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The most simple solution was a distraction, something to focus on instead of dwelling on the problems at hand. It was exactly what Mimsy attempted first, but everything reminded her in one way or another, and she eventually set aside her work to avoid jeopardizing its integrity. There was no need to cause damage in excess just to prove a point.

Having failed to successfully prevent herself from getting lost in the wrong portion of her mind, she considered her other options. There were few, and most were unappealing. All of them ran the risk of reminding her again.

Everything reminded her of him.

With her head propped up in her hand, temporarily stalling her acceptance of defeat, she stared at - or through - the steady flame of a Bunsen burner in front of her. Her unblinking gaze and shallow breaths made it seem like she was frozen in place, and the only indicator that she was conscious and alive was a series of slow movements, repeated every few minutes at apparent random.

She leaned forward, blew out the pilot light, lit it again with the lighter in her hand, and leaned back to prop her head up in her hand. Three and a half minutes later, she did it again, exactly as she had before. It was an incredibly unsafe practice, thanks to the open gas flame, but she couldn't manage to feel any more vulnerable than she already did.

Maybe she wasn't the person who put importance into strictly following lab safety rules either. Maybe she hadn't been that person for a while.

The spark did not ignite the lighter when she tried again. She frowned, insistently pressing her thumb against the tiny metal wheel until it finally relinquished a little orange flame, then flickered out again. Her stare was now directed at the lighter, as if it had insulted her with its failure.

As the little game was rendered impossible, she tapped the lighter against the lab table and glanced towards the door. There was nothing left for her here, but she couldn't bring herself to leave, so she stared into the hallway instead. It was not a particularly busy day, and few were passing through this portion of the building, so the first sign of movement after several minutes of staring quickly caught her attention.

Her stomach turned, and she dropped the lighter onto the table, fingers too weak to hold onto it any longer.

"Going somewhere?" she flatly called, trying to sit up as straight as she could manage, in an effort to look okay. It was difficult to maintain when her mind began to answer that question for him; none of the imagined answers were what she wanted to hear.

At the sight of Robert covered in tiny, smoke-scented particles of what had once been items of significance, reduced by combustion to something almost meaningless, Mimsy wanted to smile. She might have, were she not already reminding herself of her own newfound lack of significance. The longer she looked at him, the more fractured she felt, until all of the tiny pieces threatened to fall away.

She flinched at the sound of her name. It sounded like 'Ramona' to her ears, having read it so many times. It wouldn't go away.

With relative certainty and the same paranoia that quite literally fueled the fire, she doubted that it ever would.

When he put his arms around her, she froze and hated every minute of it, because habit and need begged for her to relax, to hug him back and and press herself against him and forget that there were ever any problems or obstacles to overcome. Then she hated that she felt that way, and hated that this might be the person she'd become, even if it would place her closer to her other existences.

"Yes, I can," she protested, fingers curling around a fistful of his shirt. One shoulder leaned cautiously against him, followed shortly thereafter by only half of her body, struggling against the ease of allowing him everything.

She was still too afraid of too many things.

"I can, because I did. It has already occurred. You may think that I should not burn down our room. Or you might wish that I had not, but. Well." Narrowed eyes stared sourly at what little she could see of his soot-covered form at such close proximity. "You would not be alone in wishing that something had not happened, or that certain events had unfolded differently, would you?"

There was something broken behind her eyes as she turned them up towards him, moreso than usual, focused with the firm stare of a cornered animal who was too terrified to surrender.

"No. The answer is no," she whispered. The hand on his shirt began to shake, but her stare remained immovable.

"Important semantics, but yes." Suspicious of his motives, her brow furrowed, and she just kept staring, refusing to tear her eyes away lest the key to her understanding reveal itself across his face. It didn't.

The confusion persisted when his hands began to wander, his touch as tender and affectionate as it had always been. He touched her as if everything was still the same, like nothing was damaged or different now. Like he didn't love anyone more than her.

But she knew that wasn't true. Surely he did too, considering his direct involvement - it was too easy to believe that he was touching her to be cruel. Laughing at her with his hands, and lying by feigning innocence. She had trusted him with her most susceptible points, assuming that he would only use that knowledge for their mutual benefit (and her eventual benefit), but it truly seemed to her that he was turning them against her, one by one. This was a systematic destruction of an unlovable monster who could never be as perfect as his own assuredly human child could.

Mimsy started to cry, despite her best attempts to stifle the ridiculous display of emotions she wished she didn't have.

"Stop," she pleaded, leaning her cheek into his hand. Fighting both him and herself wasn't going to be easy. "Robert, I...why are you doing this? I don't understand. Why are you pretending? I already know. You made it abundantly clear. I am not an idiot. I got the message. I made it simple for you, as you have seen. A clean slate for your newest undertaking. I already know, Robert. Please. Please do not treat me as if I am still at the forefront of your mind. I know that I am incomparable. I know that you no longer consider me the most deserving. I know that she is more important. I know that you will leave when you find her, and I refuse to delay the inevitable."

Her expression was still twisted with hurt, but anger flickered in and out as she began to feel more insulted. The fact that all of her work and energy and progress was going to waste because she misjudged her importance was immensely frustrating in itself, and the fact that he was ostensibly mocking her added insult to injury. This was supposed to be her game. This was her experiment. This was her best attempt at an actual human relationship. She had lost and failed and her pride was too shattered to fuel a delusion that anything else was true.

"Please." Defeated, she shifted to press her face against his shoulder. There was no use in pretending now, either. "I know that she now occupies your heart instead. The note confirmed it. It makes sense that I am no longer in your thoughts, which explains your actions, but if any pity remains for me...please. The weight of this failure is enough."

It made Mimsy want to laugh, bitter and nauseous, when he suggested that he needed her to do something right now. Even if his sentence stopped short, the idea that he would ask anything of her just made her cry harder, though she failed to find the connection between the surge of spite and the continued tears. It was maddening.

Addressing that concept was not immediately an option, so she waited to collect her thoughts. They were all discarded again when was presented with something even more absurd than an ill-timed request: an excuse for his relationship with Clarice.

Then a jab at how 'wrong' she was. And more pretending. Her skepticism expanded, and she began to confront the possibility that he was lying to both of them. Maybe he still wanted it to be true, in an effort to try and love them both. It might not have seemed like a lie anymore, if that were the case.

The core of the idea might have been admirable to some, but Mimsy was very bad at sharing.

"No," she grumbled, one eye closed and nose still wrinkled in the temporary respite from the affectionate assault. "I am not all that matters. I am not the most important. I am not everything. Please. I already know. This does not benefit either of us. Please, leave me alone. It will impede my ability to function if I am forced to guess at the date when you will leave in favor of sharing your life with her in the future."

Slowly, she opened her other eye, and reached to smooth the wrinkles that her handful of crumpled fabric had created. Clean slate. Children were messy. He would need to look his best, and she was not going to be at fault if he didn't.

"I did not mean Clarice. Am I still wrong if I was referring to your daughter?" Her quiet words were sluggish, and sounded almost sick as she opted to refrain from specifics, still worried that some version of her existed here.

The corrections would have been irritating if they were not so reassuring, but Mimsy continued with purpose, until she was caught in silence and panic when she saw the way he looked at her. The air in her lungs felt absent, and she tried to breathe past it, choking on her anxiety. It didn't look right, and she felt even less right than she had before.

"No. I would not." Her voice was hoarse as she reached to steady herself against him, dizzy from the racing pulse that rang in her ears. When she noticed what she'd done, she pulled her hand away in a panic, pressing her palm against a table leg instead. "I did not, and have not. All of my information seemed to indicate that you left to..." A chill passed over her pallid skin, and she swayed where she stood; it was time to plead with herself again, when she persistently arrived at the answer of holding onto him for support. It was the tone of his questions that finally caused her to retreat, to stop playing house in her own way, and she was resigned to taking care of her self again.

Trembling with shame, she lowered herself to the floor with the table to guide her and covered her face with her hands.

She was this person, who was not a person at all, no matter what sort of costume or performance she put on. Guilty of the wrongdoings that came as instinct. Flawed with a predisposition for misconception of human behavior. An outlier.

"I am scared. I have always been scared. I waited to ensure that I could feel unquestionably safe with you. That you could prevent me from feeling afraid." The heels of her palms pushed against her closed eyes until pinpricks of color rose in her vision. "I understand how it sounds, Robert. I know that it sounds crazy. 'How quaint that Mimsy has failed to comprehend people again'. 'How silly she is, incapable of discerning the correct realities'. But my world studied a nearly infinite set of theoretical possibilities, and I have seen how easily you can be lost to them, even when they remain numbers on a page. The concept of perfection is alluring--"

She paused to breathe out into a sob.

"I am afraid of being alone. Even if you remain in a place where you could never touch or hold her, it does not necessarily mean that you would be present. What I saw today was...um. Familiar. It was too many steps through the doorway to a Wonderland where I do not fit. If you are lost there, I can never bring you home. By all appearances, truly, I thought that you were already gone. Or wanted to be."

As she was instructed to 'go', Mimsy twisted her body in an attempt to actually get up and leave, assuming that was what he meant. When he didn't let go, she stopped moving and gradually sunk back into her curled position, settling against him, pretending that her intention had simply been to get more comfortable.

"Mm," she lethargically protested, shaking her head as best she could within the embrace. "No. I apologize for addressing it out of order, but...I think it is important to establish."

She thought of the woman she had seen - had temporarily been - in the alternate reality, shy and eager and hopeful. That version of her existence relied so heavily on others, but she declined the opportunity to use them to her benefit. She took all of the help that they wanted to give to her, but never demanded anything. And she was still more successful than the person that Mimsy thought she was, who lacked her doctorate and accomplished nothing of note, despite her human-shaped resources. It was painful to consider.

"I think that I understand the sentiment, and I know that you and I have different theories regarding separate realities, but it was not me that you wanted. You came for her. Doctor Mildred, I mean. A different 'me', at best. I know that you remarked upon your preference for me over Simmy, but even those circumstances were different, once I learned that she was me. Something less aligned with an alternate reality, and more akin to the problem of amnesia where I--"

Thankfully, she caught herself before she began to recount the events that included an attempt at a runaway love affair.

"Sorry. My point is that it is still the Wonderland that I cannot fit into. I may not be capable of being like her. In a world like that, where you cared so deeply for your daughter...you would not have wanted me. I would have been a risk to her. I would have likely harmed both of you. But if you find her preferable, I fear that I have still lost you. If you did not, I fear that you may one day still discover a Mimsy that possesses everything that you hope for...and nothing that you don't."

She trailed off, listening to his heartbeat as she reflected on his reassurances.

The claim that this feeling was her life, whether metaphorical or literal, was difficult to grasp. It seemed much too simple an answer for something so complicated, something that required countless hours of attempts to understand. Still, she could not entirely discount the idea, and there was no harm in noting the primary components. Just in case. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and settled against him, allowing him to support her.

It felt safe, and comfortable, and warm. It felt like she was supposed to be here, even if it was because he refused to let her move. And the sound of his heart made her feel proud and secure. They were frivolous things, but she could not deny that it was very pleasant. She liked it, and she handled that fact with gloves and tongs and safety goggles, because it was a hazardous thing.

"Is it me that you want?" she asked, hesitant. "This me? Despite all that you know of the other possibilities? Is there a superior variant that you wish that you had? A me that is kind, who can return a more even ratio of love? One that more easily understands you? A doctor? A mother? A human?"

"Fair enough," Mimsy admitted, sitting still and patient as he moved her hair and touched her face. "The fact that we have conflicting theories should not mean that I can select the unfavorable ideas from yours to become accusatory over. That was negligent behavior on my part. And I am always willing to try to reach an understanding, but...I regret to say this. I think that I was unaware that you considered yourself to be 'broken'."

Other people generally realized with an immediacy that something was off about her. They would pause in the middle of conversation and try to process realizations about her that made them uncomfortable, or remark that she was cold, or tease her for her shortcomings, or avoid her entirely. It was very easy to tell that she was broken, just as he'd said she was, but when she looked at him, all she could see was someone who looked whole.

There were some qualities that she found worrying, in a sense, but it never seemed to bother him for long when he was limited by them. He looked happy, excepting moments where anyone with a grasp on correct emotional responses would not be, and appeared determined to stay that way.

She reasoned that it must be something that she was simply incapable of perceiving. Maybe the functions that were broken within her included one that could show her all of the missing pieces. That would mean that she was essentially blind to his fragmented state, and allowed for the strong possibility that he was blind to the severity of hers, too.

There was a significant chance, she supposed, that his ability to love as openly and monumentally as he did correlated to one of those broken pieces, and that his eager insistence to love her was from a broken piece as well. They were positive aspects to her, but they were notably different from any other person she had ever met, which did signify an irregularity. Which, in turn, meant that she was drawn to selecting him because he was defective. It would mean that she was attempting to learn how to function correctly by using an incorrect function as a guideline.

What a cruel coincidence that would be. She laughed, tremendously amused by its probability.

"Yes. I have a newfound clarity." Even if she didn't know what it meant yet. "I would find it satisfying to discover exactly what it is that we need, and the relative amounts in which we need it, but there is time to do so."

If she could learn all of the specifics about those needs, and measure their individually broken pieces, she was confident that she could know how to organize the most optimal conditions. She was still on track, and may not have even suffered any setbacks.

"Well. I think that it is more accurate to say that I will keep you," she corrected, wriggling away from the kiss. "Because you did not actually run away from home, after all."