Scene opens in silence.
The room is warm. Nothing speaks—not even time.
Hale sits across from Gyroson.
A quiet table. Steam rising from untouched tea. The kind of atmosphere that shouldn't feel heavy... but does.
"You always find this place," Gyroson says after a long while.
Not smiling. Not frowning. Just existing like someone who's been here too long.
Hale doesn't answer. He's scanning the shelves. The framed sketch. The clock that ticks too softly.
It's not that something's wrong.
It's that everything is too still to be natural.
Hale breaks first.
"Where are we?"
Gyroson sips his tea.
Doesn't answer that.
"What is this house?"
No response again.
"Who are you?"
A pause.
"Gyroson," he says lightly. "That's the name I wear here."
"You're not answering anything."
"I'm not supposed to."
"Says who?"
"Depends on the timeline."
Hale freezes.
"Timeline?"
Gyroson looks up at him finally—his expression almost kind.
"Most people think time moves," he says, stirring the tea slowly.
"But it only moves because we refuse to stay still."
"You're speaking in riddles."
"No," Gyroson says softly.
"You're just asking questions meant for someone who already broke."
Silence again. The quiet kind. The kind that rearranges your bones while you're not paying attention.
"Something's happening to me," Hale says.
"I'm remembering things I haven't lived. Feeling things that aren't mine."
Gyroson's cup clinks as he sets it down.
"You're not breaking, Hale."
"You're branching."
Hale blinks.
"What does that mean?"
"It means there are pieces of you still trying to hold on.
Some in other places. Some in other versions of you.
Some... buried inside Ivy."
"I don't understand."
"You're not supposed to. Not all at once."
Hale stands up, agitated.
"If you know what's happening, why won't you just say it?"
Gyroson doesn't flinch. Doesn't even move.
"Because understanding something too soon is what ruined you the first time."
Hale backs away slightly. The walls feel closer than before. The light feels staged.
"You think I'll lose it."
"No, Hale. I think the more you try to hold on to her...
the more branches die."
And then Gyroson's tone lightens.
"Sit, if you want to.
Or go.
The next version of this moment will still happen.
One way or another."
Hale didn't move.
His throat was dry, but his voice came steady.
"Then let it be this version.
I won't run just to let another me solve the riddles I was too afraid to crack."
Gyroson smiled—slow, real.
Then he laughed. Not mockingly.
But with kindness.
The kind that felt like it remembered more than one version of Hale.
"You two sure are the same," he said quietly, almost to himself.
"Stubborn in all the right places."
They talked the whole night.