events of the future.

There were no easy outs, conversely there was no damage to be done. Both reassuring and frustrating. Of course that also implied they might now be permanently removed from the timeline they knew. Would they even be able to return to home as they were, back in time where they belonged? Or were they now a permanent citizen of this place, and this time? This raised a lot of questions with no real way of answering them but to wait and see.

Either way, it meant it couldn't hurt to catch Alex up to speed. He had even more questions about her time here, the planets, and concern about Xanadu and what transpired there. However, he could also tell she didn't want to talk about it. They had time for that later, after she's had some time to distance herself from it all. Simon will ask, eventually, Alex likely knew that. Just not right now.

"No," A pause, as that was most certainly not a satisfactory nor wholly accurate answer. "The show took a hiatus. Things went quiet on your end, Dr. Strand disappeared for a few months. When he returned you both began going through the tapes together. The show resumed in August."

This isn't one of those situations where he can be cagey and leave a trail of crumbs for her to follow to reach the answers, so he might as well be as frank as Simon ever is. He of course left out what he was up to, but that should never be a surprise with Simon.

Of all of the things that Alex Reagan was expecting, one of them was definitely not that Strand had disappeared on her again. Again. Months lost where he was god knows where doing god knows what. Had he gone on the run with Coralee even after he'd told her that he didn't think that he'd ever see her again? Had something happened and the two of them had fought after everything with Thomas Warren and Simon's message? A year. The show had been on hiatus for a year before it seemed like something might have happened and for a moment Alex really didn't want to believe it. She doesn't want to believe it and if it were someone else, Alex would definitely think that they were lying to her. While Simon may not always tell her the whole truth that she wants, Alex knows that he doesn't lie to her. He can evade and imply but he wouldn't lie.

So, that just leaves Alex with the truth of Simon's words and Strand's leaving and the dull ache in her chest that had twinged since Strand had arrived and the two of them had been fighting so much sharpens for a bit, almost making her breath hitch. After she'd thought they were on an even kneel back home (and something that she was looking forward to considering how her and Richard fought like cats and dogs here because they couldn't seem to get out of their own way) he was gone and she doesn't even have that anymore.

Feeling like the wind is knocked out of her for a moment again, Alex just goes through her drawers again looking for something to wear that she'd actually picked and wasn't covered in her blood. "Um, gimme just a second to change into something more me, okay?" Yes, of course she knew that there was a good possibility that Simon had already seen her naked considering everything, but Alex is going to ignore that as much as she can.

Of course Strand disappeared again. Of course Alex was surprised about it, though Simon thought she shouldn't be. Of course she had questions, so many questions none of which she was giving voice to.

"Ask me."

He suggested in typical Simon fashion. No, he wouldn't volunteer the answers before she asked, but he always had this way of knowing she had questions. Even which ones they were, and yet he still made her ask. He could probably circumvent the whole thing by offering more information, but that would be wholly unlike him. She knew him well enough to know he wasn't going to lie to her. Dodge answering things he didn't want to or avoiding volunteering information yes, but he wouldn't lie. She also knew him well enough to know he wasn't going to answer things she didn't ask.

But he understood, she needed a minute, so he simply nodded and turned to walk out and close the door behind him. Simon also wasn't going to confirm or deny the suspicion as to whether or not he'd seen her naked before. That was definitely a conversation neither of them wanted to approach.

Alex isn't the slightest bit surprised by Simon's demand that she ask him the questions that were in her head. That was the old dance wasn't it? Simon making her put things to words that she really didn't want to? It certainly felt like it to her even though Alex knew (and knows really) how Simon can read what she's thinking. While Strand might not believe it (and maybe never would given how things were going like him leaving again) Alex did even before there had been all the truths about Coralee and Strand himself being psychic. Normally, however Simon didn't allow her all that much time before she put her thoughts in order to ask those questions, and now somehow she did. It was an odd feeling.

Equally odd was Alex's realization that for the first time basically ever, Simon couldn't simply hang up or disappear on her. Even when the two of them had met at the hospital, Simon had been able to have himself pulled out by setting up the thing with Trent. And now there was simply no bilocating out. Oh, he could still be as cryptic and Simon like as he wanted to be (and as Alex knows he will be) but he would still be there. It's an odd prospect, just like Strand being here. Funny how none of them were from the same time. No, that would have been too easy.

But she doesn't want to think about that too much right now, so she just goes into the bathroom and washes the blood off of her before sliding into a button up and a cardigan and her normal trousers. Alex Reagan definitely has a uniform and she feels miles better in it. Leaving the bloody clothes balled in a corner of the bathroom (sorry Navi) Alex isn't even sure if he's going to be there when she opens the door or if all of it was just some sort of odd fever dream based on her death. Simon is there waiting, and she just says "okay," before coming back into her room and going to sit on her bed. Is there some part of Alex Reagan itching for her to turn on a recorder? Of course there is, but there really doesn't seem to be any reason for it right now when she doesn't think it's going to carry on over back home.

It was... perhaps not normal, but something familiar between them. Something to fall back on that was reliable and predictable despite everything insane going on around them. Simon would be cryptic and force her to say the things she wanted to say out loud, Alex would be exasperated, good times. Either today Simon was feeling more generous than normal, or the lack of the world ending urgency given there wasn't anything they could do given their current circumstances left him with little choice but to be accommodating.

Or perhaps some of both. She didn't know what was soon to transpire back home, nor just how generally exhausted he was. Enough to have him on slightly more tolerable behavior at the very least. That and... he's aware he can't escape as easily as he could before. He's lost control of the conversation, he can't hang up, and even if he did bilocate in front of her it wasn't like he had far he could go. Couldn't throw a tantrum and get himself sedated, couldn't so easily create a diversion. This was going to be interesting.

Thankfully she wasn't feeling like digging too deep at the moment as neither was Simon, he may not have died recently but he came damn close and was still feeling it. Honestly he kind of wanted to go have a nap, but he'll do what he can for Alex before slinking off. In fact, perhaps to her surprise, he was still outside waiting. Once she comes to fetch him he follows her back in, finding a chair to settle himself into. Evidently he intended to stick around for a while to answer her questions.

"What do you want to know?" He asks again. She can record this if it'll make her feel better. He won't argue.

What did she want to know? It was a question that was so vast and varied that Alex honestly doesn’t know quite where to begin. It seems so distant in some ways, the urgency that she had felt then dimming a bit with the space. Even when Strand had arrived, Alex hadn’t felt the sense to know return because so much of him was tied up in moments where things weren’t so complicated—especially when he so staunchly refused to listen to the show. But with Simon here, it’s not as simple as it coming rushing back but it’s also Alex knowing that Simon won’t simply allow her to rest on her laurels even if they were so far from home.

Letting out a deep breath to center herself, Alex explains even before she offers up the first question because she wants him to know reasoning for things. “It’s hard to find battery for stuff from back home and I want to conserve what’s left in my recorder for whenever Strand gets his head out of his ass.” Which could possibly be never, Alex doesn’t know at this point. “So he can listen to things with Coralee and Warren and he and I without the editing process happening in the middle.” There was less chance for her to say she was staging the story of whatever else that way—she’d already had gotten that from him once in her life and she doesn’t need it again.

“So I guess the place to start is: did I do it? Did I cause something axis mundi to happen?”

It was a ridiculously large question to ask her, especially realizing she wouldn't even necessarily know what to ask with a year of time between them. That was alright, Simon intended to stick around for a while and do what he could to catch her up. There wasn't much sense in doing the breadcrumbs thing when she lacked the ability to follow up and discover any of it herself. He won't let her rest, true, but that doesn't mean he will be needlessly difficult either. It's always been with a purpose, his leading questions and hints. Driving her to discover the evidence, the truth, for herself. It would be too outlandish if he just told her, she needed to see for herself.

"There isn't a rechargeable option in space?" He asked, raising an eyebrow. Oh, he understood not using the one she had, but he's surprised she didn't think to pick one up along the way. Provided they'd had opportunity, anyway. Strand will never pull his head out of his ass if he has something to say about it, Simon, on the other hand, has nothing but time and trollishness on his hands. Strand's in for trouble. He nodded at her explanation, of course Simon already knew about the recorder he has that annoying habit of doing that.

"No," He began, then after a beat added: "Not yet." Which probably wasn't the most reassuring.

Alex just gives Simon something of a guilty smile and she combines it with a shrug. "I mean, there are. I even found the whole show up until the end of season two on a sort of MP3 player here. But they don't feel right I know that sounds insane, but it's true. They just don't feel right when I hold them or talk into them. I mean I do try sometimes but..." Gesturing to a drawer that's slightly farther away than she could reach right now. Maybe she should record it, but instead she just looks at him while he answers the question.

His answer wasn't at all reassuring for Alex, not in the slightest, and it's that reason that she does actually get up and grab one of the recorders she's picked up from one of the planets she'd been. After all, part of dealing with Simon was the way that she played the recordings over and over, both to Nic and to herself as she tried to suss out any new meaning, or the way that things might have fitted differently into the puzzle of the tapes when they'd had a new area to weave through it.

Sitting back down and hitting play on the recorder without even bothering to say test or to check the levels on both of them, Alex speaks again. After all, this isn't some raw recording for the show that she's going to need the time in the editing bay with later. This is just for her, and she's going to know when, where and who she was recording. "Not yet? But you think it's still coming even after when you are? Is it part of like... the virus of this spreading or whatever?" And then because it's clearly just hit her so Alex asks in alarm: "am I spreading it here if I let people listen to the show?"

Alex, you do recall who you're talking to, right? Simon is the expert in insane, or perhaps the worst person to ask about being insane. It could go either way. "But you aren't on the trail of something important that needs uncovering?" He supplies. It doesn't sound too strange to him, she's not on the case here. They're... out of order, out of time and their purpose. A strange holding pattern just waiting for what to do. Of course maybe that wasn't the case on the planets? Simon didn't yet know.

That's more like it, even if it isn't quite right having the recorder out did make things a little more familiar. Alex preparing to analyze whatever cryptic nonsense came out of Simon later when she had more clues to piece the puzzle together.

"There's too much at stake now. Just because things seem quiet doesn't mean they're not moving. You're too close now." There's a quiet, thoughtful pause as he considers her question. That's... actually a very good question. "I don't know," An honest answer for a change. "Maybe?" He didn't know if the rules worked the same out here. If they could spread the song, the infection to other peoples. Other worlds. Maybe if she kept part of it out and didn't let them listen to the Unsound it would prevent the chain from starting?

"Yeah," she wasn't on the trail of anything here, not really. Honestly Alex doesn't quite know who she is without being a reporter, so she's felt adrift here other than when they've had something else that they needed to do like go into the woods for Slenderman or anything else. But she's still Alex with far too many questions on her mind, and thanks to Murmur more sleep than she almost knows what to do with. Which is something that she's going to need to consider now that Simon is here and if it would have any effect on him. Making a mental note to check, Alex just chews on her lower lip.

Alex is someone who frequently moves when she thinks. Even when she's in the editing bay Alex moves to the point where Nic got her an exercise ball to sit on. Moving helps, because she's always a bundle of energy, and she doesn't stop herself from getting up and pacing now, but only after putting the recorder on a stable surface. What Simon says about things happening even if they didn't seem like it makes sense and Alex can't help but to think about the time before her vacation and how it felt like the supernatural train was moving with or without her, and now she had proof of just how true that had been.

Something else to add to the file of things that Strand and Nic had thought she was being crazy on only be proven correct later on.

"Of all the things you don't know, Simon, the not knowing how that works here is probably the scariest." Not that there's many, considering Alex assumes he has all of the answers. So, she's going to focus on them. "We're too close to what?" And yes, Alex assumes it's the show and Strand rather than herself being too close.

Simon completely understands the sentiment. Without a course to drive toward, what was he going to do with himself? It wasn't as though he exactly had experience living as a normal person. Until he'd left the hospital but recently his daily life had been incredibly structured and controlled. Save for the bilocating... which there wasn't even far he could go. At least Alex was here, so he could maintain some small purpose as far as she was concerned. Not that she'd appreciate him saying as much.

So he won't. He'll just continue to do what he's been doing, creepily watching from the shadows. He will be glad she's getting more sleep, goodness knows she needs and deserves it.

Of course she was right, Nic and Strand might have been quick to dismiss her intuition constantly, but when had it been wrong? Perhaps sometimes she did reach, one could certainly make that argument, but when had Alex been wrong? Maybe rather than continuing to dismiss her, they should have taken a moment to consider her conclusions a little more closely. Maybe she could afford to do the same.

He let out a rueful kind of huffed laugh. "Yeah," He had to agree to that. It was scary, not knowing for sure. "To the center. To everything. To what all of this is about." That's a very clear answer Simon thank you.

A very Simon answer that leads to a very Alex migraine, of course. Because what was a conversation with Simon that didn't end up with her rubbing her temples in the same way that she was doing now? The only difference was in the way that Alex normally had to wait until Simon hung up the phone and was done with talking to her before she did it. Letting out a long, steady and controlled breath (was someone counting? Yes, she was absolutely counting to ten before she responded.) "Okay, Simon." That seems an easy place to start right, and at least it's not the sharp sounding sort of tone that Alex would have used once upon a time back home.

Also if she was a little further along, the center comment would make her think that he sounded like Strand, but for not Alex lacks that context.

"Okay." Well, that doesn't mean that Alex isn't going to try another way around this. "So, you said ' but if you build it, he will come. And when he does, he brings chaos, and madness, and death.'" Yes, Alex can recite it from memory because she's listened to it many times and turned it over and over in her head like a rubix cube, which frankly is easier to solve than anything Simon said is. "Did you mean 'you' as me building it personally, me the show or just a general you of like all of this?

It wouldn't be a conversation with Simon if he weren't being frustratingly vague, metaphorical, and giving Alex migraines. There's the... faintest look of amusement from Simon, because he knows that gesture distinctly and he shouldn't by all logic. Of course he's seen it, distinctly knows the headache she suffers immediately after one of his calls. They've not reached the part where he hangs up yet, so he'll wait while she counts her ten and collects her thoughts. It's not like he has anywhere pressing to be right now anyway.

Except maybe asleep, he should probably be asleep. Neither of them are very smart about doing that often enough.

He's touched that she's remembered what he said so thoroughly! She does listen to him! How wonderful. It's only too bad she doesn't take his warnings seriously enough. Her recitation earns a nod, yes that is what he said and he stands by it still. But Alex wasn't building anything, not technically, even if she was a piece putting it all together.

"Everything." Her, the show, the various cults they've encountered. "There are many... architects." And they are all working toward the same goal: The end of everything.

"Architects." Alex repeats the word in the same way that she would if she was recording for the show and she was trying to see if it had some sort of different meaning than the ones that she was thinking of. The idea that there's more than one person who is pulling her strings (well, there's tons of people pulling Alex Reagan's personal strings: Strand, Nic, Warren, Coralee and yes Simon himself) in the sense of this massive story is something that she doesn't want to think about. Thomas Warren himself is large enough and has enough clout to give her nightmares for the rest of her life if she didn't already not sleep, never mind someone else who may be behind this.

So, starting from the beginning then and working to tease out the bundle of threads and knots that Simon always brings to her like the Cheshire cat wound up in string that he is. "I'm not one, I don't think." It's not really a question because Alex doesn't expect Simon to answer it. "But I'm like, the person following the directions and putting the pieces together? Like all of the pieces that you and Strand and Warren and Coralee leave all over the place."

Specks of dust. So many specks of dust. Throughout time they've been there working toward this. The evidence has been there for anyone willing to put the pieces together. Someone like Alex. Of course, there were so many people pulling strings, especially her strings and Simon wouldn't deny his own part in that. He'd been pretty up front about the fact he was curating what information he had for her to keep her from chasing leads out to nowhere. That implication alone should be alarming to her, but Alex seemed to trust him regardless.

As expected her first question netted no answer from him. She's talking it out as she does, he will let her do her work. Her second, however, was spot on: "Yes. You, Alex Reagan, can see the threads tying the whole tapestry together." She's in a unique position to collect information that others might not so easily glean. To find links, sometimes completely arbitrarily, where no one else thought to look. To follow them to their conclusion, despite all interference in her way.

If Alex were to think about the ways that Simon was curating the information that he gave for her and how he didn't want her to be distracted, it would mean that she would need to actually think about the things that she knows about Strand now too. After all, the last night that she had been home and been with him, Strand had admitted that there were over a hundred black tapes, and the handful of ones that he'd shown her 'might' have been connected. Given that Alex had spent over a year believing that they were connected even without that additional evidence (and insisting it quite loudly, she seemed to recall) the fact that Strand had picked those to show her (including the ones she was most frightened of) meant that he had curated her experience particularly on those ones as well. While she could go searching off in directions and chasing all the leads that she could, another way that Simon and Strand were alike was in how they essentially wound up Alex like a toy and watched her go.

Eventually they'll come a time when Alex is willing to admit that to herself, but in this moment she's definitely not willing to. The scabs of the show are still too fresh to be scars, and Alex doesn't want to make things any worse for herself than what's already happening.

When he says that she can see the way that things tie together, Alex just huffs some of the hair out of her face as she looks at him, because she remembers telling Nic that it felt like she's just pulling at the threads of something that she can't see from where she's standing. Simon had called after she'd gotten back from the Empress with Strand and had called it a web before he'd called it a symphony. "The interconnectedness of all things." Alex quotes back at him. "Are the advocate and the adversary the same person? Are their meanings interchangeable?"

Maybe she should stop to consider how Strand has been curating the information he gives her, and why. There are a lot of things Alex should maybe stop to consider and question that she's neglected to, Amalia being just one of the ones Simon's pointed out to her. Strand had absolutely curated her experience, giving her tapes that even he thought were connected all the while insisting that they weren't. Why? They were both guilty of winding her up and watching what she came up with, the only difference being was Simon didn't pretend that wasn't exactly what he was doing.

They did have more pressing matters to attend to right now than peeling apart the last three years. There will be plenty of time for that.

"Yes," He responded as she recalled his words. She was pulling at a great web too large for her to quite grasp the scope of, yet, but she was getting so much closer. "Maybe. That depends on who you're talking to. Sometimes, yes." Lately it has been yes.

event } was there somethin' that made you come back again?

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