Anna spun in place and while the dark no longer held her in place, it continued to surround her. The echo of the voice sounded in the space and she tried to trace it but the dark oppressed her, preventing any discoveries. It almost stifled everything except another flow of words from the voice.

"Are you ready for a more formal introduction or are we going to sit in the dark for this entire interlude?" There was a pause, "Because I can wait for you to wake up and face whatever version of yourself you find there."

"Version of myself?"

"That's what you're afraid of, isn't it?" The voice waited, "Or it could be that I need to wait for you to wallow in the weight of your grief and misplaced guilt."

"I don't have-"

"Or… Or perhaps we can dig you out of your memories and face the future." Another pause, "What'll it be?"

"I want to see you."

Anna blinked and noted the brightness of her new environment. Her memories no longer held her captive and she could control all of her movements again. In a moment she was on her feet and Anna pivoted in place before she settled on the sight of a tea service set on a table for two where… She sat.

The other version of her raised a tea cup and nodded toward the service. "I think you could use some of this. In fact, I insist. It'll make our conversation just a little easier to bear."

"Conversation?" Anna crossed the space and started when the white space turned to a cramped bookstore, one of the shelves wobbling when her elbow knocked one of the books. She turned to it, holding her hands up as if that would stop the tumble, before side shuffling toward the table. Taking her seat slowly, still eyeing the shelves around them, Anna turned to the other version of herself. "What kind of conversation are we having?"

"One I think we should've had a long time ago if time and tide hadn't proven our enemies in all this." The other version of her smiled, "I'm Mrs. Cotton, by the way, as I mentioned before."

"I didn't-"

"I know you didn't say anything. I thought I'd skip over the inevitable because you seem surprised that I look like you and I don't want you to refer to me as 'other you' any longer." Mrs. Cotton nodded, "Yes, I can 'read your mind'. But it's not really just your mind, is it? It's our mind and, therefore, my thoughts are your thoughts and your thoughts are mine."

"Are they?"

"Most of them, yes." Mrs. Cotton took another sip of tea. "You really should have some. It'll calm down our heart so we're not racing a mile a minute during this conversation. I need our head clear if we're to get out of this."

"Why?"

"Because then we might have a chance of throwing off this drug regimen that bastard's using on us to keep us under his control." Mrs. Cotton looked at Anna over her teacup. "You didn't think you were down here for fun did you?"

"I don't know why I'm here."

"You're here because we've some things we need to work out between the two of us and we've a limited time to do it." Mrs. Cotton set her cup down and Anna started as the scene changed to the white space again. "Try not to let the lack décor unsettle you. I don't."

"How does it-"

"Change?" Mrs. Cotton let her head tip back for a second, smiling as the scene shifted between the overcrowded library and the white space again. "It alters as we want it to. I've just got better control over it… Given I've been waiting here for ten years and you've only just arrived."

"Oh." Anna inspected the room and noted it bore an uncanny resemblance to the building where she fought Braithwaite. Drained of color, as if only half-remembered, but it was the same room. "Why this room?"

"It changes as I like." Mrs. Cotton seemed to bubble up with excitement for a moment before repressing the reaction with a sigh. "This one was the first time you called on me for help in quite awhile. For which I need to thank you, sincerely, as my last space was… Less, in all ways."

"When I fought Edna, in that ballroom, you… Came out?"

"Yes." Mrs. Cotton stood, pacing the space without a sound. "But she wasn't Edna then. She was Braithwaite. The change can be confusing but she was never as good about hiding it as we were."

"We were?"

"Of course." Mrs. Cotton turned, pointing to herself. "Take me, for example. The only visible difference between you and I is the received pronunciation I use."

"I was wondering why you sounded very… Upper class."

"I didn't believe assassins had to be just the dregs of the earth." Mrs. Cotton shrugged. "Not that many of our fellow students had a choice in their diction, given their upbringing as opposed to ours. But we utilized the respectable lady to our advantage, despite everyone's misgivings about our ability to thrive in such a harsh and pitiless environment."

"Were you why Senior wanted us to take over his operation?" Anna rose from the table as well, walking toward Mrs. Cotton and dodging a shelf as the space around them changed to the cluttered bookshop again. "Were you why Green killed his father in front of us?"

"In a way." Mrs. Cotton's eyes narrowed before she wagged a finger at Anna. "You forgot though. You let it all slip away when you injured yourself. Buried it down here, with me, until your desperation called us forth."

"I got headaches-"

"And who do you think was trying to get your attention through those, hm?" Mrs. Cotton waited and then shrugged, "But I understood. We are the same person, after all. I knew why you didn't want to keep those memories."

"Do you?"

"You didn't want the difficulty of facing what you became." Mrs. Cotton pointed to herself. "Of facing me."

"Or letting you out?"

"Anna," Mrs. Cotton clicked her tongue against her teeth. "For shame."

"What?"

"Don't you think me capable of controlling myself in public and not going on a murderous rampage?" Mrs. Cotton paused, "Or do you think you lacked the self-control to keep yourself in check the way Edna lacked control over Braithwaite?"

"I didn't know. After I…" Anna put her hand to her head, feeling for the injuries long since healed. "After my injuries it was all jumbled and…"

"And you didn't want to remember." Mrs. Cotton sighed, "You took to your ignorance well enough. Otherwise I wouldn't be trapped here."

She lifted her arms and spun a circle as the tight space exploded into the white ballroom again. "This is, truly, a marvelous venue."

"Why'd you come out then?"

"Because you needed more than the muscle memory that Henry helped you master in those training courses he insisted you take." Mrs. Cotton paced the space again. "You needed someone who wouldn't just fight Braithwaite but beat her. And I never lost a match against her."

"Something I should remember?"

"Among a great many other things." Mrs. Cotton folded her arms over her chest, facing Anna. "Why did you let it all slip away?"

"I wanted my old life back. I wanted…" Anna closed her eyes, shaking her head. "I wanted to not be what they made me."

"Were you afraid of the expectations that would be placed on you to recuse everyone we left behind?"

"I wasn't used to the idea of anyone expecting things of me before here, I'll be honest, and once I had the chance to go back to where there weren't any expectations of me…" Anna took a breath, fought it, and then released it. "It might've been cowardly but I wanted to forget the kinds of things I could do. The kind of person I could've become. The… The expectations someone once had for me and sink back into the oblivion of the world I wanted so desperately to be mine again."

Anna let her jaw work wordlessly for a moment, "Do you understand that? Being here, this whole time, does that make sense to you?"

"Logically, yes." Mrs. Cotton tapped her temple. "Because I was there too. I knew what you were thinking and part of me wanted that for you. But then…"

"Then?"

"Then you waited too long. You stagnated and ignored your responsibilities." Mrs. Cotton circled Anna, pointing at her again. "Because we had them, you know. We owed it to the others to fulfill them and I waited for you to do it and you let your fear stop you."

"I wanted to pretend none of it happened."

"And you never wondered why the harder you pushed to forget the harder it was to do so?" Anna gaped as Mrs. Cotton nodded. "I was the one giving you those dreams Anna. Pushing past the block you put on your mind. Giving you the memories you needed to be the person we needed to be to save them."

"What kind of person is that?"

Mrs. Cotton pointed at herself, "Me, for a start."

"Then why not…" Anna pantomimed pulling two things apart before smashing her fist into the palm of her other hand.

Mrs. Cotton only laughed. "I don't think you'd like what you'd lose if I took over our mind, Anna."

"What would I lose?"

"Yourself, for a start. And the part of you that always came out in me. Even when you created me to protect you from the conditioning and the training."

"And what part of me came out in you?"

"Compassion." Mrs. Cotton gestured to the space around them. "Don't you wonder why this space is so empty and your mind is cluttered and cramped?"

"I hadn't given it enough thought yet." Anna shrugged, "A bit occupied with this conversation I think."

"That's fair." Mrs. Cotton circled Anna again, dodging a pile of books as they returned to the bookshop. "But these represent your memories. Your emotions and feelings. Your desires and dreams. All of them formed and molded and in various states of completion. It's the mind of a person well-lived and well-loved."

"But your space…" Anna found them back in the empty ballroom. "You've nothing here."

"Because to be me, I can't be you." Mrs. Cotton stopped. "If one of us takes over, like you suggested, then we lose ourselves. We lose the necessary halves that make us a whole person. We lose the critical components that belong solely to one side of us and that part of us would wither and die."

"But you've not disappeared and I've-"

"Taken control?" Mrs. Cotton motioned for Anna to follow her. "Let me show you why."

They crossed the ballroom and the bookshop until a door, that did not change regardless of the shifting setting, appeared before them. Mrs. Cotton motioned for Anna to grab a handle as she grabbed the matching other. Then, counting down on her fingers, they opened the door and stepped into a void.

A void floating almost like they were in water. Anna looked down and cried out at the sight of herself no longer standing on solid ground but perfectly immobile in the air. But it was not quite air. It was-

"Our true mind, Anna." Mrs. Cotton took her hand and pushed forward so they sailed through the water toward the wreck of a ship. "The place where we hid our true self to be safe from it all."

They landed on the deck, the wood creaking and the light bouncing and refracting as if they were underwater. Mrs. Cotton pushed forward toward the cabin and with a press of her hand, the door whined open. Inside, lying on a bed just like her childhood room, lay a younger Anna.

"She's what we were." Mrs. Cotton led Anna to the bedside, her fingers carefully brushing back strands of hair from the girl's face. "What we were meant to be before all this."

"How do you know about her?"

"Because I was created to protect her. To protect you too." Mrs. Cotton smiled at Anna. "That's why I'm telling you that it's up to us to figure this all out."

"How'd you mean?"

"To protect the both of you, I might have to sacrifice you to do so." Mrs. Cotton pointed at the girl in the bed and then Anna. "You two would-"

"Die?"

Mrs. Cotton nodded. "I'm afraid so."

"But…" Anna shook her head, a shaking hand almost touching the younger version of herself before puling back. "But why would we have to choose? Why not-"

"Become her again?" Mrs. Cotton pointed at Anna, "Or stay as we are with you as the lead?"

"If that's how you want to say it then yes, why not?"

Mrs. Cotton sat in a chair that, a moment ago, did not exist. "Because I'm the product of your mind defending itself. She's the part of us we were so anxious to protect. You're the part of our mind that's… Well, that's rather confused about the order of things because you've spend so long in the lead."

"You think I'm selfish?"

"Don't you think so?"

Anna sat, surprising herself with a start as she landed on a chair as well. "Yes, perhaps. But… After all we suffered was it not our right to heal?"

"If we had healed, yes. But we never healed." Mrs. Cotton motioned in a triangle between the three of them. "Split as we are, that could never have happened. We could never be whole as just one of us."

"Then what would happen if you defended us and…"

"Kill you two?" Mrs. Cotton shook her head. "We'd lose what matters."

"How?"

"Because I've been trained out of empathy. The reason my space is stark is because, as I mentioned, it's not cluttered by emotion. I'm cold, calculating, and too much like what they meant Braithwaite to be to fully be what made us special."

"But Edna-"

"Lost herself to her other half." Mrs. Cotton bit at her lip. "The emotion you see in me now, the care, that's you working in me. That's the protective, loyal, and compassionate sides of you bleeding into me. The person you are, that you represent, reeks of kindness and good."

"Thank you?"

"It's meant as a compliment." Mrs. Cotton smiled, "I rather like that side of us, if I'm being honest. And it's what makes me like the idea of you being in the lead. You're the person we're meant to be."

"But you said we're not whole."

"We're not." Mrs. Cotton looked back at the girl sleeping in the bed. "Not like this, no. And we'll never be."

"Then why suggest you take control?"

"To save us from Green." Mrs. Cotton pointed at Anna. "As remarkable a job as you've been doing-"

"With some help from you, I'd hazard to guess."

"Very true." Mrs. Cotton mimicked a bow from her seated position. "And the proof of my offer is in that very help. In the fact that you cannot operate here without me and you'll never survive on your own."

"But if you win then…"

"All is lost." Mrs. Cotton gestured toward the door. "All that you've gathered, become, been… The depth of emotion, our very soul will disappear."

"And yet you're offering?"

"I don't want to die and neither do you."

Anna bit at her lip before sitting back in her chair. "There's got to be an alternative that doesn't destroy us."

"There might be but this is the best offer I've come up with."

"It's a shit offer."

"I didn't say it was the best just the best I could fathom."

Anna thought another minute, "Why has neither of us fully taken over the other before? Even after all this time you still exert a will."

"True. But that's the nature of us being two parts of the same whole. Or…" Mrs. Cotton jerked her head toward the sleeping girl. "Two of the three parts to make up a whole."

"Because neither of us is the real 'us', yes?"

"That's right."

Anna made a triangle of her own between them. "Then why not become one again? Why not take those parts of ourselves and make a whole?"

Mrs. Cotton looked from the girl to Anna and back again before extending her hand. "I've no idea what happens if we do this."

"It's better than the idea that neither can live while the other survives." Anna too Mrs. Cotton's hand and they both took the hand of the sleeping girl closest to them. "If we're about to die… I do want to apologize. For not listening to you."

"Apology accepted." Mrs. Cotton closed her eyes and Anna mimicked her. "Here's to everything."

"Here's to us." Anna tightened her hold on the two hands and the world went black around her again.