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

[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.