"…Henry?" Evelyn's voice repeated. "If you're out there… please, say something. It's…cold here…"

It sounded so… fragile. Like a sculpture made from blown glass, frightened that the slightest disturbance would shatter it entirely. For all he knew, that was a very real possibility. The way the shock of realization had impacted him, he felt like he'd been nailed to the floor all of a sudden.

Her voice was coming through an old, nearly dead speaker, and sounded like it was being broadcast through a biscuit tin, but… it was unmistakably her voice. Talking like she hadn't been dead and gone for the better half of a month.

"Y-" Henry started to speak, but his emotions got the better of him and his first attempt ended in him getting choked up. It took a few false starts, but with effort he was able to console her.

"Yeah… yeah, I'm here."

A small, relieved laugh greeted those words, one that he could practically hear had a soft smile in it. "I thought that was you. You had that same tone of voice when you told off Gordon that one time."

"And look where that got me," he replied with a bit of a sardonic grin.

He moved in closer to the ominous looking metal cube, an invisible weight that he hadn't known he was carrying seeming to lift ever so slightly off his shoulders as he approached. So many words he wanted to say, and only one string of consciousness to say them… if only he could have brought in some clones to help out.

The device itself was as much an enigma as the fact he was, more or less, managing to commune with the dead right now. How on earth the little gremlin had managed to make this from scraps was beyond him, but not unwelcome now that he knew why it had been pestering him for so long. It pulsed occasionally with dark antilight, the energy stored within the crystal pendant leaching out into the attached apparatus with remarkable efficiency.

She must be in there, somewhere, he belatedly realized. Probably has been in there the whole time, and I just had no idea.

He wanted to pursue that train of thought for a little bit longer, but Evelyn brought attention to the more important aspects of that conundrum before he could get lost in the weeds.

"Um… this is probably going to sound like a silly question, but… how long has it been? There's not really a sense of time in… well, whatever this is…"

He imagined she would be motioning to her surroundings right about now, if she were capable. Going off of the few vague descriptors she was giving about her current experience, he also couldn't shake the feeling of familiarity.

"It's, uh… it's been a couple weeks since the Gentleman's Club. Not that it really feels like it's only been a couple weeks, but… a… A lot has happened."

Silence blanketed the room for a few suspenseful seconds.

"Is he…" Evelyn's voice sounded shakier than he'd ever heard it before. "He's dead, right?"

"Dead beyond a shadow of a doubt," Henry answered back immediately. "Even more than you've been, I reckon. Er… I guess that descriptor doesn't quite fit you now, but… you get my point. If destroying what had to be his source of power somehow wasn't enough to kill him, then the only logical conclusion is that we're all pretty much immortal. Which is, first off, doubtful, and second, something I highly recommend against even in the best case."

Despite the good news, she seemed to be somewhat upset at that outcome.

"That's…" she paused halfway through her sentence, sighing. "That's good to hear, at least. One less rotten thing in the world to worry about. I… seem to have missed out on a lot, haven't I?"

If Henry had to guess… she was feeling a bit cheated. She'd wanted revenge, gotten it, then out of nowhere had it pulled out from under her nose right before said nose was smashed into the pavement. It was insult to injury, and even if the end result was the same… there was something lost in that betrayal that wouldn't come back. He didn't feel the same way about it, but he could understand it.

"Do you… do you know what happened to the slaves I freed?" she asked next.

Henry's chest tightened.

"I do," he replied. "And I'm sorry in advance."

Her worried quietness rang out like a silent bell. Henry interpreted it as disappointed judgment, though to any outside observer it was plain to see it as a misconception only he carried.

"...Tell me what happened," Evelyn finally responded.

He did.

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He started with the immediate aftermath. Meeting Robb, regrouping with the mages, burying her body… he left no detail out, especially his own shortcomings. Evelyn listened intently, only asking for brief clarification at a few key points.

He explained how they'd planned to leave for Kensington, told her about the miraculous broadcast from outside the Shroud they'd picked up and their hasty retreat from the crumbling office building once the Dryad had moved in. How he'd tried to show them the ropes when it came to not just surviving on their own, but thriving. What dangers to look out for, what lines of thinking you needed to run along to keep ahead of the curve.

How it hadn't been enough when the world decided to come crashing down around them.

"...S-so when I realized there w-was nothing I could do to stop them from… from…"

By the end of it, he was sat down cross-legged in front of the cube, practically folding in on himself in self-pity. Evelyn probably couldn't see him crying, but she could definitely hear him. He didn't care. He just laid it bare for her to judge. If anyone could, it had to be her, he believed.

"T-they took Martin and a few others, and left the rest as enthralled husks," he finished in a dejected rush. "And all I could do was let it happen. There's only a few left, now…"

He swallowed hard, throat feeling drier than a desert. "I… I failed you."

Here it comes…

This was it, he thought. This is where the dam bursts, and every insecurity that had slowly been building up over the latest journey would be substantiated. She had every right to be mad at him, for messing things up this badly-

"No," Evelyn declared with resolve.

Henry choked on a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. When Evelyn responded to his admission… a bit of her stern, stoic nature came back to the forefront. He'd expected that tone in response to what he had to say. But… why was she using it to forgive him?

"W-what?"

"You haven't failed anyone. You haven't failed me. You haven't failed them. You clearly don't see it the same way, but you haven't failed yourself, either. If anything, I… I should be the one apologizing for making you feel like you needed to be the one to carry my own hasty decisions in my place."

"Hey, wait…" Henry immediately switched gears, trying to justify her actions where he would have lambasted his own. "The decision to help them out was my own. I… wanted them to have a better chance at things than they would with the Nobles, you know? It's just…"

"Henry," she interrupted. "I'd like to think I know enough about you to understand you a bit. And right now, you look to me like you faced something you weren't quite ready for, and all of a sudden want to hide behind what's familiar to you. Is that what you want? To go back to being a loser after everything?"

"But… Martin's captured… Claire's son died…"

"So go capture Martin back. And dying's never seemed to stop you before, so I'm sure you can figure out something there, too. After all, I'm supposed to be dead, too, aren't I?"

"...They probably both hate me…"

"Hate's a strong word. I seriously doubt anyone actually hates you, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were using you to vent their frustrations. Take it from someone who's gone through the real deal, it's something completely different, and a lot uglier."

"I'm not-"

"For God's sake, Henry! Take a moment to get out of your own head for once!"

Her slightly metallic shout hit him like the slap to the face he'd been practically begging for the whole time. Only now was he realizing that he hadn't really wanted it to begin with, but it was far too late to back out now.

"Do you seriously believe that anyone you've helped thinks that they'd be better off without you lending a hand? Even after some of the stuff you've managed that I once thought was genuinely impossible?! I was trapped – trapped! Until you showed up and found a way to kick me loose! Are there forces out there stronger than both of us put together? Yes, absolutely! And despite that, you managed to come out on top in an upset I wouldn't have dared to even dream of! So tell me, why would this be any different to you?!"

The cube began to rumble slightly, as her speech reached a crescendo. A gust of wind pulsed through the air in the room once, then twice, scattering small parts all over and nearly knocking Henry onto his back. He managed to break his fall just in time, noticing as he did so that it had begun to levitate ever so slightly off the ground.

"Let me guess, you were thinking of doing something self-destructive again, weren't you?" she accused. "Like that time in the train curse!"

"I was… gnh-! I was arming up so I could handle things myself!"

The winds greatly increased in force, causing the cube to rotate erratically as the pressure forced Henry to the ground completely.

"So you know that they'll wipe the floor with you in a straight fight, but you planned to go alone anyway? That's not the Henry Thompson I had to fight against! The one I know was a sneaky little twat who always kept his head on a swivel, looking for the next trick to stuff up his sleeve while no one was looking! One that never played to win, just to not lose, and ended up with successes to his name because of it! Don't tell me you've forgotten!"

"I… I can… bear the brunt of it…"

The gale-force winds were pressing him into the ground. It was getting hard to breathe. His diaphragm felt like a tower of cinder blocks was sitting on top it.

"There's a difference between living to fight another day," Evelyn roared, "And actively throwing away your chance! You already know this!! If you didn't, we'd never have teamed up to begin with!! So, if it's the last thing you hear from me…"

"GO AND BRING ALONG THE HELP YOU NEED TO COME OUT ALIVE, BECAUSE I'LL BET YOU EVERYTHING THEY'RE JUST AS PISSED OFF AS YOU ARE!!!"

A thunderclap rolled through the small chamber, blasting metal scraps in every direction and nearly pushing Henry over the edge and back into the flowing water below. He just barely managed to grab ahold of the ledge by his fingertips, slowing his fall just enough to right himself with a marginally cushioned impact against the concrete.

As he caught his breath, everything went silent for a moment. Somewhere behind him, the figurine pulled himself out of the current sopping wet, seemingly just as stunned silent as he himself was.

They both made their way back up to the workshop. Calling it a mess would have been like calling the NHS well-managed. Metal clung to the walls in heaps, forming piles nearly waist high in some places and leaving a wide berth around the now perfectly still cube. The side the pendant was attached to was face up, towards the ceiling, seemingly inert but thankfully appearing to be undamaged.

"Christ, that was a scare…" he mumbled as he stepped off the ladder to get a closer look. "Alright, Evelyn, you made your point… Say something if you can still hear us."

No response came, causing him to frown. He got closer, inspecting it from every angle. Not that it helped much, being effectively just a black box to him. It didn't look like it had any obvious damage or blemishes on it… so maybe it just needed time to power back up, or something…?

He turned back to the figurine, a look of pure determination on his face.

"Zarya," he requested, using a name for it for probably the first time ever. "I don't know what you did, or what you needed to make this happen… but make a list, and keep doing what you're doing. I owe you a great deal of apologies."

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