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The truth of Michael's death, the appearance of his body in the bay, had cracked something. It did not show on the surface but it was there, simmering in the back of his mind. This case, what had started as a missing person's case, was no longer as simple as it once was.

Instead it had spiralled out of control to something far more dark.

With Michael's body found on the beach after Heliodora's foot they were searching the bay and the surrounding area for more. For now at least he knew that no one else would be found. Heliodora was in her demesne and Adoelle was not due to be found until August (and hopefully that would be finding her alive and not hunted like the ominous warning) but he still had to talk with both sets of parents after he had talked with the Mitchells.

The conversations had not been easy and weighed heavily, the likelihood of their children being alive slowly going down. If they could brought home, he would still do so, but some part of him was worried-

No. What ifs would eat him alive. It was better to focus on searching for the others that were still missing. The moonwalkers - the ones that had gone berserk - had not been found.

It was why he had started to make a habit of checking other ashdown for clues, for some sign of them. The detective was heading towards the Rider-Waite campus. Part of him was hoping that it was there, that after what had happened at Blackfriar's that field would no longer be emptied.

He had found that out not long after the May full moon that that was not the case. It was empty, that barrier still there as well as the uneasy feeling, as if he was being watched.

Jeremiah walked the edge of it, eyes straining to see if there was anything he could see. It was likely to be nothing like all the other times he had come here to look and leave empty handed.

Jeremiah paused when he hears the crunch of paper underfoot and his eyes glanced down. Arguably it is probably better to not pick it up but he does before he even thinks that it may not even be a good idea given his track record with pieces of paper and other ashdown.

His hand clenches into a fist, the one not holding the paper, and he lets out a breath when he reads it.

Of course.

Of bloody ******** course.

He doesn't jump, just turns towards the voice that sounds horribly familiar. Jeremiah is not sure how to react when he's greeted by himself, by the echo of his thoughts given voice.

Worse that as the paper is crumpled and burned in this other Jeremiah’s hands, he can feel the telltale cold heat in his own. That he had been about to do exactly the same and stops himself when he smells the smolder of paper. It is burnt at the edges now but he ignores it in favor of this in front of him.

Himself. Gaunt and looking as if he's wasting away from the inside. The clothing throws him but the eyes, the stance, the way he holds himself ...

It isn't, he wanted to say but the thought is hollow like the man in front of him. Jeremiah cannot shake the voice in the back of his mind that this is all his fault but he tries to keep it under control.

"Are you-" he started and then stopped. "Bloody ******** hell," he repeated, mostly because there was something unnerving to know, to see, another version of yourself echoing your thoughts and actions.

Or was he the echo?

It takes him a moment to notice it, Jeremiah still stunned by the sudden appearance of himself. The eyes are strange, something distant, something-

His fingers clench tightly around the piece of paper when he hears his own voice - his own thoughts - spoken aloud but with those eyes- with that glint that looked wrong to his own eyes- "Tell me something I don't know," he says. "I will own my mistakes and my decisions even if they eat me alive but I'm not going to have some shambling doppelganger parrot at me."

This-

Jeremiah's face went impassive, his eyes hard. Everything about this was wrong (but the words ate at him). Had he broken it? Michael had been-

No.

No.

"There's more than one deal." Those hands that are spread out are not his and his and he looks to them before back up at those eyes. "There's probably some that I've made that I don't even know about," he continues, "so if I've broken one you'll have to clarify which." He would stand by his deal with Sunny, still wanted to find a way to bring Heliodora and Adoelle home, and the deal with the being of perpetual fire ... That one he held up as well even if it was costing him in the process.

Jeremiah flinches, the cold spreads, and the paper starts to smolder once more. He stops it with a shake of his head, fingers individually stretching one by one.

He couldn't have known that he was sending Michael to his death. That it had been the only solution there, the only one that had made sense at the time. "No, he won't. Not alive." It was the truth. Michael was home but at the cost of his life because-

"I made my choices and now I have to own them. Failures included," he tells the Jeremiah on the other side. "Whatever happens but I'm not going to be this- whatever you are." His free hand waves towards the thing wearing his skin, or the skin of another version of himself. Jeremiah was made of strong stuff than this, he knew that, even if his thoughts were dark and his fears bared; even if some part of him wanted to curl in on himself. He would not, not here. Not in front of this thing that was him but not him. "You may crumble but I won't so bugger the ******** off."

Jeremiah jerks at the action, at the noise, not expecting the thing on the other side to have substance. It is the first time he's actually jumped before, something startling him enough to move. It doesn't freeze him, and even if he sensed danger he would still move. As it seems like the words are falling around him, coming from all around, the ground shaking and giving, he stalks closer to the barrier.

His palms slam against the barrier, just like the other, and they overlap. "I don't care what the cycle demands!" his voice isn't raised in a yell but there's force behind it, "I will not fail this time! This. Will. End!" Even if he had to become something less human in the process (and he suspected he was already), he would do whatever it took to make sure that this time would somehow be the last. "I will find a way! We will!"

Jeremiah doesn't expect the hands to curl around his. The grip is tight, familiar, and a sensation of something pricks at his skin. As if his senses cannot make up his mind about whether this is danger or not.

Is it himself or is it something else?

The words, however, have weight to them. More than just the way the air seems to twist around him. Jeremiah's fingers press against the barrier, flex outwards because while he should be trying to free his hands he feels like this is not something he should be escaping from.

"You're wrong! It'll-" He stops himself, his heart hammering in his chest. This he cannot argue. His heart is not stone (and only a spine if he has been pushed far enough; or the right people are involved and need to be protected). If it came down to killing Sunny he would not be able to because even with everything she has done ... Jeremiah still hopes.

"Then how do I see her the right way? How do I-" His eyes stare hard into those eyes that are his but not. "How do I see her for what she really is?" Understand and safeguard, the words echoed in his mind.

What if, in the end, he could only understand?