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There's a moment.
Just a moment.
Where Sasha James is not looking at you in the small space of the storage room that she had pulled you into. It's a minute, maybe even two that she has her eyes trained on the floor, searching it for any signs of worms.
But when she hears the sudden sound of your sharp inhale from across the room, hears something clatter to the floor, she thinks it might've been a minute too long.
She spins on her heel, terrified, expecting to see a wave of worms or some other such eldritch horror come to kill the both of you.
But when she looks, eyes adjusting to the dim light, she just sees you. She sees the friend she's known for years, the one she had come to love and adore. You're staring a bit vacantly into that table Jon was going on about but other than that everything else seems fine.
She doesn't see how your hair is a bit longer than it used to be, how much taller you are, how the shape of your face has changed, how your body is a slight bit misshapen.
She calls for you. "Are you alright?"
"Yes." You say after a moment, eyes snapping up to meet hers. "Just thought I saw something."
She wants to ask what it was, but something cuts her off.
It's the sound of a thousand mouths crying out in one, sickeningly sad lullaby. Even from within the thick walls of the room she can hear it echoing around the halls outside. Accompanied by this death cry is the sound of gas being expelled from outside and Sasha can only assume Elias managed to activate the manual release after all.
There's a sense of dread and relief that fills her chest all at once. Relief that it's over, and dread for what she might find in the Archives.
"We should go check on the others." You said, still collected and even. "I'm worried about them."
Had Sasha not known you for years she might have been put off by such behavior but she knew better than anyone that that was just how you were. Always cool and calm, even under the most intense situations. It was why you two got on so well.
At least... that sounded right at the time.
"Yeah…"
So why did her heart feel so heavy in her chest?
"Yeah, we should."
--
Sasha can feel that something has changed, she just can't place what it is.
It's something that feels like it's just below the surface, and even she's not sure what shape that surface is but it nags and plucks at her mind like fingers in a flowerbed.
She asks you one day if you've noticed it, if you feel anything. But you just shrug, tell her that a lot of things feel strange now. "Look at everything that's happened."
But that's not it. Not for her. Sure this new reality is daunting and terrifying, but it wasn't what was out there that was bothering her. It was something in the air, something that felt like it was right next to her but she just couldn't see it.
Jon clearly feels it too but he's too busy being paranoid to really have a conversation with her about it and Tim needs all the emotional support she can expend without wringing herself dry.
So she tries to forget about it. Tries to put her head in her work so that they can figure out how they're meant to handle this new life that's been handed to them.
At least she has you though, she thinks. You're always there with a small smile and a an ear to lend when she needs to talk things over, to try to make sense of things.
It's the only thing holding her together, really.
But then something happens.
And everything unravels.
--
She's standing in Elias' office, pale, trembling and doing everything in her power not to cry in front of the bastard.
You've been dead for a year. That's what Jon tells her and the others with a heavy guilt in his eyes when he comes back to the Institute, looking like he'd just been dragged through the seven circles of hell nonetheless.
"It took them right in front of you, Sasha. When the two of you were in artefact storage." Elias says with a kind of amused leer that makes her want to vomit.
Tim looks like he's about to climb over the desk and beat him within an inch of his life. His fists are clenched at his side so tightly that his fingernails puncture through his skin, causing blood to drip down his palms.
"Oh God…" Martin breathes, tears collecting in the corners of his eyes as he looks to Sasha, concern and worry evident in that tearful gaze.
She doesn't say anything.
She can't even breathe.
--
Sasha spends that night going through every single picture she's ever taken with you. She swipes through old college memories with a vigor that almost overheats her phone. She's read the statements, she knows how this goes. She's searching desperately for that one picture that doesn't reflect the imposter that she'd known for the past year.
They have a crooked smile and lifeless eyes that make her feel like she's looking at a mannequin. Makes everything underneath her skin squirm with a desperation to have it out of her mind. It feels like looking at a friend you had a bad falling out with, one you can't even stomach to look at.
She scrolls for what feels like hours until she stumbles on a picture from your Instagram account that she's tagged in. She's standing next to someone she doesn't recognize, someone who has a twinkle in their eyes and a goofy smile on their face. They're standing just outside of the Institute.
There's a caption underneath the picture:
"Ready for some spooky shenanigans with this nerd because we just got jobs at The Magnus Institute! Love you, Sash. Can't wait to take on this new journey with you!"
Everything inside of her comes undone with a loud shrieking sob.
--
"Melanie," Sasha asks the next day, eyes still red from the night before.
"Yeah?" Melanie turns her gaze up at Sasha, sees the state she's in and immediately grows concerned. "God, Sasha, you look awful. What happened?"
Sasha shakes her head. "Don't worry about it." She instead pulls out her phone and pulls up the picture of you that she'd found and shows it to her. "Is this the person who filled out your details when you came here the first time?"
The flash of recognition that sparks through Melanie's hazel eyes is all the confirmation she needs. "Yeah! That's them! See, this is why I thought Jon was nuts when he told me that other -- thing, or whatever, was them. They look nothing alike!"
It takes everything in her power not to break down right there. She knows this woman doesn't understand that this is someone she's known for years, doesn't understand the kind of guilt that has consumed her every waking thought because she should have known.
Out of everyone she should've known that thing wasn't you.
Though, Melanie realizes almost immediately that she's said something wrong when Sasha's lip trembles. "Oh, Sasha, I'm sorry. Were you two close?"
"It's fine." She sighs, wipes the tears that haven't fallen and bucks herself up the best way she can. "And yeah, we were friends in college. Started working here as soon as we graduated."
"Oh..." Melanie falters. "Sorry. I can only imagine what you must be going through."
She shakes her head.
"It's alright."
It's not alright.
But she's tired and she doesn't want to have this conversation right now.
She does, however, make a copy of that picture to leave on her desk so that everyone can properly remember you. Even if it hurts everytime they look at it.
--
Tim isn't faring any better than her, she can see it.
He's distant with almost everyone except for her and even then he's not the same Tim she remembers. He's all hard lines, dark eyes, sharp tongue. She misses his soft outline, those glowing eyes and that quick wit -- that charm that she had come to know him by.
But he's hurting. He's hurting like she is.
And one afternoon he comes out of the tunnels long enough to talk to her.
"How…" he starts, not knowing how to finish. "How are you doing?"
"Same as you, I guess." She shrugs, the weight on her shoulders dragging her down so deep to the depths of exhaustion that she just sounds tired. She's not as shaky as she was last week.
"That's fair..." Tim's voice is low, quiet in the dim, dull space of the archives. It doesn't have the same glow without you, he thinks.
A beat of silence passes between them.
"I miss them, Sash."
She doesn't crumble but her heart squeezes so tightly inside of her chest she feels like she might.
"I know…" her voice just barely comes out of her mouth. "I do too."
She doesn't say anything when he wraps his arms around her, softly beseeches her not to leave him in the way that he pulls her in tight and rests his head on her shoulder.
She just leans against him, hands wrapping around his arms as the shoulder of her shirt becomes more and more wet as the minutes pass.
She doesn't cry. She's not sure she has any tears left. So she keeps quiet and holds onto Tim as he lets down his guard and shares himself with her.
It's the only thing that's going to keep them going.
--
When Jon comes back to the Institute a second time, looking terrified and tired, there's someone holding his hand, someone keeping him steady as much as he's keeping them calm.
It's someone Sasha knows and yet doesn't. It's someone she's desperately tried to put back into her mind, one she's tried to paste into old memories that they were stolen from. They look different, a bit disjointed, but somehow she knows who this is.
"Hey Sash…" you smile weakly at her, your expression fearful and warm. You're so happy to see her -- to see her alive -- but you're terrified of what she's going to think. Will she recognise you? Jon didn't, not at first, but he believed you when you told him what happened. How you let The Stranger in to stay alive. How it let you live, sent you to Nikola's circus.
Would she believe you too?
"Don't suppose you remember me, do you?"
She doesn't say anything but instead runs at you and envelopes you in an embrace so tight that you stagger backwards, answering your question better than words ever could. She notices the way your skin doesn't exactly feel like it should, something off, something strange, but she can't care. Somehow she knows this is you, remembers this feeling even if it's tainted with a different presence.
She's sobbing into your shoulder. "I'm sorry… I'm so sorry…"
I'm sorry I ever forgot about you. I'm sorry for what happened. I'm sorry I didn't realize.
It's all the things she's made herself sick over, all the things she wanted to say but couldn't get out.
But you knew, you understood.
"Hey, hey, it's okay. It's okay, really. I'm here now." You try to soothe her. "Bit different on the insides but it's me at the core."
Your laugh sounds like a church bell on a wedding day.
Then Tim walks in,
He stops, dropping everything,
And he sees you.
Suddenly she's enveloped by another pair of arms, his wrapping around the both of you even more tightly than she'd been holding you, if it were even possible.
"You asshole." He says it but there's no venom. He's crying just like Sasha. "Where the hell have you been?"
"Getting reconstructed?" You laughed weakly, stretching your arms to wrap around him too. "Takes a lot to find latex that feels like proper human skin. Also being a double agent while trying to figure out your new existence is a bit more difficult than people give it credit for."
He laughs for the first time in months.
Sasha laughs for the first time in months.
Then Martin comes into the office,
Sees Jon,
Sees you,
And his eyes go wide.
"Is that…" he calls you by name. "Is that you?"
"Mostly." You grinned, tears streaking down your cheeks. "Hi, Martin."
In a moment there's another pair of arms wrapped around you, followed by one more set when Sasha reaches out and pulls Jon into the group hug.
He comes easy, too tired and defeated to fight it, and maybe deep down he needed it too. He needed his team. All of them. The thought of having lost someone because of his own incompetence had been a weight on him that he'd kept to himself, but felt nevertheless. And he felt it hard.
Then you showed up in that place, odd and definitely different, but the Eye had lent him enough clarity to see that it was you. You set him free, got him back to the Institute, assuring him the whole time you weren't angry, that you didn't blame him.
Now here you were, with them all.
Sasha opens her eyes, looks into yours, and she smiles.
You were home.