Epilogue, Part Two: The Capitol - Rose Point Estate.

Evander Quinn, 26
Volunteer Support Service Personnel; Army Branch

He's seen a lot of things.

Not that many, really. A few bodies now, in his time. A decent bit of blood. More things than he'd have ideally like to have seen by this time in his life. He's had to look at his own reflection in a hospital bathroom mirror with the brand new hearing aids tucked behind his ears and try to process what was going on exactly.

Evander thought he was good at that now. Everybody has their talents; his were listening, and perceiving, and accepting. That's what his dad would say when they were younger, that he was always quick on the uptake. Even quicker than Pandora, and she was just better at everything. The grades, the manners, the behavior. It was always her.

Maybe that's why he's left her tucked away now, where it's safer. Where he can deal with the grisly details.

He thought he was good at one more thing, too, and that's understanding. He even managed to wrap his brain around his father's own death, eventually, the reasoning behind it.

But this... he can't process this.

He even gives it as much time as physically possible, but nothing happens. Maybe if there was more of it out there, but he's not sure. Time is never something he has enough of.

When he steps off the sidewalk and back into the road he notices the reporters, only two of them. Two is more than often enough. One rights themselves and takes a few steps towards him, he notices, but absolutely no closer to the line of caution tape the police have strung up around the side of the bridge. There's even more down below - he can just barely see it on the shoreline just before the next bend, creating a wide semi-circle just before the water.

He gets into the car and locks all of the doors. One of the reporters is up and tapping at the glass before he can even start the car. They're saying something, asking questions, but he can barely hear them over the roaring in his ears. He has half a mind to rip his hearing aids out but he doesn't think he has the heart, nor the energy, to have anything else destroyed today.

It's all destroyed, and he's trying desperately not to cry.

He hasn't in a while, is the thing. Not because he hasn't allowed himself to, just because there hasn't been any good reason for it. There's been emotion building under the surface for months and it's all finally culminated these past few weeks into today...

His phone is ringing insistently and buzzing at regular intervals in-between it. It has to be Pandora because there's no other option. He told her that he would find them, that there was no other option.

And he did... he didn't, though.

This is just all his fucking fault, isn't it? He let them go in the first place - he let them out in the first place and then didn't have a single fucking thought to check on them afterwards. He didn't make sure they were asleep in their beds, that they had come back at all. They vanished and he had no idea and then they —

The phone starts ringing again. He puts the car into drive and nearly hits the reporter on his way down the bridge.

It feels like his whole body is going numb, the feeling creeping up into his legs and then all the way down his arms. That can't be good. He may just have to pull the car over to be sick out the window at this rate. It's that thought that makes him go so fast, and he's back home in record time. The gates barely open in time to allow him through and he considers barreling through them head-on just before they do. At this point it's not about anything that's safe or practical, least of all reliable. He doesn't care what happens to him anymore. He hasn't cared about that in years.

He's not sure when it finally happens, but he doesn't realize he's crying until he's out of the car and halfway through the building to where he left her last. Only a handful of people pass him at that time but he can't distinguish one from another; what he can't tell is that they all give him a look over, undoubtedly alarmed and most definitely confused.

Because they don't realize yet. The reporters haven't gotten to the news. But when they do...

"Evander!"

He stops dead at Pandora's voice, and a second later her hand curls around his elbow for good measure. So she's not where he left her, then. At least she didn't leave altogether.

At least someone's finally not gone.

"Hey, what's wrong?" she asks, voice pitching up. "Ev, hey, breathe for me."

He's past hyperventilating. There's practically no air going in or out of him at all, and it's making the tears worse. Pandora squeezes both of his arms so tight that he feels nails digging into his skin, and while alarming at least it means he hasn't totally froze over. He can still feel it.

"Breathe," she repeats. "Talk to me. Did you find them?"

He nods, even though he shouldn't. He didn't find them. Someone else did. Someone else did, and it was too late.

"You found them? Where are they?"

He's still nodding, stupidly. He wishes he could stop. "Someone— they found the car in the lake, the car that we gave them, and—"

"What?" she breathes. "What are you talking about?"

"The car," he says again. "The car, it's in the water, and they said it had two bodies inside of it, and the groundskeeper at Pineview found another one, they said he heard the gunshot, and they told me something happened at the bridge and it was just crawling with police and there was a car— a car saw it happen and saw two people go over, but they haven't found the fucking bodies—"

Pandora is shaking her head, steadily, a mirror image to him. They've always been that for each other.

He's watching what happened to him happen to her. The motions of horror that are quickly overtaking her face, inch by inch, until it's all he can see. It envelopes and invades everything else in the worst sort of way. He vividly remembers that reaction when dad died. It was on the face of everyone around him.

Her hands are shaking where they've tightened around his arms, but now it's to the point of pain. He can't tell her to let go.

"Evander," she says slowly, voice shaking as well. "No, that's not... where did they go? Where are they?"

"They're gone."

"No," she repeats. "No, they're not, they're— we have to get them back."

"They're gone," he snaps finally, pulling away from her. She stumbles a bit, eyes welling with tears. He almost wants to grab her and shake some sense into her, take her by the shoulders until she fucking gets it for once. He can't even bring himself to touch her.

They're gone, and they knew what they were doing. It wasn't random at all.

It's less than two hours now until they were supposed to take them. Until they were supposed to die. He hadn't even come to terms with that, and now...

And now they're dead anyway.

They did it themselves. He can't even gather the courage to confront it anymore than that.

He barely manages to grab a hold of the wall before he's on the ground next to it, his jelly-like legs finally unable to support him any longer. They end up crushed awkwardly underneath him, where he feels they'll remain for some time. Pandora is left suddenly as the looking presence above him, trembling, mouth parted silently. There are matching tears coming down her own face, identical to his own.

She looks at him, directly in the eyes. Whatever she goes to say is lost in the sob that comes out instead.

He needs to get up and do something. He needs to fix this.

"They're gone," he says. "They're gone."

There's no fixing this, though.

How can you fix death?

Calix Belmont, 17
Capitol Eastern Quadrant; Holmfirth District.

Someone's shaking his shoulder.

His parents, theoretically speaking, should be gone. Work calling, and all that, like it does every single day of the year. Either it's Phoebe, and she's being particularly annoying, or she's let one of her friends in too early to bug him.

It's that, or someone's broken in. He's unwilling to confront that option yet.

"Idiot, wake up," Phoebe hisses. Oh good, it is her. Better his sister than some randomly petulant burglar. She doesn't let go of his shoulder though, practically rolling him back and forth across the bed until he's forced to crack his eyes open a sliver. She goes so far as to drag the pillow out from beneath his head and then pitch it on the floor, and no amount of stretching allows him to reach it.

"What?" he groans, rolling over to face her. She's blocking most of the light from the window, which is nice, but it's not shadowed enough that he can't see the utter dread all over her face.

"Get up and come downstairs."

"Why?"

"There's something on the news."

"Okay, well," he starts, but she hurries from his room and leaves his door wide open, too, so there's no way he can go back to sleep. He hears her thump down the stairs and then the volume from the television rise, even from here.

Thirteen year olds are weird, you know. He knows all about that from being one and having the misfortune to experience it. Nine times out of ten his sister will just leave the television on as background noise while she does whatever it is that she's doing; since when does she actually watch it?

It's not until he meanders his way through his general morning routine that he realizes exactly what day it is. He's never been the most quick-thinking of guys; that's not really his job. He's still standing in the bathroom trying to blink himself awake when he realizes exactly what's going on today, what's supposed to happen. He spoke to Tarquin just last night - how could he not remember?

The clock in his room, when he quickly glances at it as he goes tearing by, reads 11:17.

Forty-three minutes before.

Shit.

He manages to grab a hold of his phone too before he sprints and nearly trips down the stairs, pulling up Arden's number. He's shocked he doesn't have upwards of ten text messages from her by now. Of all the days to sleep too long and he chose today. Whatever Phoebe wants him to see can't be that important. It can wait until later. He has forty or so minutes to get downtown to the address Velia sent him yesterday, the spot where they're being taken.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to say goodbye, is there? Calix isn't even sure any of them have a chance at getting in, but like hell he's not going to try.

That's his best friend they're trying to kill, and a phone call wasn't good enough.

"Phoebs, I have to go!" he shouts down the hall, hurriedly shoving his feet into the first acceptable pair of shoes. Do they match with his pajamas? No. Does he care?

Also no. If he cared he wouldn't be marching down there in pajamas at all.

He dials Arden in the process of finding the keys, tearing through all the sets of them hanging next to the door until he finds the ring that he really ought to be keeping closer to him at all times. The phone, after several long seconds of ringing, goes to voicemail. He dials again, but gets the same result by the time he's finished lacing up his shoes.

"Calix," Phoebe says, peering into the hall. She's still got that horrifyingly distraught look on her face.

"I'll be back later, okay? Just try not to burn the house down while I'm gone, mom and dad will kill me."

"No— Cal, I need you to come with me, please," she begs, eyes watering. "Can you come with me?"

He stares at her. She foregoes waiting for an answer and grabs his hand, instead, dragging him around the couch and back into the living room. The television's volume has peaked and is blaring throughout the whole first floor, loud enough to wake the dead. He's surprised it didn't wake him up even all the way upstairs.

Phoebe's unsteady hand is still laced through his, knuckles steadily going white. She eventually shakes him again when he goes so long staring at it that he's missed the point of her dragging him in here entirely - the television. He shuffles backwards to perch on the end of the couch, expecting Phoebe to let go, but she drifts back with him and stays just as close.

It's a breaking news story, except the breaking news bit is written out all in capital letters and even with the urgency he doesn't think he's awake enough for that yet.

"What's going on?" he asks. The screen is cut down the middle; the left half is filled by a news anchor lady with annoyingly tall hair, and the right is a look at something live. He's having trouble telling exactly what. Most of the frame is filled up by the glassy surface of the lake, oddly undisturbed further out and churning up against the shore. There's a car being pulled from the water, sleek and all black. Water goes spilling from the bottom of it when it's finally pulled free.

There's a whole show of lights, flashing blue and red, but no noise. The only noise is the news anchor talking. All of the people milling around the area have to be creating a whole cacophony, but he can't hear any of it. Does he really want to?

Besides the police there are a few others, imposing figures in long, sterile-looking coats. One of them is wheeling a stretcher away from the water's edge, and the camera zooms out to follow it to a car parked alongside the road.

Phoebe squeezes his hand. "I don't get it," he says quietly. It looks bad whatever it is, bad for something or someone.

"It's him," she answers.

"Who?"

She looks up at him, eyes nervous. "Tarquin."

He blinks. The stretcher collapses into itself as they load it into the back of the van, and the camera pans away to an identical stretcher, another interchangeable white cover over the whole thing. This one is flapping up at the edge, though, and someone hurriedly reaches over to pin it back down before Calix can get a good look at what's hiding beneath.

"What do you mean?"

"They found all five of them. Not in the same place. But they're all... they're all dead. That's what they're saying."

Phoebe's grip on his hand is still something fierce, but he turns his phone around again with the other and flicks the screen on. It reads 11:22 now, six minutes passed. It's still thirty-eight minutes away, though. They weren't supposed to go for another thirty-eight minutes.

His phone is still silent; neither Arden nor Velia have messaged him once. Why wouldn't they have messaged him? They were all in agreement to go. He's just a little behind, is all.

He scrolls away from Arden's number and back to the still unfamiliar one that he called back last night, bringing the phone up to his ear. There's a long moment of silence, and then it goes to voicemail. The woman suddenly speaking is unfamiliar, but Tarquin had to have gotten the phone from somewhere. That makes sense. Someone lent him the phone to call, and maybe now they've taken it back.

At the tail end of the voicemail she rattles off another number, and he types it in the second he can, unwilling to forget it. This time, in comparison, only takes seconds.

"Hello?"

"Who is this?" he asks. There's murmured conversation in the background of the call, an eerie echo of the broadcast in front of him. They're seeing it too.

"My name is Shoah Jensen," she says. Right, he heard her say that. "Who is this?"

He takes a deep breath. "Calix."

"Calix," she repeats. "Calix, right. Tarquin's friend."

She knows who he is - that's a good sign. It just has to be.

"Is it true?" he asks, hoping she can understand that too. It's a reminder of the conversation he had with Tarquin just last night, what feels like a lifetime ago. That's what hearing his voice felt like after going so long without it. He grew up on that voice, had it literally every single day, and then it was just gone. He can still remember his parent's faces when they stopped by to drop off the birthday present that Tarquin had gotten for him, right on time.

She sounds uneasy even in her breath, this ultimately unfamiliar lady. He can practically hear her deciding what to say, rehearsing the line over and over again.

"Calix," she says slowly. "I'm so sor—"

He hangs up. Phoebe looks at him again, eyes wider than before. She must not like what she sees there, because she pulls her hand from his and gets to her feet.

"I'm gonna go call mom," she says, tripping over herself to escape the living room.

He's still sitting there, frozen, when he hears her high-pitched, frantic voice start up in the kitchen. Phoebe glances around the corner at him and then disappears again, the phone clutched tight in her hand.

I don't believe any of it. Because he doesn't.

But it's true. That's what Tarquin said to him last night. But it's true - what I did, that's all true.

And this? This... this is true too?

It can't be. It doesn't make any sense. They're down to thirty-three minutes now, but that's still enough time. That's enough time for anyone even racing against death. Unless he's already gotten there. Tarquin never, ever lied to him, and when he was talking about tomorrow last night he didn't mean it in a needle in the arm type of way. He meant to say he was taking control of his own life. His life, and his death.

And he told him not to forget it.

But he's dead, isn't he? That's what everyone's telling Calix now. Phoebe believes it, and Shoah Jensen believes it, and the whole country is being told it...

He never got a text because there wasn't a point. There was no person to say goodbye to.

By that point, Tarquin was already gone.

Dr. Shoah Jensen, 28
On-Site Psychotherapeutic Counselor, Rose Point Estate

She doesn't let go of the phone for a very long time.

She can, but she won't. It's a shocking thing to discover that your hand hasn't actually fused to it after holding on for so long, but he can't bring herself to tuck it away. After several minutes of waiting, she dials back the number, and gets no response.

She didn't expect to.

The phone ends up in her lap. For some reason she can't be tempted enough to put it away for the day and ignore the numerous calls that are no doubt going to spill from the other end. It feels like a smart thing to tether herself to, a line of communication that no one else clearly had. Someone missed something somewhere, messed it all up.

And this is the result they've ended up with.

Dr. Arranmore had excused himself some twenty minutes ago now after shouting had broken out in the hall outside the sitting room; whatever it was couldn't get her to move. She was capable of intervening, but she didn't. With his absence on the opposite chair still starkly obvious she can't help but wonder what went wrong, if the torrent of emotions finally overcame someone and caused them to snap.

Every single one of the stations on the projection between them is playing a variation of the same thing. It's a mixed bag of reporters and anchors and camera people, not one of whom actually looks appropriately upset.

Shoah has no right to be, and she's fully aware of that. She didn't really know those kids, but she recognized the pain in their eyes. She's seen it a dozen times over in her life; Four's full of people like that. Mostly kids, too young to be able to properly handle it, victors and ex-trainees who didn't quite make it, who did the awful things and got no glory.

Maybe taking your own life is the glory in all of this.

She waits patiently for a few more minutes, but Dr. Arranmore doesn't return. He's been her company this morning since hell opened up; no one else has seemingly had the time. She flicks through a few different channels, searching for something different, but nothing presents itself. It's just more of the facts, the awful visuals. None of the reasoning.

They were suffering. She knew that the second she saw them. Faking it was one thing - faking it well was a ball game most people weren't thoroughly trained for. She had witnessed her sister do it over and over again and fail each time.

Shoah had only agreed to come here because she thought she was help. That was her job description, after all.

It was as the old cliché went - you couldn't help someone that didn't want to be helped. You couldn't save someone that didn't want to be saved, either.

You definitely couldn't save people who were slated for execution.

Shoah stands up to leave, but is greeted by the face of Kerensa Quinn lurking in the door as she does so, and her feet falter into an awkward stop. She's not nearly as threatening outwardly as everyone makes her out to be, but she has the face of a devil. She'd do anything to anyone and wouldn't bat an eye. It doesn't feel very good to be the only one in the room with her.

"I'm sorry," she starts. "If you need the room—"

"Quite the contrary, actually. I was hoping to speak with you."

She wills all of the composure she possesses into one central spot. "Would you like to sit then?"

All for show, she sits back down in her chair and smiles, too. Kerensa takes the one opposite and somehow manages to fill it more than Dr. Arranmore did, a massive feat for someone of her stature. It almost doesn't look possible. With her legs crossed and her hands folded primly over-top of them, she looks like the most unassuming person in the world.

Kerensa turns to watch the screen, leaving Shoah to stare at her uneasily. Her eyes flick over the current broadcast with a flat, uninterested look.

"You've seen it, I assume?" she asks. Kerensa hums.

"Many times. And you?"

"Likewise."

"It's such a tragedy, don't you think?"

"I believe that any loss of life, especially young life, is a tragedy." Shoah wasn't there for the final court proceedings, but it's that which floated around afterwards. Judge Sykora said almost those exact words and then chose to punish them anyway. He threw away the key on their lives. Their deaths now are on so many people that she can't even begin to write the list herself.

"I know you spoke with them," Kerensa says. "Were there warning signs?"

"Warning signs?" she asks. "To suicidal tendencies? Less warning signs and more obvious beacon, dare I say."

"I was under the impression that they had desire to live."

"From experience most people who share those thoughts don't want to die - they see it as the only option, and they take it. Two of them didn't jump off a bridge today because they wanted to; they saw it as their only option. And I can guarantee you that even if they regretted it before they hit the water they still knew in the back of their minds that regret was futile. You know the time, I'm sure. They would have been dead by now anyway."

It's hard to tell which way is worse. Surely a quiet, quick needle in the arm would be better - but who's to say a gunshot wound to the head isn't just as quick? Even quicker, in fact?

"You're sad to see them gone," Kerensa observes.

"I think most people are," she wagers. "Even the people who wanted them punished would have rather seen them do time than see them dead at their own hands. No one wants that."

"Except them."

"Sorry to interrupt."

She turns, peering around the edge of the chair, and breathes a silent relief at the sight of Evander having taken his mother's place in the doorway. Where Kerensa looked tall and regal he's somehow managed to make himself look very small; she can tell just at a glance that he's been crying recently, and there's a roll of bandaging wrapped around the knuckles of his right hand, faintly pink at the edges. She can only hope that the earlier commotion was because he went after something, namely a wall, and not an unfortunate someone.

"Could I talk to you?" he asks, and she winces at the sound of his voice. Kerensa unfolds her legs and makes to stand up, but he gestures at Shoah instead.

She blinks and gets to her feet, leaving Kerensa to settle back down in the chair. She hopes she didn't look too eager.

Before she goes, she makes sure to gather the last of her fortitude, and turns to look Kerensa in the eye. "If you'll excuse me. And it's like I said, I'll never believe that this is what they wanted."

It's not what Shoah wanted either. She would have wished for any other outcome.

Evander is waiting for her out in the hall, shifting from foot to foot. He glances up at her quickly when she hesitates in front of him, but just as quickly goes back to staring at the floor. He looks like he's been through the ringer in just a few short hours, and is picking at the bandages around his knuckles with a ragged fingernail, trying to pull up the edge.

"How's the other guy look?" she asks.

"Hole in the wall," he mumbles, and she nods. That's better than what she thought. "I know... I know everything's not okay, but can I do something? Anything?"

"I don't know," he answers. "Pandora left, and Crynn went with her. I think they went to talk to someone. I didn't want to speak to my mother right now, and I didn't know where anyone else was."

Oh, he came looking for her on purpose. He wanted to. That's sort of what people do with her job description; they gravitate. Shoah knows in her gut that's not the entire reason but it's not the place for that, and certainly not the time. She had him pegged as someone who might be slightly over-emotional just from spending some time with him, but seeing it makes her wish she had never thought it. She doesn't want this for him.

"Can I hug you?" she asks, and he gnaws at his lip, still staring at the ground. Eventually he nods, and she wastes no time in stepping forward to wrap her arms around him. He's struggling to take in even breaths, chest rising and falling unevenly. Occasionally she'll hear a little gasp like he's really and truly failing, but she doesn't think he's crying anymore. There's no telling if that's a good thing.

They didn't deserve this. Not any of the five of them, or the people who fought for them. Even when she knew it was inevitable she hoped for a different outcome, but believing in that was like clinging to the possibility of a neverland. Like clinging to something that wasn't actually real and that never would be.

She closes her eyes, and wishes for something else. For him. For all of them.

That's all she can do.

Crynn Sylvaine, 27
Criminal Law Defense Attorney; District Eleven

He doesn't much like the number three.

Three dead sisters, so he assumes. Three years between the avoxing and his mother's death. Three months after meeting Pandora in which he finally gathered the courage to actually speak to her.

That had been embarrassing.

Three days pass in painstaking slowness. He feels as if he's awake for every single second, forced to watch the undeniable horror of it all. It never stops.

He's not on the fringe, is the worst part. He's just enough on the inside that he feels all of it, like he's been stuck at the epicenter of a disaster zone long after everyone should have been rescued from it. They had storms in Eleven, sometimes. Bad ones that kept people locked up in their houses for days. Right now felt like the storm had ended but the house had been washed away with it, and that there was nothing left.

The last he saw Pandora she was leaving for something - funeral arrangements, Evander had later told him. She's been missing so often that every little thing can't possibly be about the five of them. It feels more and more like she's avoiding him. He's seen her cry before, seen her completely break down, so he doesn't know why.

He sees her in nothing more than fleeting moments and when they go to sleep at night, though she says little then too. Sometimes good-night and sometimes I love you. Sometimes neither, or sometimes both.

It's not much, and it's driving him insane.

He gives her those three days, though. He understands everything of the grieving process and leaves her to it.

He finally catches her though not long after she gets back - she's brought one of the computers down from the main house, carried all the way down the stone path, and has set it up in the cottage, tucked away in the nook she calls an office. He raps on the door-frame to get her attention, hunched over the computer with an almost permanent slouch to her shoulders.

She smiles when she sees him, but the look hurts him a bit. She looks borderline unhealthy, gaunt and hollow-eyed. The smile travels no further than her mouth. And it's not just her, it's the baby too.

She'll probably end up dead too if she keeps up like this.

She stands up before he can cross the room, much to his surprise, and hugs him before he can even raise his arms. His blinks in surprise as she winds her arms around his middle, crushingly tight.

"I'm sorry," she mumbles into his shirt. Even her hair's a bit of a mess, but he hugs her back and presses a kiss to the top of her head anyway; it doesn't appear she's in the mood to let go of him so soon, so there's no signing anything back. He wouldn't get very far anyway, he doesn't think. He can tell her not to apologize all he wants, but she still will. They're the same in that regard.

He steps back, finally, and holds her an arm length away. This time she doesn't try to smile.

"When's the last time you ate something?" he signs.

"I had some yogurt before I left this morning."

At least six hours ago, now. He only has one job, really, and that's to keep an eye on her, to make sure she's functioning. It's on him to take care of her.

"I'll make you something, if you want to get back to that." He gestures back at the computer and heads for the kitchen before she can say otherwise, though he thinks he hears a muted call of his name as he heads down the hall. He expects her to stay that way as he starts pulling things from the kitchen cupboards, but by the time he puts a pan on the stove to warm she's followed him into the kitchen. There are eyes on the back of his head for the full minute it takes him to wrangle everything together, but Pandora eventually pulls herself up onto the counter next to him and makes a home there.

And that's just how they do things. It feels like old times. It's complete and utter silence while he throws something together, punctuated by her occasionally shifting over to lean her head against his when he's not particularly busy, and then scooting away again when he is.

He hands her a finished plate, one of the more lackluster sandwiches he's ever put together, but at least it's warm.

Pandora smiles, and it reaches her eyes this time. "You're lovely, you know that? I should tell you that more often."

"I don't see how you could tell me that more than you already do."

She takes a bite of her sandwich. "Because it's true."

He nods. Crynn likes to think he's a well and truly good person, but nothing is black and white like that. He knows all about the body they dumped outside in the creek. He knows what they did to Eriska. What she did.

It doesn't make him love her any less.

Pandora puts the sandwich down and the plate along with it, giving him a thoughtful look. She waggles her hand about until he's forced to take it.

"Come with me?" she asks, and he nods again. She hops off the counter and pulls him back towards the computer; he just manages to snag the plate as she drags him away. He's going to make her eat come hell or high water.

He drops the plate down in front of her when she sits down, but she pays it no mind. She goes back to fiddling about on the computer and lets go of his hand in the process; Crynn perches on the edge of the desk and lets her get to it. He learned the hard way long ago that trying to get her stop when she was set on something was both useless and futile.

"Okay," she says. "We're gonna do this, and then I'm going to eat. And I need you to get Evander once we're done. But can you promise that you won't hate me?"

"What?" he asks, but she looks very serious. As if he ever could. Why would he start now?

He'd go the inappropriate look and say the look on her face is akin to that of a situation where someone just unfortunately died, but well. Someone did, so he can't say that. And she won't stop looking at him like that either.

"Never," he answers, and she seems satisfied with that. She keys in a number onto the phone sitting between them and then puts it face up on the desk, pressing the speaker button. He doesn't recognize the number she entered, and there's no name attached to it. It rings for a while, so long in fact that it feels like she's pulling some sort of prank on him. What else could she possibly doing?

"Hello?"

It's not a voice he immediately recognizes, nothing intimately familiar. There's something itching in the back of his mind that says he knows it, but he can't place it. It feels more like a memory than anything else, something almost faded but not quite.

Like he didn't forget it for a reason.

"Hi," Pandora answers, looking up at him. She expects him to recognize the voice, then? Should he?

A sigh. "I vividly remember telling you not to call this number."

"I'm sorry," she responds, but it's different than the way she said it to him not long ago. This one doesn't sound all the way apologetic. "I just need to know. Do you have them?"

Them. Who is them, exactly? Crynn is already hyper-focused on sifting through the practical files in his brain searching for the voice, or even a hint to lead him to it. There's been no response from the other end of the line, and by the second he can see the lines of Pandora's shoulders getting more tense. It's not good for her, this worry. It's not good for any of them.

He knows that voice. Why does he know it?

"Do you have them?" Pandora repeats. Them. There's no other them that he can think of, not unless...

Pandora didn't leave to make funeral arrangements this morning, he knows suddenly.

She looks up at him. His eyes must be wide as saucers as he processes that alone, followed by hearing the little huffed laugh that comes through from the other end. It's the laugh that finally produces the image, the image to a person, the person to a name.

A name to a voice.

"Oh, come on," Luca Arker says. "Was there ever really any doubt?"

To everyone who I told there was only going to be two epilogues, as is my standard, I love you! Two epilogues is so last year, am I right?

Third and final coming next week.

Until next time.