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[For those that know Seth, he's looking much better than he has for months. Pulled together, all sharp creases and straight lines. There's no dark circles under his eyes and he doesn't seem to have a glass in front of him. At least for now.

He also looks bitterly amused.]

A guy goes out into the woods for one freaking week to try and get his head on straight and you all go nuts. Nice to see that much as some things change, everything else just remains the same.

With a week or so of sobering up and learning my paranoia apparently has jackshit to do with my diet of scotch and whiskey, I had a thought that came to me and if I have to live with these thoughts, so do the rest of you.

How do we know that everyone that vanishes goes home? I mean, what if some of those that are positive about serial killers and criminals in our midst... [Hello, pot? This is the kettle.] ... what if they're right and someone's bumping people off and we just assume they're being sent home like so many others?

After that thought, not sure if sobriety will pay off but we'll see how long it lasts.

{Locked to Chloe}

How are you?

{Locked to Maggie}

Where are you? Are you okay?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Naw. She's still Kate, and she's ours because we're what she has left, and she's what we've chosen. Her family is dead. We don't want ours. I fucked that all up back home, but I realize here that it was a fuck up, and I was trying to fix it here.

She'll still be Kate, and Richie will be my stupid ass brother. Time frame doesn't change that.

[Says the man that doesn't know Kate dies and isn't always Kate. Easy to say not knowing that.]

To run this place. With dying. Least that's what some say. If that's the case, wouldn't they encourage a killer then?

Figured. [She smirks a little.] Hey, I know the feeling. The family you make it usually way better than the one you're born into, unless you're just super lucky.

Hmm... you'd think. But maybe there's more to it than that. [She thinks about it for a moment. God, what else did George's notes say?] Plus, it's not just deaths that run it, right? There's something about memories, too. Maybe deaths and memories fuel different aspects, somehow.

Never known anyone that lucky. Except maybe Chloe's kid. Maybe. Not a clue of anyone that had a life that was good with the family they were given.

Maybe, though with the knowledge eventually you won't remember who and what, and possibly be indebted to the damn mirrorside queen. The real truth behind the place though? I don't know if we'll ever know. I think if we knew, we could unravel it, so I doubt we'll ever unbury that.

It is definitely a rarity. [She thinks Maggie's family dynamics are probably the best of any she's ever known, truth be told.]

[She huffs, annoyed, if repenting that--] You're probably right on that one. For every answers anyone's ever gotten, I'm pretty sure eleven other questions and mysteries pop up to replace it. This place is just a whole lotta puzzles with no real solution.

Which, let's be honest, all of that is by design. They don't want us knowing jackshit about this place, and so they keep us in the dark.

Least it gives us something to do? Okay, that sounded dumb even to me.

[Rolling his eyes at himself, though he tries to keep his mood up. Mostly for the sake of others.]

No, trust me, dumb or not, it's kinda true. I'd lose my mind without something to chase. Even if it's false leads. [She knows who she is as a person, okay?]

Kinda how I feel. I need something to focus on. Can only spend so long asking for things out of the closet, after all.

[She laughs softly.] Right? [Sigh.] Well....I guess only time will tell on most of this. If people aren't really going home, it'll come out, one way or another. The truth always does. [And if it doesn't do so on its own, she knows exactly the people to go to, to make it happen.]

Sadly most of Wonderland is just about waiting. This won't be much different then.

[Which he hates, because it takes so long. Just so much time waiting and watching and being annoyed by it.]

I think you're right though. It'll come out eventually.

You'll find, I often am. [It's said with a smirk, to go along with the sass, and make the joke of it all obvious.]