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There are very few things that Jonathan Sims does between fleeing the Institute and going to Georgie’s flat. He doesn’t go home, and he almost doesn’t dart into the storage room to grab the duffel bag that has a few comfortable outfits, some snacks, and a phone charger.
Jon calls Georgie up and tells her that he needs to stay at her place for a bit, and yes Georgie, this is important, and why on Earth would he need to stay at her flat if it wasn’t an emergency? Then he gets on a bus that’s heading in Georgie’s direction, keeping his face down and trying to stop his hands from shaking.
Jon’s plan was to go straight to Georgie’s, but as he goes the events of the day in his head, trying to make sense of Leitner’s death, he remembers some of the statements he’d read. Graham Folger. Rose Cooper. Carl Moore. Statements #0070107, #9941509, and #0011206. (Jon Knows the case numbers and their statement givers without having to think, he’s not sure how he feels about that)
Sasha– (and here he has to remind himself that no Jon, that wasn’t Sasha) Not-Sasha had hidden all of the tapes with Real Sasha’s voice on it. Lawrence Moore had found all the photos of Carl replaced by this Stranger. All but two. Two polaroids, if he remembers correctly(he Knows that he does). He remembers that, while looking into Amy Patel’s statement about Graham Folger, Tim had found polaroids of Graham that had been different from all of the digital pictures. They’d matched Amy’s description of Graham, while the digital photos did not. And then the realization hits him like a train.
He needs a polaroid camera.
So Jon makes a decision to get off a stop early. He goes into Boots, buys a cheap polaroid(with cash, not credit), and walks the rest of the way to Georgie’s.
Before Jon knocks, he clicks on the tape recorder. “Voice of Georgie Barker,” he whispers. Then he looks at it, first checking to see if it’s yellow, and then searches his childhood memories to see if it was the door that almost took him as a child.
In the end, he decides not to knock. It feels safer. “Georgie?” He asks tentatively. There’s a long silence and Jon is ready to shout again, but the door creaks open.
“Hello Jon,” Georgie says, her lips pursed.
“Hello Georgie,” Jon says. “I’m really sorry about all of… this.” He makes a vague, omnidirectional gesture. “You were the only person I could think of that I could trust, and I…” He trails off. “Yeah.”
“It’s–” She sighs. “It’s fine, you can stay as long as you need to.” She steps out of the way. “Come on in.”
Jon hesitates for a moment, clicking the tape recorder off as he walks through the door. “Georgie, I know that this is going to sound weird, but–”
“Jon, everything about this whole situation is weird.”
“Can I...take a picture of you?” Jon asks hesitantly. He holds up the camera. “With this camera, specifically.”
Georgie raises one eyebrow, a trick that Jon never quite mastered. “May I ask why?”
“I’d prefer that you didn’t.”
Georgie is silent for a long while, and Jon worries that she’s going to say no.
“Fine.”
Jon breathes out a sigh of relief. “Thank you Georgie. Again, I know it’s weird, and I’m sorry–”
“Just take the damn photo, Jon.” Georgie sighs. “Do you want me to make a particular face, or what?”
Jon shakes his head. “No.” He takes the picture, and as soon as it’s developed, he labels it “Georgie Barker.”
“Listen Jon,” Georgie says. Jon’s head perks up. “Like I said, you’re welcome to stay here as long as you need, and it’s fine if you don’t want to talk about whatever’s going on right now, but it’d be nice if you could tell me about whatever it is at some point.”
Jon nods. “And I will. I just… don’t know when that is.”
During his stay at Georgie’s flat, he adds Georgie’s neighbors to his slowly growing collection of Real People. Whenever he sees a new person, he snaps a photo of them, and asks Georgie for their name later on. He checks his photos whenever he sees them, just to be sure. He checks Georgie too. Whenever she comes back from wherever she goes during the day, he takes out the photograph and compares the two of them.
At some point, Georgie grows used to it. When she walks into a room, she pauses for a moment to let him fish the picture out of whenever he’s stored it that day and check it before continuing to do whatever it was that she was doing. Life goes on in this way, and it becomes something of a habit. See someone. Take photo. Check it. Repeat.
He takes a photo of Jude Perry, more out of habit than out of conscious decision, Jude doesn’t appreciate it but she only burns the edges of the photograph, so Jon figures she doesn’t mind too much. Mike Crew tersely informs him that it isn’t polite to take photos without permission, and Jon feels a staticky prickle on the back of his neck.
The obsessive checking continues when Jon returns to the Institute. If anything, it gets worse. The first thing he does is take a picture of Elias and label it, although he’s certain that Elias would be able to see the Not-Them coming way in advance. He takes pictures of his assistants, much to Martin’s confusion and Tim’s annoyance.
“What‘s with the pictures, Boss? Got some new hobbies? Take up photography in the wake of being a stalker?” Tim glares at Jon, who just sighs.
“Tim, I’m sorry about what I did. It was…” He sighs again. “It was wrong of me.”
Tim stares at him, his face a mask of cold rage.
“The pictures are a way to stop what happened to Sasha from ever happening again. If anyone else gets...taken, these photos are a way for me to know it.”
“Whatever, boss.” And Tim just walks away.
Surprisingly enough, Melanie is the most understanding of his assistants towards his obsessive photography. She doesn’t exactly like it, but when Jon explains why, she understands it. Accepts it. Grumbles about it and rolls her eyes every time Jon checks the pictures, but she’s the first one to pick up the habit of stopping when she walks into a room with Jon. She’s the only one who asks to take a few pictures of her own. Not nearly as many as Jon, but all of the archival staff get pictures. Jon doesn’t comment on it. She was the only one who knew that Sasha was wrong, and none of them believed her. Nobody knew, except for her.
It becomes a habit to take photos of everyone who he sees on an even semi regular basis, and Jon knows people. Not capital “k” Knowing, (although he’s sure that he'll be able to Know them at some point) but the ordinary sort of knowing. He knows the names of other people at the Institute, people he almost never interacts with.
He doesn’t remember small details about them like Martin, and he doesn’t have inside jokes with them like Tim, but he can match names to faces, and he can recognize some of their voices.
It’s a small thing, but it’s new to him, and Jon thinks he likes knowing people.
The quality of his pictures get better. It isn’t a conscious effort on Jon’s part, but it isn’t all that surprising either, given the sheer quantity of photographs he takes.
His first photos were shaky, with the flash turned on when it didn’t need to be. They were taken out of necessity, and although they served their purpose, they weren’t good pictures.
At some point, (Jon isn’t entirely sure when it happened) Jon starts taking better photos. He starts to enjoy taking pictures. He takes photos when he doesn’t strictly need to. Photos of the Archival Staff, of the Admiral, of the fattest squirrel he’d ever seen dragging a burger down the sidewalk.
He justifies these things by telling himself that it’s just in case something goes wrong, that they’re just in case he damages his original pictures. These excess photos go into the desk drawer that he’d kept his supplemental recordings in, right alongside the ashes of Jane Prentiss.
He’s grateful for the excess photos later.
When Tim is dead.
When Martin is gone.
When Basira doesn’t trust anybody but herself and Melanie’s violent tendencies have peaked.
When the Archivist is no longer sure if he ever needs the pictures anymore.
He doesn’t take very many pictures, but he still checks the ones he has against those of Real People, when he sees people.
And Jon looks at his excess photos.
Sometimes, in brief moments of quiet, when he isn’t recording statements, he likes to look at them, and Jon remembers the simpler, happier parts of his life.
He can almost hear Martin quietly singing whatever was stuck in his head as he brews tea. He sees Tim’s scowl and knows that he was about to roll his eyes when the picture was taken. Melanie stomps her muddy shoes feet on the wall and Jon laughs, remembering the way that she’d yelled about how big of a shame it would be if her disorderly conduct got her fired.
The Archivist puts the photos away. That isn’t his reality. No anymore.
He gets Daisy back from the coffin, and his rib takes its place next to the photos.
“You should get back into photography,” Daisy advises him(they’re friends now, sort of, two monsters fighting to hold on to humanity).
“Why? It doesn’t help anyone,” Jon says bleakly.
Daisy shrugs. “You’re good at it.”
“So what?”
“Didn’t you like taking pictures?”
Jon gives a half shrug.
“If it made you happy, then you should do it again,” Daisy says. “I need things that tie me down, Jon. Basira helps keep me more human. She keeps me grounded. You seem happier whenever you look at those pictures, and you should take them again.”
Jon sighs and says he’ll think about it, (even though he doesn’t plan on it) but later, after reading a statement, he tacks the pictures to the wall next to his desk, where he can see them easily.
And he starts carrying the camera again.