Xaviers!

Gemma stops outside Sam and Tereza's door, glancing at Will for a moment as if she expects him to try to run, before knocking soundly on the door.

Will did look a little like he could bolt at any moment, deer-in-headlights-esque. But he stood his ground.

"Gemma?" Sam calls from inside.

"Just a second... oh, you found him."

There's some fumbling inside followed by the doorknob turning.

"Hi, Sam," Will said, quietly.

"I stumbled across on the grounds and we had a discussion."

"I can almost hear the capital-D there."

"Do you want to come in? It's kind of a mess but it should be alright."

"A mess? What happened?" Will said, peering around Sam and trying to avoid, well, every subject.

"Well... Miriam's back and I've been researching. I should probably just leave it to Sean."

"I heard.

And I saw. Took a little trip down to the detention cells. Someone better throw some raw meat into the cell, because she's going to eat all the scenery, otherwise."

"Oh! I was... also figuring out how to bring that up."

"Considering according to Miriam there's half of you in there somewhere."

"She's not 100% correct, there," Will frowned. "Of course, that's kind of par for the course for Miriam these days."

"From the sound of things at least some of it is shite you might need, Will."

"I'm better off without it, thank you very much.

If anything, it's the other way around. She needs me. I know when things are wrong, and I have the common decency to feel guilty about them. I don't...pretend to be an evil serial killer to get my jollies.

Honestly, I have half a mind to pot her over my knee."

"It's not all that thing we chased, Will. Miriam gave you what was in the box. Everything before that opened? When you were her friend? That's what's in there."

Will shook his head. "No, you're still not quite getting it.

I'm sure it is all that thing you chased. It's just that thing you chased is me. Melpomone is rotting in a cell in Muir, 50 years and three dimensions away, locked in her own mental prison. She's not here. That's me, except instead of managing to handle and deal with past traumas, she's letting them control her.

I've picked up quite a few scars in my day. I'm just good at keeping them in check; she is apparently not. But that's 100% certified, Grade-A angus Will Stanton in the holding cell. That's what's in there."

"People aren't made to be divided arbitrarily, Will. Not even you."

"I'll be honest, it comes as a surprise to me, too. I didn't think that this was a thing that was possible.

I guess an old dog can learn new tricks, after all."

"And you don't know everything that Miriam carved off you."

"I'm none the worse for wear," he said, trying to not make eye contact. "I told you; I'll keep."

Gemma clears her throat, "No... you won't."

"You shaved your head and you've been hiding from me."

"I didn't shave my head.

...Technically," Will said, lamely.

"I'm going to tell you a story, Will. Feel free to speak up if I'm getting anything wrong."

"You've been bearing the emotional weight of all your heavy feelings, all the shite that Miriam tried to push out of you to get the happy-go-lucky person she thought she wanted, on roughly half a person's ability to deal with them."

"Miriam wanted someone who could look pretty and turn into a pair of knickers for her, and I'm not going to say she got what she wanted but she still took half your capacity to do something."

"She didn't tale my capability to look pretty or turn into a pair of knickers," Will muttered.

"And she didn't make me take you prisoner in Hollydale. You can't blame this on Miriam..."

"You're not well, Will. You're not at your full capacity."

"Why are you trying to make excuses for me, Sam? You're...you're trying to shift blame, and I don't understand why."

"Because I know you're better than this."

"You don't know that. You don't really know me at all, Sam.

This is exactly who I am. Maybe you're right; maybe some of my...restraint or whathaveyou was stripped away by Miriam. That just means it exposes more of who I really am at the core."

"For someone who chided me about questioning a goddess, you're doing an awful lot of questioning her judgment right now."

"So, add being a hypocrite to my list of crimes," Will grumbled.

"Is that what this is about? Is it easier to deal with me as a goddess than as your friend?"

"No!

..Yes!

...I don't know, Sam. It's...

You were so much more to me than a friend back where I'm from, and it's...difficult for me to navigate that, alright? It's not fair to you that I keep putting all these extra roles on you -- mentor, goddess, lover, boss -- that you never asked for and you don't want. Everyone else around here is different enough that I can kind of navigate through the waters, but you? You're...you're so fucking close and I just don't know what I'm supposed to do.

I don't know how to act around you, or Tereza, or anything, and I feel like...whatever steps I take are wrong. And they'll hurt you, and it's better if I just lock myself in the closet and only come out when called upon. When I call the shots, I hurt people. I am a bad person -- I'm really, really bad at it, and it's just more...more comfortable to fall back on the few things I do well."

"You let me decide what hurts me."

"What hurts me right now is that you've been dodging me and sleeping in the janitor's closet rather than just talk."

Will sighed.

"I haven't been sleeping, but...I take your point.

So. What do we....what do we talk about? What is there....what do you want to know? What do you want me to say?"

"What hurts is it's like a bloody switch got flipped. We were fine before. We're not fine after. You go and wear this bloody hair-shirt without even asking how I feel about it. Why's that? You don't trust how I feel? You punish yourself because you're afraid I won't?"

"Hollydale was sort of a really big deal! I think it qualifies less as a 'switch getting flipped' and more of a 'major fucking betrayal'!" Will protested.

"How DO you feel about it? Was that something you wanted? Polka-dot dresses and white picket fences and PTA meetings and one of the Darrens coming home every night?"

"Nobody wanted it except you, and you won't even tell me why!"

"We would have broken out. If you could wake up so could anybody. You had to have known that."

"I didn't want to break out, Sam. I didn't want to leave. I tried my damndest to keep you in there.

Maybe I would have made another decision if I had known everyone else was trapped but...I knew we were there. And I knew Tereza was there. And still, I tried my hardest to keep the two of you apart.

Hollydale may not have been perfect, but it was in the neighborhood. And I knew what I was doing and what part I had to play and...and I had you. And, God help me, that was enough. I threw everything else away -- my faith that my Morrigan would come save me, my vows to my Sara and my Sam, my duties as your friend and Tereza's friend...everything. For something fake and phony and terrible.

And I honest-to-god think I would do it over again if I had the chance. That's what's terrible."

"We haven't been in a position where I can punish you. Is that what you really want? Would that take the bloody ambiguity out of it for you? Because I'm sure Gemma knows some people who could make that happen."

"It would seem more appropriate that Tereza shrugging it off like it was no big deal! Like she didn't care, or like it didn't matter that I cared, or like I'm so insignificant that it doesn't matter what I do!"