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[Wirt has never addressed the network directly, or on purpose. He's never felt the need to, and he's not much of a public broadcast kind of guy. The whole public speaking thing usually leaves him weak in the knees, but this is different. It's an emergency.]

H-Has-- Has anyone seen my brother, Greg?

[Wirt quickly turns the camera away from himself and shows the room behind him. The view is shaky, due to his unsteady hands, but it gets the point across - it's back to the default, like Greg was never there at all. Even his frog is nowhere to be found.]

I-I-I...sure he runs off on his own a lot, but-- but! But I would have heard from him by now, o-or there would be some sign of him somewhere, right? It's like he just...disappeared, out of nowhere! Spirited away somewhere!

[He's panicking. He's absolutely panicking and he's still kind of half-expecting Greg to just pop out somewhere and be like "Oh hey Wirt! I wound a WAY better room!" or something. Wirt knots his fingers in his hair, which knocks his hat slightly out of place. He can't help thinking of every horrible possibility. Didn't someone say there was a serial killer on the loose, or a cannibal or something? Or what if he's hurt somewhere, or worse? Does that make all your things disappear? Wirt hasn't been in Wonderland long enough to know.]

He...H-He's about this tall. [Wirt gestures accordingly, bending down a little.] He's six years old, a-and he's-- teakettle! He's been wearing a teakettle on his head! And there's...there's this frog he's been carrying around everywhere - I think his name's James right now? Greg might've changed it by now b-but you can't really miss them. Has anyone seen them? Anyone? Please, if someone knows where he is...!

[They're not going to know. Greg's gone. Greg's gone and this is useless. Wirt looks down, not sure what else to ask, or what else to do. But, there's only one thing he can do.]

I...I have to go. But please, if anyone sees him, let me know? Um, thank you. ...I appreciate it.

[He shoves the device in his pocket, but forgets to shut it off. The last few seconds on his broadcast are just the sound of Wirt running as fast as he can down the hall. There's only one place he hasn't looked yet, so maybe...maybe he's in the woods, where they first arrived.]

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[She feels that stiffness work its way through his body, relaxing her grip just a little in case Wirt wants to pull away. But he doesn’t, instead still leaning on Cami, rambling on in fear and it’s easily the most he’s ever said to her at once without stuttering. Throughout it all she listens, because even though she knows her response within the first few words, Wirt needs to get this out. This isn’t going to be a new fear for him; no, Wirt would have carried it throughout his time in Wonderland, with and without Greg. So much of what they’ve been told seems to be conjecture, promises from people who are just as trapped and just as helpless. Why would it seem good enough to rely on now, in the midst of his helplessness?

Even if he believed it, Wirt would still be powerless to change anything, to make things right—and that’s one of the most difficult things for anyone to accept.]

Except it won’t be, I promise. [She waits until she’s sure he’s ready for her to answer, at the same time lifting that hand from his back to gently stroke his hair. It’s something she does without really thinking about it, something she used to do for Sean when they’d been younger and he skinned his knee or had a nightmare. And in so many ways, it feels right to offer that comfort to Wirt now.]

There are a bunch of people from my world here, and out of all of them? I’m the one from furthest in our future. [She doubts it will be enough, but maybe it might still help, just a little.] Which means that if they had ever been gone, I would have known about it. But I don’t—no one knows. So what everyone has said, Wirt, it’s true. Greg isn’t alone. He still has you right there with him. I know it doesn’t feel like it’s possible, but it is.

[Wirt doesn't know what's truly worse, not being able to do anything no matter what or having options but not the courage to move forward and take them. This time though, there really isn't anything he can do, but all he can think is that there must have been something he missed when Greg was still in Wonderland, something he could have done if he'd only been paying attention.

The hug feels good though, as does the hand in his hair. It's soothing, and it makes him miss his mom. Does she know they're gone yet? Will only one of her sons make it back to her?]

...Really?

[It's the first anecdote he's heard that's made any kind of sense. If Cami didn't notice any of her friends going missing, then maybe it is true. A thought hits him though and he gasps, and pulls back a bit.]

Beatrice! She's...I-I totally forgot, but she was ahead of me and Greg! It wasn't by much, maybe like a day or so, but she remembered all this stuff that we hadn't been through yet.

[He just sort of brushed it off and forgot about it because it hadn't made any sense at the time. Now that he's been in Wonderland a little longer though...well, he's embarrassed he forgot in the first place, but the significance of it is much clearer.]

If she didn't remember us disappearing, then Greg really did go back to exactly that point!

[In all honesty, she’s expecting to have to push the point; Wirt’s struggled to believe the positive aspects she’s tried to show him each time they’ve talked, and Cami suspects his despair would have him do the same now. Yet for once, hope wins out, leaving her surprised as he pulls away to connect what Cami’s now told him to Beatrice’s experience.

And if it’s just this one time that he believes her without reservation? Cami will take it.]

Yeah, exactly. [She gives Wirt a faint smile, glad he can take comfort in this if nothing else.] He’s not on his own. You haven’t left him.

[It may be the only comfort she can offer him in all this, but maybe that reassurance will anchor him through the other half of the pain. Greg hasn’t been separated from Wirt, but Wirt has just lost his little brother. The relief that comes from knowing the first part can only do so much to lessen the hurt of the second, but it’s still something to hold to.]

Yeah...yeah, that has to be the case. She would have said something if I'd disappeared, I think.

[Especially if she was only a day ahead of them. She and Greg would have still been trying to find him, or at least he thinks they would. He has to, because while he's not generally an optimistic person he can't think of a good reason Beatrice wouldn't have mentioned it when they reunited in Wonderland. That's proof enough for Wirt.

...But, that still means Greg isn't in Wonderland anymore, and that Wirt is alone. It sinks in a little too quickly, and most of the relief is turns cold. He's...not sure how to feel.]

I...I can't believe he's actually gone though.

[He sounds resigned though, like someone who can believe it a little too well.]

I think so too. [The person she’d spoken to cared far too much to keep something like that secret, at least in Cami’s perspective. She offers Wirt a faint smile, not at all happy but still glad that he has that something for however long it lasts. Yet that panic had protected him in a way, kept the harsher truth out of his mind, and when Wirt breathes it out a moment later Cami nods in understanding.]

I know. [Even as perpetually prepared for the worst as she thinks Wirt must be, it’s impossible for her to think he could be ready for Greg to just not be there. It’s too much like death, and while that tells Cami exactly what Wirt’s dealing with, she wishes more than anything he wouldn’t have to.] It’s impossibly hard to lose your brother. You don’t know what to feel at first. Anger or sadness, or even nothing at all: none of it seems like the right thing, like what you should be feeling.

[She pauses then, to wipe her face and take a breath. Though they don’t fall, the tears in her eyes aren’t solely for Wirt’s sake.]

But it’s okay. Whatever you feel, it’s okay.

[Cami is completely right about all of it. It's a weird mix of emotions. There's misplaced anger at Greg for wandering away, but mostly anger at himself for not noticing, for not doing a better job at the whole older brother thing. He's sad, of course. There's this sense of mourning, as he mentally prepares for the worst - the possibility that he might be stuck forever and that he might never see Greg again. But the weirdest is the nothing, the numbness that comes from knowing this is something that can't be changed. No matter what he does, no matter how he feels, he can't change the fact that Greg isn't here and that Greg might not ever come back. He might never go home. That nothingness protects him from everything else, but he feels most guilty about that. You're not supposed to feel nothing when your brother vanishes, but he can't seem to summon up the energy for anything else.

Nothing feels right or like what he's supposed to be doing, so to hear Cami say so, to have her tell him it's okay and normal...it helps. It really does. It's okay.]

I should have been paying closer attention. Like, maybe if we'd been together we would've left at the same time? I-I don't know if it works like that, but...

[Then he looks up and really notices Cami for the first time, with her eyes full of tears. It finally clicks that maybe she isn't familiar just because of her profession, and that maybe this isn't just about him. So, he turns it back on her.]

...um. Are-- are you okay? You don't really seem like it.

I don’t think it is. I think it’s just part of the way Wonderland works: people show up at random, and they leave the same way. [And while the truth won’t offer any sort of comfort, maybe with it Wirt can find a way to work through that sense of responsibility that none of them can live up to. Of course he won’t be able to latch onto it immediately, nor does Cami expect him to. But hearing it plants the seed, and in time the idea just might manage to take root.

Helped, no doubt, by the fact that Wirt is clever. She favors him with a sad smile, for a moment tempted to brush off his question and focus on his pain instead. But would that really be the better route? The one thing that had settled into her when Sean died, that bone-deep feeling she couldn’t shake, had been her own loneliness. Nothing can take the place of a brother gone, but maybe having a friend who has walked that path might offer more than a therapist offering comfort.]

I had a brother, back home; we were twins. [She glances down, forcing a steadiness into her voice she doesn’t truly feel, but needs to maintain all the same.] When I lost him, I started thinking a lot of the same things you are. That I should have been there, that I should have seen something—that I could have stopped it somehow. It took me a long time to understand that it was just beyond me to be able to save him.

[It had taken the same thing happening to her uncle, in fact, and Cami’s utter failure to be able to stop it.]

[Wirt catches the past tense, all of the "had"s and "were"s, and knows immediately that what happened to her brother is much more serious than what happened to Greg. If everyone is right, Greg will be there when he leaves Wonderland. It sounds like that's not the case for Cami and her brother.]

...I'm sorry.

[It's quiet, but genuine. He does feel a little bad for freaking out so much about Greg in front of her, but it's not why he apologizes. He can't even imagine what losing a twin would be like.]

That must have been hard though. I mean...y-you can't just flip a switch and suddenly stop blaming yourself for stuff, right? Life just doesn't work like that. I mean, people think it does - that if they tell you it's not your fault enough that it just clicks eventually. But they don't get that you can kind of...you can know there was nothing you could have done without really...believing it. Like, you look at it logically from every angle and still go "well, I couldn't have done anything to change it, but it definitely feels like it's all my fault and I should probably just crawl in a hole forever now".

[He knows all about that feeling, even if he's never had someone close to him die before.]

I guess what I'm saying is...I-I dunno. Things like that are kind of beyond anyone, but...I'm glad you got to that point, eventually.

[She nods in gratitude at his sympathy, although of course there’s no reason for Wirt to feel guilty. She hasn’t told him to compare loses or somehow invalidate his; Cami only wants him to know that there is at least one person out there who does understand, who has felt that pain and who he can come to when he needs help facing his. If there is one good thing to come out of all of this, it would be that—

And as Wirt continues on? It seems as if it has.

She listens with a small smile as he speaks, more about himself than her, and certainly more about himself than he would have ever dared to the first time they met. She reaches out to take his hands when he’s finished, a gentle squeeze shared between them as she meets his gaze.]

It isn’t easy, but with enough time and effort, it is possible. For anyone. [For you, but Cami suspects that’s something Wirt needs to decide on his own rather than being told; he needs to believe it, rather than just know it.] And in the meantime, we’ve still got each other.

[He's surprised when she takes his hands, but he doesn't pull away either. It's a kind gesture from a kind person, but...he knows what the end of that sentence should be, and it's a lot easier said than done. He smiles politely, but he can't seem to hold that gaze. He doesn't meet her eyes.]

...Yeah. Yeah, we do.

[Though it feels more like Cami's got him and he's just drifting along, unable to really be a sufficient support for anyone. It doesn't feel balanced, so it's hard not to feel like she's just saying it to be nice, or to make him feel better. He does appreciate it though, and after an awkward moment of being unsure how to express that, he squeezes her hands back. ]

Um. ...Thank you. I-I'm. [No. Say it clearly.] I'm sorry if I made you worry, or anything.

[It hadn't been his intention. He just kind of...got swept up in searching and freaking out.]

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