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

[seeingyou]

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.

Comments

[bilocates]

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.

[11calls]

"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."

[bilocates]

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.

[11calls]

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?"

[bilocates]

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.

[11calls]

For a moment Alex is silent, and she’s working on disassembling and reassembling Simon’s words. In a strange way that she doesn’t want to think about, there’s a part of her that missed this. Being a journalist was in Alex Reagan's blood and always has been, even if now it’s only a title that she (barely) holds onto only in name. When this story is gone Alex knows that she will lose it. But hopefully she’ll end up stopping the end of the world. Maybe. Hopefully.

“So.” Alex asks after a minute, her dark eyes on him as she tries to read the body language of someone who has always simply been a voice on the phone really for all the times that she had spoken to him before. “Would you say that's the same person?" Alex can't help the question or the one that comes immediately after that honestly. "And is that person Thomas Warren? Was Strand right about that when he came whipping into the office that time?" The time that Nic had called her to come and essentially babysit him even when Nic would yell at her for getting too close to him. Sometimes it seems like Alex is always been a rock and a hard place and is standing in water that is slowly coming to a boil around her and she didn't notice until it was too late.

Alex knows that Simon is definitely someone who had been turning the flame on that pot higher and higher.

"Thomas Warren definitely seems to be at the center of this way more than I am. Or than Strand is even. It's..." There's connections that Alex is trying to make but the threads are spiderwebs that slip through her fingers. "Was he the one who sent the countdown to the studio?"

[bilocates]

There was a certain comforting familiarity in the back and forth, wasn't there? Simon offering breadcrumbs, waiting for Alex to pick up the trail. Something that, while still strange in its own right, was a pattern they'd repeated time and again. Something to spark that journalistic hunger in her. So, as is customary, he will wait. Give her the time she needs to sort her thoughts. It's not like he's going anywhere.

For now.

Simon's not necessarily any easier to read without the distance of an impersonal phone between them, his body language has always been a bit reserved and strange. Came with the territory, considering his history. It didn't help that he still didn't seem to blink enough, if at all.

"Maybe," He fell silent for a time, mulling her questions over. In typical Simon fashion, he had to weigh how straight an answer he was willing to give her. The situation was different, were they home it'd be too soon and he'd have simply left her with the questions burning and directed her after her own answers first. Here his options were limited, she couldn't investigate what she wasn't near enough to look into. He also needed her to trust him, for her to believe anything else he may have to say later. That and... given their vastly different timelines he was fairly confident anything he said now would have no impact on what happened back home.

It was still a lot to balance. It's about time he gave her something. "Yes." It wasn't much, but getting anything that's not a riddle from Simon is like pulling teeth. At least, that's what he'll say about Thomas Warren for now, as for the countdown...

"With everything else that's happened, you're worried about the countdown?" He asked, in that faintly condescending way he does when he's telling her she's chasing a thread to nowhere. She should really be more worried about someone breaking into her house and video taping her sleeping, not some weirdo sending ominous countdowns.

[11calls]

The condescending tone in Simon’s voice is like nails on a chalk board for Alex just like it always has been. That’s something else that Strand and Simon had in common even if they don’t admit what it is. Letting out a small huff, because she doesn’t know about the fact that someone might deem her important enough to break into her house and record her sleeping. Nor is she aware that she’s being watched and has been for a while. All of that seems like a massive amount of paranoia for Alex and she’s got enough of it already even before all of that is added. Some of Alex’s impatiently huffed tone leaks into her voice when she speaks because while Simon thinks it isn’t important she definitely does. “Yes, Simon, I am worried about the countdown. I’ve had a lot of time to think about things while I’m here and some of the distance has allowed me to see things more clearly.” Because she was sleeping and Alex didn’t have enough space in her brain back home to consider why things were so bad. “Someone was trying to push my buttons and make me sound and feel even more crazy than I already do. Nic and Strand would think the countdown is bullshit but I didn’t. It was targeting me and I’m not even sure entirely why. I mean probably to discredit me and the show or whatever but it would help me to know that I’m dealing with one person running that rather than it being someone else I don’t know yet. And it goes along with the question of whether or not Warren is the advocate.” While Alex doesn’t think it was Simon because he would have been more direct, there is the fact that someone could have bilocated into the studio to see when it happened—when Alex had played it. Honestly that’s what she thinks is the most likely possibility.

Alex really doesn’t want to think that it could be Amalia using Nic’s password and access to find out when exactly that had been.

But onto Warren being both the advocate and adversary. “If Thomas Warren is both the advocate and the adversary then it means that he and Davea have both ties to the Cult of Tiamat and The Order of the Cenophus.” Alex pauses, her expression changing to the one that always happens when she has a revelation and her voice is softer and slower on the cusp of both insecurity and being certain. “It’s all one massive thing that I’ve been looking at as multiple ones.”

[bilocates]

Oh they definitely had the condescension game down. Simon and Richard were both simply awful about it, one had to wonder why she put up with them being the assholes that they were to her. Still, at least Simon still appeared to be at least mostly cooperative, as much as could be said about him at any given time. Of course it didn't help that while Simon was aware she was from a year in the past, he was still operating on the information he had from a more dire future. One where the clock was ticking down much faster, and a more credible threat than the one sent to her office. She didn't understand just how dangerous the situation was now.

However, he doesn't interrupt nor comment on her out-loud thought train regarding the clock. He doesn't answer at all for a time, instead just lets her talk, allows her the space to put the pieces in order for herself. It wasn't Simon, because the timer was bullshit. He didn't need a clock to false doom to scare or motivate her.

Now, now Simon looked pleased. Tired, maybe a little... deflated, but pleased. She'd reached the point he'd been trying to make. "And the Brotherhood of the Mount, and the monastery in Glushka..." He adds, helpfully. "The interconnectedness of all things." Again, that line, and now he hopes she understands what he's been trying to tell her.

Now, with that in mind... "So, why would someone send you that countdown?" Because that was a much more important question now that she had a better grasp of the sheer vastness of who.

[11calls]

Honestly if someone had asked Alex why she was putting up with the three men in her life being complete fucking awful assholes to her (Strand, Simon and Nic as well, even if she doesn't really want to put him in that category. Everything that he'd done over the course of season two had been incredibly assholeish, including the way that he'd not told Alex that Simon was on the phone for her when she'd gotten back from Vancouver and the Empress and having her car broken into.) she honestly wouldn't have what she'd considered a great answer. The obvious one of course, is 'I've invested too much time and effort in this story to let it go even when they're being manipulative.' but there also seems to be so much more to it, and to the web that Alex still finds herself picking at.

Alex definitely has questions about where he's from in the future, and what things are like other than the idea that Strand ditched her again and everything stopped for a while. But Alex is also aware of two things, the first of which is that pushing Simon on things he doesn't want to discuss means he'd just nope out faster and secondly, Alex can see how tired Simon is, and how's he's been hurt and whatever else, Alex Reagan is always someone who is very empathetic with people. Sometimes being empathetic with people is a terrible thing when she wants to push on soft and sore spots until the infection of the secret is released but also she's not able to. That's how she feels with Simon now (even if he's the one who normally does that to her) and she just lets out a soft sigh.

"To discredit me. To make me look insane so that no one believes the story when I finally have the proof that it all comes back to Thomas Warren. I mean hell, I've been entirely messed up this whole entire year, and I believe in this enough to throw my career away even if I was manipulated into doing it. The other reason is that Warren was trying to use me as bait for something. Maybe as a way to drive Coralee out of hiding." Which Alex had frankly already done considering the woman and her squeal of tires and monotone answers to her questions.

[bilocates]

They were, in fact, terrible men. Simon wouldn't deny his part in that. He's had his reasons for behaving the way he has but that doesn't mean he hasn't done awful things. To her, and in general. He was a loudly confessed murderer after all, even if he knew Alex thought he was right, though she'd never admit that out loud. Still, it wasn't a great position to be in. At least here he didn't have to upkeep the worst of it. Thomas Warren wasn't around to listen in.

She's right, however, that he absolutely will just leave faster if she pushes too hard on questions he's not ready to answer yet. Though she might be surprised to find he's at least slightly more willing to cooperate now. It's been a long year for him, the rules have changed. Not to mention goose injuries, but he wasn't bringing those up.

"Yes. Why else?" There was more, of course. So many reasons to discredit, terrify, and misdirect Alex in her investigation. While still keeping her roped in chasing dead ends. If Thomas Warren wanted her gone, she'd be gone. There was a reason he was still keeping her involved, if lost. Although she was only partially right about one thing... "Thomas Warren wasn't the only one using you to flush out Coralee Strand."

[11calls]

Despite trying to be patient, Alex can’t help but to huff, the impatience burned into every word. “I don’t know why else, Simon. Isn’t that enough?” It certainly feels like enough to Alex and her heart is racing at just having put some of the thoughts that had lingered in the back of her head—things that she definitely would have been called delusional for back home—to voice. And there’s the added fact that Alex can’t think why else Warren would do it other than what she’d already said. Nothing else makes sense even with her normal leaps of logic to somewhere within the realm of what Simon was trying to get at.

But even with all that, Alex can’t hold onto the frustration of Simon being Simon when he mentions Coralee. When he mentions someone else wanting to flush her out. There’s a frown and Alex shakes her head quickly. “No, Strand couldn’t be manipulating me like that! He was broken when I found out that Coralee was alive for sure and he went entirely off the deep end looking for her. Why would he do that if he expected me to find her?”

[bilocates]

"You know why, you just have to admit it to yourself." Alex was, for all her talent for observation and journalistic curiosity, blind in some very specific directions. Richard Strand, being one of the main ones. "To keep you involved. You, and Strand." Because if she's involved, he's involved. It's not just about Richard, it's about Alex as well whether she realizes it or not. Or rather, whether she admits it or not.

He tilts his head a little, perhaps a bit disturbingly considering some of the imagery she's been confronted with of late. "The man who lied about her existence in the first place?" He inquires pointedly. But, to the point, folding his arms over his chest he just lets out a faintly frustrated sigh. "He admits it to you. Claimed it was subconscious." Simon's not sold on that part, but she can probably tell by his tone. Richard's been very deliberate in a lot of what he's done, he probably had an idea Coralee wasn't dead for far longer than he'd admit. Now he just had proof.

[11calls]

For a moment, Alex just stares at Simon mutely. A mute Alex Reagan is a irregularity but she can't help it. Her brain is working of course, taking the words that Simon had said and fitting them into her thoughts like a tetris board, slotting them into the right places for her to make a leap that makes Alex shake her head. This is something that's impossible because it has to be--hasn't Strand proved it over the years? Doesn't he prove it again when he disappears on her while she's waiting for the end of the world? Alex Reagan isn't a priority for Dr. Richard Strand of the Strand Institute with his two degrees and a missing wife. If there is something that Strand values from her, why he could keep coming back it's because of Alex being a tool. Not just Alex being a tool but the whole show and Nic and the interns and everything else. It's more bodies trying to figure out things rather than just Strand and Ruby trying to find the same information with much less resources.

"What?" It comes after a moment when Simon mentions him admitting that he'd manipulated her into all of this. Even if Strand does say it was, Alex wouldn't have believed it was a subconscious thing anymore than Simon clearly did. In her head, Alex is definitely working through all of the instances where she'd felt manipulated, where Strand had lied, where he'd denied the connections that Alex had cleared seen. It's a lot, reevaluating two years of what she'd lived, and her voice is just quiet. "Get out Simon." For the first time in history, Alex is the one putting an end to their conversation. "I mean it. Get out."

[bilocates]

They're both really dumb on this front, Alex and Strand. A fact anyone with half a brain would realize upon listening to the show, no one needed to creepily spy on everything for that. She may not be a priority, but that didn't mean she wasn't important. Nor did it mean that she wasn't still keeping him involved.

It's like he knew. As soon as he said the words and the wheels began to turn he'd begun working on pushing himself out of his chair. It took some effort, guy was still dead on his feet and getting up definitely seemed to be painful. Not that he complained, although he did shoot something of a very faintly bemused look Alex's way.

She doesn't usually hang up on him first!

He just nods, not even adding the "goodbye, Alex" he was tempted to. No he thinks he's just going to go back to sleep, give her the space and time she needs to sort this out. It's a lot, he knows, and this is why Simon doesn't usually offer straight answers. They are unpleasant.