maskormenace | Entry #004

[ Here is Gansey, looking a little strange. He’s wearing a navy-blue sweater emblazoned with a raven – an Aglionby school sweater, over what appears to be ordinary clothes. His shoulders and hair are damp, like he’s been rained on, and he looks strangely pale. Despite that, he’s displaying a welcoming smile, and his hazel eyes are bright and vital with some emotion he’s holding back. ]

Apparently, I vanished yesterday.

I say apparently because it feels more like several weeks ago, but according to this – [ he holds up one of De Chima’s daily newspapers – a tabloid, headlined with speculation about the upcoming import elections ] – it’s only been a day.

A lot can happen in a day. Sometimes things that give you perspective.

Can I ask – the school year is almost over. Some of you will be graduating. I will. Which is odd, because I was here for eight months, and then I went home and it was Fall again, and Senior year was just beginning. I’m not completely sure what age I am now. I turned eighteen a couple of months ago.

[ Which, he actually never mentioned. It had seemed like there were more important things to be getting along with, and the thought of getting older in the wrong world had annoyed Gansey anyway. He’d kept quiet. Now, if he could do that over again, he thinks he’d celebrate it more – even though he’s only mentioning it now because it’s relevant to this. ]

Then I go home, and I’m seventeen again, so now I don’t even know what counts. Graduation will, though, I know that much.

So: to everyone else who’s graduating. Or even if you’re not, even if it’s just that you see change coming for you. What are your plans? Will you work, will you travel? What would you like to do, ideally? I think I’m ready for it to be summer again.

Private to: Billy Kaplan, Adam Parrish, Ronan Lynch, Noah Czerny, Matthew Lynch

[ This part goes to everyone’s private inboxes. Gansey’s smile is less presidential here, but his eyes are even sharper. He seems energized, like he’s on the edge of something. His voice is trying not to sound like it. ]

Hey, everyone. I very much hope I didn’t worry you. I think I was mid-conversation with you, Billy. I’ll have to blame my rudeness on the Porter.

Listen, I’m on my way home. Could someone bring the car and pick me up? I’m getting pizza from that Italian place near the porter in De Chima. I’m absolutely famished.

I’d…like to know if anyone else vanished, too. Ronan, Adam?

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Thank you, Billy.

I'll call you when I'm alone, okay?

[ A little nod. It's a good sign. ]

What did you say to him?

Well, I say time stays running but it's more of the keeping people from mucking it up. Time's like a watch, once it's wound it'll keep going for a while...unless some idiot's built a device to rupture universes or is going to change the flow of history by meeting himself or a genocidal race of pepperpots are planning to destroy the Earth.

I do.

[ Although the Porter had plucked her from an awful moment and she's not sure she wants to go back right now. ]

Everything will be there waiting, at least!

[ Maybe she'll get lucky. ]

Not as many as you'd think, I don't think. For all the different universes that the Porter could grab us from... so many of us are from really similar ones, don't you think?

Why do you keep them?

[ Because to Adam they're obnoxious. It's a rhetorical question anyway, he knows why. Gansey will adopt anything that's less than charming, just look at his angry collection of friends. ]

Anyway, now I don't have to look after them, right? You'll be returning to duty. [ He much prefers the cats. Then, like imparting a great truth. ] Copernicus kept trying to follow me and I had to shut him in the kitchen to avoid an all-out war.

Oh, thank God.

[ She huffs out a breath, a very exasperated-sounding breath - but she's smiling. ]

So have you taken the scandalous step of hugging?

[ Gansey shrugs. It had never occurred to him not to, honestly. ]

It's not their fault where they came from.

[ That said, they'd probably have pecked his hands apart if they hadn't been fed in a day. He's glad dam remembered. ]

Copernicus should know full well he's not allowed to eat them. We've had that argument before.

Okay. Okay.

Things I say when I'm angry.

man u tellin me. im the one wakin up woody in the mornin

hmm.
victorias secret model?
shoe spray sales spokepsrson
man u gotta start wearin shoes made 4 socks

[ Of course that's Gansey's answer.

Of fucking course. ]

If you shake the dry food at him it usually distracts him long enough for you to make your escape. [ He has learnt. At least Charlotte doesn't care much for outside, and therefore, the birds. Then, a pause. ] Listen, I'll see you when you get home, all right? We can talk properly.

Sarah and Felix, her foster brother.

[Cosima doesn't say how worried she is that it'll happen to her next, but the more sober tone she takes, that seems almost unnatural on her speaks for herself. News from home, will likely not be good news for her.

But that soberness is gone as fast as it came and she grins easily at the mention of her sisters.]

All of them? Do I need to retroactively apologize? All of us together... We can be a lot to take in.

I suppose it never has come up! I can fly. I have taken passengers with me before, when we decided that we did not wish to take public transit.

[A nice sentiment, but Noah will always say it anyway. It's thanks to Gansey that he found such real, loving friends, even in the afterlife, and he can't forget that, he doesn't want to forget that.]

I'm glad, too. I want to stay here for as long as I can.

[ Gansey smiles a little. He knows he's interrupting Adam at work. ]

Okay, I'll see you there. Lynch is on his way to get me, anyway.

Text me, okay. Let me know you got back.

[ So he can be sure of it when he heads home. ]

[ Gansey agrees, and signs off to let Adam work.

A while later, after Ronan has brought him home and he's alone again, he texts Adam. ]

Back now. No rush though

You can...fly at will?

[ Surprising. Also surprising: the fact that he can still be surprised in this world. ]

That's remarkable. I have a friend who can, too. Not a gift I share, unfortunately.

What a font of ideas you are

Aglionby's career advisors must have loved you

[ He smiles back. If it's tense, it's because he's remembering how recently they'd done much more than that. ]

We may even have held hands. In public, and everything, we've really matured.

Oh yes, they certainly are. There's been an astonishing number from my universe, for example.

[ He shrugs. ]

But I don't think that's necessarily because there's nowhere else out here. I suspect it's because something makes the Porter focus on those particular worlds. Or perhaps those particular people.

After all, don't you think it's strange that it would take so many of us who know each other? My world has billions of people on it, and yet the Porter keeps kidnapping my schoolmates.

It's more than just the world that's attracting attention.

Yes, it will. I know that now for sure.

[ He smiles, mostly working to keep the tension off his face. It's more or less successful. ]

The funny thing is, if my friends had come here with me I don't think I'd be in a hurry to get back to that moment. I wouldn't have said that a week ago. Surprising, how quickly things change.

Meeting yourself.

[ Gansey grins, unable to help himself. ]

That's a little more 'Back to the Future' than I had in mine. I mean, I understand that time isn't really divided into past, present or future, that's just how we perceive it. Because we have to, we're not really made for anything else.

You're talking about actual time travel. That's quite incredible, Doctor.

All depends on how many there are.

[ Which is a question, you know. And they're all basically identical. He's seen more over the Network. ]

And I'll have you know I was very polite! To my memory, anyway. You really have a large family, Cosima.

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