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"He walks in and suddenly everyone's on their best behaviour-""It's partly fear. And respect.""For what?" Ludlow demanded. "What the fuck has he ever done for us? I've spent my whole lifegetting by on my own, and he had no say in it as far as I know. He might as well never have existed.Why should that change now?"Alex just looked at him."All he's done so far is to get us stuck in this place. This prison. And since then he hasn't done a singlefucking thing to get us out of it.""He didn't have much of a chance," Alex said. "He got locked up in a room the moment we found outwho he was.""Could have done something earlier, couldn't he?""Look around," Alex said. "I think we're the only ones left in this place. Everyone else got out. Becauseof him.""Did everyone miss the part about the shooting?" John Constantine asked rhetorically from a corner. Hedidn't need food. He had a cigarette."We don't even know what's going on outside," Martin said in a fit of eavesdropping-turned-intervention."We weren't the only ones that ran back. There were lots of people who would've got sent... who knowswhere. Most likely they're still there now."Forced friendliness at the table where they sat down to eat; that mix of fear and pity, the tensionsrunning high, and not-Tim thus excused himself to let them breathe more freely.Bill and Ted exchanged a glance. They got up and joined him.Not-Tim returned the smiles.And the vegetables that Ted snuck onto his plate.****Dinner eaten, stomachs full, the whole of Kenselton Hotel free to roam; down lighted hallways andwinding stairs, past silent bartenders that did not move. Together again, anarchy high; they mournedthe loss of those who died; and vowed that they'd get home some day, against all odds, and come whatmay.Alex found him in the dark of the common room, sitting at the small table between the shelvesengrossed in a book beneath the low desk light."You're still up?" Alex asked. The clock ticking in the shadows said 2 am.Looking up; a shrug. "Yeah." A hand closed the book. The Collected Works of William Shakespeare."Sorry. I didn't mean to disturb-""It's all right."Low snores from the sleeping others filled the silence of the room."Alex-""Yeah?"The cracked whisper. "Tell me this isn't a dream."**