".....I love you too."

Meanwhile--

Inaaya is definitely concentrating on her work and definitely not mooning over James.

Please ignore the staring out the window.

Mmhm. Of course she is.

Joan quietly lets her do that for... probably too long before she says, "So how did it go?"

"It went really well."

"He's so good."

He'd better have been. "How so? Since you're not getting anything done anyway."

"I told him I would cut off his hand if he raped me and he told me he wasn't going to rape me either way."

"Glad I won't have to kill him."

"Me too."

"He's... kind."

"I know it's strange but I think he's actually kind. Not pretending."

Joan has never talked to him. Inaaya has. She's still skeptical.

"I think he is the person he's pretending to be."

"You'd think his life expectancy is six weeks."

"Which begs the obvious question of why he isn't dead."

"That's not what 'begging the question' means."

Joan makes a face and pokes her. "You know what I mean."

"Sometimes people get lucky?"

Mariam and I have an understanding, Joan doesn't say, that if we ever go to Los Angeles you will be kept far away from Walker's men, because it would be a headache for her if I had to kill half of the LA cult.

"Sometimes."

"I wouldn't get to meet the versions of James who died."

"Mm. -- I am happy for you." Among other things.

"You know," Inaaya says, "my life expectancy would be longest if I went back home to India."

"Which you aren't going to do. I know." Walker's men still don't get to have you and it is still my job to keep you as safe as I can and chickadee, you're scaring me remain unsaid.

"There's no point in staying alive if I don't get to do the things that make it worthwhile to be alive."

"I'm not going to stop you. I just --"

"I know."

"I can take care of myself."

"I have not forgotten that you can kill people with your brain."

It's not really funny. But it's fine.

On April eighth when Oswald wakes up he finds a tear in the wallpaper.

For a moment, a fleshy shark-toothed mouth pressing through from the other side of the wall, oozing amber juice from its broken lips. No sooner has he seen it, though, than it recedes and disappears, leaving curled and crusted wallpaper behind.

Ah. So this is what it's like to be haunted by mouths.

Somehow worse than he expected.