Isaac and Babs looked up at the roof; they couldn’t see over its tiled edge. But they heard Reed’s voice from up there, and saw that familiar cloud of cigarette smoke drifting above them. Isaac had a clear image in his mind of Reed laying on her back, her small frame sprawled out over the tiles.

“Taking a nap?” he called out.

“Yeah.”

“Should we come up there to meet you?” Babs asked. “I can glide Isaac and myself up there if you want.”

“Nah.”

Reed, well-known for her lazy, meandering style of speaking, unexpectedly gave them curt, one-word answers. Isaac scratched the back of his neck; even during the train ride to and from Androscoggin, Reed spoke very little. A distance grew between them ever since Harburg exposed her private memories.

Isaac himself got his memories exposed, but considering he was the one to defeat Harburg, he felt that he had avenged himself, at least a little bit. The worst revelation was his association of Kassandra with Babs, but the two had gotten over that already. That just left the whole overthrowing the government part - but Reed and Babs already knew, Kieran was dead, Mackenzie said she’d overlook it, and Lynn…was Lynn. He hadn’t seen the girl with the blue streak in her hair since the funeral either; she kept to herself, gripped tight by the battle fatigue.

Battle fatigue, aka - psychological casualty. The body was more or less okay; it’s the mind itself that’s been wounded. The concept was still poorly understood among the Arcadian military; Isaac knew the correct response, at least the one taught to him, was “man up”. But that might prove tough for Reed and Lynn, who were both women last time he checked. Even beyond that - it seemed like a poor idea in general to tell someone who was feeling down to simply feel better.

Perhaps Harburg had a point about our lack of understanding of the mind. A cut gets healed by a bandage, a bruise gets ice applied to it, but how was Isaac supposed to help heal someone’s mind?

“Do you want me to get you a sandwich or something?” he asked, lacking a better approach.

“Nah. Not hungry.”

Isaac almost passed out from shock. For Reed to deny a sandwich - she really was feeling down. Not wanting to leave, but unsure of what to do, Isaac simply took a seat on the second-floor walkway, below Reed’s spot on the roof. Babs leaned her back against the railing. Above them, the sky remained its usual shade of gray; an autumn breeze, a shrill one now that the end of the season was approaching, blew right through them, dissipating the newest cloud of cigarette smoke until it disappeared entirely.

“Reed, I didn’t get my memories exposed, so I can’t really imagine what you’re going through,” Babs called out to her. “But you’re still the same woman to me that you’ve always been. My opinion of you didn’t change just because I heard about Karin.”

“You didn’t hear about her,” Reed corrected. A few tiles creaked; she must’ve turned to lay on her side. “I didn’t tell you. It wasn’t my choice.”

Isaac shared a glance with Babs, neither of them sure what to say.

“Sorry,” Reed said, her voice soft. “I know it’s nobody’s fault but Harburg’s. Since they lobotomized Karin, I’ve spent most of my life alone. I’m not that used to sharing things with people, let alone being forced to share them. I just want to lay in bed all day, but after a few days of that, I ended up laying up here instead. What a great view I have.”

The solid blanket of gray clouds remained a motionless ceiling above them. “Heh,” Babs breathed out at Reed’s sarcasm. “Take it as you will, but here are my two cents on this. You couldn’t control what Harburg did. But you can control your reaction now, you know what I mean? Only five of us know about your past now, and one of them is dead. Nobody’s judging you. We’re all your friends. You have every right to feel terrible. But I know you have the power within you to make it through this.”

Cigarette smoke provided Reed’s initial answer. “Thank you, Babs. I appreciate it. You two really are good friends.”

Babs patted Isaac on the shoulder and then lifted herself off the railing. “I’m guessing you haven’t been eating, Reed. I’ll sneak some food out of the dining hall. I’ll be back soon.”

The wind briefly sent her auburn pony-tail shaking bath and forth. Babs stuffed her hands in her pockets and started out; Isaac could hear the pop of her gum as she disappeared down the stairs. That just left Isaac and Reed. Nearly two months ago now, Reed saved Isaac from the State Police and greeted him with a tilt of the head as he awoke back home. Isaac never would’ve suspected that there would be a day when he would be in a position to help Reed in return.

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Of course - how could he help? He couldn’t speak like Babs could. But Reed said she had been alone since Karin died. So maybe him just sitting there would be enough to help her. He remained seated against the railing, feeling the cold metal against his back. A truck rumbled along the road nearby, followed by patrolling soldiers.

“Don’t have any words of wisdom for me?” Reed suddenly called out, a hint of her usual dull amusement in her voice. “Not to belittle Babs. I really do appreciate it.”

“Babs already said everything I could say and then some,” Isaac admitted. “So, I’ll let you speak. Or rather, I’ll sit here a for a while, and you can say whatever you need to say. Or you don’t have to say anything. I’ll be here either way.”

“How courteous,” she answered with a sarcastic edge to her voice. But Isaac didn’t mind all that much. Silence descended over the two of them, only occasionally broken up by the distant howling of the wind or the crackle of Reed’s cigarette. The sound entered through his ears and percolated through his whole body, as did the feeling of the railing’s coolness entering the small of his back. It felt like he hadn’t cultivated in a long time. Relaxation rose through him as he felt Rddhi circulating in and out his dantian, in and out of his body.

It had only been a little over a week, but his discovery of needing to open a meridian in his eye felt like a lifetime ago. He felt younger then, or maybe all the death and dismay had aged him. But it also gave him experience, both in terms of cultivation and of life. And plus - he had already dug a channel from his meridian to his right palm. He could build off of that, and began clearing the metaphysical passage out from his right shoulder toward his eye. It was slow-going, not in the sense that it was difficult, but just time-consuming. However, sitting there in silence against that railing, with one of his best friends sitting nearby, made Isaac feel like he had all the time in the world.

“Hey, Isaac,” Reed said out of the blue. She spoke quietly, as if she didn’t want her words to drift on the wind. “How come, when your brother died, you made a vow to, you know, do that to the government and military and all that jazz, but when my cousin basically died, I just laid in bed for a whole week? How come you got motivated while I just wanted to die, too?”

The metaphoric shoveling paused as Isaac opened his eyes. “Everybody responds to trauma in different ways, I guess. You were also fourteen when it happened for you. I was twenty.”

“I just have a gentle sadness innate to my inner soul.” After a moment, the two chuckled in unison. Isaac heard a small spark of Rddhi from the roof; a new cloud of cigarette smoke drifted by a moment later. “I’ve lived in the shadow of Karin’s death for the past six years. I guess…my family always told me I should want to be Viola Reed. That I should want to be a big-name cultivator. And that if I didn’t, I’d end up like Karin. So maybe I’ve just been too scared and ashamed and guilty to want anything.”

Something fell from the roof - Reed had tossed a cigarette butt down below. For once, nothing caught on fire when it hit the ground.

“Wanting to want,” she continued, sounding a lot more firm in her convictions compared to their earlier conversation after the raid on the Melusine. “I think I understand it a little better now. It’s okay for me to want something for myself. And what do I want? I want to understand myself better. I want to figure out who I really am.”

“I know who you are,” Isaac answered with a smile. “You’re a woman who likes reubens and movies.”

“Beyond that, Isaac - I want to find my passion. I want to be somebody. I’ll start…I’ll start by reading a book. From start to finish. There we go.”

As if to celebrate, she tossed down another cigarette. Despite not being able to see him, the unlit cigarette landed perfectly on Isaac’s lap. A GOING WORLD had been scrawled across the thin strip of paper. Isaac was no stranger to alcohol (or recreational cultivation pills) but he had never pulled on a cigarette before. Just wasn’t interested. But he couldn’t lie to himself - sparking up a cigarette with his own finger seemed cool as hell.

And so he did. The nicotine rushed through him, all the way down into his fingertips until he exhaled. Silence returned as the two sat in their respective spots and whittled away on their cigarettes. When he finished, Isaac ashed the snub onto the concrete next to him, while Reed tossed yet another cigarette off the roof.

“Hey,” Isaac said. “If you don’t mind, I have a question that’s been bothering me.”

“Shoot.”

“Who’s God?”

God. All the way back in Patuxet, Isaac found the name within Greg’s journal. It said that, right at the time of the Unleashing, God wouldn’t allow humanity to rule as kings, so man decided to become kings by force. Considering that so much had happened to him since then, Isaac almost forgot about it until he got exposed to Reed’s memories. Karin believed she could talk to God. And then there was something…someone divine that visited Karin at her cottage post-lobotomy, but the memory of Reed’s memory wouldn’t crystallize in Isaac’s mind.

Nevertheless, Isaac wondered if God was another name for the Skyfather. That deity ruled above the clouds, occasionally sending his son down to earth as an envoy. Well, he hadn’t done so in the past five hundred years, but that’s what the Arcadian religion believed nonetheless. Come to think of it, every country on this side of the planet believed in the Skyfather.

Is there a connection with this God fellow?

From the rooftop, Reed answered with a chuckle. “I’m sorry, Isaac, but that’s a long story and I’m too tired to tell it to you properly. I promise to explain it to you one day, though. I’ll just say this for now - God’s the guy who runs the world.”

Isaac didn’t blame her for the slight deflection. He would have to speak to her about it under better circumstances. He placed his arms behind his head and enjoyed the breeze running by, cold as it may be. “Guy who runs the world, huh…he’s doing a very interesting job of it.”

The tiles creaked again. For the first time in the entire conversation, Reed sat up and came into view. Her faded brown hair was an absolute mess, and a sharp redness heavily ringed her eyes, but she displayed the most genuine smile on her face that Isaac had ever seen.

“Ah, He’s alright, Isaac. He tries.”