[Abigail has more agency at a younger age than Ben ever did; her childhood built for her a different prison wrapped in a different set of rules, and she is not more intelligent than he is, but she is clever in a way he is not. She can master herself. She can learn to keep her own time, with time.

Until then he will lend her his experience, and be grateful that she exists so that all he struggled through was not in vain; she smiles at him and something behind his eyes gentles proportionately.]

It was my hope that you would find it useful. Someday you will be someplace that the time it keeps and the directions it points will be more or less stable, and you will be able to take it with you.

[He slides the card out into his palm and lowers both hands to his lap. He lost the original card somewhere along the way, left behind on the rooftop of Barracks B when they escaped. He still remembers every crease and fold, every imperfection in the ink, every line, and if he didn't know better he would say this was in fact that very card.

It can't be. But more impossibilities have happened. He rubs his thumb over it, cupped protectively in his hands, and then holds it out without looking up.]

And this.