"Oh, hey-" and maybe it's the only-vaguely-remembered life he'd lived, or maybe it's whatever it was / is / had been / always will be between them, because despite everything... Alice came back. She kept her word (this time, just this time, but hell... maybe the last time counts? Double-or-nothing, last chance?)

"- we're all mad here." And yes, it's a crappy joke and Quentin's voice cracks at the last syllable, but he smiles a little- hands itching to tuck her hair behind her ear, to feel something that isn't bonedeep terror and dread. To touch someone who isn't-- who wasn't a possessed homicidal maniac. To stroke his fingers along the rim for her soft ear and to feel her hair spill over his knuckles like water.

"I'm sorry. I know that's not what you meant, I'm just... what you said. Sick and tired of everything going wrong."