Conner Shepherd was a man who had no qualms about doing whatever he desired. He said what he wanted to say, insulted who he wanted to insult, and was generally a man who considered freedom the true goal of humanity. Despite being in Hearthome, he knew he wasn't like the others here. Yet as he leaned on the wall inside of Robyn's room, watching her mouth move a hundred miles a minute, and her hands sweep through the air as if swatting a hundred flies, Conner felt for the first time that he truly was insane.

"So here's the thing, pretty much everything he told me he told you so me and you, we're in the same boat. Doctor Evans, he's gone, done and dusted. You got myself and you got Noah, you know us by now that's fine. You got Penelope, the girl you might have seen with the bandages, and you got Ollie, who is a nice boy who wouldn't hurt a fly. Then of course you got big boss Banks and Sullivan." Robyn tapped the whiteboard with her felt-tip pen on haphazard portraits she had drawn on. "This is the List. These are the people Noah saw killed. Well, saw you kill. Well, murder. Ah, you get the point."

"Where did you get a whiteboard?"

"Aha! A good question! But not the question you should be asking! No, no, the thing is that Noah told me how the List works. Relatively simple, really. People die in the order you were supposed to die in the List. Doctor Evans was first in the vision Noah had, so Doctor Evans was the first to go. If somebody is saved from the List, they are skipped over until next time. When the List reaches its end, it rotates back to the beginning. Get it? Good. Now, there is still a massive question, what do you think it is?"

"...What the order of the List is? Did Noah tell you that?"

"A wonderful question! No, he did not tell me, but that is not the important question we should be asking, Conner."

"Wait, what?"

"Was Doctor Evans, Doctor Evans!?"

Conner opened his mouth to speak, shut it again, closed his eyes, counted to three, and then opened his eyes again to look at Robyn peering expectantly from her whiteboard. "I am so fucking confused right now."

"You see, I have a running theory that Doctor Evans has a twin brother, and if it was the twin brother in the vision and not Doctor Evans, maybe the accident in the office was truly an accident and the Doctor Evans that was in the vision is still running about, so it's not about finding the order of the List, it's about finding Doctor Evans' brother!"

"Oh my God…" Conner hid his face in his hands. "I am regretting every single decision I've made to get to this point."

"What's the problem?"

Conner groaned and stepped forward. "The problem is you're fuckin' crazy, lady, even for this bloody place."

"Rude."

"Look," Conner grabbed one of the other coloured felt tips Robyn had and crossed out Doctor Evans' drawn portrait. "We can safely assume Doctor Evans is just one person. He was first on this List, he is done."

"Where's your evidence of that?"

"Where's yours?" Conner looked at her with wide eyes. "You prove to me the guy has a brother then… No, y'know what, I'm not getting dragged into your mind, I'll never come out. We need to work out what the List is. Are you sure Noah didn't mention the order?"

"He just said that you attacked the doctor, and then the orderlies, then attacked Ollie and Penelope, finally me, and then Noah himself. Apparently a visionary always dies last. It's in the rules."

"What rules?"

"The rules of the List, duh!"

"Oh my God you are just a child." Robyn stuck her tongue out and Conner almost felt like jumping out of the window was a better idea than anything that was being said in the room. Instead he focused in on the matter at hand. "So I guess that gives us options, right, for this List of yours? The orderlies are up next, then either Penelope or Owen. Two pairs. That's simple enough. We know you and Noah are at the end."

"Noah was worried about Banks and Sullivan. He wanted me to talk to Penelope and Owen today but I've kinda got distracted with everything going on. I'm not sure how they'll take the news."

"What, that they're gonna probably die in horrific ways?" Conner said dryly.

"Yeah, exactly. How do you persuade someone with that sales pitch?"

"You give them a better one," Conner popped the red pen in his mouth and picked up a green one, eyes furrowed. "You tell someone that they're gonna die, they'll either laugh it off, or panic. Either way they'll certainly not want to talk about it. Other than you, it seems, but well I'm not entirely certain you have space for anything other than words in your head. So," Conner pressed the pen against Penelope's sketch. "Bandage woman seems intelligent. I've seen her reading around and about," he joined her portrait with Owen. "This guy is more trouble, but only because of his DID."

"His what now?"

"Dissociative Identity Disorder," Conner smirked. "C'mon, I thought you were an investigator."

"I am!" Robyn pouted. "I just hate acronyms!"

"So do I, trust me on that. But anyway, it's not the DID-"

"Dissociative Identity Disorder."

"Right, and if I say that every time, we're gonna get nowhere. From my experience the kid has three personalities," Conner drew three separate lines and three separate circles from Owen's portrait. "The personality we generally see, the crybaby personality who pops out when you bully him, and I'm guessing he has a personality in the mornings as he seems a lot more stoic but that's just a guess. So we have ourselves a tactical game – which of these three personalities would be the best to talk to?"

"…Hmm…" Robyn gnawed on her black pen before her eyes lit up. "Oh, I got it! Morning Owen!"

"Exactly. You're smarter than you look. Crybaby will just cry, which is entirely useless to us. The frequent Owen is timid and shy. I'd wager a guess if we talked to him about it, he'd just switch to crybaby. Our best chance is with the morning boy."

"Which means we'll have to wait until tomorrow to talk to him?"

"Yes, but that's not a bad thing. We'll talk to Penelope at the same time."

"I thought you said it would be bad news to give them bad news."

"That's why I got my sales pitch. Got a blue pen?"

"Here."

"Thanks. So, Finley Sullivan."

"Some people call him the Angel of Hearthome."

"Terrible nickname."

"What about Angel-Face?"

"What is he, a supervillain?"

"The Angel of the Heart?"

"Not bad… No, wait, we're losing the point," Conner circled Finley. "The point is that this guy is fundamentally a good guy. More so than the rest of the orderlies around. Especially more so than-"

"Big boss Banks!"

"Bingo." Conner switched to the red pen and circled Banks. "So Robyn, you see what my sales pitch is?"

"I think I do. Finley doesn't like Banks, in fact he actively admonishes her in front of the other residents. We all know the two don't get along. We also all know that Banks abuses her position and her power. That includes Penelope and Owen. So tomorrow morning our biggest obstacle is to convince Penelope and Owen to go to the Rec-Zone with us. They'd go with me not a problem, but you'd be a harder sell… But that's fine!" Robyn paced around the room, spinning the pen in her fingers. "I take Penelope and Owen to the Rec-Zone under the pretence of playing a board game or something. Meanwhile you find Finley and tell him that Banks is causing an issue in the Rec-Zone. You bring Finley to me, Penelope, and Owen."

"Smart thinking, but that doesn't solve the sales pitch."

"Oh… I suppose that's right. So what's the sales pitch?"

Conner's eyes gleamed. "The sales pitch is that for now we don't tell them about the List until we can prove it. We tell them that Banks has gone too far with what she did to Noah. We want her out of Hearthome. I know Banks has had issues with both Penelope and Owen, and of course the aforementioned issues with Sullivan. I think all of them would definitely want to help us get her out of Hearthome." Conner tapped his pen lightly on the board, musing to himself. "The question is of course, how do we persuade them after the fact? The sales pitch solves our Banks problem. Now we just need to solve your List problem. That's a much tougher riddle. Fuck me…"

"Oh man, you ruined it!"

Conner looked at Robyn, confused. "What?"

"You managed to not swear for like, an entire five minutes!"

"I… Really… Huh."

"Also you're actually a really good guy to talk to. You're a good person, Conner Shepherd!"

Robyn was not expecting Conner to suddenly burst out laughing. The man clutched at his stomach, the pens dropping from his mouth, and he fell to the floor, laughing like a hyena. Eventually he came to a stop, the chuckles still emerging from his throat, and he wiped his eyes with his sleeve. "Robyn I just… You just… Jesus Christ, I think I actually might just get on with you. I don't think I've gotten on with anybody in… Fuck me, forever."

"Are you saying you want to be friends!?"

"Again, what are you, a child?"

Robyn suddenly clicked her fingers. "I am a child with an answer to the tough riddle! It's simple! We talk to John!"

"And who in the name of fuck is John!?"

"The guy with all the answers!"

"The… The what fuckin' what? Then what was all this for?!" Conner gestured at the complicated whiteboard, his face full of incredulity.

"A good pair of detectives never consults another detective when solving a case, Detective Inspector Shephard, unless absolutely necessary. Besides, this was a good bonding exercise."

"You know, I think I retract my statement about getting on with you."

"I needed it." Robyn's voice was suddenly small. "I always talk to Noah, you know? He doesn't really talk back, but he listens to everything I got to say. Never laughs at me. Never ridicules me. Ever since I got to Hearthome he was always there. He is like the Dad I never had. I… I don't like not talking. I don't like being quiet. I like it when people listen to me. It makes me feel… present. Most people write me off as a chatterbox full of nonsense. But you listened to me. You've helped me with what Noah asked of me…" Robyn looked up to Conner, eyes wet with sadness. "I know what you said, but tell me that Noah is coming back. Please, Conner? Even if you're lying, just tell me that I'm gonna see him again."

"Sure, you'll see him again," Conner rubbed his head uncomfortably.

"That was quick…"

"You told me to lie to you."

"Yeah, but make it sincere at least!"

"What the fuck more do you want? I don't do heart-to-hearts!"

"I dunno, you spilled a lot earlier!"

"I was vulnerable!"

"And I'm vulnerable now! I want a hug!"

"A hug?! Hell no!"

It was Robyn's turn to laugh now. It was a pleasant laugh, the kind of laugh not heard much around the walls of Hearthome. It was the kind of laugh Conner had never heard before. The people he grew up with weren't the laughing type. Robyn looked up again and this time her eyes were bright, if not dewey. "I believe in Hearthome and what it represents. I believe in its goals to help those who need it. And I believe all of our pasts stopped when we entered those gates. We look forward, not backwards. I don't care what I was before Hearthome, and I don't care what you were before Hearthome. If today has taught me anything, Conner, it's that you are not the killer Noah saw in his vision."

Conner looked at Robyn, looked at her closely, and felt something strange in his chest, a knot that had never been untied. Friends? Conner wasn't entirely certain he knew the meaning of the word. His friends were sharp. His friends gleamed. His friends spilled crimson. The world hated him so he hated the world back, using his friends as support. Those friends were now locked up, just like him, and now Robyn was giving him the opportunity to experience something he had never even dabbled in before. "Thank you," Conner simply said. "Now, all that thinking has made me hungry. Let's go eat before we talk to your Deus Ex John."

"That's a great idea, I'll just grab my camera."

"You weren't filming in here, were you?" Conner asked, just realising that Robyn hadn't been holding the camera she usually held everywhere she went. The camera with no battery.

"No, I don't record at home," Robyn said, her voice strangely downcast. "My ma always told me, no cameras in the house. This is my house now. So, like she says. No cameras in the house."

"Well, while we eat, let's see if we can eavesdrop on some of our cohorts, see if we can get some intel. Does… Does your camera pick up audio?"

"It sure does! That's a brilliant move, Detective Inspector Shepherd, let's go!"