"Are the other doors any good?"
"Nope, it looks like just this one."
"Then what are you waiting for...? Open it..."
Seven and Lotus looked down at the half-alive little girl who had just spoken, then exchanged a glance between the two of them. Clover hung back, as Lotus took hold of the door handle and opened it. As the trio crossed over the threshold and looked around, the pink-haired girl instantly got to work, searching and looking, almost as if she knew what she was looking for.
The two adults stared, dumbfounded for a moment, but then Lotus spoke.
"Well...I'll leave you two to it," she said, and then crossed to the wheelhouse. Seven stood, dumbfounded for a moment, but then began to follow Clover's lead and look around. But, strangely enough, every time that he approached Clover, maybe to see what she was doing, or to ask her about something, the small girl would give him a cold glare and immediately move to the other side of the room. Occasionally, he caught her staring at him with a look of distrust, almost as if she expected him to suddenly attack her. But whenever she realized he had noticed, Clover would instantly redirect her attention to something else. It was almost like she was waiting for him to do something, but he wasn't sure what she could have possibly been thinking. It was probably something about her brother. It must have been rough, seeing a relative like that...
...Oh. Oh. Finally, it hit Seven. The person, no, people who killed Snake, had to have opened Door 3 in order to push Snake in. Had Clover been calculating all of the possibilities in her head? Factoring out the 9th Man and his (9), that meant that the combination that would have involved the fewest number of people was...
Seven inhaled sharply when he realized that he was a murderer.
...Or at least, when he realized that Clover thought he was a murderer. 7 + 2 = 9, + 3 = 12. The digital root would have been three. That meant that in Clover's eyes, Seven and Santa must have killed her brother.
But that was wrong. At least, Seven knew this. He knew that he hadn't worked with Santa to kill Snake, unless his amnesia was spreading. No, that would have been ridiculous. Amnesia did not work that way. Nonetheless, he definitely hadn't been the one to kill Snake, but how could he explain that to Clover? Although he still hadn't remembered everything about himself, Seven had been a cop. His brain, without knowing why, automatically was calculating the parameters of the situation. No, there couldn't have been three or more people who opened the door and then pushed Snake in. If there were a whole three people working together, why would they have hidden their actions so carefully? Four or five perpetrators would have been ridiculous.
No. There wasn't any point in trying to figure it out right now. It would have only given him a headache. Right now, he just needed to stop Clover from doing anything rash.
"Clover, I..."
Clover, who had been examining a log on one of the shelves, jumped suddenly. The book fell out of her hands, and Seven caught the words "Captain's Log" printed in gold type on its blue spine before it hit the desk with a thud. She turned to Seven, green eyes quickly narrowing.
"Look, uh," Seven took off his beanie and scratched his head. Clover placed her hands on her hips and regarded the mountain of a man, staring up at him impatiently. "I have something to, uh... talk to you about," he mumbled. Clover blinked, raising one eyebrow, as if telling him to go on. "...It's about Snake." Seven had suddenly preoccupied himself with the straps on his overalls, so he almost missed Clover walk right past him, towards the door on the other side of the room.
"I'm going to go help Lotus," she announced, opening the door to the Wheelhouse and stepping through. Seven watched as she went, muttering to himself as she crossed over to the other room.
Lotus looked surprised to see the pink-haired girl walk through the door. However, Clover cut right to the chase and, without seeming to acknowledge the extravagantly dressed woman, crossed over to the steering wheel, where she began to turn the wheel. There was a small stack of charts next to her, which she kept one green eye trained on whilst turning the wheel. The older woman watched with an expression that was a mixture of confusion, skepticism, and pity. Clover had carried the map over from the chart room, apparently.
Once Clover had finished turning the wheel, Lotus finally spoke.
"What are you doing in here?" Clover blinked and listlessly turned to look at Lotus, her face still weak and sad, but there was something about her face that seemed as if she were angry about something. Had Seven said something inconsiderate to her?
Clover didn't respond. Lotus frowned, watching as the small girl took the handle off of the steering wheel and took a glance at the arrival board. Lotus followed her gaze, noting that a display had suddenly lit up above their heads. She looked back over at Clover, who was staring at the handle in her hand and muttering something.
"He didn't even...try anything," she said, staring at the piece of wood as if it was going to answer her. Clover's back was to her, but Lotus could have sworn that she heard the sound of the younger girl crying.