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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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[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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