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Most people would say they have no idea what death feels like. Remus had always imagined that death was simple; the air that had once lived in your lungs wouldn't be there anymore, your lungs would refuse to work, and your vision would turn blurry before disappearing entirely. Not peaceful, but not violent.
That was not what death felt like. Well, not what Remus Lupin's death felt like.
If anything, Remus was somewhat resigned to dying. Tonks was dead anyway, murdered by Bellatrix Lestrange, there was no one left to mourn his death. Yeah, Remus was fine with dying. Maybe he'd even be able to see James or Sirius. they'd probably kill him a second time when they found out he had died.
Lily would give him her disappointed mom stare, and Remus isn't quite sure he's ready for that yet. He thought it was reserved for Harry only. Maybe James since he was prone to stupid things.
Remus was murdered (just like Tonks, Sirius, James, Lily) by a Death Eater who Remus couldn't be bothered to learn the name of. James and Sirius had joked with him when they joined the Order that when they die, they wanted to die fighting. Out in a blaze of glory, Sirius had said. Sent out on a burning ship out to sea. Remus had told him that Vikings did that, to which he replied with a stubborn 'I'm a Viking, then.'
Remus wanted to die smiling. Sirius and James didn't judge him for that, knowing how rough his life was (and still is). They had agreed, dying while smiling wouldn't be the worst way to die.
They didn't die smiling.
Remus hoped that Sirius would be watching him now, alongside James, seeing that he's going out in a blaze of glory, dying while fighting.
Remus muses over a quote he remembered as he stumbles after being hit with a fatal spell. "Dead people receive more flowers than the living ones because regret is stronger than gratitude." Anne Frank said that, a muggle woman. Remus has no idea why that quote came up when he was dying, but he hoped that wouldn't be true when they do eventually discover his body.
He hopes people aren't too sad when they realize he's dead. He wonders if people would cry at his funeral. He reflects on his past, musing over the excitement of Hogwarts and fearing the dull terror that came with joining the Order. He hopes that Teddy grows up to be an incredible human being.
Most of all, he hopes that James and Sirius are proud. Maybe Peter, for all his mistakes, will be proud of him, too. Remus would be willing to forgive him, but maybe that's because he's dying and his life is flashing before his eyes.
Probably.
Remus dies smiling, just like he wanted to.
As far as Remus is concerned, death is permanent.
It's supposed to be permanent.
Perhaps this is Hell. Remus doesn't really believe in the afterlife or some inhuman being that is all-powerful. He's not that kind of person.
But right now, standing in front of three of his best, definitely dead, friends, he's almost positive that he's in Hell now, being psychologically tortured.
Lily Evans Potter, ever the reasonable one, speaks up first after five long, contemplative minutes. "I assume everyone is...stressed right now."
Remus snorts before he can stop himself. "That is an understatement." Remus takes a moment to let that sink in before saying, "Also, you guys are dead last time I checked."
"You're dead, too, Moony," Sirius Black pipes in, staring at Remus intensely. "Do you not remember?"
"No, I remember," Remus says hurriedly. Sirius' stare is freaking him out a little. "Just...why?"
"Why what?" James asks, head tilted to the side. "Why are we here?" Remus nods so fast he thinks his head might fall off. James takes a deep breath. "Okay, okay, that's a sensible reaction to this kind of situation. You might want to sit down for this."
Remus nods robotically, only then taking in the scenery around them. There are plush black couches and chairs around the room, soft, dangling lights floating in the air. There's a carpet settled on the hardwood floor that looks like the most comfortable thing Remus has ever seen, and he's been to the Hogwarts library. A coffee table is situated in the middle of the carpet with a tea set already prepared. There's a hallway opposite of the giant fireplace- holy crap it's taller than Remus, he didn't think that was possible -and two doors leading somewhere.
Remus gingerly sat down on one of the black chairs and immediately slouches into it, claiming it as his own. Remus could really use some tea right about now. To his surprise, a teacup filled with chamomile tea appears on the end table beside the chair. Remus chokes, but grabs the tea, eyeing it suspiciously, before taking a sip.
It tastes the same. Remus' eyes narrow, thinking about how good chocolate would be. A bar of chocolate appears almost taunting him on the end table. Remus, with as much self-control as possible, places the teacup back down and looks at his friends. "Explain."
He can feel guilty about being blunt later. He needs answers.
Lily shoots glares at Sirius and James who both open their mouths to talk only to close them obediently. Lily gives him a sympathetic look. "Remus," she starts, using a tone of voice that Remus despises with a passion but simultaneously appreciates, "understand that this information is important, but incredibly burdening and stressful."
It's these curt comments that make Remus feel less guilt over his blunt comments and he takes her silent question of are you ready to hear this in stride. "I understand."
Lily visibly relaxes at that, taking a deep sigh and running a hand through her red hair. "Alright, this is going to sound crazy, but just hear me out." Lily glances at Sirius and James. "We're stuck in a time loop."
Remus opens his mouth, but Lily holds up a hand to stop his questions mostly consisting of what the hell and why the hell along with the fun I'm calling bullcrap. "I know you probably have questions, but wait until the end, please. Can you do that? I've already had to explain this one time before and I had hoped I wouldn't have to do it again." Remus nods and Lily smiles, strained but still the bright, cheerful person Remus knows so well. "Good. You might want to take your chocolate and tea for this one."
Remus does as suggested, carefully sipping his scalding hot tea, the heat a dull ache compared to Remus' painful flood of questions.
"Fantastic. First things first, storytime." Lily takes a deep breath. "Years ago, when Voldemort attacked me and James, I sacrificed myself so Harry could live. That protected him from Voldemort for the beginning of his life. But, I died. James died, too, only moments before me. I remembered my eyes closing rapidly, thinking wow, I'm dying before waking up here." Lily gestured around them. "James was here when I got here, so I asked him what this place is. As usual, he knew nothing-"
"-Hey!-"
"-and I was forced to figure out what was happening." Lily didn't even bat an eye at James' outburst, instead, she just swirled her teabag around in her cup.
"Okay, but you said this is a time loop. That generally implies that you are looping through some event."
Lily nods absentmindedly. "I did. This is a time loop. We are looping through time, just not repeating an event. Also, I do believe I said no questions until the end."
"It wasn't a question, it was an inquiry."
Lily stares at him. Then she smiles. "I suppose so. But, back to the story. James and I were in this room with no idea why. So, we decided to venture out of the room. The world around us was the same. The same England I remember, just updated a bit. But, the thing that really shocked us, was that we saw Harry. Not just Harry though, a teenage, brown-haired girl was there, holding the hand of a kid that looked like Authur Weasley. Harry was, well, he looked more like a younger James.
Lily chuckled. "We, of course, ran towards him. We were right in front of him, but he didn't seem to notice us. He just...walked straight through. Like we were ghosts." Lily looks up at him through tired eyes. "Which, technically, we were. We are. It hurt, but we, after a year, realized what was going on when we woke up in this same room again. We walked outside, and the scenery was different again, but it was older. We were in Diagon Alley. Harry, younger Harry this time, was there again. With Hagrid, just walking through the streets.
"We tried going to him again, but it was fruitless. He, nor anyone else, could see us. It took another three loops for me to realize what was happening." Lily looks at him, dead in the eye. "Do you know what was happening to us?"
Remus didn't want to speak, but his mouth moved without his consent. "You're traveling through Harry's life."
It wasn't a question.
Lily nods sadly. "Correct." Lily casually takes a paper off the coffee table and hands it to Remus. "We've looped forty-six times. This is our forty-seventh loop. Each loop is one year. For forty-six years we've been doing this." Lily points to the paper in Remus' hands. "That's a basic description of every loop we've ever done, written by one of us." Lily sighs. "We don't know how to stop it, but we don't want to."
Remus looks up at that, confused. "Why? I know Harry's been through...uh, a lot. Why wouldn't you want to stop this?"
Lily smiles again, brighter than before though. "We know he's been through a lot. But, you see, Remus, recently, on our forty-third loop, we became less like ghosts and more like actual people. We could do actual things.” Lily’s smile turns fond as if she’s reminiscing over cheerful memories and not talking about the fact that she’s looping through her son’s life while she’s dead. “We can move things now, small things though, but we only used to be able to affect something in this room which nobody seems to be able to see. We can communicate with people through what muggles use to talk with so-called ghosts." Lily runs her finger along the edges of the teacup. "I-we-think that the more we do this, the more human we become. The more like our old selves. That's why we don't want to fix this."
Lily looks straight at Remus, determination set in her eyes. "I want to see my baby again. Will you help us?"
Now, what can Remus say to that?
When Remus originally agreed to help them, he hadn't expected the loops to be so...chaotic.
Lily had informed him, quite cheerfully might he add, that since Sirius joined then twenty loops ago (which is strange to Remus because Sirius died only two years ago, but time works differently here, he guesses), James and Sirius had vowed to cause as much chaos as possible with their limited abilities. Remus wasn't surprised; they'd done the same thing in their first year at Hogwarts.
Lily told him that, despite their lack of tangibility, they had caused quite a fair amount of trouble for everyone ("It was hilarious," Lily had told him dryly, "for them. Not for the people they pranked. Their frustration was those two morons' comic relief. I pity those poor souls."). And, unfortunately for him, Sirius and James were dead set on forcing him to join in on their plans, saying it was for the greater good.
Remus didn't believe it for a second. But still, he didn't have anything better to do now that he was dead and stuck in a time loop. He supposed that it wouldn't hurt.
That's how Remus found himself placing buckets full of water on top of doors like some idiot. Remus had questioned why he could open doors, fill up buckets with water, and move said buckets of water if they could only move small things every once in a while. Sirius and James, unsurprisingly, had just wiggled their eyebrows at him and all but skipped away. Thank Merlin for Lily, who told him they had found ways to cheat around the few rules of the time loop. Once again, Remus was not surprised.
Lily watched as Remus stood on a ladder, looking faintly amused as he wobbles and curses every time the stupid ladder shakes. He carefully sets the water bucket on the slightly opened door, breathing a sigh of relief as he stepped down from the ladder.
"I am never doing that again," Remus states without a shred of doubt.
Lily chuckles, nudging the ladder away, watching it fall to the floor and making a heavy thud noise. She starts walking, Remus not so far behind her. "You, know," she starts, "you could have just, flown up and done it without the ladder."
Remus stares at her, dumbfounded. "You can fly?"
Lily nods. "It's more like floating, not flying. I can suspend myself in the air, as can James and Sirius. It's not too difficult, since, well, we are dead. Anything's possible."
Remus nods but freezes when a thought enters his head. "You couldn't have told me that before I almost died by falling off a ladder?"
Lily merely laughed at his accusatory tone, shaking her head in amusement. "Technically, you're already dead. And, in response to your question, yes, yes I could have. I just chose not to."
Her laughter only grew at Remus' offended expression. Remus found himself laughing, too, and, even if it was at his expense, he was glad that Lily was actually laughing.
Or, a better way to put it, that she was alive to laugh.
Remus was certain that James and Sirius' faces meant they did something.
What they did, Remus has no idea, but whatever it is, it can't be good if those two idiots were involved.
Based on Lily's murderous expression, the crossed arms, narrowed eyes, and the paralyzing effect she has on James and Sirius, she knows exactly what happened. Remus almost wants to laugh at how uncomfortable the two look, fidgety and looking like scolded children under her gaze.
Well, might as well enjoy this.
Lily stared at James and Sirius, sipping her tea. "So," she starts with a withering glare to the two in front of her. They didn't stand a chance.
"We're so very sorry," James babbles. "We didn't mean to - well, yes we did. We did mean to."
"And what did you do?" Lily questions blankly.
This time, Sirius speaks up. "W-Well, we, uh, almost, almost, killed someone...?"
Remus dropped his teacup. He fumbled to catch it, but his movements were sluggish as he stared in shock at his friends. "You-You what ?"
"It was an accident, and it was a Death Eater! He deserved it!" Sirius held up his hands in surrender, reduced to ashes beneath two intimidating glares. "So, you see, we were walking away from that office building that we were going to play a prank on. The one where we were going to replace every coffee machine in it with water bottles? Yeah, so, uh, anyway. We saw a Death Eater trying to walk away from the suspicious-looking building across from us, looking all stupid and trying to be sneaky." Sirius scoffs, crossing his arms over his chest. "And, uh, we had to put the coffee machines somewhere, and, well, where better to put them than in someone's face?"
At Remus' and Lily's horrified expressions, James quickly intervenes. "What Sirius means to say is we just...knocked him out. With the coffee machines."
"Uh," Sirius says awkwardly, backing away towards the door with James, "we're gonna go..."
They bolt out of the room, leaving Lily and Remus alone.
"Morons," Lily scoffs. Remus finds he can't disagree with her.
Oh well.
Remus doesn’t enjoy this loop very much, not as much as the last ones. The last loop, number forty-nine, was hilarious since watching Lily eviscerate his friends without doing anything was always a fun time, but this loop...was infinitely worse.
It also happens to be Remus’ third loop, and the fiftieth loop, so, in per Marauders’ fashion, Lily insisted on planning a party for everyone. She had intended it to be a surprise, subtly pushing the rest of the loopers out the door and leaving them to explore the ‘new world’ so she could set up the party.
But, as luck would have it, Sirius found out and babbled to Remus and James. Lily was not happy, but she had a will of steel and a glare fierce enough to level mountains, so, safe to say, the three friends were out the door within moments.
It would have been a fantastic loop, if not for the fact that the moment they walked out of Elysium (as they’ve taken to calling the building they land in. Remus and Lily came up with, based on Greek Mythology’s take on Heaven. Sirius had elected to call it ‘ Tartarus’, but the name was vetoed to make their afterlife seem better than it actually is), the world around them was literally burning.
“Oh,” Sirius mutters, looking indifferent to the current world in front of him. “That’s new. You think there’s an ice cream shop that’s open?”
“I think,” James answers, “that the bigger concern is that if said ice cream shop was on fire, not open.”
“Actually, I think the critical concern here is the fact that everything is on fire .” Remus cannot believe his friends. But, they have been going through these loops for fifty years, and Remus only three. They can’t really die a second time.
“Hm, I guess you have a good point,” Sirius agrees, James nodding beside him. “I still want some ice cream.”
“Same. I wonder if everything here is different from the other loops, landscape-wise,” James hums, looking around, completely ignoring the flames crawling everywhere, Elysium not included. “Doesn’t seem like it.”
“Damn it,” Sirius curses, looking like a particularly pouty child who just had something unrightfully taken from them than someone who’s looking for an ice cream shop while everything is on fire. “I hate the loops when we have to look for things.”
“Guys.” Remus realizes that his friends don’t really seem to care that the buildings and people (oh god, Remus doesn’t want to think of that so soon after his death) are burning around them. But, Remus catches their attention quickly after his next words. “We should go help them. I see a child stuck under some debris, a family a few feet away trapped in a building, and a dog pulling at something that I am fairly certain is a trapped person.”
Luckily, the two nod and, without much fuss, they rush off towards the family and dog, leaving Remus to help the child.
Remus cautiously walks to the child, avoiding the wreckage as to not get injured. Recently, they figured out they can, in fact, get injured if given a technically fatal injury. It’s not fatal to them, instead, they’d just get a bruise or cut where the object pierced them. Remus was quite grateful for that.
Remus could hear the child whimpering and crying below the rubble, making his heart ache in sympathy. The female child couldn’t have been more than four years old if his young features and short stature were indications, which they were.
A concrete slab was on top of her, probably about four inches thick since most concrete slabs were insisted to be four inches thick in urban residential areas like this. Remus placed his hands on the slab, only for them to go straight through.
Remus cursed and saw the child cease her crying slightly, tilting her head to peer up at him. And, to Remus’ surprise, relief flooded the girl’s features. Remus thought he was invisible since he’s, well, dead. A ghost. A spirit. Nobody aside from Sirius, Lily, and James could see-
Oh.
Oh.
Children are rumored to be able to see ghosts and the like (Remus really hates calling himself a ghost, and calling his friends ghosts, even though they are ghosts, is never going to get any less weird). That makes more sense, but what makes less sense is that the child is looking at him like he’s some kind of hero that appeared out of thin air.
Remus is no hero. If he was, he wouldn’t have died.
Heroes don’t die like Remus. They die in a blaze of glory. Remus did not.
Remus looks at the young girl, eyes filled with so much hope and trust in him that Remus feels determination fill his bones. He scans his surroundings, hoping to find something that is small enough for him to touch and pick up, but strong enough to pick up around 100 pounds of concrete.
Not much, that’s for certain.
Remus could ask James to turn into a stag, his Animagus form, but James was too busy helping a family stuck under some rubble.
So, his only other option is to turn towards an uprooted, short light post. Joy.
He rushes over to the light post, trying to ignore the new pleading cries of the young child behind him. The light post was only a few feet tall, more of like a garden light yet slightly taller, but Remus could work with that.
He picked up the post, flexing his wrist, and found it lighter than he expected. Good for him, but it might not be able to handle the weight of the concrete.
Thankfully, it did. Remus slid the garden light-like post underneath the concrete slab, using it as a lever, and pressed down on it, straining with the effort.
Remus, and surely James and Sirius, too, knows that this will reset (he hopes) after a year and nobody will have been hurt. He doesn’t care about that, though. He was in the Order of the Phoenix; he was meant to help.
The slab was pushed, slowly, up and over the young girl, who cried out in relief. Remus intended to reach out his hand to help her up but thought better of it since she wouldn’t have been able to touch him anyway. Just because she was young and could see him, didn’t mean that her age would allow her to touch him like any normal person.
His bitter thoughts were roughly pulled when a weight latched onto his waist, crying and making his shirt wet. His wet shirt, however, was the least of his worries, because a child, that should by all laws of physics, not be touching him was touching him.
The little girl was crying her poor eyes out (into his shirt, no less; he really liked this shirt, too. Oh well, it’ll just reset the next loop), her words unintelligible to a baffled Remus. She nuzzled her head closer to Remus’ stomach, her arms wrapped around him tightly enough that Remus swears he can hear his ribs crack.
“T-Thank y-you, mister,” the girl was saying, oblivious to the person she was hugging onto and the existential crisis he was going through.
Remus hesitantly puts his hand on her back, shocked that his hand doesn’t immediately go through her back like every other object he comes across. Perhaps it’s because she is so small? Probably.
When Remus lays his hand on her back, she starts crying even more leaving him with a sobbing child who has just gone through a traumatic experience. There is a reason why he was so hesitant to make friends in his first year of Hogwarts; he is not good with people.
But, this little girl needs his help and Remus is going to give her the help she needs.
“Shh, it’s okay,” Remus soothes, rubbing circles on the girl’s back. “What’s your name? Mine’s Remus Lupin.”
The girl sniffles, letting go of Remus’ waist minisculely. “S-Silena Mattews.” Silena’s response is slightly muffled, but he could hear her just fine.
“Well, Silena, do you know where your parents are? Or any siblings?” Remus has no idea how to deal with traumatized children whatsoever, but he decides that maybe the obviously tired child would appreciate it if he picked her up instead of leaving her standing.
Silena immediately wraps her arms around his neck when he gently picks her up, still surprised that he could pick her up. “N-No.”
“Were you with your family before?” A nod. “Can you tell me what any of your family members look like?” Another nod and a deep breath.
“W-Well, mama has black hair and, um, green eyes. She’s kinda short, shorter than you, mister.” A deep breath again. “Papa has, um, dark blue-ish hair? And, um, blue eyes maybe. Maya has dark blue hair and green-blue eyes, I think.”
Remus nods, walking away from the wreckage to locate her family. “Who’s Maya? Is that your sister?”
Silena nods hesitantly. She turned her head and opened her eyes blearily, looking out at the wreckage. “M-Maya is my half-sister, at least, that’s what Mama says. Um, so I think she’s my sister?”
Remus chuckles and adjusts his grip on the girl. “Well, it depends. Legally, half-siblings are considered a part of a person’s immediate family. So, in the eyes of law, your half-sister, Maya, is, constitutionally, is this case, your actual sister.”
Silena looks at him. “Um, I have no idea what you just said,” she admits. “But I think she’s my sister.”
Remus laughs again. “Sorry,” he apologizes somewhat sheepishly. “Anway-does that look like your sister?”
Silena perks up, bursting into tears once again, giving Remus an answer unknowingly as she scrambles out of his arms. Remus obligingly lets her leave, watching her with a smile.
Remus does not jump when Lily pops up behind him. He does not. “Aw! Isn’t that girl there so adorable!”
Remus sighs and rolls his eyes at her cooing. “Yes; her name’s Silena.”
Lily gives him a weird look. “And how do you know that?”
“I talked to her.”
Lily’s eyes widened in surprise and she made a weird choking noise, like a drowning kitten. She turned to face him fully, grabbing his arms despite his protests, and stared straight into his eyes.
“Tell. Me. Everything .” The intimidating stare was sharp enough to make a tiger wilt beneath it.
So, of course, Remus tells her everything.
Lily, after well over an hour of debating in Elysium (Lily had dragged him to their unofficial home the second he finished his story so she could think better. Apparently, the fires and cries were distracting her thoughts), came to the conclusion that they were semi-tangible.
“What does that mean?” Sirius questions, pausing in his card game with James. He had just laid down a plus-four card, and James had retaliated by laying down an ace of spades. Remus has no idea what they were playing and he doesn’t want to.
Remus swears that Lily’s eye twitches in irritation, but he can’t tell since she has a remarkably good poker face. “It means,” she starts slowly, as if speaking to a particularly stupid child, which is fair in this case, “that we are becoming less like...spirits and more like actual human beings. However, I have reason to believe that only young children are able to hear, see, and interact with us.” She turns towards Remus. “You said that the girl’s parents did not notice you or, correct?”
Remus nods. “They didn’t give any indication that they could see me.”
“See my point?”
Sirius sighs and collapses against his chair dramatically. “I do. So, what do we do about this...new development?”
Lily smiles. “Simple: we wait!”
Sirius and James were not good at waiting whatsoever and the next loop showed it. They bounced around the room like aimless pigeons, impatient like toddlers, and certainly acting like children.
Remus could tell Lily was incredibly irritated but was trying to not eviscerate them since it wouldn’t have affected them anyway. How unfortunate.
Though, thankfully, Remus and Lily did not have to experience the two’s idiocy for very long (Remus had always told Sirius and James that idiocy had a limit that they were bound to break eventually, but did they listen? No, no they did not). Why? This loop was very distracting.
In every loop (55 loops, not including this one, Remus believes), they relieved some year of Harry Potter’s life each loop, sometimes the same year in a different loop. Be it Harry’s seventh year (Lily and James get especially emotional during that year. Remus has also noticed that his friends, every time during Harry’s seventh year, get slightly transparent and act like they aren’t really there. Strange) or Harry's wedding day which is always a delightful loop, it’s always his life.
But this loop didn’t seem to follow the pattern.
It was different. The moment Remus and his friends awoke in their house, Elysium, even the very air was unusual. Lily seemed to notice it, too, if the confusion on her face was an indicator.
Sirius and James were oblivious to it, as usual. James sat up from his spot on his chair and grabbed a stack of cards from nowhere.
“Wanna play?” He asks Sirius, who nods.
Lily sighs and shakes her head at their obliviousness and gets up, too, walking to the kitchen, steps light and quiet. Remus follows her, inching away from his idiot friends who are glaring at each other from across the table.
“Cheater!” Sirius shouts at James, who, like the mature…(actually, Remus doesn’t know his age. He could be ninety years old maybe?) person he is, sticks out his tongue.
Lily was preparing dinner when Remus walked into the kitchen. For some unknown reason, the group is deposited during dinnertime or six in the evening. So, Lily almost always immediately goes to the kitchen to cook, despite them not needing to eat.
Remus thinks it’s for normality’s sake. He gets it. Remus has his own activities that help him keep his sanity. It's a futile effort, though, since the thought that this whole fiasco is actually happening is enough to keep him awake for a while. And it has.
She seems to sense him approaching and turns towards him, eyes sharp. “Something is wrong.”
This is what Remus likes about Lily: she’s blunt and a ‘straight to the point’ kind of person. No wasting time with her.
“Of course.” Remus nods in agreement. “Do you think they notice it?” He gestures to the living room where other members of the group were.
Lily bites her lip before hesitantly nodding her head. “It’s a possibility. They’re playing Garbage,” she notes.
Remus raises his eyebrow. What does that have to do with anything? They play games all the time to Remus’ endless frustration because, while both of his friends are great people, they are incredibly competitive. It’s somewhat alarming to outsiders as Remus has noticed. Remus is used to it, but he can’t help but get annoyed when he hears shouts of accusations from outside the house where he should not be able to hear them. “And why is that relevant?”
“Garbage is an easy game, they don’t like easy, as you should know.” He nods, knowing exactly how his friends get when presented with a challenge. “So, they’re panicking. Which means yes, yes they probably realize something’s going on.”
“What do you think is going on?” Remus didn’t expect her to have an answer, and she knew that.
“I don’t know,” she admits, looking bitter about the fact that she doesn’t know what’s going on. He knows the feeling, feeling frustrated to the brink of anger, teetering on the edge of insanity at the lack of knowledge. “But there’s only one way to find out.”