"Those aren't your memories," I said immediately. "Nichael drowned."

"I drowned," she insisted, and I was too cautious about triggering another shapeshift to press. "I remember dying there, on the bottom of the lake... and I remember so much else. Someone hurt me. Put me in the water and left me to die." Agatha (or not? She'd yet to clarify) was weird; her head kept spinning, focusing on something for only a few seconds at a time. She seemed adamant not to look ahead of her, and had an arm on mine in order to guide her forward.

"Yeah. A demon named Justice Bay stabbed you and left you there. But do you remember before that? Your brother, Alastair? The deal you made with him?"

"...He never got it." Agatha kept her head down on the ground now. Her odd behavior made me think she might've been autistic- but then again, a lot of people thought that about me, too. Weird brains acted in funny ways. "Never got what I meant."

"Which was? You seemed so afraid he was going to kill you, no matter what form you took..." We were walking, slower than most, through the lower levels. Back to the elevator. It was my responsibility to take her back to The Few for whatever they wanted with her, but I was already making plans to get her out of here. If she was twenty-three, she didn't seem it, didn't seem at all like she was technically my senior. She was nervous and bone-thin, strange and uncomfortable.

"He still will," she said, and then nodded too late. "My name's Agate, by the way." But she pronounced it a-gate, and seemed just shy enough about this that I suspected she'd never been asked to be called it before.

"From Agatha to Agate. Not much of a change."

Agate looked up to me for a bit, sort of stubbornly. I suspected there was more to this decision that she wasn't telling me. But you know? I couldn't act properly if I didn't know what I was supposed to be keeping in mind.

"Why is Alastair going to kill you?" I asked, trying to be kind.

"This is Hell," she said. Her answers were beginning to frustrate my short patience, but I only had to glance at her glassy eyes to calm down again. If I thought of her as a child, I could do this.

(Side note: I had decided to treat her as a child because I better with kids than I was with adults. But I would like to stress she was twenty-three, and not a kid. Because I had had sex with her a couple times, separating these two things- fact and mental projection- was pretty damn important.)

(Though it was unfortunate either ways that she probably wasn't even aware we'd had sex while she was Christina, and yeah, that made things ugly between us. Well. I wasn't going to tell her about it. Hopefully no one would.)

"This might be Hell, but only in name. We're not all that evil, or scary, but not perfect either. Some people want to... kill you, for selling your soul like you did," I said carefully, "I have a lot of power. I could stop them, but it would be good to know a little more about you. Should we do something about Alastair? Has he threatened to hurt you?"

I never liked adults. When I was a kid, they never did me any good. There was a time, when I was trying to help Amy turn out right, that I started crying when I heard about the right ways to do it. The questions and methods you can do. Assuring the kids their fears are founded, and they are loved.

"He hasn't done anything," Agate said, watching me from the corner of her eye. Her lips were pursed. "He's going to be angry with me. Michael."

"Yes?"

"Why do I know your name?"

We were at the split in the hall, where the elevator bays looking out of place. Right in sight was the wall where excavation had stopped, and only one of the lights had been replaced, giving the dusty-carpeted floor an odd, orange glow.

"Do you have any ideas?" I said.

"Not really." Behind us I could hear the soldier leading the other two demons towards the bay. When the elevator arrived, I slammed the 'close door' button before they could catch up. "I don't know what's going on. Where I am. But then... I know it, too."

I'd hopped onto the fancy elevator, the one where there was a small back bench. We sat next to each other with a good foot of distance. "You want to see something cool?"

Agate's eyes were narrow as she chewed off her nails. "What?"

I tapped at the wall of the elevator, a worn off-gold backplate that gave an imperfect reflection. Parts of it were too bruised to show anything else, white marks like skinned knees where age had warped the metal. Other parts were simply warped. But you could see yourself, kinda, still. "I bet this is real gold."

"Really?"

"Hell's been exploiting a... oh man, I'm not going to explain cycles to you right now. But I bed it's actual gold." With my nails, I dug under one of the loose plates, and then pulled. Even without my enhanced strength it would've given out easily, and it pried off the wall with a loud crack.

Agate did not seem particularly amused at this. I now had a fairly large wall plate, maybe gold. I put it against the wall, and then a moment later pulled the next one off. Then the next, until I'd taken down every piece of rotten metal in the elevator, and the once-fancy place was a smidgen worse. Below the surface the walls were grey steel, in places dark and blotchy. Dust had fallen with each plate, and the already downtrodden carpet had flecks of slate grey.

Agate coughed. "What are you doing?"

I had to cough too. "Just fucking around, really. Why not? And hey, maybe we can stash these somewhere. Sell 'em for a good few bucks on Earth."

"Why?"

I sat back down, kicking at the stack of plates with my shoe. "I'm not a very funny person, but I wanted to break the tension. I can see you're really scared of something. I want to understand what that is, but I'm not... well, I can't talk about a lot of my feelings either, when I'm upset. So I get it. But I really do want to- what can I do to help?"

"Why do you want to help me at all?"

I thought about this, because I didn't know. I didn't know a lot of things. I wasn't really an idiot, but a lot of people still told me I was, and at some point that set in as my default thought process. If I was doing something, I was going to do it wrong. That's what idiots do.

And if I wanted something, I was wrong for wanting it. I'd decided I was going to save the Doppel, but now the Doppel was less of an idea and more of a worried woman with beady, wet eyes. I wanted to see it through, but didn't know what that meant.

I was stupid for thinking I could do this.

"You're a person," I said.

"I'm a bunch of people, actually," Agate said.

And we didn't talk the rest of the way.

For a while, Agate led the way. She didn't comment on it, but seemed to know where she was going, stopped her nervous, frantic glancing and strode confidently forwards. Most of the time, I kept pace. When she fell back, she'd put a few fingers on my arm for support, and close her eyes.

Before we got to the Casper building, I waited. Remembered I'd ordered Alastair to be kept there, and headed towards the alley and took the side entrance. Until I'd figured out what was going on, he could wait.

Kell and the others were probably around in their offices, but I wasn't sure I was ready to turn Agate in to the 'authorities'. Especially when they were, despite all matter of corruption and incompetence, going to kill her.

As it happened, the moment we stepped into the elevator, she tapped the button for the penthouse.

"We can't go up there. The guy who technically owns the government lives there," I said.

"Is he home?"

"I don't know."

"We'll find out," she said, and then slumped against the elevator wall with a loud, hollow bang. Another unreadable emotion in her eyes, something raw and unwell. The fluorescent lights washed out her skin, casting dark shadows below her brow like she'd been inked in a comic book.

At the top, Agate peered cautiously out from the doors. I couldn't hear anything, and she stepped out. Looked at some of the lavish decor this guy (Occasio? Was his name. Rich weirdo, former businessman on Earth, not worth an ounce in politics but he'd helped the budget.) had put up- actual antique vases, proper oil paintings. Things that the people in Hell couldn't own.

Unexpectedly, after a quick glance at a painting of a slightly cross looking asian woman, Agate punched through the canvas, cutting a hole with her nails.

"Hey!" I exclaimed, "He might be rich, but don't be a dick to his artwork."

Agate stomped off to the kitchen, a white-grey stone beast nearly the size of my apartment.

"Don't break anything here, either," I warned as she scooped a wine bottle off wine rack. She looked at me and took another one, cradling the bottles in her arms like babies. "What are you doing?"

She poked around the penthouse, with me following her every step in bewilderment. Then she found the balcony, and stepped outside.

It was a crisp, May day. Casper was not the tallest of the three triplets in the center of Hell, but we were still very close to the dome that acted as Hell's sky. The lines that divided the broad, curved screens could be seen from here, narrow black lines that cut the clouds. There was some wind in Hell, expelled through small piping along the breaks in the screens, but it was harsh and fast.

Not real, like the rain, like the never perfect clouds. Half the city sprawled out before us in pillars of white-grey stone, all identical heights, in one perfect curve. Streets stretched like a radial compass, perfect lines where simple people led simple lives...

Agate ran to the edge, looked down, and immediately dropped one of her bottles of wine. I watched it topple, spiral, until it finally crashed onto the steps below, painting them pink-red. Better than blood (and hey, in Hell, red stuff on the street was often blood).

"That bottle probably cost more than my apartment," I said, "Please don't drop the other."

Agate gave me a wild animal look, I guess I'd say. Like a raccoon at eight PM, caught in the headlights. You couldn't really hear too well up here beyond the fizzing, frisk winds, and though Agate's lips moved, I didn't hear anything.

She slowly handed me the other bottle, and before I could think, jumped up on the thin, stone wall. Perched at the edge, one shaking hand griping the concrete.

I could see her breath, but didn't dare move, even if she wasn't looking at me. My mind, blurred from bemusement into a whirlwind of half remembered crime shows, had collapsed into a soft buzz.

No, but okay-

Wait, okay?

Yes. Okay.

"Hey," I said, "I'm not going to stop you, but considering it's like four PM, there's probably kids down in the square? Can you check first that you're not going to spook them?"

She turned to glare at me. It was good to remember she was doomed, anyway, that I was bad enough at forming bonds that I didn't quite care about her. I hadn't saved Doppel, I'd brought a miserable person named Agate into the world instead. I had favorite people, and then I had people I wanted to solve, and then I had... strangers. Who could die any time they damn well pleased.

Agate sort of squeaked a "Yea?" and then returned to stare down at the city below. The patch of wine, already being puzzled over by some people below. I think we were high enough they couldn't see us, though.

"I mean. I don't know you at all," I half shrugged. "I don't doubt your life might be rigorously fucked, but I don't know, and I can't really pretend to care. I'm maybe a bit of a sociopath myself. Or I'm using that incorrectly again. Point is, you could've picked someone a lot better to watch you do this."

Agate quivered, and released her hand from the railing. The moment she'd done that, I could see her begin to ease tension on her legs, begin to move to actually jump- and for once I couldn't help but grab her, quick. Threw my arms around her waist and pull her back on top of me, to the balcony again.

You're not supposed to grab them on TV, and I never got that. Agate was much weaker than me, and I sat up, kept her in a deadlock, and dragged her inside.

"You're really ruining my calm persona," I said, "I don't care about you."

"Then why'd you grab me," Agate spat. I still didn't 'get' her, but I should probably give up on that.

"Instinct! I don't know. I was fast enough, right? And you're still alive. That's a victory."

"To who?"

"To whom." She narrowed her eyes. Maybe because it was wrong, or just in annoyance. "I don't know what's up with you and your brother, but he seems like he cares about you. And if that's a front, just tell me and I'll take care of him. In the murder way, if you'd like. Hell doesn't care for you much either, and I don't know if you're decent at making friends, but..." I sighed, "I'm borderline suicidal most days anyway. I'm not good at this. I can't say you have anything to live for, or promise 'people out there care for you'. Beyond Alastair, I don't think anyone knows you exist."

Agate wasn't maintaining eye contact.

I continued with: "But maybe if you live, they will?" And then I got up, took Agate my the wrist with a death grip, and dragged her towards the edge again. Picked up the wine from where I'd put it. Took it her back inside, and threw the bottle against the wall of the white kitchen.

"What're you doing?" Agate said quietly.

"Something to break the tension." I took another bottle of wine from the wine rack, and threw it onto the floor. "Where are you from."

Agate's eyes followed my throws, still keeping her distance but leaning in the archway between the dining room and the kitchen. The wall was splattered with pink, and there were cameras in the front hall. I could go to jail for this, but I threw another bottle anyway.

Rich sod had too much wine.

"Bath," Agate said. Then, as I was grabbing another bottle off the shelf (one of those fancy, too-foreign white wines), she bolted.

"Bitch!" I shouted. I promise I rarely use such un-PC words outside scenarios like this. She had a good head start, but I'm fast. I'm strong.

I grabbed her when she was right on the edge again, pausing too long. Grabbed her waist hard enough I swore I might've broken a rib. Nearly pile-drived her onto the ground.

"You bitch," I said through gritted teeth. Then I nearly apologized for the name-calling, before remembering I didn't quite care. "How's Bath?"

Still tightly held, Agate burst in to tears, a devilish move in that it instantly made me let go of her. Of course, it hadn't been a trick. She was on the ground, sobbing, her face all scrunched up.

Honestly, stopping someone from killing themselves via brute force? Easy. Stopping someone from crying?

Yeah. I don't know.

"Do you want to write your problems down? If it helps, I'm dyslexic as shit and won't be bothered to read them unless you want me to."

Agate shook her head.

"Do you want something to eat? I'm sure this rich prick has something really fancy in his fridge. Maybe ice cream?"

Shook her head again.

"I don't know. What do you want to do? Do you want to do anything?"

"No." She was a ball of a person, and I don't know, I don't know what I was supposed to do.

"When was the last time you were happy? It was a few weeks ago for me, but my high periods always feel fake. Few months at least. Possible years."

"You overdramatic bitch," Agate sniveled, and felt like it might've been a joke. Funnier in her head than aloud, but I giggled anyway. "I don't remember anything. I know when I was younger, and Alastair..."

(Cue pause from me, saying 'what' would be too direct).

"Alastair's good. He'd do nothing to hurt me. I know this, but I messed things up. I came up with my wish. I pushed him to sell his soul. So it's all my fault, y'see? That's why he's going to kill me, because I ruined everything, and both our lives, for all those stupid reasons."

"It didn't sound like he wanted to hurt you. He was worried, he thought you were dead..." Gentle voice back on, but at least I wasn't treating her like a child anymore.

She raked her head with her nails. "I know he wouldn't hurt me, but he's going to kill me. It doesn't make sense, but he's going to-" Her speech broke into in-cohesiveness again, half words spaced with hiccups and sniffs. "I just wanted to get this over with. Die already, so I wouldn't have to worry. If you're going to keep me alive, I'll have to deal with..."

"I've killed myself before," I said. "I'm immortal, and I've done it a lot. Whenever anything went slightly bad. Sometimes as a joke. Did today, in fact, and it doesn't really help things."

"Well, you come back."

"So I do. And death is nice. But you might as well keep around and do what you can? I don't fucking know."

Agate sighed, but it was more like a heave. "I always wanted something else, you know? I grew up in the muds of London, right on the edge of good society. Where people lived big townhouses in the middle of the city, or in small pastel refuges. Even as a kid I was sneaking off to wander better neighborhoods. Near Harrod's, near the science museum, I once snuck off a field trip and found a perfect little street, where no one was walking, and there were cobblestones and flowers..." Her voice shrank with every word, withering away. "Being me was so underwhelming when everyone else was at least somethin'."

She sniff-snorted, still gripping her knees against her chest with concentrated stiffness. Her arms shook from the tension.

"So I became other people. And then I got magic, and started doing it for real. And it's scary, forgetting who you are, living as the first interesting person you see, but it's better than..." And then she sadly looked up at me, and less like lightning, more like rain, she was me.

Which I flatly didn't like. So I didn't look, I didn't listen, just grabbed her tight and held her close and said, "Agate, people have made it through worse than this before."

She shivered and shook and shoved me away, herself again. "'Cept the people who don't. 'Cept the people who kill themselves."

"There's no such thing as a feeling someone else hasn't felt before," I said firmly. "I've been there, and you're not less for having trouble- for every person out there whose life is fucked, there's another who's telling them they had it worse. The rich are bastards who don't know the value of a dollar. You can aspire to be something better than them."

"They're bastards who get to eat every day. Who don't have to stress about bills, or jobs."

"That's the 'something better' part. You can aspire to still be alive, while line after line of fancy prep types are snorting coke and killing themselves as miserable messes who have no right to complain. And they're dead, and it's not right, but we might as well fucking laugh." Agate didn't respond positively to that, but maybe looking for anything other than a side glance was asking too much. "I never said I was a good person, or a right one. Just someone who happens to be in the same room as you."

"Balcony."

"Crime scene, if we stick around too much longer."

Agate got up, slowly, fingers pulling her to her feet, creeping up the balcony edge. I didn't touch her, just tried to trust she wouldn't try again.

Maybe if she did, I'd let her. It might've been her right.

I dunno. Not good at this.

"I kinda want to vomit," she said, looking at the fake-sky and it's lilac-peace blush of a sunset.

"If you throw up over the edge, you might hit one of the guards. Do it on the bed."

Agate gripped my arm, like she was again following me blind. "I know where I want to go. Please. I should go back home."

"You're free to kill yourself there, if you'd like. I won't bother you. Just try to make sure there aren't any kids around."

"Maybe I will." The tiniest hint of a smile? Her deep-set eyes glimmered in the yellow twilight. "Maybe I won't."

(London street, near Harrod's and the science museum.... If you do not know, Harrod's is a massive, extremely expensive department store in London)