The house was silent and unsettling in its coziness. It was immaculately clean and laid out as if it had been waiting for me. Its nondescript décor, gently swaying curtains, and neatly arranged bedding seemed so benign and inviting, and after a few months of waking up with sand in every nook and cranny, I found I almost didn't care about the gnawing feelings of doubt and strangeness this place stirred up, and put myself to bed almost immediately.
I awoke the following morning to an almost vicious pounding on the front door. I looked at the clock beside the bed, pausing to marvel at the miracle that I actually had not only a bed to wake up from, but a clock to look at. It was 7am, and I wasn't rightly certain I had woken this early any other day I had spent on the Island. I stumbled out of bed, groggily navigating my way to the door.
I pulled open the door and found myself face to face with a small, dark-haired woman.
"I'm sorry, did I wake you?" She asked, in a tone that suggested she wasn't at all sorry.
"It's fine." I mumbled, dismissively.
"My name is Harper. I'd like to ask you a few questions." She continued, brushing past me into the front room.
"Um. Come in. Make yourself at home." I deadpanned.
"You don't have any tea, do you?" She asked.
"You know, that's funny, I have no idea."
"Of course. That's right. How could you know?" She breezed ahead of me, into the kitchen. I stared after her, incredulously, before following. By the time I got there, she had already produced a kettle and a box of the same white-label DHARMA tea that we would find in the Hatch supply drops.
She proceeded to appraise me silently, face arranged in an expression of determined calm and eyes blazing furiously the entire time the kettle was on the burner.
"Sugar?" She asked, sugar cube poised over a cup.
"No. Thanks."
She silently poured the tea, pushing a cup across the table to me. I had barely raised the cup to my lips when she spoke again.
"Were you one of the people that murdered my husband?"
"What?" I choked, sloshing tea into my saucer.
"I believe you heard me the first time."
"Were you Ethan's wife?" I asked at length. It hadn't occurred to me until this exact moment that Ethan might have had a wife, a family.
"No. But I guess that answers my question."
"…What, exactly, are you doing here in my kitchen?" I probed.
"I'm a psychiatrist." She responded, sipping her tea detachedly.
"Right. Of course. Look, I have no idea what happened to your husband. I don't even know who your husband is. But before you continue this interrogation, you should probably understand that the entire reason I'm here is because, whatever happened to him? It wasn't right. And I wasn't about to just sit and be complicit. Ok?"
"Did you sleep well?" She asked suddenly.
"I… yeah. It's a nice change, not finding sand in everything."
"Good. I wonder how Ethan would feel, knowing you're sleeping so soundly in his house?" She smiled, taking another sip.
"I get it. You blame me. Fair enough. I'm a face you can put on your feelings. But if you're looking for an apology… I didn't pull the trigger. My people… the other survivors… They're afraid. They're acting emotionally. They're not waiting for answers, they're just making their own. Respect the fact that I'm distancing myself from that behavior. Still, you're not entirely blameless yourself, are you?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"How's Walt?"
It was her turn to drop her cup into its saucer with a clatter.
"Walt… is going home with his father. Where he belongs." She responded finally.
"At what cost?" I asked, emboldened. "You can blithely say that Michael's actions were his own choice, but we all know he was pushed." It was the first time this thought had articulated itself in my mind, but it tumbled from me before I could stop it.
"Why did you want to align yourself with us again?" She countered, composed once more.
Before I could come up with a sufficiently acerbic response, however, there was a knock at the front door. I rose, silently, to answer.
"Tristan. Did you sleep well?" Richard Alpert was standing on the porch. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Harper peering around the kitchen doorway, looking very much like a kicked puppy.
"What are you doing here?" Richard asked, brushing past me. Was everyone in the habit of just randomly invading everyone else's personal space?
"Harper, I think I'd like to speak with you later." He continued, dark eyes flashing. She peered at me for a moment, then straightened and passed between us, not looking at me again.
Once she had begun to cross the lawn, Richard moved to shut the door, then turned back to me.
"I'd tell you she's an anomaly…" He began.
"But she's not." I responded.
"What did she say to you?" He asked.
"Not much. She accused me of murdering her husband, and then tried her damndest to make me doubt my decision to come here."
"Most of us aren't that straightforward." He conceded. "But if you don't have a little doubt, you're living in a fantasy and you're going to end up very disappointed."
"Is Ben back yet?" I asked, trying desperately to change the subject.
"No. It's going to be awhile."
"Then why did you come to check on me?"
"…Tristan, did it ever occur to you that the reason I brought you here has as much to do with you deciding whether or not you want to be here as it does Ben deciding whether or not you get to stay?"
"Well, now it does, thanks." I muttered.
"I'm just saying, if you're going to blindly trust the way decisions are made here, you're going to be no happier than you were in your own camp."
"Richard Alpert, that sounds like dissent in the ranks." I cracked a smile. He didn't return it.
"If you want to be one of us, be one of us. But be an educated one."
A/N: Another shorty! Setting up the board, because things are about to get interesting.