[He'd been depressed already just by the end of the ship journey, brought down by the awkward soreness of a best friend who never took him for a real version of himself. He'd known it, too. And here, after months of friends dying, trauma piling on, and the growing certainty that he's likely doomed back home? There's no way he could feign cheer and good mental health. It's enough for him that he's handling this as well as he is.]

[But as for what Rose is actually saying—]

Jasp...rosesprite?

[He glances over, eyebrow cocked over the rim of his shades, like he's unsure of pronunciation or that he didn't hallucinate the line entirely.]

I mean, I figured another kernel had to be part of it, but what the hell were you doing in the alpha timeline? It was bad enough when I heard it took John to fix it. Have you got an answer on how that worked, while you're at it?

[That in particular had been a big, sore question ever since Jade mentioned it his first day here. Since when did the fucking Breath player do time travel?]