hadriel | video;

Hey everyone. One of the new kids in town here—I'm Elena Fisher. It's nice to meet you. Well, smartphone-meet you.

[The video shows a blonde woman in a borrowed Henley shirt who apparently scaled some structure before deciding to introduce herself. It's not as high up as her husband's first network post, but apparently "arrive, go higher" is just something members of their household do.]

I get that there's a lot going on here—Nate's been catching me up, and I've been trying to get myself up to date. So I'll try not to ask any dumb questions.

[She read the guide, she saw Chris's post. So far her basic response is: yikes.]

Hopefully this doesn't immediately contradict myself, but has anyone been able to figure out if there's some kind of pattern as to who comes through the Door, and when they come from? It's a pretty small sample set, but so far half the people I've talked to know someone else here from their home—which strikes me as pretty unlikely, considering how few people are here and how many different places the Door could be drawing from. What's more, those people aren't even from the same point in time, so whatever power brought them here didn't scoop everyone up at once. Pretty inefficient.

I don't know. Even if there is an identifiable pattern, I can't say what it would mean, what the goal would be. But suddenly I've got a lot of time on my hands, so...it's something I wouldn't mind figuring out.

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[Nate may not be the most demonstrative person in the world, but Elena knows him better than she knows anyone else in the world, and there's a lot to this. Whatever this is.

She listen carefully and quietly, taking in more than his words. This is clearly not easy for him to say, but he's still talking, and she's glad for that. His actual words bring nothing but dismay, though. Of course it hadn't been easy for him to be here during the four months he was alone, but this is bad.]

Taking life away...

[She reaching out to touch his face, running her thumb along his jaw, to try and relax it but for her own sake as well. She needs to feel that he's still alive.

Of course she would be his ghost, because it would be the same the other way around. Nothing could hurt her more than Nate.]

What happened?

[Nate tips his chin toward her hand minutely, drawn to the warmth.

He's alive.

Sure, for a period after that event, he really wished he wasn't. He'd helped out Richie with his own ghost and knew he'd have to get rid of his if he wanted to avoid dying but there was no way he could pull the trigger when faced with a choice like that. As far as Nate was concerned, there wasn't a choice at all.]

Ghost Elena was too smart.

[Nate smiles sadly, unsure of what to do with his hands. He settles for the fingertips of one to touch the hem of the shirt she's wearing.]

She knew she was killing me. I told y- her, that I wasn't gonna- [His throat tightens. He needs to differentiate between them, but he can't.] ...we were climbing a building, I told her I would wait it out. Turned to give her a hand up and...

You looked at me, and you let go. I saw you fall.

[Oh, no. Elena thinks she knows what he's going to say before he says it, because she can see it in his face. It doesn't matter that the ghost wasn't real when the effect on Nate very much was.]

To save you.

[Of course. It's what she would do. If it had been her, really been her, and it was save Nate's life or be the cause of his death...well, just like for him, there would be no choice at all.

But hearing about it now, he doesn't have to go into detail for her to understand the devastation it caused. She knows because it's every nightmare she'd had since she fell in love with Nate, every fear she's had when watching or just imagining him making a leap for safety from whatever's after him. And in a way, that nightmare had come true for him.]

It wasn't real. I was safe at home the whole time, okay? [As if that helps. She takes his hand and presses his hand to the center of her chest, palm down so he can feel her heartbeat.] I'm alive. You didn't let me fall.

I know.

[Nate says, albeit halfheartedly. He does know, even when the line between reality and fantasy here is often blurred, he is fully aware that the version of her he couldn’t touch was not really Elena. He held her briefly and it felt real, she spoke the kinds of words that Elena would say, and acted when he was paralyzed with fear.

He watches her take his hand now, pressing it to her chest where she is warm and alive and thrumming with the kind of energy her double so lacked and Nate honestly wants to erase the part of him that contests it.]

I just- you standing right next to the edge of a building sort of- it freaks me out a little.

I get it.

[Boy, does she. Elena doesn't have to have experienced the death of his phantom double to have a really good idea what it was like for him. Just the thought of it happening the other way around sends a chill down her spine and threatens to choke up her throat.

She leans forward, kisses him softly and briefly, and squeezes his hand when she pulls back.]

Even so—I'm not going to wrap myself up in cotton and avoid all risk. I'm sure I'll climb something again eventually.

[She'd hate feeling stifled, and he wouldn't really ask that of her.]

But it doesn't need to be right now. We can head to lower ground.

[Were he more self-aware he might realize that this used to be a constant issue for Elena, before he settled into a job that didn't entirely fit him. It suits his hobby, it gets him out of the house, but it's not the same as (quite nearly) risking his life in many circumstances, and for that she's probably grateful. It comes at the price of losing the sort of thrill inherent in jumping off of crumbling structures, but there are fewer heart attacks.

He makes a small sound when she cranes up to kiss him and he meets her halfway, albeit with a reluctance born of concern.]

I'm not asking you to.

[Nate stresses, not wanting to be misunderstood.]

I just saw your transmission of you- up here, and kinda panicked.

I know. It's okay.

[He can feel that panic—something she understands entirely—and still swallow it, admit what he feels and not ask her to limit herself to make him feel better. It's one reason why she loves him, and it's why she can freely decide to hold back—for a while.]

Nate, I'd feel exactly the same if it had been me. I'm not going to live in a bubble, but I'm also not going to go out of my way to freak you out. I'm glad you told me about this.

[She hates that he was hurt that way, but hopefully she can help with that now.]

[Nate knows that they're both going to be racing over enormous gaps at terrifying heights soon enough, but he appreciates the restraint for the time being. He would try his best to do the same for her.]

Yeah.

[He says quietly, huffing through his nose. She doesn't pull away and as a result he slips an arm around her waist, squeezing gently.]

Why don't you, uh, tell me about your Hadriel theories, huh? More interesting than Bangkok smog?

I can do that.

[Elena stays right where she is, letting him be the first to move away. She knows how much contact can help.]

On ground level, maybe?

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