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Ingrid doesn't catch their whole conversation, but she hears enough. Damon's raised voice, and the door slamming in Diana's face. She stumbles backwards, a little dazed, and backs right into Ingrid standing behind her.
"I-Ingrid!" Diana straightens, quickly moving out of the way. "A-Ah, don't worry about that just now! I was just...trying to get him out of his room."
Ingrid's frown deepens, looking over at Damon's door. After the trial, he’d been more than a little worse for wear, but that didn't mean he could just yell at anybody how he liked.
"I'll talk to him," Ingrid resolves. "There's no need for him to be shouting at anyone."
"Y-You really don't have to! I insist, I will be able to handle it myself." Diana says, tucking her hands behind her back in an odd manner. "I-I'm sure I can find a way to rectify this-"
"There's no need, hun. I'll handle it, okay?” Ingrid tells her, because despite her trying to act serious Diana still looks all nervous. "Don't stress."
Diana goes to speak - then, thinking better of it, nods and leaves, still with that weird posture. Turning back to the door, Ingrid goes to knock - only for it to open before her fist even connected with the door. Standing at the door, he wilts a little under the heat of Ingrid’s glare.
“W-Wait, I-“
"What do you think you were doing?" Ingrid admonishes. “Yelling at Diana, when she’s only worried about you?”
“Nobody asked her to do that,” he counters. “Nobody asked her to show up at my door to try and talk to me, even after I told her I was fine on my own.”
Ingrid sighs. ”Damon, I know you're struggling after the class trial, after what happened to Eva, but you-“
"You don't know anything. Don't act like you understand," he spits, with sudden fury.
She’s a little bothered by his sudden hostility, but Ingrid can see the dark circles lining his eyes. Exhaustion on his face. She could count on one hand the number of times she’d seen him out of his room since the trial, save for meal times. And Eva’s execution…
“I don’t understand how you’re feeling,” Ingrid admits, “not truly, but what I do understand is that yelling at those who are only trying to help you will only do more harm than good. And I’m guessing she wasn’t here picking on you, was she?”
For a second, seeing Damon’s expression, Ingrid fears she’s misread the situation. But then his face falls a little, and he shakes his head.
“It’s not that…but she’s being weird. Her behaviour’s off.”
Ingrid shoots him a disdainful look. “You ain’t exactly the shining example of good behaviour yourself.”
“Not like that. Everything about her is wrong. It’s like she’s pretending to be someone else.”
Diana had been different, these past few days. She’d taken to trying to help everyone, with varying results. The girl really needed to give herself a break, but despite Ingrid’s gentle pushing for it Diana was determined to do otherwise. But to call everything about her wrong…
“Did you really need to scream at her at the top of your lungs? I heard you all the way from my room,” Ingrid scolds.
Damon looks like he’s going to say something - explain himself further, but for some reason he chooses not to. “Doubt me if you want, but-“
“I ain’t doubting you. Not unless you give me reason to,” Ingrid says. “And yelling at Diana for no reason isn’t doing you any favours.”
“It wasn’t for no reason: she was being overbearing, and - and it was like she was…” He trails off suddenly. For a moment, it looks like he’s going to explain himself further, but with a sharp shake of the head Damon gives up. “Never mind.”
She’s not sure what to make of this. Despite Damon’s cagey behaviour, she’d never known him to be overly cruel for no reason. And she did miss the beginning of their little spat….
But he doesn’t look up to talking right now. Already sidling back into his room, starting to close the door.
“You’re just gonna keep locking yourself in your room all day?”
He pauses, door half-open. “I’m not interested in pretending like nothing’s wrong. You can lull everyone else into a false sense of security if you want, but don’t drag me into it.”
“Is it really that hard to believe that things are gonna work out for us?”
He scoffs. “I’m not holding my breath.”
Ingrid’s about to say something else - anything to convince him, but the door slams shut in her face.
Ingrid had hoped that previous incident was a one-off, just Damon being moody - he’d been similarly frosty towards her the rest of the day, avoiding her where possible, not responding when she tried to talk to him again or ask about his laundry. But she soon hears of another issue with Diana, this time with Grace. This time Toshiko is with her, when Eloise and Diana are talking. Apparently, Diana tried to speak to Grace - only for Grace to shut her out. Diana merely smiles nervously, downplaying what happened.
“Perhaps it was too soon to talk to her…? After all, she’s not been in the best place.”
“We’re all not in a good place. She’s the only one making it everyone else’s problem.” Eloise says, silently fuming in the way she usually is when Grace is involved. “Her and Damon.”
“Even so, we need to be conscious of the fact that we have all suffered…a great loss, recently.” Diana, for a second, looks like she’s going to cry - but then she stiffens, squaring her shoulders. “We must try to empathise with her - she is not our enemy. Tozu is.”
And although Ingrid agrees with the substance of her words, the way she says it bothers her somehow. Clutching her bow, in an attempt to soothe her nerves, speaking softly, trying hard not to betray her nerves…it’s off in a way she cannot vocalise.
Toshiko is unusually quiet, choosing to observe instead of add her opinions. Given Grace’s teasing of her, Ingrid would expect the usual disapproval coming from Toshiko. However all she does is hold her fan very close to her face, and not move a muscle. Her silence continues even after they part from Diana and Eloise, so Ingrid asks her about it.
“…I think it is prudent for us to speak with Grace and get to the bottom of this matter,” Toshiko advises, after a long pause. “That is, to ensure more issues do not occur.”
“That’s right, dear. Grace is upset, but-”
“More issues with Diana,” Toshiko stresses. “If my memory serves me correctly…this is not the first instance we have heard people acting unusually around her.”
Right. Ingrid and Toshiko were together in her room that day Damon was yelling at her - and other people had overheard, too. If the issue wasn’t with Damon or Grace, but with Diana…
Ingrid thinks back to her before - the odd feeling she’d gotten from her. Standing too tall, upright, talking so formally…Ingrid for the life of her couldn’t get a read on her behaviour. Pretending to be someone else, Damon had accused her of doing, but why would that elicit such a strong reaction from him or Grace? And if it was just that simple, why is even Ingrid herself so put off by how she's acting?
When they knock on Grace’s door, she opens it a crack. Like Damon, she’s hesitant to let Ingrid in - but when she sees Toshiko, staring at her intently, she softens.
“If you’re here to yell at me, then just go,” Grace warns.
“On the contrary, we have approached you for a different reason entirely,” Toshiko speaks up, before Ingrid can get a word in. “That is…we are curious about what occurred between you and Diana.”
The way they look at each other - the way Grace shoots Ingrid a quick glance before looking back at Toshiko, as if asking a question…is there a bigger issue, here? It’s like they’ve been talking about this behind her back, without Ingrid’s knowledge. Whatever wordless message Toshiko gives her must work, because Grace lets them in. Even so, she’s still not fully comfortable as she sizes up Ingrid, not hostile but not exactly friendly either.
“There’s nothing to say. She was sticking her nose where it didn’t belong, so I told her to clear off.” Grace says, still looking a little hesitant. “But she wouldn’t get the message. Asking all these questions, trying to ‘make up’ or whatever rubbish she was talking about…”
Grace curls into herself a little.
“…She didn’t back off when you needed a little space?” Ingrid asks, trying to understand, but Grace only shakes her head no.
“It’s not just that - haven’t you’ve spoken to her these last few days? Don’t you see how she’s acting? Don’t you realise what’s going on with her at all?!”
“I know she’s hurtin’, Grace, and not herself-“
“You’re right: she’s not herself! Walking around pretending to be someone else, and everyone’s pitying her too much to call her out on it! So she tried to come in my room trying to be all authoritative, saying that I had to come out and talk to people, calling me Miss Madison-“
Her voice breaks, causing her to pause. To Ingrid’s horror there are tears appearing in Grace’s eyes, but they’re only there for a second before Grace furiously wipes them away.
“It’s just like she said in that stupid speech - Diana’s trying to become Wolfgang!” Grace insists. “And she tried it with Damon - didn’t get far before he shouted at her to clear off. Heard him from my dorm room - and you trying to get on his back for it, too. Now you’re here to get on mine, is that it?”
“I’m not here to fight with you, Grace,” Ingrid tells her, mind still reeling from Grace’s words. But, now that she thinks about it - the oddness in Diana’s actions, her posture, her wording - there was something deeply wrong about it, even though Ingrid could never place her finger on it. But then she thinks of Wolfgang - his formal speaking, upright posture, squared shoulders, just like Diana’s new behaviours - clutching his tie, the same way Diana started clutching her bow…
“Whatever. You’ve picked your side, haven’t you?” Grace scoffs, trying to act flippant, although there’s hurt there. “Saying that nothing’s wrong-”
“Grace, there is no side. We’re all on the same team here: you, Damon, Diana, and the rest of us. I won’t let us all be divided so soon.” Ingrid says, resolute. “Diana is struggling, more than the rest of us after what she went through in that boiler room, but…”
Grace has put it into perspective for her - made the niggling feeling in her chest every time she looked at Diana make sense. It was Wolfgang, and his politeness - Wolfgang, in her every movement. Diana said she’d follow in his footsteps, but Ingrid had never imagined how closely she would follow.
“…there is some strangeness to how Diana’s acting.” Ingrid admits. “She’s been acting funny for a little while now. All formal and polite, even though that’s not how she truly is.”
Grace raises her eyebrows, surprised by Ingrid’s response. “Wait, so you’re saying-“
“I believe you. It adds up in my eyes, but I don’t…”
Ingrid doesn’t really know how to approach the issue. Her and Wolfgang, they’d been cordial. He’d tried that Miss Grimwall schtick exactly once before she’d told him off for it. His little stunt at the mock trial had put her off, moreso his heavy disapproval of Eva and Damon, but she’d overlooked it for all his other redeeming qualities. Ingrid had trusted him…but it was only after his death that she realised how blind that trust really was. And Diana’s a sweet girl, but it seems like she doesn’t realise how blind that trust was herself. How is Ingrid meant to tell her? How is she meant to talk to her about it, when she wasn’t even the closest to Wolfgang - what if she messes it up, and it only gets worse-
“Ingrid?”
Toshiko looks at her expectantly. Grace, too, looks a little puzzled by her silence, and Ingrid quickly fixes her face into a smile. “...I didn’t really put the pieces together until now. But I think I’d better talk to her about it. Set Diana on the right path so she doesn’t continue like this.”
Grace narrows her eyes. “…If you want to.”
“I do want to. If we’re all going to get on here, I’ll need to discuss it with her sooner or later, ain’t that right?”
Grace looks at her a little funny, but eventually just shrugs her shoulders. “Knock yourself out.”
There isn’t much to say after that, and Grace doesn’t look much in the mood for chit-chat, so her and Toshiko make their exit. Only when Ingrid’s holding the door open for Toshiko does she remember something.
“You’re still coming to help out with laundry tomorrow?”
Grace pulls a face. “Will Diana be there?”
“I didn’t want to bother her with that. It’ll just be me and Kai,” Ingrid says. “Oh - Damon might be coming too. He didn’t give me a straight answer when I asked, but there’s a chance he’ll show. That ain’t for a problem for you, is it?”
“…Fine. Just don’t make me talk to him,” Grace grumbles, and the door slams in their faces.
Neither Toshiko nor Ingrid move for a little while. Still thinking about what Grace said.
“I…hope Diana will be okay.”
“She’ll be fine. I’ll figure it all out,” Ingrid reassures, patting her on the head.
She doesn’t know, but from the relief on Toshiko's face, Ingrid knows to keep her mouth shut about that little detail.
Ingrid spots Diana exiting her room late at night, heading down to the boiler room.
She’d stayed far away from the place herself since the trial ended. It was already cold and uninviting before Wolfgang’s death had soured the place, but Ingrid swallows down her discomfort and heads down the stairs after a few minutes go by without Diana re-emerging.
It is immaculate. No sign of Wolfgang’s corpse. No sign of Diana’s blood on the floor. No taser lying on the ground. Diana stands at the railing, hands behind her back, staring into the water. Doesn’t move a muscle until Ingrid opens the door wider and it creaks - causing her to flinch.
“I-Ingrid?” She sounds breathless. “What…what are you doing down here?”
“Came looking for you,” Ingrid tells her, walking further in. She smiles, hiding the fear crawling in her chest. “I was wondering why you walked down here all by your lonesome.”
Diana laughs - it is nervous, panicky, and reminiscent of someone else. “Aha, you don’t need to worry about me! I’m just…thinking.”
“Penny for your thoughts?” Ingrid offers, but Diana is oddly tight-lipped. She stands up straight, with his posture, and Ingrid belatedly realises why she even followed her down here.
“It’s nothing serious. Just… thinking about the last time I was here.” She grazes her fingers along the railing. “The last time I saw Wolfgang.”
If his corpse was still here, it would be lying right at Diana’s feet. Half his body in the water. A few feet away from Ingrid, who shortens the distance between them.
“But it’s okay, Ingrid.” Diana resolves, one hand reaching to clutch her chest. “I’ll make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
Still like him. Still pretending to be him. Filling shoes that are far too big - comforting her in a different voice.
(Is it odd, to find it comforting? To find it reassuring, as if he never left? That’s the part that sets her teeth on edge. That’s the part that unsettles her the most.)
“You know, Diana,” Ingrid says, “you don’t have to carry that burden all on your own. We’d all be happy to carry it with you. I know I would.”
“It’s hardly a burden - and besides, Miss Grimwall, I-“
“Don’t.”
Her knee-jerk response is impossible to stifle. The word comes out harsh, rough before Ingrid can soften it. Diana gasps a little, jolting backwards.
“You don’t have to call me that,” Ingrid rushes to reply. But their quiet peace has already been unsettled, so Ingrid figures that now’s the time to rip off the bandaid. “And…you don’t have to act like him.”
The words are uttered, spoken softly, yet Diana still takes a few steps away from her, eyes as wide as saucers. “I…I don’t know what you’re-”
“Like Wolfgang,” she says plainly, to cut off any of Diana’s further objections. “Talking like him, walking like him…that ain’t what we need right now, darling.”
Diana goes pale, one hand still clutching at her bow. Too scared, and looking so young. Too young to be trying to fill boots that seemed impossible to fill.
“Wolfgang…he looked out for all of us. Tried real hard to keep us all safe from the killing game, but…” Ingrid pauses, at a loss at what to say. Delicately balancing the line between praise and criticism. “He never wanted any of us to get hurt, especially not himself, and he did what he thought was right - but the road to hell’s paved to good intentions.”
Diana’s caught off guard by Ingrid’s words. The beginnings of a frown appear on her face. “What…what do you mean by that?”
“Well, I…”
What does she mean? The implication’s not anything good, but looking at Diana, wide-eyed and cautious, would criticising Wolfgang be the right move right now? Or even criticising him at all - speaking ill of the dead when he’s not here to clear his own name, especially when Eva chose to kill him, not the other way around?
(Not choose, Ingrid reminds herself, remembering Tozu’s threats towards her. But she’d made no attempt to reach out to anybody at all. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t force it to drink - but how could anybody lead her there, with Wolfgang standing so staunchly in her way?)
“What I mean,” Ingrid says carefully, “is that maybe he’s not the one you should be emulatin’. If you’re gonna be emulatin’ anybody at all, that is. Being inspired by others is all well and good, but I don’t think copying Wolfgang’s the right move here.”
Diana is still confused - but she’s listening closely, so Ingrid tries to word herself the best she can.
“Now, I ain’t excusin’ Eva - she had no right to murder him, let alone everythin’ else she did to cover it up. But I can’t help but think that you had the right thought back then, trying to talk to her while the rest of us were so upset with Eva for lying to us. While Wolfgang was trying to exclude the both of them, you chose not to do the same.”
She goes a little pink at the unexpected praise. “Y-You spoke to them as well, though, Ingrid!”
“Oh, I spoke to Damon. Steered clear of Eva, though. It put a bad taste in my mouth that she’d cause such tension just to cover up a little secret and make herself look good - but at the end of the day, it was just a little secret, wasn’t it? Nothing deserving how some of us talked about her, and what I didn’t speak up about.”
She remembers Eva’s execution, her frenzied words before she ran away to escape. The conveyor belt, the blood, the burning…her screams, as she burnt in the furnace…
Ingrid quickly collects herself. There’s no need to be falling apart when Diana’s here. So she presses on, ignoring the lump in her throat. Bringing up something that’s been playing on her mind for a little whole.
“After she…passed, and you gave your speech - what was it, that you were gonna become something new? Do what Wolfgang couldn’t?“
“Follow in Wolfgang’s footsteps, and achieve what he couldn’t accomplish,” Diana quietly corrects, going red. Expecting a negative reaction.
“I think that’s a mighty fine goal. But you’re going about it in the wrong way,” Ingrid advises. “Your speech back then, after everything that happened to you - it was brave. And we need your bravery, not Wolfgang’s. You don’t have to mirror Wolfgang, or else you might end up copying his same mistakes. And you don’t have to achieve what he couldn’t accomplish - at least, not alone. You have everyone else here with you to help with that. You have me.”
That last sentence grabs Diana’s attention.
“You don’t have to carry that burden around alone. I can help, Diana,” Ingrid offers. “And that way, maybe it’ll be easier. That way, I can help you accomplish what you wanted to.”
Diana laughs a little, but it’s panicky, barely audible. “I-I don’t know how to accomplish that - get everyone out of here like he wante me to. The next motive’s making everyone afraid again, just like before, and-”
“Never mind the motive,” Ingrid shrugs it off, as if the threat was nothing. “We can figure it out together. I know we can.”
Diana nods. Suddenly, tears appear in her eyes. “I just want everyone to be okay…I-I can’t have another murder occur, it can’t happen again-”
“It won’t. I promise you that I won’t let that happen, okay?”
When Diana starts to cry, Ingrid opens her arms for her, and Diana hugs her tightly. Ingrid holds her, letting her cry herself out.
There’s some improvement, after their conversation. The second motive still looms above them. Tozu’s threats, ever-present. Even so, they find some kind of new normal.
Diana begins to shed the odd laughter, the upright posture, and Wolfgang’s way of speaking. But she’s still not back to normal, so Ingrid keeps a closer eye on her - making sure she’s still eating, taking care of herself. Making sure she’s safe at night, as Grace still refuses to share a room with her and the rooms are too cramped for Diana to stay with Ingrid and Toshiko. Diana sticks just as close, grateful for the company.
When the second motive causes conflict, Ingrid does what she should have done, back when Eva was still alive: she intervenes. Breaks up the growing arguments between Grace and Eloise, and when other blackmails begin to get revealed, urges them to think things through before immediately getting at each other’s throats. She asks them to start meeting in the dining hall in the morning, to make sure they’re all still there. Builds a routine for them to stick to, for safety purposes.
Ingrid’s finding things are going well. Too well - they listen to her too quickly, give in when she was expecting pushback, agree with her when she was anticipating some kind of disagreement. And there’s plenty of that from Damon, although that’s to be expected, and Grace, who still prefers keeping to herself most of the time, but everyone else is…cooperative, in a sense. At times Wenona looks reluctant to agree, but refuses to speak up, opting to disappear away and talk with Ulysses instead. She doesn’t know why it bothers her so much. Why Wenona doesn’t just speak her mind, but Ingrid’s finally able to put a name on it when her and Damon run into each other into the kitchen, early in the morning, and she remembers something she forgot to tell him.
“What, more orders?” Damon says, annoyed, when Ingrid asks if he could room back with Kai again.
“Don’t you start. You and I both know it would be safer if we all stuck together at night. That’s not unreasonable.”
He narrows his eyes at her. “Right. And I wonder what happens if I disobey.”
Disobey? The implication isn’t missed on her. “I ain’t giving out some royal decree. Just worried for your safety.”
“And I’m sure everyone else would be worried if I didn’t do what you commanded me to do. Or Grace, for that matter.”
Damon - or Grace? “Damon,” she says slowly, not sure where he’s going, “I can’t read minds. If you’re upset about something, just speak up about it.”
He’s silent for a long moment, examining her the same way Grace was, when her and Toshiko showed up at her door. Ingrid doesn’t know what on earth she’s done to garner such scrutiny from the two of them, when before that they would never do such a thing.
“All I’m saying,” he says finally, “is that there’s a reason Diana’s sticking so close to you.”
Ingrid raises an eyebrow. “She’s just recovering, Damon. You know, after all she went through before, Diana’s not going to back to being herself right away.”
“Exactly. She isn’t herself.” He glares at her and leaves, walking out the room, leaving Ingrid confused by what he meant. Going back to sleep, she still couldn't make sense of it - that is, until the next day.
Ingrid enters the dining hall to cheerful conversation. Among them, Diana stands with Damon, Desmond and Toshiko, and Ingrid’s happy to see her looking lively until she spots something strange. Something that blows all of her previous strangeness out of the water - something that slaps her right in the face -
Diana laughs, at something Desmond tells her. And it isn’t just a laugh she does - more like a giggle, and in that flash of movement, as she places her hands on her hips, smiling, eyes closed -
- it’s like Ingrid’s seeing a copy of herself. Hearing a copy of herself, as Diana says, nonsense! I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it in no time, before their voices merge together, their conversation bleeding into everyone else’s.
Opposite Diana, Damon locks eyes with a stunned Ingrid. All he does is shoot her a disappointed look, and Ingrid barely has time to react before Jean spots her entering the room. Telling her that Cassidy was planning another gaming tournament, to replace the one they had before, but that he thought they should all wait to get her approval first. Approval, when she thought her and Jean were on the same team, thought all fourteen of them were on the same team together, but if Cassidy defers to Jean and Jean defers to her and she isn’t deferring to anybody, then it’s - then it’s just like she’s -
“Sure thing! I don’t see a problem with it,” Ingrid says, smiling, ignoring the discomfort building in her chest. She sees Diana watching her intently - sees Grace frown in her direction, before returning to pick at her food. And she notices that, despite her efforts, they still don’t really mix - Cassidy with Jean and Mark and Kai, side-eyeing Wenona and Ulysses, who raise their eyebrows at Damon and Diana. Grace, alone. Damon still with his arms folded at a distance, despite Diana’s attempts to include him.
Despite her best efforts - it seems like history is starting to repeat itself, after all...