A/N: Thank you everyone that reviewed, followed and favorited. Jary King/Jareth doesn't enter stage yet, but I hope you will appreciate the suspense I'm attempting to build. OC's like Emily or Ricky are really for transitional purposes. I promise the core set Labyrinth characters will come more into focus. My goal is to update once a week. I'm working from a rough outline of where I want the story to go, so I think it shouldn't be too bad staying consistent. Cheers!

Chapter Two - The Program

"In the criminal justice system, sexually-based offenses are considered especially heinous. In New York City, the dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious felonies are members of an elite squad known as The Special Victims Unit. These are their stories."

"DING-DING!" Ricky's croaky voice at the shell of my ear was loud enough to make me, Chase and Emily jolt up from the couch in unison.

The recreation center was more comparable to a college club than a playpen for the mentally ill. There were two vending machines, one Foosball table, a desktop computer, and five shelves full of popular board games. The creme de le creme were the three 86" LED high resolution televisions against the north wall. A draw too high for the bored and home sick in-mates not to limit view sharing to an hour. Anyone waiting their turn, like Ricky used the down time to be a nuisance.

There was a rumor that Ricky's term at Amherst Wellness originated with a compulsive wanking disorder. It was crude schoolyard gossip but it had made so many rounds that it had become legend. It also would have explained the hungry appearance to Ricky's eyes. And the way he kept his hands deep in his robe pockets whenever he wasn't talking. A posture that rounded out the slimy rat fink aesthetic. He had to be at least thirty and still strutted around like a moronic teenager.

"What the hell, Rick!" Chase swatted up at Rick's beaming five o clock shadow and missed.

I clutched at my ear lobe. "You could've ruptured my eardrum!"

"What's your problem? You can wait your turn like everyone else" Emily pouted up at him.

Ricky leaned over the back of the couch, his terry cloth robed arms spread wide and close. He grinned wide, making his scarred lip even more crooked. "Ah come on! It's not like you loose screws haven't already seen this formula a thousand times. Stabler and Mariska will harass the first two to three creep-o red herrings only to find out ten minutes from credits that it's the community beloved, family man-priest-mayor strangling all those under-aged prostitutes mid-fuck. Insert Benson hashing it out with the perp and the irresolute, tragic resolution." His calloused fingers slapped down to my shoulders and, this time, instead of jumping, I froze. "Am I right or am I right, princess?"

Every muscle in my body tensed as if slapped. Those dirty fingers making such personal contact as if I were pliable. Owned. His. "Go away." I stared ahead at Officer Olivia Benson storming off from the crime scene.

Chase's features tightened and Emily was continuing to glower. "Let her be. She's... having a rough morning."

Ricky's hands lifted fast and wide spread like he was pacifying a waiting firing squad and chuckled. "Whoa whoa! I didn't mean to unleash the schitzo from her phrenic. I came over to see if I could bum some cigarettes from you guys. I'm running short and Nurse Ratchet over there is being a bitch."

Ricky damn well knew neither one of us smoked. Somehow that made it worse. As usual, he was dicking around because he was bored.

"Sorry man. Can't help ya," Chase dead panned. Emily punctuated the please-kindly-fuck-off vibes by turning up the volume to booming levels. It washed out Ricky's curse on his way back to his perch at the window ledge between vending machines.

I settled my head back against the back of the couch and returned to my televised comfort food. Benson's pensive, tan face came back into view on screen.

"She was held at gunpoint and raped, but the irregular response from the victim makes me think a psychologist needs to get a thorough look."

"So are we talking post-trauma irregularities or a previous mental illness?"

"We need more information, but if my intuition counts for anything, that girl is keeping something from us. She has the shaky nerves of the guilty and an odd sympathy for her supposed mystery attacker."

"Oh great - an enigma. Just what this office needs on an early Monday."

"Several of the wounds the victim claimed to be from her assault were clearly self-inflicted...or at least 'willingly endured' wounds."

"Which raises the possibility that this is some sort of bdsm racket gone awry."

"Are you saying this might be delayed guilt from rough sex?"

."Ugh! I hate when they push so much exposition in the office," Emily groaned and threw up her hands. "I wish they could have some episodes where they bicker about who forgot to clean the Kerig or something. It feels so unnatural."

"Shhh! You're as bad as Ricky." Chase's delivery was berating but the corners of his lips turned up in clear amusement. Both of them had a knack for picking apart even the tv shows and movies they loved.

"It's been known to happen. Women have to contend with what society expects of them when it comes to the limits of feminine sexuality. Her perpetrator might only be guilty of tapping into her heart of darkness."

Women have to contend with what society expects of them...Memories continued to be scarce for me but I did get instinctual hunches about the gaps. That line resonated with me, but in a way that felt distant and guileless. The image of my stepmother, Irene yelling up at me from the bottom of the stairwell flashed in my mind. The distinct aura of disappointment, hopelessness.

In foggy bits and pieces snapping into place, I could recall being an odd child. Never wanting to grow up or play at adult relationships and interests like my tweening peers. Frosted lipstick and padded bras were for getting into character, boys were an alien species to speculate from afar. There was no urge to mold myself for one. The only future I wanted to take claim of was one of an aspiring actress like my mother. I had told myself I was above the growing pains, full of a creativity and imagination that they had lost. 'Outgrown' Irene would have corrected. Her disappointed face hung and circled again and again in my brain. Had that been how I ended up at the institute? Was it that frivolous? An embarrassing, black sheep my stepmother couldn't control and my father didn't have the energy to face?

"Sarah Williams? Is there a Sarah Williams present?" The dark cloud that had threatened to hollow out my chest dissolved and I stiffened in my seat and stood. A young, Latino nurse's assistant was standing at the open doorway. Only her darting eyes giving away that she wasn't sure of me.

For a matter of seconds I shared a curious look at my friends before making my way toward her.

"Yes?" I said, tentative. "I'm Sarah."

"You're needed by Dr. Myers."

I couldn't stop myself flinching at the name. Dr. Myers was the director of the entire institute. His leathery face was one of the last I saw before everything went dark. He had looked on in disinterest while I had struggled on that operating table. If he wanted to speak to me personally, then it was something major and unpleasant.

The shared elevator ride with the nurse's assistant was silent, our eyes in parallel deflection from each other. Each studying the panel lighting up with every floor as if watching it would make time pass faster. The sound of metal rubbing against metal was the only white noise. The little squeals and squeaks of the traction we all took for granted until we were stuck with a stranger. For granted...Tingles shot up my arms.

A new retrieval stirred. "Things aren't always what they seem in this place, so you can't take anything for granted."

The internalized echo was friendly, warm in its warning, but …..this place? Had I been somewhere I shouldn't have been? A prickle started down my neck.

A change was coming and I was as alone as ever to face it. I pictured shoving the nurse's assistant into the hard metal of the elevator wall and making a run down the hallway. It was conceivable that I could make it to whatever stairwell first appeared. But even in my imaginings there was a ready orderly to take me by my arms and force me to shriek and kick out like an animal. I didn't need to dig into the ugly caricature that would make me. How it might prove every limited belief from my family right. Nothing good came of resistance at the institute. A rescheduling with the violent patient segment would be the least of my consequences. Nothing was worth throwing out hard staked years of good behavior on my record.

Bing! The elevator rang out its confirmation as we reached the fifth floor and the metal doors slid open. The small space between me and the nurse's assistant charged with new awareness. Her annoyed sigh, the astringent scent of hand sanitizer as she rubbed some on her hands from the front pocket of her scrubs. The way her neck jutted out as she swallowed and prepared to speak to me. All brought on by the realization that going a mere three stories up had felt like half an hour instead of the negligible seconds that had passed.

She stepped out and tapped her foot waiting on me. I must have been a sight the way I had to drag my eyes from the elevator floor panel.

"Sarah? It's a little further down this floor."

I nodded. "Right."

We passed two different rooms marked 'medication', an open door to a yoga therapy class in session and passed two balding and badged security personnel. They paused long enough to tip their scuffed hats at the nurse's assistant and mumble a good morning. Her returning polite smile back was the closest thing I had seen of her to relaxed. Had she been in the room with the director when the "incident" happened?

I studied the snub curve of her nose in profile, the long hairs extending down the nape of the neck under her ponytail. I was hoping to force her to break under my examination before we reached the large mahogany double doors at the end of the corridor. She might clue me into what was going on. Mr. Meyers executive glass name plate found us too soon.

"Go ahead. He's waiting."

She didn't even look back to check and see if I would enter myself as told or make a run for it like an unhinged mess. But of course I did without a word.

The smell of dust and old carpet hit me as I stepped into Meyer's office. Dr. Meyers himself looked like a pungent relic. His left eye patched over with gauze and medical tape as his genteel smile showed off a mouthful of veneer chicklets. I was dying to know if the smarted eye was from an accident or a fight.

"Sarah! Please, take a seat." He swatted to the leather chair in front of his desk. "Thank you for taking the time to see me. I'm sorry to cut your recreation time so short. "

I shifted to get comfortable on the thick leather seat cushions and fixed what I hoped was a glassy stare. "Always a pleasure."

His bucked smile shrank but refused to dissipate completely. "And how are you getting along these days, hmm? In your memory rehabilitation I mean."

"Doctor! She's convulsing! We need to turn down the charge." "No, she can take it without too much damage. Hold out a little longer." He knew how fucking well how that was going. "I remember to eat, sleep, and take my pills well enough. And how are you getting along these days, Doctor? That eye looks painful."

That comment did in the row of chicklets for good. His right hand even flinched. It was as if he was fighting the impulse to raise it to the bandage and feel out its damning perimeter. Sarah one, Dr. Meyers, zero. "Attention to detail is a good indicator of your current clarity at least. I'm doing fantastic. I brought you here to announce some wonderful news and a major change in plans for your path of healing."

The "healing path" was an oft-used term at the institute. I guess tit made client's non-voluntary extended stay sound holistic and hopeful. After the first three years at the institute, I learned there was no end in sight to the healing path. Not unless your guardian or sign-off contact stopped the cash flow or wanted you back. So Richard either couldn't afford to dish out the convenient send-your-daughter-away cash anymore or he was on a rare, sentimental whim. One or the other, it was possible I was finally going home. "Oh?" I was not ready to decide how I felt about the prospect.

My neutral response made him blink. When I continued to stare back at him, he continued. "A wealthy philanthropist and entrepreneur, Jary King, has created a grant program for building life skills. It's for our longer term patients that are ready to re-enter society. He mentors them as temps at his office and teaches them all the basics of administrative skilled work. I suggested you as a golden patient zero to guinea pig this program. I discussed its potential merit with your parents and they have agreed to board you back home for the program. It's a win-win."

A flush of adrenaline went through my limbs. I wanted to hide under the chair and process it without Meyer's one, unpatched eye rolling over me. It was happening.

Ten years of a regimented, predictable existence was coming to an end. A massive, sad chapter closed. I would be leaving my non-judgmental, relatable, sole friends. There would be no more happy little pills or art workshops. I should have felt vindicated, elated, but all I could see was what I was losing. "Do I get a say in this?"

"I'm afraid not, Sarah. Your parents have signed off your release and Jary King will be expecting you Monday. I'm aware this must all come as a great shock to you, but think about the benefit to yourself and so many other institute clients. If this program is a success there can be a much more productive transition for people like your friends Chase and Emily back to society. We would be the first mental health institute in Amherst to carry an out-patient life transition workshop. It might even reduce post-stay triggers and stress. This could change the course of our range of help as we know it."

He painted a pretty picture of the greater good, but I knew better. I'm sure in his mind's eye there was an Amherst News front page spread of him clutching an Exemplary Psychiatrist Award plaque. For my parents, I could only think it was a desire to have me contributing to anything resembling success in my mid-twenties. Otherwise I was an elephant in the room topic at their dinner parties. The more the idea settled in, the more it seemed like a false exit out of a sterile cage. I was free from a sign off on the right piece of paper. My parents, Myers, and more whoever person this Jary King was, had decided my fate for me. The undertow of betrayal made me dig my fingernails into the skin of my clenched fists.

I scooted my chair back and rose to standing. "When should I expect to leave?"

"Tomorrow morning. Your father will pick you up. I've already informed the staff to pack up your things and resign you from the schedule."

I nodded and turned to leave. The musty room held its silence until I found the handle to the door.

The brick of the institute's portico was rough under my supporting palms as I leaned against it. I knew any minute my father's navy BMW would pull around. I'd have to compose myself into so many protective, acceptable layers as soon as I spotted it. I had to be just enough of his little girl that he would recognize me and not make our reunion any more awkward with meandering double takes. Just enough civil that he wouldn't have second thoughts about boarding me until I got back on my feet. For my own piece of sanity, I would withdraw between chit chat and watch him with glacial disinterest. Because that was what ten years of no visits or phone calls deserved. That's why Chase and Emily chose to wait outside with me even though we had already endured the weepy hugs. The promises to stay in touch. They knew that the most communication I got from my family was a hefty "guilt" basket for holidays of lavish clothes. Clothes I didn't have any occasion to wear. I didn't count the occasional postcard update of vacations and individual achievements.

Chase crouched out of range of the terrace style tile, fingering over the fine particled dirt. "I bet you'll get a lot of groveling and pampering from your folks now, so there's that…"

I didn't miss the caked bit of dirt he slipped into his pajama pants pocket, but I didn't say anything.

"You think so?" I asked in a flat voice, not particularly engaged on the subject of money or social currency.

He snorted and raised his head. "Um," let's see," Lifting his dusty fingertips, he began to equate it. "A child of divorce plus long-term lockup plus rich parents plus losing out to the stepmother baby equals maximum guilt equals maximum cash flow."

"He's right you know," Emily elbowed me. "They all owe you big time."

I smirked and let my fingertips trace over the uneven grout lines between the brick tower behind me. "Right, I'll go in with the mindset that everyone should fall to their knees at the sight of me and hold them up with psychological warfare. Maybe demand a royal stipend. Definitely the healthiest way to re-initiate myself with my estranged family."

Chase rose to his feet and wiped off the dirt on his knees. "I wouldn't scoff at the chance, smart ass." Before I knew what was happening, he leaned in and brushed a gentle kiss on my cheek. "I'm gonna miss you." Even more surprising than the kiss was the way Chase seemed to peer at me a touch too long. It made my stomach pull. It wasn't the kind of look a "friend" gave another platonic friend.

Emily's eyes met mine and widened. She could see it too. Thankfully Richard's car pulling up interrupted any potential awkwardness.

Chase handed me my meager roll-away suitcase with a wink and Emily pulled me into a quick final hug. "I love you, girl."

"I love you too."

I let go of Emily's powdery scented warmth and placed my hand on either shoulder of Chase. "There's no distance between us. My leaving won't change anything."

His bright green eyes fluttered to his feet and back to mine, the corners of his lips turning up into a soft smile. "I believe you. Take care, Sarah."

With the creak of the passenger door opening, the kind familiar faces and comparable inner quiet was gone. In its place, the wavering smile of an older, heavier, even more tamed Robert. My tight stomach from Chase's kiss began to melt and sink. The man who stayed by me when mother abandoned us for Hollywood, who bought me 99 cent cones on the way home from school everyday. The same man who taught me that betrayal can strike twice when he chose Irene and Toby over me.

"Sarah, my baby girl," his gaze ping-ponged over my still long and raven hair that he knew. He must have noticed that my eyes were coated in heavy liner and dulled of any naive wonder. My frame, transformed from its wholesome baby fat into paradoxical slender lines and sharp curves.

I scratched my cheek under his uncomfortable overview and clicked my seat belt into place. "Robert." Emily and Chase's morose faces and slow waves became smaller and smaller in the back window. So did the quiet retreat in my head. I was all in.

Robert's face fell to an even more gravity worn state and he shifted gears, making the motor grind. "Is 'dad' still an ugly word?"

I stared at the floor until he got the picture that I wasn't going there and turned on the radio. Not a speck of dirt or hair on the interior, but a lingering smell of musk and vanilla. Irene's signature perfume. The scent was willful like her. Finding a way to tuck itself into all the little corners and pores of the upholstery until it dominated the atmosphere completely.

The candy pop rock of the oldies station he had turned to helped me shut out most of his attempt to fill the silence. I could watch the Pitch and Red pines blur with the road's shoulder. There was nothing for me in his recounting of Irene's tennis club scores, my favorite meals they had planned for my week back or his own filler about troubles at the office. Then he got to Toby and my heart woke up of its own accord.

"...Toby's twelve now, going on thirteen but you'd think he was thirty with how quick and precocious that kid can be. He's excited as heck about you coming back home, you know? He was going on to Irene yesterday night asking all sorts of questions about what you're like. When I told him you were a big fan of fantasy books and acting, he might have thought you hung the dang moon! He loves Tolkien, Ray Bradbury, astronomy, all that pie in the sky stuff."

I could feel Robert's forced enthusiasm turned on me. He was waiting for a blip, but this time I was lost in a minor galaxy of memory. Conflicting pictures: me cradling Toby, so small and warm that he might have been a living cabbage patch doll, me screaming at him. Blaming him for every broken, unfair thing in my life until he rocked and cried in his crib. Me chasing after him as he crawled up a staircase that was both upstairs and downstairs, just out of my desperate grasp.

The emotion of that particular incongruent image settled into my bones like a second skin. Guilt, regret, worry and a frantic, determined love.

Where was that memory from? It had to be some kind of dream that had rocked me or a time and innocence modified idea of something more grounded in reality. I shivered.

"You cold, sweetheart? Feel free to turn down the a/c if you want. It's the big switch on the right."

I shook my head and turned back to the window, leaning my head into it like it was a looking glass. My chest was beginning to hurt. It was as if the closer I got to Toby and home, the closer I got to my core self. I hadn't been in touch with him and I had closed my heart to him. Like everyone else on the concept of the phone going both ways, but maybe I had been unfair. He was an infant the last time I saw him and born of a mother who was intimidated by me. How could I have expected him to know or remember anything significant about me? Even so, I had such strong feelings about him from a handful of memories. Would his instincts be as strong?

The trees started to spring up in shades of fire the closer we got to home. I piled on a sort of tingling limb numbness to my chest pain with every evocative town landmark. The statuesque, bell towered town hall, the Amherst library. The mom & pop ice cream, toy, and curiosity shops I had haunted as a girl looked so unchanged that I wondered if time had passed at all while I'd been away.

"Home, sweet, home."

My belly fluttered with new wings that I wasn't ready to fit into. A cocktail of nerves and a foreign excitement of seeing the familiar. The white country-Victorian porch and metal rocking chair. The high window of my room lit up and waiting for me to look out and day dream like I had so many late afternoons.

Warm air rushed in from my open door. The frozen view of my childhood home eclipsed by Robert's tired, earnest visage. I hadn't realized Robert had gotten out already. How long had I been staring? "You okay, princess?"

I blinked and hid my thousand yard stare with a clearing of my throat. "Just tired."

He insisted on taking my suitcase and I let him lead in front to the door, past into the foyer. Except for a change out from an asian to a Damask inspired rug, had remained the same.

"Irene, Toby!" Robert hollered and I heard an almost comedic dissonant pair of overlapping steps. Even, thumping steps, loud flittering clacks and pristine, heelish clicks. A thundering bark broke through first and the loveliest mess of grey shaggy hair hobbled down the steps toward me. The pain that had built over the course of the drive leveled up to my throat.

"Merlin," I whispered. His attempt at a jump coincided with my stunned crouch to meet him at his level and became a fluffy embrace. He barked again and lapped at my cheek. He hasn't forgotten me after all. My best boy.

"Looks like someone's been missing you," Robert chuckled. I hugged Merlin tighter and let my face tuck into his fur. He smelled like dirt and pond water but he had always been an outdoor dog. Merlin had been a loyal audience and partner to many of my adventures in the forest across the street. He had a ready joy for me even though he didn't have much to look forward to at home.

"Don't stand there in the rain!"

"Alright. Come on, Merlin."

"Not the dog!"

"But it's pouring!"

"Go on…"

I doubt Irene was going soft enough for my arrival that she'd let Merlin hang around her expensive rugs and upholstery.

Nothing less than providence brought the elegant heel clicks to a head at that thought. Irene, dressed to the nines in a long-sleeved, cross wrap body-con dress and satin finish heels, her ears and throat dripping with diamonds. For being in what I could only estimate was her mid fifties (a vain woman never tells), her figure was youthful. Slim contours and energetic posture. The only sign that time had touched her face was a small bouquet of crow's feet at the corners of her heavily made up eyes. It was the tension behind her eyes that showed her age. Her dark blue eyes had turned a devoid frost since I'd last seen her, or they appeared that way because she was taking me in. I doubt I was a welcome sight.

"Sarah, my dear, look at you!" Irene click-clacked over and took my face into her hands with red acrylic talons. She played at an excitable pitch. It didn't quite match the hardness around her jaw and the half-baked smile. "What a beauty you've blossomed into. I hardly recognize you."

"It must be all the rest I've gotten. The center for wellness liked to keep us all nice and drowsy." It doesn't hurt either that I had no guilty conscience to keep me up at night. But I would be stretching to expect Irene to be capable of one of those. She's too good at reasoning away her manipulation.

She let go of my face and it was a relief to lose the press of her cold, moist hands. Her face was a sunny mask and Robert shuffled his feet. "Well good. I've fixed up your room for you with a pillow topper and new sheets." Her eyes shot over to Robert. "Otherwise, your room has been preserved as it was. I told your father that you wouldn't want so many childish trinkets around when you're a grown woman but he insisted."

"Thank you," I shot a close lipped smile at my dad. "I don't mind a time capsule." Robert's first point in his favor. My room was sacred and so much of my life had to be left behind for the Wellness Institute's minimalism policy.

"I didn't want to make the call on what held enough value for us to keep around versus tossing in the goodwill bin," he simpered. Robert's score sank back to sum zero. Jesus, Robert, my only pictures of mom are in there. In other words, he never cared to know enough about me after Irene to be aware of what I treasured or applied myself to. He hadn't ever stepped into the domain past dragging me out of it on that final day. Typical.

An abrupt throat clearing turned everyone's head to a figure beyond Irene. I don't know how I hadn't taken notice of the presence before. My heart leapt to instinctual recognition. Not a baby, a tween. Swept over, fine blonde hair. Large green eyes that pulled me into the past and brought the choke-hold to a sting at the back of my lids. A sharp jawline replacing the chubby cheeks of my memory. Tall, lanky and dressed like Irene supervised his wardrobe. A pair of khaki pants and a red and white striped polo tucked in and belted. "Hey Sarah."

Toby's kind gaze fixed, and although his mouth relaxed there was a radiance in his look. A radiance like elation.

Irene and Robert went silent or else my mind tunneled them out. My baby brother was all grown up and yet exactly the same.

I closed the distance between us and pulled him into a hug. Toby stiffened in surprise then melted into it with equal warmth. A simple hello back would have sufficed or a BS "Who's this young man?" flattery out of Irene's playbook to break the ice, but I knew my voice would've broken and the dam behind my eyes with it.

I resigned to Toby's insistence that he carry my bag to my room. The weight of it on his chicken bone arms made the trip up the staircase twice as long.

He blew out an exhale at the door marked with a construction paper sign in glitter glue The Abode of Lady Hermia. A thousand year curse be upon thee if thine should enter unannounced or unwarranted! Reading Shakespeare and collecting mom's scripts had given me a bit of a theatrical complex back then. "Here we are. You ready?"

I tore the sign from the door and crumpled it in my hand. Some of the past needed to stay gone. "Ready."

Toby pursed his lips and pushed open the door. The sight made my breathing slow. It was another terrain, with its own air, its own smell and ambiance. A mustiness where vacuuming and dust wipe downs couldn't reach, but otherwise everything was there exactly as I remembered. A perfectly imperfect mosaic of childhood stories and toys, stored memories, and fantasy. Matured aspirations and future hopes shown through the lens of youthful, innocent ideals. I wanted to follow my impulse to rush forward and handle every object. Turn it over like a museum curator getting first dibs at the new display. But I wouldn't do that with an audience.

"It must bring back memories, huh?" Toby mused, watching my reaction with keen eyes.

"Yes, of course," I sat on the edge of my patchwork comforter topped bed. "It's kind of unbelievable that Irene didn't turn it into a home gym or something."

"Actually, she wanted to make it a collection room for her dolls. Your dad was the one who put his foot down on that."

I touched a piece of thread hanging from a heart patch on the quilt topper. "Dolls? Like vintage porcelain dolls or something else?" It wasn't too hard to picture Irene wanting a soulless, voiceless approximation of a human. Something to groom and possess. I wondered how Toby had fared being a living doll who could talk back and show a little autonomy. In the years I had been away, it was possible he had suffered an altogether different kind of hell.

"Yeah, porcelain ones. She loves framing them up and posing them. It's kind of cringy," He laughed.

A silence stretched after my weak snicker back. It was the comfortable pause people took to choose their next words with precision. There was so much I wanted to know about him in the long interim between us. I was sure that he was full of questions for me, but wide gaps still pressured a weird formality. This was all besides the fact that I didn't know what the hell I was doing home. Or what good the institute job program would be. I had my own problems to mull over and a future that was opening up ten years too late. There wouldn't be anymore barbiturates to wash down. No more sleepwalking against the pull of a fast moving outside world. One that offered frightening opportunities and responsibilities I wasn't prepared for.

"...So, I know this is going to come off a little brash, but I'm just going to say it.."

I straightened. "Okay…"

"I feel like I know you."

"I'm sure you feel like you do. All the pictures of me and stories Robert shared-"

He cut me off, his brows drawn. "-No, it's more than that. My whole life I've had the same dream. I'm crawling up some stairs but instead of reaching the top, I end up back down where I started. But I keep trying and getting more scared. That's when I hear you call my name, and you're way below, at the bottom of a room with dimensions that makes no sense. Then I wake up."

My mouth went dry. It was too much like my memory on the way over. The staircase that defied physics. People don't share dreams, they share experiences. It had to be that we were remembering things with the exaggerated perception of trauma.

"That's so uncanny," I rubbed at my goose flesh arms. "You must have heard through Irene or Robert that my memory's damaged. I had an electrical... treatment done, so sometimes when I recover bits and pieces, it feels intense. On the way over here, I had this image pop into my head of me chasing you across a floating fragment of stairs. They went in every direction. It was so acute that I could feel the raw emotion of the moment...the fear for your safety."

Toby leaned against the left poster of my bed and shook his head, frowning. "What does it mean?"

"I don't know."