crucialelement

[crucialelement]

Emily half-stands, eyes going to the window not because she's got a destination in mind but because, in this moment, she actually realizes what time it is. In a manner of speaking. A new day is coming, and while there's still work to do, she doesn't quite feel the same consuming need to fill every waking minute with it. Instead, she takes the empty mug beside the envelope and starts making herself another cup of coffee.

The labelled folder's brought with her. Eyes tired but focused trace the line around the lakefront, another place to be in good time. She's sure Howard will be there when she comes to meet him, and entertains the thought of bringing him some coffee as well. These little gestures, things she's fallen out of favour with as the people she'd make the offerings to had dwindled, feel just that little bit more important.

She takes the coffee out onto the porch with her, leaning against a beam and watching the sun not-quite-rise. Folder tucked under her arm, backpack on her back - she reaches, grasps, and her fingers close around the clasp of the clipboard she's been carrying since the diner. A moment's taken to slide it out of its binding, and she turns, propping it up against the window.

There was something written on it, but she didn't feel the need to look too closely at what it said.

There's still more to do. There'll always be more to do, she'll have to pass this evidence off to one of her colleagues back in the FBI and see what they can do with it, but right now, Emily can't help but feel that she's done enough. For now. The world will keep turning, more tasks will arrive, and she'll make sure to do the ones she has before she goes looking for more of them.

In the clipboard's place, she slips in the folder. Something transient, orders for someone else. Feels better than a never-ending list of demands she couldn't confidently fulfill. One more glance is taken back at the interior of the cabin through still-drawn blinds, and Emily steps off the porch and into the world.

The tape that swaddles the doorway flutters once, then loosens, its yellow strands drifting to the floor like spent streamers. No body. No blood. Only cardboard ribbons collapsing into quiet.

Silence settles, thicker than fog. It answers her question without echo, like a long-closed file snapping shut.

Then the desk lamp flickers, brightens, and steadies. Light spills across the clutter of folders until one manila spine stands out, unlabeled a moment ago, now bearing a single handwritten word:

BAXTER

Its corner lifts. Inviting, but not insisting.

Inside, she finds only three items:

A map of Toluca Lake, crisp and current, one route marked in red, toward Lakeside Post Depot, the place Howard mentioned.

A sealed evidence sleeve marked FOR TRANSFER. Whatever's inside is flat, weightless, tempting in its silence.

A blank index card, identical to Baxter's stack, except this one carries her own handwriting. Words she never wrote, but still somehow hers:

You don't have to carry it alone.

The town fills in nothing else.

Outside, the fog thins just enough to reveal a dim, pearlescent dawn edging the treeline, not quite day, not quite night. A quiet, middle hour.

The path back to the pier is clear. The porch lamp gutters out, as if its watch is complete.

A soft susurrus drifts under the door, not words, but something shaped like agreement.

The tape curls inward, crumbles into flakes, and scatters toward the threshold, leaving no barrier behind.

No siren follows. No new task pins itself to the board. Only the distant cry of gulls, and the fading scent of cold coffee.

The town's answer is measured in stillness:

When you're ready, take what you trust, pass on what you won't, and walk.

Everything else can wait.

The lake path lies open. The fog will keep pace, no faster, no slower, until she decides how much further there is to go.

[crucialelement]

She huffs out a soft chortle, finally draining her mug and leaning back to gesture widely at the desk, the table, the boards, everything. "Ninety percent of knowing what you're doing is looking like you know what you're doing. Makes you feel any better, you were a pro. Skating across the surface like it wasn't water under you in the first place."

He stands. She doesn't. Despite the tightness in her chest, there's a finality here Emily knows better than she feels like she should. Once again, someone is about to walk out of her life. This time, she knows what he's walking into, but there was never much slowing him down once he figured business was concluded.

Places to be, after all.

"I'll get that folder, Bax. I'll make sure it gets to the right people. I might not be able to do it all myself, but I have enough connections to make sure it gets done."

You owe me, though.

How many times had she told him that? Gone after weird little side tangents, spent hours digging up dirt to fatten up one of his other folders, going to some other buyer. Eventually they'd stopped keeping track, each accepting that the favours being traded back and forth would never truly be paid off. She'd never known where the tally had eventually stopped short, no more updates to be made.

"...once that's done. We're even." She doesn't pursue him as the crime scene tape begins to wrap the room like a gruesome birthday present. Doesn't remind him to finish his coffee. Doesn't ask him about his new lead, what he's going to be chasing after next. But, when he pauses, something forces itself free of her, an assurance she can't possibly follow up on but something she blindingly wants to believe.

"I'll see you again."

Bang bang bang- bang. Bang.

Emily doesn't hear a body hit the floor. The door is closed. The barrier back between them. He's off somewhere else, now - way out west. Picking things up. Tucking them away, just like she needed him to, just like she does now. Waiting for the next time he could bring all his treasure out into the light.

She hates that the breath she takes in is a sniffle. And so soon after last time.

"...how much more of this?"

Baxter doesn't answer at first.

Just watches her, like it still matters how she speaks about herself. As if words still carry weight in this strange, borrowed place.

Then, quietly:

"You always thought I had better balance than I did. Like I was managing both sides of the line."

A wry smile.

"Truth is, I was running out of road. I got this close to a thread that tugged too many knots at once. Thought I was careful. Thought I was smart."

He shrugs.

"Maybe I was just tired of not knowing. Or maybe I just picked a case that knew how to pick back."

He sets his mug down gently. The echo is soft, barely more than a sigh against the desk.

"But I found something. Before it happened. Before I..."

He doesn't finish.

Instead:

"There's a folder. Somewhere. I marked it. Maybe the town'll show it to you, if you ask the right way."

His hand brushes the envelope Emily had tucked aside.

"I didn't forget you. I didn't think I'd need to say anything."

A tired laugh.

"Guess we both thought we had more time."

Baxter stands slowly, hands sliding into his coat pockets, like always, like he never put them down to begin with.

"I gotta run now," he says, not looking at her right away. "Got a new lead. Something that doesn't line up with the chatter, background noise that's just a little too consistent. Like someone wanted it to sound real."

He offers a half-smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes.

"I think I'm close this time."

And the tape begins.

Not from a reel. No visible spool. It just is, unspooling from the seams of the room, curling over floorboards, past her boots.

Yellow tape. Black lettering. POLICE LINE - DO NOT CROSS.

It follows him with eerie precision. Every step he takes, another strip coils into place, winding around chair legs, snaking along the desk corner, over the counter where the coffee still steams.

Emily might move to follow. But the tape moves faster. It slithers like a boundary laid down by the town itself: protective. final.

The last gift of a scene that's already ended.

Through the window, the light begins to fade, just slightly.

Colour drains from the sky. Not night, just an overcast hush, like grief with the sound turned down.

A faint strobe, one flash. No sound. Like a camera shutter. Or memory crystallizing.

Baxter's silhouette pauses at the door.

"You'll do better," he says.

Not as comfort. Not as farewell. Just a quiet, earned truth.

"I didn't. But you might."

He opens the door. The fog doesn't rush in. It waits. He steps into it, and the tape continues to follow him.

Then the fog thickens, dense enough to drink light.

Baxter disappears into it.

And just before the door closes behind him, cracks.

Sharp. Distinct. Not close. Not far. Somewhere in between.

Four shots. Maybe five. One after the other.

The cabin remains still.

No shooter. No threat. No chase.

Only the echo of what was always going to happen.

And when both are gone, the threshold clears. Clean. Quiet. Empty.

No more Baxter. No more scene.

Just Emily. The desk.

And the sound of the coffee machine ticking softly into silence.

[crucialelement]

"Isn't that what you did, though? Run past things? Warning signs, "do not enter"s, good advice? I don't think I ever idolized you, but I used to think you were the peak of the field. Nothing got in your way for longer than it took you to figure out a workaround. And..." She pauses, takes a drink. Throws her arm over the back of her chair and looks around the cabin, all the unknowns and will-never-be-knowns that are left behind when a case outlives its detective.

"Unlike me, you knew how to live, too. Obviously I never felt the need to pry too much into your personal life, but there were always little things. Trying to get me to go to some thing you had tickets for. Dangling little extra bits of information "pro bono" if I'd just... stop for a while. I don't know how you managed it."

She takes the envelope and opens it, removing a single card and reflexively checking the backside just in case it's not blank. "I didn't sleep for five days after you died. I went and took everything the cleanup crew would let me look at, and I figured out what you'd been looking into when you got wasted. Followed it all the way back, and..."

Sigh. "Well. They were hired guns, but I knew I wasn't going to get as far up the ladder as I would need to. It was petty revenge, not justice. Just guys earning a paycheck in a way I didn't approve of." Her mug's mostly empty, but she pushes it to one side rather than drain it. "And, just as a matter of record, I never ran past you. Your... habits, your attentiveness, your nose for when things didn't match with their background. I like to think I carried those with me."

Even if he probably wished she'd carry an easygoing attitude forward, too. Emily ponders the cards for a few seconds at most, then closes the envelope and puts it with the coffee mug. Things for later. "I want to say it sucks that this is the only way we get to sew things up between us. But it sucks less than not getting to do it at all. I'm sorry, Baxter. I know you were trying to remind me that a world existed outside of what I thought was the most important thing in my life."

She wonders, grimly, if she's earned herself a cigarette yet.

"I don't know how I'm going to break this pattern. But... I don't think I can go on ignoring it. I didn't talk to you because I didn't want to make you worry, but I know you worried anyway. After a while I didn't talk to you because it was routine. You... had my best interests at heart. More than some people I worked with every day, instead of "whenever I see you next"."

Baxter accepts the coffee with both hands, fingertips brushing the mug like it's the first warmth he's felt in years. Steam curls between them, softening the space.

He watches her place the photo in her wallet. A faint smile flickers, not pride. Something closer to relief.

"Guess I finally got you to keep a souvenir that isn't classified," he murmurs, tone half-tease, half-tender.

He takes the seat opposite. The chair barely creaks beneath his weight, as though the room can't quite decide how solid he is.

The envelope she gestures to sits between them, no markings on the flap, just that same plain tape. Baxter rests two fingers on it, but doesn't slide it across.

"You didn't turn into me," he says, voice lowering. "You ran past me. Didn't look back. I'm just a mile marker you blew by."

The lamplight dims a fraction. Outside, the fog presses closer to the glass, not threatening. Listening.

Baxter's gaze drops to her mug, then lifts again.

"You know what's in this one?" He taps the envelope. "Nothing. Blank pages. I'd been carrying it, thinking I'd fill it with something useful. Never did."

He nudges it closer.

"Thought you might need the space more than the answers."

When she opens it, that's exactly what she finds: a stack of unmarked index cards. Edges worn. Pages empty.

No clues. No leads. Only room.

From the hallway comes the faint click-whirr of the tape deck, then a soft ding, like a timer has run out.

But no message follows. Just silence.

Baxter leans back. The lamplight catches the smudge at his collar again. Unmoving. Unclean. Unfinished.

"You still chase ghosts because you see them," he says. "Doesn't mean you are one. So if you're done taking notes for everyone else, maybe start writing for yourself."

A small shrug.

"Weird advice from a dead informant, but there it is."

Outside, the fog loosens its grip on the window. A single gull cries, distant. Barely tethered to the world.

The room feels neither safe nor hostile.

Only poised.

Waiting to see whether she'll write something on those blank cards, or finally let herself sit, coffee cooling, conversation unfinished but alive.

[crucialelement]

The agent swirls the drink in her cup, nodding along with his rejoinders. She can't help the little freeze when he just says outright the terms they "parted" in, but Emily had an idea of how this conversation was going to go when she came up the path. What do you even say to that?

I knew something was wrong days before they found you.

I don't know who ordered the hit, but I know who carried it out.

They're dead. Off the books. It was the first time I really took matters into my own hands.

This is a worse place with you gone.

I should have been there.

I should have found out, somehow. I should have warned you.

I miss more things about you than you could even guess at. More things about you than I even thought I knew about you before you were gone.

She sips her coffee. "Yeah, I guess not. Allow a decrepit old crone her reminiscing, huh? I'm happy to move onto all the ways you pissed me off if you're bored." The second mug (when did she put a second mug under the coffeemaker? Where did she find it?) is mostly full, now, and she does him the honours of adding his cream and sugar before coming over to both hand across the drink and take the second envelope.

It brings back memories. Theorized locations of dead drops, changing relationships between mid-level gangbangers and street-level dealers. Places where pressure could be applied, feuds that were threatening to spill out into the street. As ever, she feels for what's inside before slitting it open and tapping the photo out into her hand.

She blinks. Squints.

"Christ, Bax, this is-" The desk lamp. She holds it out, tipping it this way and that. "I remember this case. This was..."

She stops. He knows when it was. "...you must've had this on you. Or, in your apartment or something. Forensic missed it, huh?" She looks back at him, her expression and internal feelings both difficult to parse.

"...it's not going on the board." She rummages in her pockets as she speaks. "Or a drawer, don't be melodramatic-"

Her wallet. She opens it up, pulling out some loyalty card for a deli in a city she hasn't been to in eight months. Flicks it in the general direction of the wastepaper basket, and slips the photo in where it once sat.

Then, she comes to the desk. Takes a seat, gestures for him to do the same. Time for the other envelope. "...y'know, it's funny. Used to be you'd be the one messing around, trying to get me to put a case down for ten minutes and live a little. Now here I am, trying to get you to quit handing me random mail so we can just talk."

She laughs. It's not a happy sound.

"God, I really did just turn into you."

Baxter's lips twitch, half-smile, half-wince, when she mentions leading with his face. He sets the envelope atop a neat stack of folders but doesn't step away. Instead, he leans a hip against the desk, folding his arms like he'd never really left that spot.

"Paranoid's a survival skill these days," he offers, voice softer than she remembers, as though distance has filed the edges. "Hard to blame 'em when tipping the scales can get you dumpster real estate."

The words settle between them, bitter with burnt coffee and alley shadows.

Steam from her mug drifts through the lamplight, casting a wavering veil across his frame, one moment solid, the next, faint as newsprint left out in the rain.

He watches the curl of vapor for a beat, then tilts his head.

"But you're not here for their morals. You're here for the breadcrumbs they drop when no one's looking. Same as always."

His eyes flick to the corkboard, to strings that dead-end in midair.

"Big place, like you said, bigger gaps to fall through."

Outside, the fog presses gently against the window, a hush of white noise. The lamp flickers, but does not fail.

Baxter lifts a hand and rubs the smudge near his collarbone, as though it itches.

The stain doesn't fade.

When he lowers his palm, another envelope slides down the curve of his leather sleeve. Smaller. Plain tape. Her initials, scrawled in his quick shorthand.

He offers it across the narrow space. The paper trembles, just slightly, as if from chill.

"Only piece that ever came too late," he says quietly. "Never made it off my desk before...everything."

He doesn't finish. The silence finishes for him.

If she opens it: a single Polaroid. Grainy. Nighttime.

Her silhouette beside a crime-scene light bar.

On the back, his handwriting:

You never have to do this alone. When you finally sleep, let me know it helped. -B.

Nothing else.

Behind Baxter, the hallway yawns, unfathomably long, its darkness pulsing with the soft, erratic click of turning tape decks.

The town waits. But it doesn't crowd.

It lets the room breathe, coffee, nostalgia, and the fragile weight of words left too long unspoken.

Baxter meets her gaze again. Steady. Calm.

"World's still big," he agrees. "But it was never supposed to rest on one pair of shoulders."

The lamp steadies. The fog withdraws from the glass.

Only the faint smudge on his collar remains, a quiet reminder of the cost of running into danger alone.

He nods once toward the photo.

"Figured you should decide whether that stays on the board, or finally goes in a drawer."

[crucialelement]

"...huh. If anything I've seen so far was going to be a safehouse..." Aside from maybe the diner, but she hadn't been in the state to appreciate that - and it'd dredged up some things she really wasn't ready to talk about. Emily lets herself in and shuts the door behind her. Draws the blinds, too, before taking in the scene. She catches herself committing the corkboard to memory even though she's not totally sure what it means, examining each connection and unfound link.

Then- coffee. The smell of it, and soon thereafter a faithful little machine tucked away on a corner of one of the nearby tables. She'd had one just like it a few cubicles down at the FBI branch office she'd been posted into for a few months between assignments with the DEA. What a weird memory to have dredged up... but, a cup is a cup, and it's in the middle of letting the percolator do its thing when she notices she isn't alone.

She doesn't turn all the way around. Her countenance is framed in profile against the window blinds, and outside, the fog. Steel-blue eye locking with the slightly watery green gaze of Baxter Wainwright, holding it for several seconds before what he said makes it from ear to brain. The corner of her mouth twitches, and Emily sighs out a chuckle. Clack goes the mug against the tabletop, its previous holder turning around to rest her elbows against the edge.

"That depends. You still getting into fights and leading with your face?" You know a concussion can kill you. She takes note of the envelope but doesn't cross the whole room to reach it, instead gesturing to the half-tidy piles of evidence, categorized but not organized. "Put it with the rest. I'm sure I can make good use of whatever you've brought me, but..."

You have to let someone in.

"...honestly? Not really in the mood for work right now. Lucky I put enough water in there for more than one mug or you'd just have to watch me drink mine. Just put it on the desk, I'll get to it once we're done." Emily takes up her mug and turns towards the machine, putting it under the spout. With her face turned away from the spectre of her past, she takes a long, slow inhale and holds it a moment before letting it out.

"What's it been, now. Eight years? Something crazy like that. I did end up getting out of the DEA, a couple years after we. Lost contact." The mug's slowly being filled. She can tell from the smell that this stuff isn't the best, but it's hot and she's not picky. A sugarcube and two single-serve creamers are already set aside for her "little bird".

"World's still a big, scary place, Bax, but I'm still helping make sure it's just big."

A pause, long enough that Baxter might be tempted to fill it if he didn't already know she was formulating something else to tell him that stings a little too much to be casual.

"Still think about you. Maybe twice a week. More when I'm dealing with other brokers. They're mostly assholes... I know I should be happy about whistleblowers having the moral fibre to help me do my job, but god, they're so paranoid these days."

Not like you.

The fog parts at each of Emily's steps, low and respectful, trailing only after she's passed, as if determined not to press too close.

The climb toward the cabin feels shorter than it looked from the pier. The grade is gentle, the earth oddly springy beneath the fresh planks set into the hillside.

Every board bears the same unfinished grain she noticed earlier, as if the path had been laid only moments before her boots found it.

Halfway up, the breeze shifts.

It carries the faint aroma of burnt coffee, familiar, acrid, oddly comforting.

The porch lamp ahead glows a muted amber, just bright enough to cut a narrow cone through the grey.

Its filament hums, a dulled echo of an office overhead light she hasn't seen in years.

The cabin door stands ajar by less than an inch. No creak. No invitation.

Just space enough to choose.

Inside, a single desk lamp spills honey-coloured light across a clutter of folders and cassette tapes.

One tape deck sits idle, its counter frozen at 00:00:34, as though a message waited, but never finished recording.

Beyond the desk, a corkboard spans the wall.

Crime-scene yarn and pushpins, but half the strings lead nowhere.

One pinned headline stands out:

LOCAL INFORMANT FOUND DEAD IN ALLEY Authorities suspect foul play; no witnesses

Pinned beside it, newer:

CASE REMAINS UNSOLVED; INVESTIGATOR OF RECORD UNREACHABLE FOR COMMENT

A hush settles.

Then, fabric rustles in the back room. No footsteps. Just the shift of weight, the scrape of a chair's legs.

The doorframe glows with warm light.

When the figure appears, the desk lamp flickers, but does not fail.

They stand where shadow and lamplight meet, features pale-washed, eyes catching the glow like glass.

A bomber jacket hangs loose on shoulders that were broader in life, or memory.

Their voice breaks the quiet, hoarse, but intact:

"Still chasing ghosts, Emily?"

Not accusation. Something softer. Recognition, weighted with almost-forgiveness.

Up close, it's them. Same cadence from the phone. Same unsteady warmth she once trusted for leads no dossier could supply.

But something's off, a black smudge rings their collarbone, as if ink or lakewater never washed out.

And when they breathe, the warm air fogs as though it were midwinter.

They don't step closer. They don't beckon.

They simply hold up a manila envelope, thumb resting on the sealed flap.

Her name is handwritten across it, followed by two unchecked boxes:

□ ACCEPT □ DENY

No other markings. No urgency in the hand that offers it.

Behind them, an unlit hallway stretches deeper into the cabin, too long for a building this size, sunk in amber gloom.

Somewhere down that corridor, a second tape clicks into motion, spinning unheard.

Outside, the fog crowds the windows but does not press in.

It waits, listening.

The town offers no explanation. No judgment. No push.

It only brings the familiar close enough to breathe, and asks, in its own voiceless way:

Will she open what was sealed, or leave the envelope closed, and which decision will cost her more?

[crucialelement]

Now that she's had some time to gather herself back together, in more ways than one, Emily's a bit re-energized. She bounces on the balls of her feet before continuing to move onwards towards whatever conclusion the town is hoping to draw from all this. No longer is there the nagging in the back of her mind to find her footing properly, the "manmade" path beneath her boasting sturdy (and uniform) enough construction that she can walk with confidence.

The world subtly alters itself around her in ways she can't so easily see, though, and the solid ground (or near enough to) isn't the only thing rising up to meet her. As she walks, she unzips her jacket again, fingers slowing with the onset of deja vu a moment. Then she finishes. It's a bit of a chilly day, but not so much that she feels the need to be so bundled up.

She doesn't feel the need to justify the slim-line bulletproof vest underneath, sitting snug on top of her shirt. Like she'd known what kind of challenges awaited her here. Better to plan for the ordinary and take the unimaginable as it comes. She takes her gloves off, too, more symbolically than anything. Decreasing the amount of gaps between her and what she's experiencing.

She might put them on later if she needs to pick up something nasty.

But, for the moment, there's only this lookout post - or whatever it is. A dangling phone, about fifty years out of date with its environment. Not ringing. Twisting gently in the breeze blowing through the yawning doorway, just enough that she has to predict its movement before grabbing the receiver and holding it to her ear.

To the agent's credit, she doesn't cringe away from the voice. But she does recognize it, and there's no hiding that even if she wanted to. She pauses in front of the window, looking out, the wire connecting piece to body stretched enough to pull the coil out of it. Her eyes are already on the cabin revealing itself from the fog. Her mind traces the memory of the message - the way it rises and falls through the sentences, the barely there crack on "fix" of someone near the end of their rope.

Oh, she'd listened to it. A few times. But only after the voice on the other end had turned up stuffed in a dumpster.

It's suitable penance to open this door, she thinks. The message ends - this time, there's no way to put the phone back on the rocker without taking the whole thing down from the beam. Emily settles for tucking the wire around the phone's body before moving on up the hill with a grim mass in her chest making each breath just a little tight.

The wind shifts as Emily steps past the sign, its wooden face trembling once more in its moorings, but this time, not to reveal new words.

Instead, the fog ahead thickens subtly, pooling low like mist on the surface of a cooling lake. It trails along the path like spilled milk, soft and pale, obscuring her boots as she walks.

The pier does not end. Not yet.

But it changes.

Where before the wood had been weathered, sun-bleached, honest in its disrepair, now it feels constructed, intentional.

Fresh boards creak beneath her. Not old. Not ruined. Unfinished.

The railings are new. The supports are firm.

This is not a place of collapse. It is a place of waiting.

Ahead, the fog parts slightly, revealing a small covered structure just off the pier's final stretch.

It resembles a lookout, or a half-complete boathouse, its roof lacking shingles, its doorframe empty.

Suspended from a beam hangs a single object: a rotary phone. The kind that shouldn't work out here.

It's clean. Bone-white.

The receiver dangles slightly, turning in the breeze. It does not ring.

And yet, if Emily draws near, a subtle vibration will stir beneath her feet.

Not violent. Not urgent.

Like a heartbeat through timber, a memory pressing up from beneath the grain.

Inside the structure: only a bench and the phone.

No cords. No dial tone. No visible connection.

Just that soft, expectant stillness, the sensation that something here has been waiting for her.

Not in threat. In patience.

If her fingers graze the receiver, the vibration will stop.

In its place, the lake falls utterly silent.

The birds go mute. Even the fog seems to hesitate.

Then, from the phone: a click.

A voice begins to play. Not live. A recording. Not recent.

"Hey. You probably won't listen to this. But I wanted to say it anyway. You don't have to call me back. I just...I worry. You disappear for weeks at a time, and I know that's the job, but I miss you. I miss you even when you're here, because you're never really here, not with me. You don't have to fix anything. You just have to let someone in. Please. I-"

The message ends. No name. No identification.

But the voice is unmistakable.

Someone Emily left behind. Someone she convinced herself was safer on the other side of silence.

A moment later, the fog shifts again.

Another structure waits farther up the shoreline: a small cabin, its lights flickering yellow and warm against the grey.

There is still time to turn away.

But something in the way the message cut out says the rest is waiting.

Not to haunt her. Not to punish her.

To finish the conversation she never allowed to begin.

[crucialelement]

"...okay. Okay, okay..." She breathes, hard, putting a hand to her chest and focusing on her heartbeat. Slowly, by degrees, the hammering subsides, and she's able to properly take in her surroundings again. "Sorry. That was... weird."

It's a halfhearted attempt to play it off. Trying to save face without really expecting to get anything from it, an extra second or two taken to pick up the shell as well. A careful task - she doesn't want to put it in her pack, odds are it would get broken by everything else in there. Instead, it makes its way to her breast pocket. The only thing that held was the notebook, since surrendered.

She stands without weaving, though there's still a hitch in her breath as she looks upward. There's the thought that this might not have been long enough, but... it feels like it is. Time to wipe the tears from her cheeks and continue onward - as she passes the sign, she puts a hand to it in recognition. Thanks, in a way.

"I... shouldn't have overreacted. That, what you showed me, it was nice. It's a sweet thought to have." She didn't mean to respond to a kind gesture with that sort of rawness, especially with what she'd said just a few minutes (or more?) previously. Kindness doesn't come naturally to this thing, whatever it is. But she feels like it's trying. It's more than she's done for herself.

"I forgot that something like that was... even an option. Which says some things about me. I know." She is tired. Broken might be too harsh a word, but Emily still feels something is misaligned. That loss of momentum, though she'd managed to keep from spiralling, had worried her - at least to start with.

"I know you didn't mean to hurt me. I just... I don't know. I don't really know how I feel any more."

A breath of wind drifts in from the lake, not cold, not damp, just present.

Like the world's quiet exhale.

It slides across the pier and brushes Emily's cheeks, carrying the salt from her tears back toward the water.

The clouds overhead shift, parting just enough for a single shaft of muted light to fall on the bench.

Not glaring. Not blinding.

Just gentle illumination, as if the fog itself has decided to lower its guard for a moment.

At her feet, the water responds with a soft, rolling whisper.

A ripple moves outward from the pier, rings spreading and fading until the lake is calm again.

Where the wavelet touched the shore, something small is left behind: a white, river-worn shell no larger than a fingernail.

It gleams faintly in the pale light, unmarred by rust or algae.

No voice intrudes, but the sign down the path trembles once and turns.

The painted words, REST IS TASK, remain.

Yet a second phrase now shows on the reverse side:

YOU ARE HEARD

Nothing else moves. No siren rises. The fog respects her stillness, settling in hushed layers around the trees.

The lake mirrors the sky without demanding she look up.

For this moment, Silent Hill asks nothing more of her than what she's already given:

breath, tears, and the single admission that she cannot carry every weight without pause.

The world holds its hush, waiting, yes, but not pressing, until she decides to stand again.

[crucialelement]

Now that she's sat down, she doesn't know if she'll be able to stand again. She can't have known as it was happening the toll that the Otherworld was going to take on her - it offered no threats against her life, no lurking monstrosities, no horrors beyond belief or comprehension. Still, though, it had left a stain on her that is only now truly being felt. Her beliefs writ large. The hell of inhabiting the world she presumes to be real. Isolation, self-destruction, martyrdom for an audience of none.

She still might have weathered it if not for a followthrough that might not even have been intentional. An example of what she lacks - what could be had if she weren't the thing she is. When Emily said that the job asked her for everything, she'd only been exaggerating somewhat. It's because of that singleminded devotion that she never sought anyone out, never married - at first it had been because of the amount of time she'd spend apart.

When she'd parted with her old work, moved to the BSAA, it was difficult to maintain friendships that weren't forged at work. Now, what does she have? She's the woman with the folders. The one who looks like she's running only on the ritual of motion.

Her chin rises enough to see the message. Somehow, the waters of the lake lap right up to her boots, and an offering is made not to the town, but by it. Emily takes up the stone, and holds it up to what indistinct light encloses this distant memory of the world. Unthinkingly, her thumb moves, aligning the mark through it with the horizon. "I don't need to rest, I just..." Just need to get through this. But even if she did stand, she doesn't know how much further she'd go. Maybe, just for a minute, she can set aside the goal to recuperate.

She wonders, dimly, why the parched feeling of liquid salt on her fingertips reminds her so strongly of the sea. Thoughts pass unsaid. She's never felt anyone truly understood her until now. She wonders what it is that communicates with her, why she was chosen to see these things. She wonders why she deserves this aid, and comes to the conclusion a moment later that it's because she would have died before asking for it.

Emily closes her hand around the stone and slips it into her pocket. Leans forward again, clasping her hands together, and bows her head. Rest is task.

"I'm sorry."

It occurs to her she's still crying.

No voice drifts into her mind this time. Instead, the lake answers in small, deliberate gestures, each one no louder than a breath.

First, the fog. It rolls in close, not smothering, but near enough to blur the far shore from view, erasing distance, handing her only the space she occupies now.

Then, the water. A ripple crosses the glassy surface, widening until it laps gently against the pilings beneath the bench.

With each push, the wave deposits something small at her feet: a flat river stone, polished smooth, etched by salt and time.

The stone bears a faint line across its center, dividing light from dark. Nothing more.

Above her, a limb of the lakeside maple creaks and bends. Something loosens from the bark and drifts down: a single dead leaf, brittle but whole, landing beside the stone.

Quiet accompaniment.

The fog parts just far enough to reveal a wooden signpost a few yards down the path, one that certainly wasn't there before.

A hand-lettered placard swings from rusted hooks. It doesn't tell her where to go.

It only offers three spare words:

REST IS TASK

No punctuation. No clarification.

The lake falls still again. The fog waits, giving her room to read, or ignore, or rage.

Nothing chases her. Nothing demands she move. Not for this moment.

Whatever answer the town intends is here in these quiet, patient objects:

a divided stone, a fallen leaf, a sign that insists the act of pausing is not failure, but requirement.

And beyond, the buoy bell stays silent, holding its breath as long as she needs to reclaim hers.

[crucialelement]

"Fucking fell omen..."

[crucialelement]

⚡️ + why did you ask me to help you?

She's quiet for a long time. Maybe making an attempt to wait out the "timer", like this can be bargained with.

"...every time this has happened, the consequences have been worse. First an estate, then a city, then a small country. Then several countries. It does not escape me that the most recent one was partially caused by you, and the death toll on that was... proportional to existing projections. Stopping them isn't enough. They have to be prevented."

She turns her chair away, taking the two-way radio in her hands and fussing with the dials as she speaks despite her better judgment. "You're an expert in bioterror. You... don't seem repentant, but you're taking steps in a different direction. I called on everything for this - no stone unturned, no weapon left mothballed. That includes Carla Radames. I thought that if you had gone to ground, maybe a second chance wouldn't go amiss. So far I haven't regretted anything but your mouth."

[crucialelement]

Reblog  this  post  to  let  your  followers  know  you're  fine  with  being  tagged  in  random  starters.  Additionally,  reblog  this  post  if  you're  all  right  with  being  sent  old memes,  no  matter  how long ago you reblogged them.

[crucialelement]

"God damn it- the FIRST time I do something like this- oh, Emily, you should loosen up, have some fun, do some icebreakers-"

[crucialelement]

⚡️ + does anybody on your team know you're calling me regularly?

"..."

She knows the answer to this question is going to set in motion a sequence of events that she will not like.

"No. You are an outside contact. The most they know is that I offered to "leverage every possible advantage" and Chris authorized it. I don't think he knows I had the ability to get in touch with you at all, much less this."

[crucialelement]

⚡️are u making fun of my gray hair when u call me albino. be honest.

"No, I mean it. I'm not trying to be crass, either- well, a little. Look. We all know that Chris Redfield is a hell of a guy, but he's an albatross. People who work with him die. Unilaterally. By bucking that well-observed phenomenon, what else can I call you but white wolf? Before I really got to know you I was thinking to shorten it to "Al". But you're a little too scary for that."

[crucialelement]

SEND “⚡️” AND A QUESTION AND MY MUSE WILL BE FORCED TO ANSWER HONESTLY

Please specify the muse for multimuse blogs.

[crucialelement]

The first vision almost gets a laugh out of her, though Emily knows it isn't meant to be humorous. Yeah, there she is- the eye bags are a little much but there are about two coffee cups too few. Her lips twist and she opens her mouth, probably to say something understanding but a touch snarky-

And the picture morphs. Similar, but a world apart. She sees herself, still, but... at rest. At peace. Allowing the world to do as it may, if only for a few hours.

The first thing she thinks is that if she woke up like that, she'd spend the rest of the night sitting in the blind corner of her room with a gun in her lap. The second thing she thinks is oh, god.

She stumbles a little. The edge of her boot's sole catches in a gap between the planks and gives her legs the excuse they need to give out. Emily goes down hard, bashing both knees on the wood and slumping forward to just catch herself on her forearms. Bites her tongue - not intentionally. Looks down again. Sees the scene, again.

Something she doesn't, and can't have. If she falls asleep at her desk, she wakes up exactly the way she went down. She cares for herself. She provides for herself. She manages her own enclosure, talking to others mostly through long-distance calls and video screens. The investigator grunts in both pain and self-admonition, reaching to cradle her ankle and make sure nothing's out of place. Tries to act like the tears gathering at the corners of her eyes are because of the physical shock.

Fails.

There's enough left in her to force herself to her feet and walk, favouring one side, to the bench. Every few steps marks an attempt to control her breathing, control her expression, control, control, control. She's going to set off the hell world again like this, she thinks, breathing in through her nose before another choked sob forces the air out through her mouth. She doesn't sit so much as collapse.

Slumps forward. Stares at the ground. Plants her palms against her forehead and pushes her fingers through her hair, pushes herself back up to a sitting position and lets her head fall back. She needs to get it together. She can't afford slip-ups like this, especially not alone.

It's not even that bad.

"Why'd you... show me th-that."

The fog doesn't answer with words. It answers with reflection.

A shape in the lake stirs, not beneath, but within the mirrored surface, unfurling as though her own thoughts have cast shadows too heavy to sit still.

The water does not break. Instead, it shifts perspective, becoming not a mirror, but a window.

Beneath her feet, the lake reveals a dim image: herself, seated at a table piled high with folders and dossiers.

The lights are too bright. Her face, hollow-eyed. Each time she sets a paper aside, two more appear.

On the table's edge sits a steaming mug, untouched, long gone cold.

Then, a flicker.

Same table. Same girl.

But now she sleeps with her head resting in the crook of her arm, breath soft, shoulders eased.

Someone, maybe no one, has draped a coat over her back.

The paperwork remains unfinished. The world doesn't end.

The image dissolves with a ripple.

The town says nothing.

But a nearby sign, faded and half-swallowed by reeds, offers a phrase as if left behind by someone like her, someone who walked this same road before:

YOU'RE NOT BROKEN. YOU'RE JUST TIRED.

Behind her, a bench creaks gently in the breeze.

The kind of sound that suggests it's unoccupied, and waiting.

Not a command. Not a trap. Just a space that wasn't there before, now quietly offering a pause.

The fog thins a little more. A single crow calls from the trees.

Then, silence.

Even this place, especially this place, seems to understand:

To endure is not the same as to live.

[crucialelement]

“I thought you might say something like that. The result of consistent, meaningful effort, not an on or off state… being good is doing good. Nothing else.” Makes sense - she nods, straying closer to the edge of the pier to look out again even as her path carries her along the waterfront.

“I think I’ve been good. I know I’ve worked hard enough at it, over a long enough period of time.” But she knows she hasn’t been good to herself. Long hours without rest, without outside contact other than progress reports or requests for more things to add to the pile. Emily huffs under her breath, justifications and what-abouts rising to the surface of her mind before retreating back to the depths. None of them feel especially convincing- or needed.

“I guess everyone thinks that, though. It takes a special kind of imbalance to know for a fact something is wrong and do it anyway. Even if there’d be benefits.” Her shoulders roll, adjusting the weight of both her pack and, in a way, her thoughts.

Her mind drifts. She can’t remember the last time she felt truly rested. Every day incurs a debt, whether of physical strain, mental tumult or otherwise. How long has she been doing this? How long can she bear to keep doing this? Her pace slows. Then, stubbornly, it resumes. Places to be, after all.

“…I’m saying nothing you don’t already know. But I think there’s something wrong with me. And I think if I fix whatever it is I’ll just fall apart. People aren’t supposed to act like this.”

Her steps keep time, chin upturned and tones full-chested. The birds feel distant, the occasional soft squall or response coming down from on high through a layer of cotton and solace. The only break comes when she needs to pause, heart now recovering but body still remembering the stress.

Emily's eyes open- she looks down, and there's a light, airy gasp when she sees the missive. It's plucked from the water's edge as if she fears it'll be lost to the depths if she shows a moment's uncertainty. That moment is reserved for when it's in hand - she regards it, then reaches back to tuck it in next to the clipboard. Takes care not to let it get bent.

"Tall tales and short stories I know I'll hear them again All about the time, Do you remember when?"

Her voice doesn't add to the harmony until she's most of the way through the song, and, as if self-conscious, quickly dips back into humming. She approaches the water, hands in her pockets, and looks out over the expanse. The unknown - the path forward, lacking clarity, but promising... something else. Experience, respite, the required conditions for life.

She's really spent too long indoors, or laser-focused on a task in front of her. Despite it all, this place carries a sort of calm with it. Initially, she'd thought it was more threatening than anything, a stasis only holding back a nightmare. Now, though, Emily feels it might be a better idea to simply enjoy the moment before she moves on.

The song peters out. She casts her gaze to the far shore, then down to the water beneath her feet. Mirror sharp. If she lets her eyes unfocus, it's like she's looking down into yet another world. A bare instant dares her to step forward. She thinks better of it, and begins to round the lake towards the lights on the other side, letting the only sounds be the creaking of wood beneath her feet and the cries of birds far above. Until, eventually, once more, she speaks.

"...do you think that people are inherently good?"