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[11calls]

God Alex is tired. She’d thought, perhaps naively that her sleep would end up getting better when Strand returned from wherever he had fucked off to this time (Charlie. And Alex doesn’t blame him for that truly. His daughter deserved to hear what had happened to and with Coralee in person. It was why when Strand had reached out to get the full file over email—the only time he reached out actually—Alex had sent all of the unedited footage even if there had only been a few more words that were basically a promise for later that didn’t come. She just wished that he had told her where he was going or had answered the call when Trump had been elected. It’s kind of hard thinking you may have started the end of the world and had that happen honestly.) but so far it hasn’t. Alex had spent the last two weeks at Howard’s house going over every Black Tape that he’d never shown her before. In the episode she had said that there were maybe a hundred of them that she’d not seen before and Alex had been wrong. There were 133 of them and each one of them was a fucking nightmare. It was so bad that Alex had ended up just passing out on his couch from sheer exhaustion and making the briefest of pit stops in her apartment for a shower and clothes and so that she didn’t arrive at the same time that Strand did. Nic gave her enough shit already—she doesn’t need anymore.

But given that the episodes were back and that Alex had an early morning interview tomorrow. (Thomas Warren. That should be fun, especially considering how Strand became a sulking child who slumped in his seat and crossed his arms whenever the man was even mentioned!) She actually headed home to her own apartment to try and sleep at least where she wouldn’t end up with a crick in her back. Maybe the shadows in her apartment would be familiar enough that she could actually sleep. Of course Alex isn’t holding her breath, but she does always try to have hope even when it seems fucking impossible to do so.

Ordering in dinner from her favorite pizza place (the one Strand hates because it’s too greasy and unhealthy and Alex Reagan really doesn’t cook) and opening up a bottle of cheap and too sweet wine, she’s got her feet up in the warm and slightly mismatched and cluttered apartment. Her couch is vastly superior to Strand’s and her tv is too even if Alex doesn’t want to admit that she actually does miss his company. The lights of the city are bright behind her curtains and it’s probably too late for dinner, but Alex really doesn’t care. When you don’t sleep like she doesn’t sleep time is an illusion and pizza is amazing.

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[bilocates]

Did someone ask for familiar shadows? Maybe of the stalking, sleep watching, tapping variety? Usually Simon had better timing for his night watch rounds, Alex typically sound asleep by the time he decided to come lurk. Tonight not so much, though if by accident or intent it would be difficult to say.

At least this time he would prove to be polite enough to let his presence be known by just... showing up, to lean on her couch. Not say anything, because that would be too polite and we just can't have that. He's just going to act like he totally belongs there watching a movie with her.

[11calls]

If there’s one thing that lack of sleep has given her over the last three years, it’s decent spatial awareness especially where it comes to people being in her line of sight when there definitely shouldn’t be. Letting out a loud gasp (because the only time Alex screams are when she’s waking up from nightmares. Even when she’d found Maddie Franks Alex hadn’t screamed.) and dropping the plate holding her pizza, Alex just whips towards him with her eyes wide.

This is the first time she’s physically seen him in three years and he still looks starved (and it hits her then that Alex has only actually seen him in the flesh once for as large as he looms in her life which is an extremely odd concept.) this is also the first time that she’s seen him in her apartment even though Alex knows he’s been there once and suspects that it’s been many more besides. It’s probably not a surprise that she manages to choke out, “oh my god! Simon?!” This should be impossible and there's every chance that this is a strange dream given how all of her dreams are strange and have been for ages, but it doesn't feel like a dream. The sense of not being a dream is only increased when Alex takes her right hand in her left and jams her finger and thumb in the webbing of the other hand--an age old way of trying to wake herself up when her nightmares become far too real.

[bilocates]

While a small, awful, part of him is disappointed she didn't scream, the greater part is pleased. Alex always has been fearless, it's part of what's gotten her into this mess to begin with. He likes that about her.

"Hello, Alex." He responds in that usual, faintly amused calm drawl of his, as though there were nothing at all strange about showing up unannounced and uninvited into her apartment. He watches her gesture smirking faintly, he knows what she's doing, but he'll let her continue until she's satisfied with the reality of the situation. "You're not dreaming." This time.

[11calls]

There are certain things that Simon says to Alex that make her want to slap him a little bit, and while 'Hello Alex' in that tone is one of them, it's definitely nowhere near as bad as the far worse 'goodbye Alex' that always accompanies her being hung up on. But Alex doesn't slap him, and instead she just stares at him while she quickly releases the grip that she'd had on her own hand. Eyeing him warily as she bends down to pick up the pizza plate that thankfully didn't end up cheese side down on her carpet, she sets it on the table. "Well, I guess I should be glad that you're actually talking to me this time and not just knocking when I'm trying to sleep." Not that Alex is bitter about that and how crazy it made her sound or anything. But that's more of a problem with Nic than a problem with Simon.

The problem with Alex is that she's well... there's a lot of problems with Alex actually, but one of them happens to be that she's very Canadian through and through, and she's a decent person at her core. Which means that when a too skinny not quite a teenager anymore has bilocated into her apartment in the middle of the night, one of the things that she feels like she has to do is thrust food at him. Which is why she slides her piece of pizza onto the table itself and then grabs two of the slices with pepperoni and extra cheese and shoves it in his direction. "Jesus, when's the last time you ate?"

[bilocates]

The good news is that he can't hang up on her in person, the bad news is he'll probably do the bilocating equivalent when he decides it's time to go. Simon is terrible like that. She should also probably not tell anyone he was here, wanted felon and all, but that's really up to her. He won't be caught until he wants to be caught. "I knew you'd find my messages." He won't comment on that also being really weird. He knows.

Now it's Alex's turn to throw him off, by shoving food in his general direction. Hesitant at first he eventually reaches out to take the offered pizza. Why say no to offered food? Especially food that isn't of the psychiatric hospital variety? And... that's honestly a good question. "Yesterday." So, yeah, Simon doesn't eat. Too busy conspiring and bilocating for food, apparently.

[11calls]

Alex isn't going to tell anyone he was here, because she's fairly certain that the one thing that both Nic and Strand would agree on would be that Alex had finally gone over the edge if she announced that not only was Simon in her apartment, but that he was also in her apartment where she could actually see him and wasn't just knocking on her pipes. If she wanted to, she knows that she could try to grab her recorder but she's fairly certain that he would bilocate out of here as soon as she took her eyes off him at that point. Hell, she's not even sure if Simon wouldn't do that the next time that she blinks.

But Alex does frown when he says that he ate yesterday, because that tone of 'yesterday' is the same sort of answer that she gives when someone asks when was the last time that she slept and Alex knows that she doesn't have a proper answer. "You should eat more." Yes, Alex knows that makes her a hypocrite considering how many times people have said that to her, but honestly, considering he showed up in her apartment and she figures that's allowed at this point. Before he can say that she should eat more too (Alex knows that she's lost some weight since she started on the show, because nothing kills your appetite more than demons and a lack of sleep) she picks up her own pizza and takes a bite of it.

Is Alex entirely dying to ask him what he's doing here? Of course she is, but feeding him is taking precedence at the moment.

[bilocates]

She's right, this is one of those situations where he's not going to let her record evidence of his being there. This will just have to be between the two of them, and however crazy Alex feels like sounding on her show. If it was important enough for him to show up in person it was too important to be made public. Otherwise he'd resort again to cryptic phone calls and spooky voice messages.

And, as is often the case, she's right about that as well. 'Yesterday' was definitely the answer he had to offer in lieu of a real one, though he does still give her a look that said he was on to her hypocritical antics here. For the woman who hasn't slept properly in over a year to be lecturing him on bad health habits! At least he doesn't point it out. He'll just eat this... actually surprisingly good pizza. Definitely better than what he'd ever had in Three Rivers.

He's tempted to ask her if she feeds every stray that shows up at her apartment, but that might be too on point. "Taking a night off? That's good. You'll need the rest." As much as she strikes him as the obsessive workaholic, what's coming will need her at her best.

[11calls]

Alex is definitely an obsessive workaholic, and one doesn't need to be stalking her in order to know that--all they need to do is to listen to the evidence that she puts out on her show. And the answer to feeding every stray that shows up is likewise a probably, considering how she is and how many times that Alex has forced Strand to eat something, especially last year when she'd dragged him back into the land of the living. It doesn't escape her notice that she's doing the same thing for both of them, but it is something else that Alex files into the back of her head for similarities between the two of them beyond simply being a pain in her ass at times.

For a moment, Alex doesn't say anything, and she just chews a bite of her pizza. She wonders if Simon knows that they're going to meet Warren in the morning (and not at Daeva because Alex isn't stupid enough to make that same mistake twice) but somehow she doesn't think that's what he means. "I've just spent two weeks sleeping on Strand's couch watching the rest of his tapes. I figured I was entitled to my own bed for once." But for as nonchalant as she would like to keep sounding, Alex can't, not when he's actually here in her apartment, and they both know that they're not going to have their conversation spread out for Strand or Warren or anyone else to hear.

"Okay, Simon, I'll bite. Why am I going to need the rest? It's been a year and so far it seems like everything's just gone into hiding for all that you've said about the five gates and it being a virus and everything else."

[bilocates]

Her show has been very useful for insight into both her, and what he's seeking. She already knows his main goal, he wants to keep the sunsets around. It's the getting to that point that's the tricky part. They are now both officially Alex's strays. Annoying, frustrating strays.

He does know, Simon knows a lot of things he's not letting on yet. Can't distract her, she has to stay the course just as he has to stay his. This visit was probably an error in judgement, but also likely the last chance he'll have. After tonight, everything changes. He just nods, chewing his own pizza thoughtfully. He won't be able to watch over her tonight, that's too bad, hopefully she gets decent sleep anyway.

"I'm planning something, tonight. If it goes well you'll be hearing from me soon. If not... I guess you won't." He doesn't expect it won't go well, he's getting pretty good at this, but there's always that what if. "If I disappear, you'll have to keep going forward on your own."

[11calls]

Everything about Simon is about expecting the unexpected and Alex knows it. When he says that he's planning something, Alex is more surprised by the advanced notice than anything else. She kind of hates it a little bit that she's not more concerned about the fact that what he's doing probably means that someone is going to die (and of course, it normally means that from everything that Alex knows about him) but when Simon kills, he doesn't do it indiscriminately. All of the people he's killed have been hurting kids in some way and Alex can't find it in her heart to mourn any of them. The only person who she mourns for in this situation is the kid that Simon Reese should have been before his mother opened the Door in his nursing and his father chanted over his crib.

Alex's face has always been expressive, just like her voice is and she tends to consider it one of her failings that most people can tell how she really feels just by looking at her or listening to her and they don't even need to do it that closely. But now when he says that something may not go well and that she may have to keep going forward on her own, Alex looks concerned. Not being an idiot, Alex knows that he may be the only person in this whole thing who is telling her anything close to the truth even if he hides it in riddles and what not. He definitely never gives her straight answers that's for sure. "Simon, what are you talking about? What are you going to do?" Because of course Alex is going to ask--she'd be a pod person if she didn't.

[bilocates]

About the only thing with Simon she can expect is that there's probably going to be a murder somewhere, and that whoever it is probably deserved it. Is it the most moral method? Perhaps not, but Simon's never expressed an interest in those sorts of philosophical discussions. He's doing what he thinks is right, and taking out bad people who have been getting away with doing terrible things to children. Whoever he could have been has long since been lost, though perhaps in his wake of personal revenge and destruction he'll save more from his fate.

While Alex is expressive, Simon remains as ever somewhat difficult to get a read on. Something about the way he doesn't seem to blink quite enough, if at all, and doesn't look away. Still there seems to be something of amusement there. Alex knows he's not going to answer that question, he was never going to answer that question. In fact, he's not even going to acknowledge that question was asked. "You will keep going won't you, Alex? You're getting so close, you wouldn't stop now." At least it wasn't 'Goodbye, Alex'?

It was mostly the pizza keeping him there.

[11calls]

It's odd really, in the two plus years it's been since Alex had interviewed him, she'd thought that she'd exaggerated the way that Simon didn't blink. But seeing it in the flesh again reminds her that if anything, she'd downplayed it for her show--probably because she was convinced at the time that people would have seen it as an over the top detail to an already over the top story. His gaze was unnerving then, and while it's not worse in her apartment (let's be honest, after so long mired in the Black Tapes, Alex's weirdness dealing level has only gotten uncountably higher.) it's very different than what it was.

And yes, she knows that she amuses Simon, Alex has always known that from the beginning.

That said, she does let out a lengthy sigh when he ignores the question, even though he ignores her questions ninety percent of the time anyway, because she'd hoped that his actually showing up might have been a bit different. "I've never been very good at giving up on things, Simon. You already know that about me." That said, she does open the pizza box and put another two slices on his plate. He needs the food far more than she does.

"How will I know the difference? You went quiet in the six months that Strand was gone." Which wasn't chastening him exactly, if only because Alex knows that it wouldn't do her a bit of good even though she's older than he is (not really old enough to be his mother, but definitely an older sister or aunt) he's normally the one who tells her off.

[bilocates]

It probably helps that while still intense and creepy, Simon isn't intentionally playing it up this time. He doesn't have to catch her attention anymore, or make a show of demonstrating that there is something strange going on. She's experienced enough now to believe him. Now he's just low-key standard creepy.

Showing up is different, though that doesn't mean he's going to hand her information too early. When the time is right, when he's sure, then she'll know. He can't risk throwing her off by answering these things too soon. He smiles, pleased. Of course he knew she wouldn't, but the reassurance was good. If something did happen he'll try to find a way to get that information out to her even if he can't do it himself anymore. "I know. This is important. I want you to be ready."

And apparently feed him more. He's still working on his first slice, he doesn't have that great an appetite, but he'll try to eat as much as he can. It's not everyday someone feeds him!

"You'll know. I'm not making you wait this time." So, no six months of silence. At least he doesn't intend for there to be six months of silence. Simon is terrible at listening to chastising anyway, he won't listen and she knows he won't. She also knows that if he says he's going to do something he will do it. Whatever's coming he'll be reaching out to her through his usual shady channels.

[11calls]

Well at least it’s a relief that he’s not going to be going entirely off grid for that long before. Not hearing from either him or Strand probably should have been a good thing considering how intense the six months before that had been, but Alex had been on tetherhooks waiting for something to happen. It’s hard to hear that you may have caused the end of the world and be the only person who actually believes it left alone holding the bag. It would have been better if she’d gotten creepy calls about it, or knocks or answers to her emails about it or basically anything other than radio silence. When Strand had showed up in her office after coming back from Italy without calling and with his bags from the airport it had been the worst fight they ever had and that had included the time that Richard had told her that she was a shit reporter and that he was quitting before he had turned into an obsessive fantatic for finding his wife and wearing flannel and growing a beard. A similar fight with Simon isn’t going to be useful or fruitful. Besides most of her anger has seeped out of her by now. 

But if he thinks that she’s not going to ask any questions, Simon has forgotten just who he is talking to. 

“So I'm assuming it's more important than whatever was going on with Amalia?" Alex still doesn't know what was actually happening with her ex, but they haven't really been in contact since the silence of everyone else in her life. Nic had seen her when he was in Russia doing stuff for Tanis, but in some ways it's like Alex has stopped existing considering everything else. While she would like to think that it's not connected to everything that's happened, at this point it doesn't seem like it's at all possible.

[bilocates]

Not this time, not again. It's beginning to snowball too fast, too much is happening. He doesn't have the time to disappear as he had before. Not that Alex realizes it yet, she will soon. Very soon, if he has anything to say about it. And we all know Simon does like having his say. He'll be sure to up the frequency of creepy calls and knocks in the future, since she likes them so much. He'd hate for her to think he was leaving her holding the bag permanently. There were things he had to look into, and interested parties he had to stay downwind from. She'll know, soon enough he'll be able to finally tell her more. A fight with Simon probably wouldn't be nearly as cathartic, he'd just tell her "Goodbye, Alex" and do that annoying vanishing act of his.

As for questions he'd be disappointed if she didn't ask! That's not like the Alex he knows. He just waits for her to ask the ones he's inclined to answer.

"She's a piece, one of many of a much greater whole. This is a greater piece, one I think will help you significantly on your investigation." As long as he can secure it. And her, though getting Alex to come answer his cryptic calls he thinks will be easier than the obtaining.

[11calls]

There was some part of her that thought that she'd imagined Simon being there, even if the plate definitely wasn't where she had been sitting and had fallen asleep. Sometimes Alex wished more than anything that Simon would have a cellphone that he would give her the number to rather than all of the cryptic bullshit that he does now. But Alex doesn't talk about that as she and Strand go and meet with Thomas Warren who makes her skin crawl. Alex hadn't been lying when she'd said that he freaks her out and she hated sitting there so close to him. But all of the mentions of the Horn of Tiamat just made her all the more convinced that whatever Simon was doing had to do with it.

Relief flooded her when there was the voicemail that had come in from Simon, even if he didn't quite sound like himself. It almost was like he was pleading with her to come in all of his ominous Simon Reese ways and Alex knew in her gut that she did, in fact, need to go as he'd said. Of course Strand and Nic threw both separate fits and then a together one but Alex had just quietly broken into her savings and purchased a non refundable ticket. Then she'd used the studio card to book a non refundable room at an expensive hotel. Alex didn't tell Strand at all. She knew that he would want to come with her and Alex also instinctively knew that there was a reason Simon didn’t mention him in the invitation.

So Alex had come to Turkey and to the hotel and to the ringing phone. Shaking her head in disbelief at how Simon was now in Russia (it’s not like he can’t be two places at once!) Alex wondered if she had made a mistake even as she’d put on a front for the show and for Nic. Getting picked up by some random person who didn’t have any part in their story was an issue and being blindfolded was even more of one. Because Alex trusts Simon with her safety, she does get in the back of the car and blindfold her. The drive is much longer than the twenty minutes she would claim in order to protect the Horn and Alex is twitching the entire way. Whatever is going to happen is important and she can feel it in her gut.

When Elijah takes off her blindfold and she blinks in the light before putting her glasses on and Alex is shocked by just how gorgeous this place is and also how secluded it is. ‘You trust Simon. You trust Simon.’ is repeated in her head like a mantra as she walked into the small house with its small dining room and its old dining table and an old fashion speaker like something out of Mad Men on the table. It makes her think that Simon has to be here somewhere but dutifully Alex pulls out her recording kit and checks the levels on it while she waits to see and here whatever Simon says.

[bilocates]

Either Alex ate a lot of pizza by herself and completely forgot moving her plate due to the carb overload, or something strange absolutely happened that evening. It is troublesome how Simon manages to slip in and out of the shadows, leaving nary a trace to track him by. By design, of course, when they had first met he'd informed her that he could hide from "his" sight. If anything he'd only grown more adept.

He was pleading, in his way, desperate for her to listen to him this time. Simon wouldn't ask her to come to somewhere like Turkey if it weren't very important for her to do so. She was also right in understanding both that the words he chose were very deliberate, and the words he chose not to use were also deliberate. Don't bring Strand. If he said as much it would be too suspicious. After his near-pleading message all Simon could do was hope and wait.

She had to come, she just had to.

Thankfully, she did, and while Simon continued to be his usual cryptic bullshit spitting self on the phone he was still careful about who he sent to retrieve her. Only someone he trusted. Only somewhere he trusted. And, perhaps, picked for a reason. The beauty, the sunsets, a gift for her even if she didn't recognize it as such.

"Thank you for coming."

The speaker would be suspicious to her, he knew, but he couldn't meet her in person. Not as he was. While he had gathered his composure back since the voice message there was still something of a hint of exhaustion in his tone. He'd been through a lot, not that he'd tell her as much.

Now it was time to finally start dropping pretenses. Alex would have what she needs.

[11calls]

Looking around, Alex is fairly certain that Simon is close by, despite the claims that he was in Russia. Granted, he can definitely be two places at the same time, but he's also someone who clearly thinks that this meeting is too important for it to be conducted over the phone if she'd needed to come to Istanbul for it. While the house is small when Alex searches it with her eyes, she can see that there are closed doors that definitely lead to someplace else and it's a someplace else that he could be hiding. Still, she answers him as she stands in front of the table that the speaker is seated on, and with a little bit of a sigh. After he'd been in her apartment, Alex had hoped that they'd be better at the smoke and dagger thing, and the telephone call had lent credence to that theory, at least until she'd talked to him last night.

So, with one of her hands on her side, Alex lets the tiredness and the jetlag and the annoyance slip into her tone when she says: "Yeah well, you didn’t leave me much of a choice." Because while she might have had one before Simon had showed up at her apartment (maybe anyway) she definitely didn't have one after he'd told her that he had come to warn her about how he might have died going after something that had to do with the Horn of Tiamat. They went back and forth for a moment, before Simon said that his appearance would frighten her.

Immediately, she snatched up the recorder and hit the stop button, because she definitely doesn't want this recorded to tape, especially considering how she'd programmed it to automatically upload to the cloud she and Nic shared if something had happened to her here and this was a trap. Not that she'd thought that it was a trap that Simon had laid, but that someone could be using him to lay. "What are you talking about? I literally just saw you and you looked fine. What the hell would frighten me about that?"

[bilocates]

He was, in fact, close by, she was quite right on that. But he couldn't say as much over the phone where they were all being followed and listened in on. It was too dangerous. Now it's more dangerous than ever with the Horn involved. And his current... affliction.

Alex had received his usual responses, his insistence they all had a choice. His usual caginess. Until the recorder turned off, an action he could have done himself but he'd much rather Alex choose to do so on her own. The living static on the speaker hinted he was still there listening, but considering his words carefully. Simon's been trying very hard to keep Alex out of traps... it wouldn't do for him to lead her into one.

There was a long, pregnant pause while he still considered. The crackling of the speaker alive with his uncertainty. If it's not on tape, he can perhaps be more frank with her.

"I may have... over extended myself securing the Horn of Tiamat." He confessed, a hint of the exhaustion Simon was so very good at keeping to himself slipping into his tone.

[11calls]

Alex frowns, she can’t help it. She frowns and she just sits down in the chair at the table, looking around the cabin again. He sounds worse than she’d ever heard him, and she’d definitely never had heard him admit to anything close to a weakness. Even with admitting to killing his family and his fondness for sunsets he’d not sounded like this. It hurts and it makes her worried for him—she can’t help it.

“What does that mean, Simon? What happened?” And then because Alex has read Harry Potter, she can’t help but to ask: “did you like splinch yourself? Leave parts of yourself behind somewhere when you were bilocating or something?”

[bilocates]

Simon had warned her for a good reason that his mission for the Horn might go sideways. It just went sideways in a manner that was... somewhat unexpected. He should have known, should have predicted that this was how it happened. But he'd been too cocky, too sure of himself that he could hold himself together no matter how far he went. Bitten on the ass by his own hubris.

The splinch comment did earn something of a tired chuckle from Simon. Yeah that... might not be entirely off. "Something like that," And, because he's really too tired to keep up the being full cryptic act he continued: "I brought something back with me." In him, more like.

[11calls]

Alex doesn't like that at all, honestly, because bringing anything back with him definitely cannot be a good thing. There's too many bad things in the story that she's telling, and too few things that Alex Reagan is afraid of. Simon has already been involved in both of those, actually and it couldn't be what she's thinking that it is. Not when Simon had told her that he could hide things from him whoever that 'him' was, be it Warren or a Tall Paul or something else entirely. No, there's just no way that it could be possible. That wasn't how these things worked?

Was it?

Instead, Alex focuses on the questions that work around actually asking Simon if he's more demonic somehow now. The who what where when why and hows are supposed to be things that every basic story has in common. Alex may be combining more of a few of them. "Where did you go, Simon? What happened? How did you manage to bring something back with you? I don't understand." But the fact that Alex is scared for him is there in her voice; she's the sort of person who more often than not got scared or angry for someone else rather than herself and Simon has been dealt a harsher life than nearly anyone she's ever met. Maybe he and Strand would be up in a similar sort of bracket, but at least Richard had a chance to see sunsets and to not be labeled insane.

[bilocates]

Definitely not a good thing. Simon is fairly certain Alex can guess at what's happening to him, and honestly he'd rather she not see him like this. This isn't how he wants her to remember him. That darkness had been left on him whether he liked it or not, there was no escaping it no matter how well he could hide.

She already knows the truth. She just doesn't want to accept it.

This is where Simon would normally say something mysterious or change the subject and talk about something entirely unrelated. He could probably lead the conversation back to that, take her mind away from her concerns for him. There isn't anything to be done. "Do you know how I escaped Three Rivers?"

Yeah, at least Richard got sunsets. And Simon was determined to enjoy as many as he still had time to.

[11calls]

Alex is frowning, and she lets out a sigh before she rises from the chair and starts to pace back and forth in the small area of the dining room. Most of the time, when Alex wants to think she's on her feet. Stillness isn't something that ever comes easy to her at all, and even when she's recording, she fidgets her feet against the floor and her hands in her lap. But most often it's doing things like this that make Richard sigh and ask her to sit down again. She expects Simon to do that at some point, but right now it's not a thing that she is going to do.

"I assume you bilocated out somehow. Or like transported out using something similar to bilocation. I mean it would have been easy for you to like bilocate out, turn off the cameras, get the keys, open the door and get yourself out that way." Had Alex spent some time thinking about how he could have done it? Of course she did, she's Alex Reagan and thinking about impossible things and making leaps of logic was something that she'd done the most. Even if she hadn't committed it to tape because she knew how Nic and Strand would have reacted.

"Why? Did you do the same thing with the Horn?"

[bilocates]

He won't, not right now. Whatever helps her sort her thoughts she's welcome to do, thinking is what he wants her to do after all. Besides, it's easy not to be bothered by someone's fidgeting when you're hiding in another room and talking through an old speaker. If pacing helps her get where she needs to be, then far be it for him to interfere.

While Simon is rarely in the business of straight or clear answers, much less those regarding what he's capable of, he does have a habit of leaving those leaps in logic un-denied when there's a possibility Alex is on to something. Sometimes it's what he doesn't say that holds the meaning. Keeping this conversation off the record was for the best, for both of them.

"There are some things that are harder to reach. Some places more... protected than others."