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Rylan took a seat next to Lucas, sitting little Sunny on his lap. What did it mean, when the past overtook the future? Or changed from the way it had all been meant to go. Clearly, things weren't written in stone.

He nodded his thanks, making a mental note to seek out this Renard when they returned to real Ashdown, and settled himself in to listen to the answers.

Lucas couldn't help but grin and Michael's description of the triplets. That sounded like something he'd say, which obviously and immediately endeared him to the other. But as the words continued, he felt his grin soften to a smile, and then slip away entirely, his teeth clenching so hard that his jaw was starting to ache. His mouth felt dry and his throat impossibly tight; subconsciously, his hand went to Rylan's leg, trying to hold onto something real.

"So what I'm gathering is -- is we have to kill two teenagers since you were the third and -- Sunny. In order to break the cycle."

Saying it out loud winded him. His prosthetic hand gripped the journal to the point it was creaking under his hold, his jaw working, grey eyes very near a perfect steel color as he stared at nothing at the ground. Trying to process. Trying to make sense of it. Someone has to keep the innocents safe. He could probably get the Pack to do that, along with everyone else who was a part of this. But straight up murdering people? Lucas closed his eyes, saw the flash of teeth and blood and ...

"Could I do it?" His eyes opened again, turning to Michael, his expression taut and angry. "The -- Heliodora. Adoelle." They had names, and ******** it, he was going to use them. "Sunny." The last said in more of a whisper. Oh ********. Oh ******** oh god oh why --

Drawing in a shaky breath, he clicked his jaw in an old nervous habit and exhaled slowly. "The cage. Destroying it. That frees the Bad Guy, and -- and we don't know -- oh. Oh <******** me." Alarm rippled through him. "Michael, Sunny mentioned someone had showed up at her place claiming to be her dad. Is that -- him?" There was a wildness in his eyes, now, a stormy sort of grey, his words slightly lilting in an accent long unused. "Should I try to meet him? I mean, we gotta know what he looks like, who he is, if we're going to try and kill him too -- foda-se, why is this up to us if we've failed so many times? I -- " he glanced to Rylan, to child Sunny, and everything hurt.

"We'd give our lives for what needs to be done, but I gotta know it's the right thing, Michael." His grip on Rylan tightened as a slight tremor started in him. "How did you -- you three teenagers know to do this? To make a seal? And why you -- how long has it been? And if he does go free, what's going to happen?"

"Yes," says Michael. "It wouldn't surprise me if you had, once or twice. I don't remember everything like Doe and Dora do."

He shrugs, still watching Sunny, who doesn't seem aware that she's the topic of discussion. "Her dad? Wasn't aware she actually had one, I always thought it was another one of those allegories--but it's a good place to start--it's more than I ever had."

Sunny goes still, black hair falling into her face. Her attention is rapt on Lucas's face, a strange emotion welling up in the half of her expression still visible. "I don't know any of that," says Michael. "Except we knew because--I don't remember. It's been so long." He gestured, a knife-hand at his own throat: I can't say.

"Lady?" Michael's brow furrows. "You know--the Lady? and you don't think she's your enemy? What the ********, dude, she--she's ******** up, what she did to Shiloh and Thorne, goddamn, you're ******** sick."

"What'd she do?" he echoed, guarded, wondering how screwed up this Lady really was. He looked down at Sunny too, and nodded. Papa, she'd said. What did that mean?

"As far as I know... I don't know nearly enough to be any sort of bad guy in this situation..." he added, hoping that it was true.

"Does the fact that the timeline's all messed up have anything to do with all of the... memories, I guess they are, of the past that have been cropping up in real life?" he asked. "I recently met a woman who died thirty years ago, but she was real. Not to mention the uh... 60s me that I've been seeing all over the place."

Surely this was happening to other people as well.

The look on her face made his throat tight. We'll figure something out, he told her, the child, the real Sunny wherever she was -- there had to be another way. Even if it meant them finding a way to transfer what she was to him. He gently tucked his fingers against her chubby child cheek and tried to offer her a smile. The were was still on her side.

But there was more to address. "No, I don't know," Lucas replied with a tight frown as his gaze returned to Michael. "Who is this other Lady? And are they okay? Shiloh and Esen?" Not like he could contact either of them, but he supposed Aleksy might have mentioned if Thorne was in a bad way...but then again, maybe not.

Then he blinked, going back to 'big gay nerd.' He opened his mouth to inform Michael that she was with a dude -- and Aleksy's angry words popped in his head. His mouth snapped shut. Well wasn't that just one big happy family?

"Maybe you can find her sister," he mumbled to Rylan, glancing down to the journal again. He had more questions, still had no idea what he could possibly do to uphold the standards of the Moonwalkers and...the whole murdering innocents thing wasn't settling so well with him. His fingers riffed through the pages of the journal, eyes downcast but unfocused on the turn of the paper.

"Some kind of flower name," says Michael. "Carnation... no. Camilla, that's it. Camilla Hawken. Unless she got married?" He has no way of knowing and shares this with a big shrug. "They're... alive... probably. If things go the way they did my go-round, they're alive, if you haven't met Adoelle?"

Michael says, "I dunno. She was more Adoelle's part than me."

"I assume we're due to meet Adoelle soon," Rylan said with a small shake of his head. There were so many people to meet, so much to learn. He suspected he would have been happier sticking to what he knew, which was not magical in the slightest. Still, there was no fighting what he'd been pulled into, whether he wanted to or not. "Do you think it'd be worth it to talk to Camilla soon?"