A/N: quick warning here - there's attempted suicide in this one. Not out of despair or anything (more like a horrible mixture of child logic and Bill logic), but it's there and I figured it still warranted a warning.

"Where is Liam?"

Bill's question cut through a moment of peaceful silence like a knife ripping through the fabric of a backdrop, revealing the chasm beneath - one they could ignore but never fill. The peaceful silence became icy stillness, and Melpomene found herself gripping the glass she had been cleaning so hard her fingers hurt.

Her husband's voice broke the stillness, and she allowed relief to flood her. He would handle this. It would be all right. She needed not worry, needed not think. She resumed cleaning the glass, mechanically, and listened.

"Enough, Bill. You should know better by now."

"I want to know-"

"You already know. He is gone. Leave it at that, and-"

"I know he's dead," Bill cut him off, his voice sharper than a child's had any right to be, and Melpomene's grip slipped. The glass fell, shattering at her feet, and she found herself staring down at the shards without seeing them.

Dead.

He was, of course he was, but it was a word she did not want to hear. It she had to think of her first child, it was better to think he was gone. It was a better word. It was cleaner, it didn't carry the same sense of staggering finality. It felt less cruel, it was-

"I know they killed him," Bill spoke again. If not for her grief, she would have caught the vicious note in his voice, would have guessed he was doing that on purpose - but grief came, sudden and overwhelming, robbing her of all strength. She knelt next to the shards not to pick them up - although that was what she began doing - but because she felt her legs could no longer sustain her, and because keeping he eye fixed on the task at hand helped hiding the tears welling up in it and threatening to spill.

Behind her, her husband stayed silent for a moment before speaking. When he did his voice was tight, and cold. "Why are you asking, then?" he asked slowly. "You already know."

"But where is he now?" Bill insisted. "What happens after you're dead?"

Another silence, one that seemed to stretch out for a long time. Melpomene closed her eye against tears, still kneeling over the broken glass, trying to ignore the way that word - dead, dead, dead, dead - seemed to echo in her mind. Then, finally, Norman spoke again.

"Nothing."

"... Nothing?"

"You cease existing. That is all. You cannot be anywhere if you no longer exist."

"But-"

"I will not be discussing this with you again, Bill. He is no more. That's all. Go in your room."

Melpomene expected Bill to protest, to yell, but instead there were only a few moments of stubborn silence before she heard him stomping out of the room, and then the sound of a door being slammed shut.

It was then - only then - that she allowed herself to weep.

There is something out there, something so much bigger than you or I could even imagine. A whole universe of possibilities, and some chosen can even visit it. The Circles are all too aware of it, but this knowledge is forbidden, as I'm certain you must have worked out by now. Whatever you decide to do with this knowledge is up to you. I can only urge you to be careful. And if you ever get a chance to see what I can only read of, promise me you'll take a good look for both of us. I always wished I could see the colors.

Bill closed his eye, trying - and failing - to imagine what color might actually look like. He was sure it had to be something beautiful. Liam had wished so much he could see them, and it would be just so unfair if colors turned out to be a disappointment. Or maybe that wouldn't matter, because Liam would never see them and that was unfair anyway.

But what if he could?

Bill opened his eye, reading once again the letter his brother had left behind for him, and scowled. Sure, their parents said he was just gone, but they could be wrong. They had to be wrong: people couldn't just stop existing, he refused to believe that was it. And besides, they knew nothing of the Third Dimension, so it seemed safe to assume they wouldn't know of… of… wherever people went when they died.

What if the Third Dimension is it? What if he's there?

He liked that idea, he really did, because it felt so right. That was where Liam should be, because he had wanted to be there and it wouldn't be fair otherwise.

"Liam is in the Third Dimension," he told his empty room. "He's there and he's seeing the colors and the Sphere and everything else."

The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea.

"He's in the Third Dimension. That's where he went. I'll find him there."

The more he thought about it the more he believed it, because he wanted it to be true. He wanted it so much it hurt.

Whatever she had gone into the kitchen for - maybe it was to fetch something, maybe to put something in the pantry, maybe to drink a glass of water - Melpomene wouldn't remember. It would be a blur, something of no importance at all, because she forgot all about it the moment she stepped inside.

Seeing one's child standing before the cutlery drawer, a knife in his hand pointed up towards his eye, is very likely to do that.

She'd remember screaming, she'd remember kneeling before him and snatching away the knife. She wouldn't realize she had cut herself until later: all she could do was screaming and crying and choking out over her own words, clinging to her son and begging him to never, ever do a such thing again.

"Why," she managed to ask when she found the strength to pull back and look down at him through tears. "Oh Circles, why would you-"

"I want to find out where Liam went," Bill said, scowling. "I want-"

"HE'S NOWHERE! HE'S GONE! WHY CAN'T YOU JUST LET HIM BE GONE?"

The scream left her before she even realized she had been thinking those words, and by then it was too late. The child's scowl turned into something akin to shock for a moment before returning, deeper than before, and somewhat darker.

"Like you did," Bill said, trying to pull back, but her grip on his arm kept him from doing so. "You let them take him away."

"I had no choice," Melpomene pleaded. "Please, sweetheart. I don't know what I'd do if anything happened to you. I-"

"I don't care what you'd do," he snapped, and it was like a physical blow. She reared back, her grip on Bill's arm slackening, and her son pulled free. Melpomene let her arm fall by her side, and could only stare ahead in silence, listening to Bill's hurried steps as he left.

There was no broken glass before her now, but she felt something had shattered all the same, and she did not know how she could even begin to pick up the pieces.

"... So I was like, 'Hey Al, what if I told you time is relative?', and he said-"

Stanford took a sip of own tea and smiled faintly, noting with some amusement how no tea spilled from Bill's own cup despite the fact he was gesturing broadly with the hand holding it. He had been amused by Bill's tale of how he had led Einstein to his greatest theory, too, but as Bill kept talking about time Ford couldn't help but thinking back to his own words, not too long ago.

From now until the end of time.

But it wasn't true, was it? Ford's own time was limited. A ridiculously short life span, and… and how days like that one did he have left?

Many in his place would have thought it a futile worry for a man in the prime of his life, but no one else alive on Earth had been given the same glimpse of infinite Bill had granted him. When compared to an eternal being, for whom the existence of humanity itself was but a novelty, his own life span was nothing if pathetically short - hardly more than a blink.

The thought felt like a stab, and it had to show on his face, because Bill noticed.

"And then Weirdo Hairdo was all, 'But time is time!', and I said that he sounded just like this dumb baby I know and- whoa there," he said, trailing off and frowning. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Ford said immediately, only for Bill to roll his eye and reach across the chessboard to flick his nose. Hard. A bit too hard.

"Ow!"

"Seriously, IQ? For someone so smart, you're having a lot of trouble getting it through your skull that you can't possibly lie to me," he said, and this time annoyance was plain in his voice.

"I… sorry," Ford mumbled, looking away. There was a moment of silence, then Bill sighed and let go of his cup. It floated in mid-air next to him while he leaned back on the seat.

"C'mon, Fordsy. A negative twelve dollars bill for your thoughts," Bill said, the image of the bill in question briefly flashing through his eye when Ford turned back to him. "What is it?"

"Is there anything after death?"

Bill blinked down at him for a couple of moments, clearly taken aback - then comprehension dawned in, and he burst out laughing. "Aaand there it is! The least original question ever! Kinda surprised you only asked now, Sixer. Most people who met me ask that almost right away. The big question," he added, making quotation marks in the air with his fingers, as though to indicate it was no big question at all. That made Ford feel a little embarrassed, but not enough to keep himself from asking again.

"Do you have the answer?" he asked, causing Bill to roll his eye.

"Gee, seriously? Sure I do! All Seeing Eye and all, remember?"

"Then…?"

"Nothing."

The reply was uncharacteristically sharp, and delivered so quickly that for a moment Ford wasn't sure he had heard right. He blinked.

"... Nothing?" he repeated.

"Nope. I have looked, smart guy, and couldn't see a thing," Bill said. His pupil grew from a slit into a pool of darkness, taking over all of his eye until there was only blackness left. "So that means there isn't anything. Nisba, nada, niet. Big fat zero. Death is the endgame."

"Oh," Ford said, feeling as though something cold had gripped his insides. It was an answer he had been prepared for, he supposed, but that didn't make Bill's answer - and thus reality, because he was not wrong, he could not be wrong - feel any less harsh.

Bill blinked, his eye returning to normal as he did, and then gave him a look that Ford had learned to take as the closest Bill had to a smile. "Disappointing, I know. But I've got your back, you know - we have a deal, from now until the end of time. Stick with me, IQ, and you might never have to worry about the great beyond," Bill said, then shrugged and leaned back on his seat again. A lazy gesture in the air, and his rook moved on the chessboard. "Your move."

"Where the hell are you, Stanford?"

Stan's question was met with complete silence, of course, because that stupid portal thing wouldn't activate again, wouldn't make a noise: it was just there, the empty gaping mouth that had swallowed his brother, sending him… where had it even sent him? What corner of the universe had he spat him in?

It doesn't matter. I'll bring him back.

Stan scowled at the portal one more time before turning his attention back on the physics book he had been reading. Something tried to surface from the back of his mind, a nightmare he'd had several nights in a row - Stanford in some alien landscape, unable to breathe, clawing at his throat while his lips turned blue.

You don't even know if he's alive.

He is. He must be.

You have no idea what's beyond that portal.

I don't care. He's there somewhere and I'll bring him back.

He's gone.

"I won't let him stay gone," Stanley snarled at the page before him, and he meant it. He refused to believe he may be dead, and he had no intention to give in, not now and not ever. His brother was somewhere out there, and he'd bring him back.

One way or another, he would bring him home.

"... Hey, Frills."

The Ancient turns when he feels something - someone - moving beneath his tail as Bill Cipher stirs. He's not truly awake, of course; they both are within his stone cage. But there are so many different kinds of slumber, and Cipher has just shed a layer of it - willingly - to speak to him. The Ancient supposes it's some progress, at least.

"Yes?"

Rather than replying right away, Cipher sits up against Axolotl's side. He - this projection of him - looks precisely as it did when he last returned to his delusion: a Flatlander child of a dull gray, small enough to sleep beneath his tail like under a blanket.

Dream of your brother, he had told him. Dream of home. I'll be waiting.

I'm never coming out.

We shall see. Now sleep.

"Where did he go?" the child finally asks, and there is no need for the Ancient to wonder who he's talking about. There is only one person he'd ask about. One person he cared about. "Where do they all go? I tried looking once. Beyond, I mean, and I saw nothing. I thought that meant there was nothing, but..."

But perhaps you were wrong, the Ancient think. Of course he doesn't say as much, not with that wording. Cipher meets any insinuation of possibly being wrong with anger and denial, and he's had enough of both.

"But perhaps you simply couldn't see it?" he suggests instead.

The boy hums, eye fixed ahead, in the fog shrouding his mindscape. "Is that it? Is there something? Is he there?"

The Ancient pauses for a moment. "I suppose you could say he's in here. Isn't that the reason why you don't wish to leave your memories?"

"But out of here…?"

There is a note in his voice that is unmistakably hopeful, and it is the first time since he's come there that Cipher has shown any kind of interest at all on anything outside his own mind. Still, there are rules even the Ancient must obey. There are things he cannot tell, but only show.

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. But I cannot tell: if you wish to know, you must leave this illusion," he says. He knows already what the outcome will be, what Cipher will choose when faced with the choice: return to his slumber, or face reality, and an answer he may not like.

"... And if he's nowhere?"

"Then he's nowhere, and you need to accept it."

"No," the boy snaps, glaring up at him with a stubborn frown. Behind his eye there is a flash of something dangerous and hardly in check, the Bill Cipher the multiverse has learned to loathe and fear. "No. I don't. I won't let him be gone."

Still not ready, the Ancient thinks, and nods, leaning his head back down. It doesn't matter however long it takes: the wait doesn't bother him. He has eternity at his disposal, and can be in any place - any universe, any dimension, any reality - he wishes to be at the same time.

"We stay, then."

"I didn't ask you to-"

"You invoked me."

"...Ugh. Fine."

The Ancient lets out a chuckle, and his tails curls around the boy once again. "Sleep."

"Don't you tell me what to do," is the reply, but they're empty words, because he's already closing his eye, already sinking back into the deepest of slumbers.

"Liam? Liam!"

"Wha- Bill! Lower your voice," Liam's voice came from the darkness next to him, still laced with sleep. "What is it?"

"... Nothing," Bill said, and settled down. "Don't go."

There was a sigh, and Bill could easily imagine him rolling his eye in the dark. "Where would I go in the middle of the night?" he huffed. Bill just laughed, latching onto his arm.

Nowhere.