She can still open her eyes. She looks up. But she's well past talking. She doesn't have any saliva left.

"Do you need a torch?" he inquires kindly.

"Mm."

Shell leans her head back for him. People sometimes offer to torch her when she's like this. So far no one's let her hold the weapon.

He might have offered it to her, but he's not entirely sure she could hold it if he did. So he saves either of them the trouble of finding out.

Strat leads her into his house, and puts the kettle on, and sits down at his kitchen table, and invites her to do the same.

"And I'm Strat. And it seems to me I've seen you before."

"I'm sorry," she says, folding her hands on the table and looking at them. "I don't remember you. I don't remember anything from before - some time ago."

"What do you remember?"

"Someone loved me once," Shell says automatically. (She repeats this to herself in her thoughts, constantly. It is the only thing before Voice. It is the only important thing.) "I died, I guess, but that's not something I remember, only something that must have happened. I must have been going from somewhere to somewhere else. And then a torturer who I never got a look at and never introduced themselves but I called them Voice in my head found me. And I don't know how long Voice had me. It was a long time. And then they let me go. And I don't know where I reside anymore. So I just walk."

"You were here once, and you left me that. And when I went to visit you, there was no sign of you anywhere."

"- Do you know how long ago that was?"

"Around sixty or seventy years."

That doesn't sound far off the mark to Shell, not that she's been paying attention. She nods once. "I don't remember the place," she says, looking at the paper. "But I guess it's mine." She pauses. "Someone loved me once, I wonder if they made me a nice place."

"I expect that they did."

"I wish I could remember who it was."

"You knew someone named Sherlock," he offers. "But you didn't mention anything else about them, so it might not be the same person."

"You were looking for paper when you spoke with me, too, I think. I remember I gave you a pen."

"I don't have it anymore. I'm sorry."

"I have accumulated several more in the interim," he says dryly.

Strat smiles.

"I guess if it was sixty or seventy years ago it's surprising you remember me at all. Let alone anything I said."

"I have a very good memory."

"That's lucky," Shell sighs. "If nice things happened to me that would be a nice thing I'd want, a really, really good memory..."

The kettle clicks. Strat provides tea.

"Yes."

He shrugs. "I don't have much experience with that kind of reconstruction."

"I know I wanted paper very badly at one point, or I don't suppose I'd care so much now."

He nods.

"I wonder what I did. I wonder who I was. I can't even remember if Shell is actually my name or not. Did I tell you my name before?"

"Shell sounds about right."

"I'll come with you," he says.

Strat observes her exactness, but doesn't comment on it.

"Yes," says Strat. "Would you like help organizing the debris?"

Strat, meanwhile, helps keep the paths clear and passes her interesting things he spots amidst the junk, with comments like "valuable to collectors" (a watergun) and "I expect you'll want this" (a blank spiral-bound notebook).

"Thank you," says Shell each time. "I'm going to have to have a - the word I want to use is estate sale but that's obviously the wrong word. I'll lay stuff out on the street on a blanket, I guess."

"A sound strategy."

"There's a bit of luck," says Strat.

"I may as well."

Srat watches her for a moment, then decides that she is probably all right and heads off to get a drink.

"Probably. Which one are you?"

"...Which?" she says. "I'm called Shell."

"Are you now," he says, slow and thoughtful. "Where you from, Shell?"

"Downside," she says. "I don't remember before that, but I assume I lived somewhere, before I died." She looks around her. "I might not go back, though."

"Why not?"

"Oh, well - I might - but - it's not safe there, and I think it's safe here."

"It usually is," he agrees. "What's Downside like?"

"It's..." She makes a vague gesture, and sits down at his table. "I never had to explain it before, what do you want to know? Everybody there is dead, there's that."

"Let's start with: what's the danger?"

"I'm sorry," he murmurs sympathetically.

"They let me go," Shell says. "And after I walked around for a while I even found someone I met before they got me, and he knew where I resided, so now I can go back there if I want. But I might stay here instead."

"Staying here's a good choice," he says. "Somebody I love got killed here once, but that's a special case."

"Someone loved me once," sighs Shell dreamily, leaning her face on one hand.

"I think so, anyway. I have an apartment. In Downside your house is how much you were mourned when you died. My apartment is little, so it's probably just one person, but it's - nice, so I think they must've loved me a lot. It's got a lot of clutter because I wasn't there to clear it out for, I think Strat said sixty or seventy years, but it's got pretty wallpaper and furniture and stuff. And anyway it's the only thing I remember from before for sure."

"Wouldja do me a favour?" he asks suddenly. "Open your door for me?"

"Do you want to go to Downside?" asks Shell. "On purpose? Aren't you alive?"

"Do you get doors to here whenever you want them?" she asks quizzically, but she gets up to go to the door.

"When I say 'not long'," he says as he follows, "I mean mmmaybe a couple minutes. Will you be a sweetheart and hold the door for me?"

Timer's in bed with Eights, napping off a lovely bit of fornication.

"Awww," says the Joker.

"Do I know you?" inquires Eights.

"Nope!"

"Ooh," she says. "Him."

"Milliways," he explains succinctly. "I came to see if you're okay. Are you okay? I'm glad you're not stuck on me, anyway, that would've been tragic."

"Not a vampire anymore," Nathan points out. "Bond was toast. I'm fine, this place isn't so bad, for me. Not overwhelmingly popular among some audiences, I guess, but me, I'm a Timer. But babe, I died a hundred years ago. I figured you never knew this place existed, how'd you find it?"

"Ran into somebody else I knew that died and went here," he explains. "One'a Goldie's alts. I didn't know you were here, or anything, but... well, the way she was talking, I wanted to check. See if you wanted a ride home."

"One of Bella's alts got here? Shit, why isn't the place remodeled to her satisfaction yet?"

"Looks like her magic didn't stick," he shrugs. "She didn't come out of it too well. Doesn't remember much."

"Eegh," Nathan says. "Well, I dunno. How long's it been on your end? How's the munchkin?"

"...That sounds profoundly awkward?" offers Nathan.

"I don't think so fast anymore," shrugs Nathan. "D'you want to hang around for a bit while I think about it? See the sights? I avoid torturers but you might like some of Eights's friends. There's a decent restaurant in my neighborhood, I eat food now."

"Sure, babe," says Nathan. He's not wearing anything under the covers - it has not been time to get dressed yet - but he gets up from under them and hugs his ex-mate.

(Elsewhere, Strat is just leaving Shell's apartment, having come back from Milliways with a lovely beer to keep him company for a bit.)

"I'm voting you two for most adorable afterlife reunion of the millennium," says Eights.

"Wouldn't know, I haven't seen many," Timer comments to Eights.

"I've seen a few," she says, "and trust me, you're one of the cutest. Also, out of all the ones where one party found the other in bed with me, definitely the least awkward."

The Joker giggles and runs his fingers familiarly through Nathan's hair. He doesn't seem inclined to let go terribly fast.

"I'm Shell," says Shell. "But you're - terribly important and I don't know why."

"Tell me everything about you," she says softly.

"I don't remember very much," Shell apologizes, and her hands twist in front of her, because this very important person wants everything and Shell does not know how to give her everything, "but I can tell you what I remember - but I don't know where to start."

"Start at the beginning. Or as close as you can get to it."

"I - well - I don't remember dying, but I must have, because I'm from Downside and everyone there is dead - and I've forgotten everything else before Voice, and I don't even know if that's what they're called or anything about them because I never saw them and Voice isn't even their name probably, I made it up, but anyway I don't remember this part but before Voice I met Strat, because just a few hours ago I ran into him and he torched me because I was out of water again and he knew where I resided because before Voice I told him, before I forgot - so he took me back there - but that's not the beginning anymore. I'm so sorry."

"It's all right," says Sherlock. "Who is Voice?"

"Except?"

"Just the same thing, over and over, I couldn't remember anything else, I just wrote someone loved me once," Shell says. "I think that's true. I really think so. My apartment looks like it, too."

"I thought so!" says Shell. "Anyway, Voice had me for a long time, and then they let me go, I don't know why it was when it was, and - I couldn't remember my residence code or anything - so I just - walked. I torched every few days because I couldn't usually find water."

"...Would you like to come upstairs and sit down?"

"Yes," says Shell, because this person is terribly important and I'll go anywhere with you sounds forward.

They are now upstairs. In a smallish bedroom. Sherlock is standing still and looking as expressionless as she has for this entire conversation.

"Why not?" asks Shell. "I didn't interrupt you doing something, did I? You're very very important and I don't want to mess up whatever you've been doing. - I'll help you, if I can, but I'm not very good at anything."

"Right now," says Sherlock, "there is nothing I could be doing that is more important than you."

"Oh," says Shell. She's not about to question the Important Person's judgment. "...Should I say more things? I think you have the, the broad shape of everything, but there are details, here and there, if you want them, except I don't think you'd necessarily like them -" Shell has no idea how she can read this into motionlessness and stoic calm expression, but she can, she's very sure. "- I remember this morning perfectly well and it's much nicer than the rest," she adds, "Strat torched me and then invited me home for tea, that was unusual, most often even if someone mercy-torched me they'd just walk away after."

"I will not like them," says Sherlock. "I want them anyway."

"Are... are you sure? It's a lot. Strat says it was sixty or seventy years between when I told him where I resided and when I found him today. It will take a lot of your time and you're very, very important."

"I have a lot of time."

"My name," she says softly, "is Sherlock."

"Strat told me I said I knew a Sherlock, seventy or eighty years ago," says Shell. "I don't remember anything else, though - I'm sorry -"

"You are categorically not required to be sorry to me about anything."

"But - was it you? Or someone else with the same name, that I knew, before? Did I know you? I could tell right away that you were very important - but I don't know why."

"Don't leave me," blurts Shell, involuntarily, her hands escaping from where she's sitting on them to reach out in Sherlock's direction, "no, please, I missed you, not yet, please -"

[Right now?] Bell wants to know. She did not come along on this excursion to Milliways for a reason. Tony did not come along on this excursion to Milliways for the same reason.

"Sherlock?" murmurs Shell in a tentative, mousy voice. She's sitting on her hands again. She has overstepped her bounds with Important Sherlock, clearly, and should not have made that request.

"Sherlock needs me right now apparently," Bell murmurs apologetically to Tony, and she kisses his nose and spends a square to make herself presentable and teleports. "What is it?" she asks her girlfriend, tilting her head.

Shell, who cannot see Bell from where she's sitting, draws her knees up to her chin and hugs her legs.

Sherlock points.

Shell doesn't look up from her knees at the sound of Bell's voice. (Like all voices, they sound different from the inside as opposed to the outside; she doesn't even recognize the sound.) She is berating herself for misjudging her leeway with Important Sherlock.

Shell flinches as though she's been electrocuted, and her eyes fly wide open and then squeeze shut.

Sherlock slowly drops her arm from where it was pointing at Shell.

"Do you need a minute?" Bell murmurs to her counterpart. "I think you've got more memories to process than I did."

"Just a minute," breathes Shell.

Bell takes that minute to go over to Sherlock and steer her in Shell's direction. [You don't have to react any special way. It's you she wants, not somebody following some script. But be there,] she says to Sherlock.

She sits at the table that Shell is sitting on.

Sherlock hugs her back, shivering very slightly.

"I love you," Shell sobs into Sherlock's shoulder. "I love you, I love you, do you still love me, please still love me - I'm so sorry I forgot you -"

Bell moves to sit at the table Shell and Sherlock are both sitting on. [It is not your fault. I didn't think of this either, I was in just as good a position to do so as you were, I could have scanned the memory of the wish for loopholes and I didn't, I could have wondered about the details of how resurrection works and I didn't, you and I did the same thing, we looked at me being alive and never hypothesized that somewhere Shell was being dead, is it my fault?]

"I wish I was there too," Sherlock whispers.

"No, no, you're alive, it's good that you're alive, I'm glad you're alive, and I found you, I found you, you're here, I love you," says Shell, crying again. "I figured out what happened right away before everything - my guide took one look at my apartment and thought you'd be a suicide but I knew better - I knew you'd bring me back and that was why it was little and I knew you'd be okay and Tony would be okay and Atlantis would be okay and that was all good but I'm just so selfish -"

"Everyone at home is fine," Bell confirms softly. "Ranae and Shark never even found out. Tony did but only after I was alive. Coin and her helpers are all on the moon. Everything's just how you would've made it. I'm so sorry for never imagining you."

"I -" Shell hiccups between sobs - "I never would've imagined me either. There's no way but through here to do anything to communicate with livelings - before I forgot everything I was going to see if there was a - a biography of you or something in the library - but I never did - and now I'm here and - and now what?"

"...I don't know," admits Bell.

Why can she not be hugging them both at the same time without ceasing to hug one in between? Maybe there should be two of her too.

[I doubt that would help. You'd probably both still want to hug both of us,] Bell points out.

"I should've never - ever - happened," says Shell, "it should just be you - how long has it been - what did I miss -?"

"Not much," Bell soothes. "Less than a year. Not much at all."

"You can look, you can both look, you can do whatever you want with me, I'm just so happy I found you again," sighs Shell, somewhat calmed down (but still clinging tight to Sherlock).

"There could stop being two of us," Bell says. "I mean, we could - go back to being only one. But it would be complicated, and I want to think about it, and I want to think about it at home. And I know you want to see home."

"I don't think you want to be you," Sherlock observes.

"Sure," says Shell, "but I can't do anything about it. I can just torch, that's all. I've done it a million times and I go right on being me. Bell doesn't have to."

"This is what we'd have to think about," Bell says. "How to weight the two of us in a merger so the result wouldn't not like to be herself. Home?"

Sherlock carries her.

[Uh, okay,] says Tony. [Where...?]

Bell supplies their location as the door closes behind them. "Tony's coming," she murmurs to Shell.

"I died," says Shell. "The afterlife didn't let me go when Sherlock tried to get me. Now there's two. I didn't have a very nice time but I found her I found her I found her." (Sherlock's throat gets nuzzled.)

"We are considering ceasing to be two," Bell adds. "But it seems complicated to figure out how to not end up mostly her, when she's the one who by her own admission shouldn't've happened and she's got a longer history than me."

"Yeah," says Shell. If Sherlock puts her down now she won't wince, even.

Tony hugs Shell-in-Sherlock's-arms, instead. It is physically awkward but emotionally soothing.

"I missed you," Shell says, hugging and nuzzling and sighing soothedly.

"I love you," he murmurs back. "I would've missed you if I'd known you were gone."

"I love you too and I missed you until I forgot everything and then I missed you again when Bell fixed my memory and now I'm home," sighs Shell.

"What do you want to keep?" Bell asks, her mind still on the problem of excess Shell Bells. "The memories - I'm sure you want those after losing them - but is there anything else joined-us should keep?"

"We should - should subdue my share of memories a little. I don't think we want some of mine as easy to call up as - as standard," says Shell, not unhugging from Tony one little bit to participate in this conversation. "...We probably want to torch. If we could've torched to begin with then the - was it a nuke? I thought it was a nuke - wouldn't've done anything worth caring about except ruined some Europe."

"I fixed the bit of Europe," Bell says.

"I love you," murmurs Sherlock.

"I love you," says Shell, again with that sigh that makes it sound like loving Sherlock is an enormous comfy pillow for her to sink into. "...We might want my pain tolerance? It's not even magical. It won't go away if something happens to our magic again. I don't know how easy that will be to separate from the memories, though."

"We can try wishing it separate and if it doesn't work we can work out something else."

Sherlock cuddles her armful of Shell.

Shell cuddles right back. She feels so happy. It is the happiness of dramatic improvement in circumstance, not Bell's usual level buzz of delight, but it's happy and it's very much so.

"Since we were the first to try resurrection - although Golden's done it once now too and we should notify her of the glitch - we will also be the first to try merging and I don't want to miss anything," says Bell. "Are we okay to have two of us around for a couple days - Shell, do you mind sticking to the palace? - while we make sure we haven't neglected anything?"

"I believe we are."

"I don't mind staying in the palace. I'd only confuse Ranae and Shark and I don't need to see them really. The palace is nice. May I have some coins, please?"

Sherlock wishes her a bandolier and a comfortable assortment of triangles-through-hexes.

"Thank you. I love you." Snuzzle. "- Huh, I don't actually know if torching works, outside of Downside -"

Bell expects Sherlock to beat her in reaction time, and Sherlock's closer, but she still says "Shell, don't -"

"That it worked?"

"Shell," says Bell sharply. "Don't do that."

"...Why not? I'm fine. And now we know. And if I hadn't been fine, you and Sherlock and Tony would still be fine, and I'd either stop existing or go back to Downside but you'd know to look for me if you wanted me back again, everything would be fine."

"You are slightly more redundant than the average Bell, that doesn't mean you should torch yourself without knowing for sure whether it works while Sherlock is holding you," says Bell.

"...Oh. Oh, Sherlock, I'm so sorry, did I scare you - I thought it would be okay, you have another one, you have the right one right there -" Shell turns her face into Sherlock's shoulder and scrunches towards herself apologetically.

"I love you," she says, very softly.

"I love you too, but I shouldn't've started existing so I didn't think it'd bother anyone if I took a chance of stopping when the one who should exist is there, I didn't think, I'm so sorry."

"Hey," Tony says gently, hugging her again. "If anybody knows what it's like to feel like that, it's Sherry. It's okay. We love you."

"No no no you have to exist," says Shell to Sherlock, alarmed. "You are very important, and there isn't an extra one of you, either."

"I know," she says softly.

"Good. You need to understand that. You never did. I wouldn't even be half sane if it wasn't for you, if I hadn't had - the fact that you existed to hold onto." Shell switches to addressing Bell. "You're thinking the sanity cut was only because it was a long time, and you're right that it didn't help, but I didn't even hold up very well through the very first time, you're thinking Golden hurt worse when she turned and Amariah more invasively when Path was kidnapped and that's true but they both had people who loved them, there, holding them the entire time. We need that. We need to tell all of them that they need that, I don't think anybody but Golden understands and she thinks it's only because of the mate bond."

"You're right. I was thinking that," murmurs Bell. "...It's good that you at least notice you're not all that sane."

"It's obvious," says Shell. "Obvious. We should be mostly you. I can just tuck away in a corner of you to do torching and memories of Downside." She pauses. "Oh, we're probably going to fuck that place up, aren't we. I was thinking of doing that before Voice got me."

"That place," agrees Bell gravely, "is very much going to get fucked up. ...Sherlock. Sherlock, I can see you thinking that. Do you need Shell to cry on you some more? Would that even help?"

"What?" asks Shell. "...Would it help something if I did? I can. It wouldn't be hard. I can't read what you're thinking anymore, Sherlock, what's she seeing...?"

"I'm sorry," she says, "I am... having a moment."

"I believe you that I am very important to you," she says. "It is extremely obvious that I am very important to you. It is very important to me that I am very important to you."

"We might have to settle for that," says Bell wryly to Shell.

"But - but - no, you've just been putting up with it, that she thinks like that, but it's going to drive me just nuts!" Pause. "...A tiny, tiny bit more nuts?"

"I'll let you monopolize her in the couple days we spend double-checking merger parameters, see what you can do - if you can't get any farther than that, we're keeping my attitude towards the issue," sighs Bell.

"I love you," murmurs Sherlock. To... everyone, really.

"I love you too," sighs Shell, just as -

- Bell says the same thing.

Shell being the one Sherlock is currently holding, she is the one who gets snuggled.

That is pleasing!

It's fine with Bell too. She's not the one who just spent decades all by herself.

Shell doesn't notice. She's too busy pressing herself against Sherlock like she expects this effort to eventually yield a sufficient closeness to turn them into some kind of hybrid being.

[Let's leave 'em be,] Bell suggests to Tony, turning to go.

[Deal,] he says, taking her hand and following.

"You're important," Shell mumbles into Sherlock's neck. "How do I convince you, tell me."

"I don't know," she murmurs back, helplessly.

"Why don't you believe it? I do. Bell does too. We're smart. And she's also sane all the way through so it's not just because I've gone a little off. And Tony agrees with us!"

"It is not wholly a factual matter."

Nuzzle, nuzzle, hug, sigh. "Why isn't feeling it contagious?" she asks plaintively.

"I don't know," she says. "I'm sorry."

"I love you, I love you, I love you, I missed saying that," sighs Shell.

"I love you too," Sherlock murmurs.

"I want to go cuddle properly. In a bed? Can we do that?"

"Yes."

The holding her and never letting her go part, Sherlock can definitely do.

"I love you," Sherlock says helplessly, cuddling her some more.

"I looooove you," sighs Shell. "I'm so glad I'm home and soon I can fold back into Bell and everything'll be okay and we're gonna tear Downside apart and put it back together nice and I love you."

Shell thinks, then says, "We should let Bell figure it out. My ideas are mostly the same thing with different people getting hurt. I'm not quite myself. I'm sorry."

"Who gets hurt?"

Shell shrinks into herself. "The people who hurt me. That's what knock down means. When torturers get into fights in what passes for politics Downside - they can't kill each other. They just hurt each other till someone's done and stands down."

"Oh, good," sighs Shell, muffling her voice by pressing her face into her girlfriend. "I wished for a lot of things I shouldn't and I'm so glad you love me anyway."

"Of course I do."

Then Sherlock will cuddle her, and watch over her, and wait.

"I love you," Sherlock murmurs, kissing Shell's forehead.

"Yes," she says. "I am still here."

"That's good. Did you sleep too?"

"A little."

"That's good." Shell seems very comforted by the fact that Sherlock can sleep with her in the room, still.

She smiles very slightly.

Shell will only know this if Sherlock tells her. Shell cannot read Sherlock's mind right now. In fact, despite having asked for coins, the only one she's used is the one that torched her. She is simply no longer accustomed to being able to do anything worth doing at all besides progress through various stages between torch and next torch, let alone with magic.

"I'm hungry," she says. "I am going to make muffins. Do you want muffins?"

"Shall I carry you to the kitchen?" she suggests.

"Yes."

So she does.

Shell still has not conjured up enough inferential power to expect to be put down once they get there.

How about put down on the counter and immediately kissed?

Oh, kisses, she's missed those, muffins are instantly abandoned as a possible use of her mouth in favor of lots and lots of enthusiastic whimpery kisses kisses kisses.

Hmm. Yes. Clearly they have found a higher priority.

It is the highest priority. Shell has no idea how she managed to neglect this as an instant, first, essential step in Having Sherlock Again, but she is making up for lost time. Decades of it. She's sitting on the counter, so she can wrap her legs around Sherlock's middle, too.

After mind-reading, this is just about the best way Sherlock can think of to say 'I love you'.

Shell is saying it back. (And I'm somewhat obsessed with you really and I may be literally crazy about you and don't leave me, not even an inch, don't leave me).

Awww! Yes, that would be what Shell would have suggested if she were thinking that clearly. There is clearly no need to stop making out just to fix muffins.

They will eventually need to stop making out in order to eat the muffins. But that time has not yet come.

Kisses kisses kisses lovely lovey kisses.

Sherlock will probably notice periodic gentle brushes of Bell's mindreading, but that is the extent of the intrusion on this moment.

Shell has no verbal response, but the way she squirms says can we eat them while still snuggling?

She calls one into her hand, triangles it warm-but-not-too-hot-to-eat, and presents it to Shell.

Sherlock kisses the attempt.

Mmm kisses mmmmmmmmm.

Kisses! Mmmmmm, kisses!