(When he falls asleep that night, he dreams about Naomi again.

In this dream, she's in an endless field, surrounded by fog. She's running, but there's nobody there. Except Lev.

He still can't do anything to try to help her.)

When he wakes up, he adds a summary of the dream to his notes, grabs some cereal, and then snuggles up next to Martin again.

When Martin wakes up, he says, "I dreamed about Naomi tonight and last night."

"...Mmmm. Nightmare, or... what?"

"I don't know. Things are happening to her like what happened in her statement and... I can't do anything about it."

Snuggles? "'M sorry. D'you think it's, you know... weird?"

"Not sure. The Institute doesn't take statements about dreams, so other than Blake's I have no idea what magic dreams are like. It's at least suspicious."

Nod. "Makes sense. You can just... keep an eye on it, I guess?"

"Maybe I'll do a followup with Naomi today and see if she's been experiencing anything weird."

"That sounds like a good idea, probably, yeah!" 

mmmmm they should get dressed and go to work but what if instead of work Lev looks adorably up at Martin like he wants his forehead to be kissed.

Then he will get his forehead kissed and then Martin will go "Okay, time for us to get up and go to work now."

"You're mean," Lev complains, and then goes to put a shirt on and tries not to think about how nice it would be if Martin had, instead, ordered him to go to work. 

Once he's at work, Lev takes the psychological battery he designed for himself, as he does once every two weeks.

He gets the same results as when he read a statement to the tape recorder: increased openness, decreased affective empathy, increased cognitive empathy, some other minor changes.

Ack.

...he thinks back to his experiences taking the notes. He wasn't paying attention really, he was thinking about Naomi speaking in paragraphs and about Asher and about writing in shorthand, but... he could have been absorbed in the experience as he was when he read the previous statement. Now that he thinks about it, he's pretty sure he was. 

...he's going to talk to Martin about this at lunch. As it is, he's going to call Naomi. 

"...Hello?"

"Hello, it's Dr. Aarons from the Magnus Institute. I'm calling for a followup interview? This is a perfectly normal part of the process," he says, lying through his teeth. "Are you free now, or do you know when would be a good time for me to call you back?"

"--Sure, um, I'm free now? The papers I signed over at research didn't say anything about a followup interview, you should really get that fixed."

"I'm sorry, it's a new practice and I don't think all the forms all up to date. We had some, uh, issues with some of our previous statement-givers and we want to make sure you're in good mental health and connect you to resources if you're not."

“Oh. I’m just as fine as I was, really.”

"Well, I just have to ask a few questions," Lev says, and asks a handful of questions about her energy levels and eating and ability to concentrate before he says, "and your sleep?"

Her answers to the questions do not actually indicate that she’s fine; ever since Evan died, she’s been bad at concentrating, low-energy, eating poorly, etc. 

“You know, it’s funny actually that you ask that? You were, uh, in my dream the other night. I guess I was just kind of, thinking too much about coming here, and my statement, and it all sort of—tangled together, like things sometimes do in dreams. It didn’t wake me up, though, which was weird, because it was a nightmare, and those usually wake me up? But this time it just didn’t, I guess.”

"Could you tell me more about the nightmare?" he says neutrally.

(Inside, he goes YES YES YES.)

"...Right. It was two nightmares, actually. In the first one I was back there, in the graveyard, that same one where the opened graves called out to me, but I didn't have anything to hold onto and I couldn't resist it any more, so I fell in, and I was--I was screaming, I was so afraid, and there was nobody there, I was so alone.

And then you were there, and I for a moment I was so excited, because I wasn't alone. But... I asked you to help me, and you didn't move. Just stared at me. I think you might have apologized, it was hard to tell in the dream, but you were just--watching. I got this sense that... it didn't matter what I said, didn't matter how much I begged and pleaded, you were never going to do anything. You were there to watch, not to... not to help. I was just as alone in that grave, just as--utterly forsaken--as I was before you had showed up, but now there was this thing, just--watching me--I'm sorry, I know intellectually it wasn't actually you, that it can't have been, but that's what it felt like.

And then last night I was back there again. This time I got as far as the door to the church opening before it changed, and I ran through the door instead of back where I had come, and it was this--this horrible, endless nothing--and you, again. Watching. I was so afraid, and I kept trying to scream at you, to try and get you to do something, anything, to make me feel less alone there, but no matter what I did you just watched. Like you didn't actually care what would happen to me for my sake, you just wanted to, to find out. I don't know. It made me feel like I was back in your office, with you smiling and that feeling like I was being dissected... 

I don't know. I've nightmares about it pretty regularly, actually, so probably it's nothing. It has to be nothing. Right? Just, I was thinking about it before I went to sleep, so I dreamed about it, that's all. And my subconscious decided to make you into this--creepy weirdo--because, I don't know, nightmares are like that sometimes.

Did any of the investigation turn up anything, or did you just call to ask me about my dreams?"

He looks at the notes in the file. "Lukases aren't returning our phone calls-- not that that's a surprise--and the car accident you were in definitely happened, which is helpful to us but I'm sure it's not news to you. No churches or graveyards in the area that match your description, but there are innumerable explanations for that. Like I said, I suspect that the statements that won't digitize are all real, but that doesn't mean we had a helpful explanation of... what went on. Would you like a referral to a psychologist who specializes in treating nightmares?"