'WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT THE LIST.'

Ollie was in his dormitory room as he held the small note in front of him. It was the first time that Owen had communicated with him since he had gone radio silent on his other persona when he had gone to help Conner. There was a second note underneath the first.

'AND ABOUT WHERE YOU WENT.'

Ollie had known this time would come yet it didn't make it any easier. His whole existence within Hearthome had been to come to an understanding and work with the personas that rested inside of him. He couldn't simply just make the two of them disappear. Although Oscar was gone now. Just a void within Ollie's head. He honestly couldn't tell whether he was happy about this absence, or mournful of it.

The List… It all came back to this damn list. Ollie had made the decision to save Robyn, knowing full well that it would put him on the List. He had thought for a moment that maybe he wouldn't, but there was no way he could let somebody innocent die just like that. It was one thing watching from the bushes as Paulie murdered Imogen Banks. It was something else entirely for a patient of Hearthome. Yet it was only Ollie on the List now. Owen had took over and was able to save Noah. Just like that, the two personas who shared one body and brain were under threat of death. The same death that had claimed Oscar's life.

Ollie sighed. He sat cross-legged on the floor. He had been given a tactic by Doctor Evans to help with the communication of his personas. A form of meditation, so to speak, of imagining the personas were in front of you while you wrote. To allow them to take over to respond in kind on the notebook. Doctor Evans had his work cut out with Ollie, Oscar, and Owen, as despite the fact they were all in the same body, they had done separate sessions for each of them, and sometimes sessions in partners or with all three of them. Doctor Evans had called it fascinating, called Ollie's case something beyond the traditional Dissociative Identity Disorder. Doctor Evans had said it in such a way that it should have been something amazing. Ollie just felt that it made him even more of a freak.

Nevertheless, Ollie took a deep breath. He placed his notebook in front of him and closed his eyes. It did not take long to visualise Owen. In Ollie's head, Owen did not look like him, but rather a facsimile of him. Similar features, similar shades of colour, similar styling of hair, but different enough that it wasn't like looking in a mirror. Ollie wrote on the notepad and as he did, he imagined the conversation, just as Doctor Evans had taught him to.

"Hi, Owen." Owen's face was stern, a mixture of disappointment and sadness. It reminded Ollie of looking at his own father. Perhaps that was why his mind had applied the features to Owen the way it had. "Where do you want me to start?"

"I want you to start with why you shut us out," Owen said quietly. Just like his image, Owen's personality just didn't quite match Ollie's in his mind's eye. Was this simply a way to separate the persona, or because he was scared of the persona being like him? Ollie couldn't be sure. "For days you abandoned us. Oscar was terrified. I was there when he died, when he just… disappeared… from us. You weren't. I was alone, for the first time, I was alone, Ollie! The whole point of Hearthome, the whole reason why we are even here is to understand each other, work with each other, live with each other. I thought we had made progress. I thought we were getting somewhere. Shutting yourself out like that, doing what you did… it's like a slap to the face."

"I'm sorry but it was necessary. I was working with Conner Shepherd. I was helping him. I needed to keep it a secret."

"Even from us?"

"Even from you. You and Oscar, you were friends with other people around the hospital. People that turned out to be bad people. Oscar was friends with Marcus Morris. What if Oscar had said something to Marcus, even unintentionally. I couldn't risk it."

Even as Ollie said it, he could hear the tone of his own voice. Non-chalent. Uncaring. He didn't quite mean it to sound like that but yet that's what it did.

"Did you at least get what you wanted from it all?" Owen asked.

Ollie sighed. "I don't know, maybe? Conner won't tell me what he's planning but… he is going after Pigritia. That's all I wanted. I know Conner is capable of catching her. Finding her. And if she's truly who he says she is… then I want answers."

"Penelope…" Owen said the name. "I just can't believe it. The things we shared. The connections we made. She's a patient of Hearthome, just like us. And yet… she did those things to Oscar? I don't know, Ollie, I just don't know if she could do it."

"I suppose we'll find out. Conner promised me that if it all went to plan, that I could talk to her."

"Is that all you're going to do, talk? I can feel your intentions bubbling within you, Ollie, as it does in me."

"She used our condition against us. Used our mental health against us. Used our secrets against us. I want justice served, however that might be. You agree, right, you said that you felt it as well."

Owen was silent for a while. Finally he said, "And now we're on the List as well. The two of us. Together. Saving Robyn and Noah was the right choice but… now what lies in store for us?"

Ollie shrugged. He did not have an answer for that.

"I don't want to die, Ollie. Oscar didn't want to die. You don't want to die either."

"We're not going to die. We've made it this far. We grew up not knowing we even existed. Now we've spent the effort to get to know each other. I know that I locked you and Oscar out. I did that for a reason and while you don't have to forgive me for that, I can only hope you understand why I did it."

"And what about what comes next?" Owen asked. "After Hearthome."

"What do you mean?"

"There is no way that this hospital is going to stay open for very long. The deaths alone… Doctor Evans, Banks, Sullivan. The people in masks. The hospital is scarred, Ollie. I thought you were watching through my eyes. Did you not see the other patients in their terror? They whisper in corridors as if they are going to be next, as if there is a cloud of death upon Hearthome, and who is to say that they are wrong? I don't think the warden can come back from it all. People are talking. Talking about Conner Shepherd, about hosting a serial killer, talking about the people in masks. People know that we were taken, they whisper and those whispers will one day reach outside of Hearthome. What will happen then? And now this explosion in the administration building? Patients and orderlies alike are calling it terrorism."

"Whatever happens next, it won't be because of whispers reaching outside of Hearthome. No one can leave Hearthome, Owen, we're trapped. Conner tells me that we'll stay trapped. He says the world outside isn't like what it used to be."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

Ollie frowned. "I don't know. He wouldn't say. He just said that if we were thinking of leaving Hearthome, then we may as well stay here, as this is all the life we will ever have. I don't know if he was joking or if he was sincere. Either way, Hearthome is funded by people with more money than we will ever see in our lifetimes. I don't expect a couple of deaths will be enough to close this place down. Its facilities are still top-notch."

"Are you not worried, Ollie?"

"Of course I am. I'm terrified of everything that is happening. But it will do me no good to dwell on that fact. You were always too cautious, Owen. Just as Oscar was too scared. I don't have either of those weaknesses. I will act when I need to. I will save us."

Owen's face twisted. "I want to save us too."

"If you want that, then you will have to trust me. You will have to work with me. And you will have to not question me on my decisions. After all, I am the primary."

Suddenly Ollie was back on his own in his room, sitting cross-legged among the written conversation spoken in his mind. He held one scrap of paper in his hand, simply reading:

'WE ARE MEANT TO BE EQUALS. THAT'S NOT FAIR.'

Ollie sighed and let the paper slip between his hands. He could feel Owen somewhere deep inside his mind like a weight in his brain. Doctor Evans had said that he shouldn't call himself the primary. But that it what he was. Oscar was a personification of his fear. Owen was a personification of his caution. Neither of them had memories of being young. Owen did. He could remember growing up with his parents. He could remember laughing and crying and the spectrum of emotions in between.

He was the primary of his own consciousness, and that meant that his life was his responsibility, and no one else's.

Rain drops started to pitter against the window.

Ollie frowned and looked up at the sky, where clouds had started to darken in a repeat of the earlier storm. He hoped it wouldn't get as bad as it had before. Although from the look of the dark clouds moving their way in the distance, he suspected that Hearthome was due another storm.

A knock on the door drew Ollie's attention away from the window and he carefully opened his door to find Robyn standing there, a somewhat strange expression on her face. A strange mixture of excitement, bemusement, and worry.

"Hi, Ollie," Robyn raised a hand. "How are you?"

"Doing okay, I suppose, all things considered. How are you?"

"I'm honestly not sure," Robyn rubbed the back of her head. "I mean, you saved me from the List, which means you're now on the List, and then Owen saved Noah, and now that means he's on the List, so I guess I'm feeling a little weirded out over that. The administration building is damaged badly. Patients are scared. I don't know, it's a weird atmosphere out there. But more than that…" Robyn looked at Ollie sharply. "That German guard from Jason's group, that Berlin fellow. He came to me and asked me to find you and Noah, and to go to the library. He said that Penelope has asked to speak with us."

"Why is he with Penelope?" Ollie asked.

"I don't know," Robyn said. "He just said that it was important that we come as soon as possible, without delay. It's the first time I've actually heard him speak. He's quite intimidating, actually. All of them are, but him especially. So, here I am. Noah is waiting. Are you coming?"

Ollie nodded. "Yes. Of course, yes." He straightened up. "Yes, let's go."