As much as he might loathe it, there's one unfortunate truth Nathan must face when morning comes: he can't postpone going home forever.

He leaves Jamie to completing the script she left unfinished the previous night, though not before ensuring she actually eats something (I don't care how often you repeat it, Jamie, black coffee isn't an acceptable substitute for breakfast, damn you). Then, he drives home, calmer and well-rested and with a little more peace of mind. The disorientation from the night before wears off, though it lingers in the background still. Nathan suspects it will do so for a while.

It's only when he's standing in his living room again—alone, surrounded by his thrift store furniture and the burned curtains—that he realises he doesn't have any semblance left of a comforting routine to fall back on.

Before, he might have gotten to work—gone around town selling pills, sorting out the stock, answering calls and handling with difficult clients. Now, he has turbulent seas of time and nothing. He will have to reinvent himself from scratch.

But where to begin?

Putting the grimoire back under his coffee table's leg for the time being is as good a place as any, so Nathan does just that. He takes his curtains down right after, discarding them in the trash along with his ruined bag, resolving to replace these items once he has the energy and motivation for it. Finally, as if ready to fulfill a neglected New Year's resolution, he turns his attention to his long-suffering front yard.

Cleaning house might as well start in the garden.

Turning Wasteland into Wonderland, Nathan soon finds, doesn't happen in a day's time, no matter how hard he labours. It may take weeks, months, years of effort before the grass is green again, before the flowers flourish rather than wilt, and once that point is reached, the maintenance work never stops. Just like how overcoming addiction is a battle that doesn't ever end.

Then it will be tough to maintain that front yard, so damn tough Nathan fears he might one day lose the motivation to keep putting effort into it. He might start neglecting it again, let it turn right back into the repulsive, unkempt mess it was.

He is willing to do the work to keep that from happening, though, at least for today. He calls waste management to come pick up that broken cooler at long last, he waters the plants and the grass, and he spends at least an hour removing weeds of all kinds, trying not to be too bothered by the fact a garden can never be free of them entirely.

When he is done, red-faced and sweaty from working hard in the sun, he surveys his front yard and concludes it still looks shitty, but not quite as bad as it did a few days back. He likes the look of it just a little better now.

Even if it's regrettably devoid of pretty blue-haired menaces to society intent on making videos.

It occurs to Nathan that he never did watch Jamie's video about the book, or any video of hers at all. Six million subscribers, sure, but he still has no clue if her content is actually half-decent. After all his hard work, he feels he has earned the right to waste his afternoon on the Internet.

He knows just which corner of it he'd prefer to get lost in.

He goes back inside, makes himself a sandwich and settles on his couch, opening YouTube on his phone and searching for Witchcraft Wednesday once more.

He still can't bring himself to watch the video he stars in—seriously, which sadistic fuck decided inventing the camera was a good idea?—but he has time and can work up to it slowly, picking a few recent videos he's more comfortable watching at random. So he watches, not quite sure what to expect, and concludes Jamie is pretty damn good at what she does.

Her videos are polished to Hell and back: every frame flows smoothly, not a single transition out of place, special effects always used... effectively. The content's pace is fast enough to keep Nathan's attention from wandering, but not so fast he can't keep up with everything said and shown. The humour is spot-on and Jamie seems entirely in her element when placed in front of a camera, maintaining the kind of energetic presence he can't look away from as she talks animatedly in a fashion that makes him want to do nothing but shut up and listen. Nathan has never given a damn about medieval dancing mania or the Slender Man Stabbing of 2014, but Jamie makes them sound like the most interesting things in the world.

When he has watched enough random videos and has somewhat awkwardly clicked the subscribe button—that's not weird, right? Is that weird?—Nathan gathers his courage and scrolls to find Jamie's latest upload, finally ready to confront the footage that spawned all those cursed curtain memes.

Only to find it isn't there anymore.

She took it down. Jamie took the video down. Nathan supposes this was inevitable, given their need to bring the book back to the safe place it belongs in, but confusion still conquers his brain. Especially when he sees a new video at the top of the page—uploaded an hour ago at most, simply titled I'm sorry.

An apology video. Type, sigh, delete, the world needs answers. Nathan understands now what this whole script-writing business was all about, and while part of his heart rejoices, the rest of it sinks. If Jamie is going to say what he thinks she'll say, the Internet won't be kind.

He clicks the video, watches it whole. It is simple footage compared to the visuals he saw earlier. Just Jamie, sitting on her couch and talking to the camera. She looks appropriately miserable—an emotion she likely doesn't have to feign, even if every word out of her mouth is a lie. I'm sorry, she says, my video about the book was a hoax, just a joke, nothing but special effects, and I let it get way out of hand and I should've spoken up about that sooner. I was stupid and I deceived you. I abused your faith in me and you deserved better than that. I'm so sorry.

This is a good thing. It should be a good thing. It will keep the book safe from harm, will allow it to be returned to its Icelandic tomb without the eyes of the world fixed on it, without wannabe treasure hunters waiting to pounce and get their own taste of a magical adventure. But Nathan doesn't feel good about it, and when he goes to check Twitter, where #WitchcraftWednesday is trending once more, his apprehension only grows.

There is backlash. How could there not be backlash after so many people had their hopes and excitement crushed? When the hashtag was trending before, discourse and division reigned supreme alongside a respectable smattering of lighthearted jokes. Now, there are precious few memes to be found, the discourse replaced by an atmosphere of united hostility. Those who had been sceptical from the start smugly chorus we told you so in a sea of fans and interested neutrals expressing anger, disappointment, sadness and disillusionment at best.

Words of forgiveness and tacit support seem rare, mere drops among vitriolic waves, drowned out by the majority's venom. It's all fuck you for screwing your fans over, I hope you rot in Hell and I always knew you were a fake bitch and it's unbelievable how far some people go just to get a little attention. Nathan doesn't know how many of these tweets he reads, but they infuriate him, almost prompt him to respond. Telling these keyboard warriors the truth and just where they can stick their personal opinions presents an intense temptation.

But he shouldn't compromise Jamie's solution to their problem. His writings would simply be washed away in the chaos of it all, anyway.

He only stops his exploration of the social media landscape when he receives a phone call. He doesn't even need to look at the caller ID to know who's trying to reach him.

"This is Nathan–"

"I didn't know who else to call," Jamie says, and there is something in her voice Nathan hasn't heard before—something fragile and breakable, like she is a mere hair's breadth away from bursting into tears and coming completely undone. "Are you busy? If you don't have time, I'll just hang up–"

"I have time," Nathan quickly says. If he didn't, he'd make some. He doesn't need to be a genius to figure out Jamie has been reading everything he himself has been scrolling through. Don't look at it, just don't look, he wants to tell her, but that's easy to say for someone who isn't being publicly shamed and dragged through the mud.

"It's just, the Internet's blowing up again," Jamie continues, talking faster with each word she says, "and I can handle that, I can, I know I shouldn't let what everyone's saying get to me, I know that, but so many people are trying to reach me and they all have their own stupid fucking thoughts they feel they have to share with me for some reason and my, my sponsors are pissed and I think I'm going to lose actual friends over this and my mother called and she said this is what you get you never think things through and–"

"Hold on, hold on," Nathan interrupts. "You might want to pause there for a second. Breathe and collect your thoughts. Take a moment and then tell me if there's anything I can do for you, okay? It's probably not much, but I guess I can just be... here. If you need me to be."

There is a silence on the other end of the line while Jamie works on not falling apart. Nathan uses it to try and defeat his own confusion and stress. What if he fucks this up, says all the wrong things? Jamie is calling because she needs the emotional support, because she needs to talk to someone who knows the truth and won't judge, but what if he can't get it right?

Nathan is not great with emotions, never has been, and worsening a situation that already sucks is the last thing he wants to do.

"It's fine, I'm fine." Jamie sounds like she's trying to convince herself as well as him. "This isn't the end of the world, it, it just feels like that right now. Can you just... I don't know, talk? About anything, I don't care—just please keep me distracted for a little while."

"Uh..." Nathan's mind blanks briefly, but he gathers his thoughts fast. This is a reasonable request—talk about anything just talk. He can do that. He can do that. He latches on to the first thing he comes up with, not even stopping to think about how random the question may seem at first glance.

Maybe it's even better that way, he supposes. The randomness can serve as a distraction in and of itself.

"Can you name a country you think I've never heard of?"

"A... A country? One you've never heard of?"

Nathan makes out confusion, but more than enough intrigue. Jamie thinks for a bit before settling on an answer.

"Germany."

Oh, come on.

"I know Germany, I'm not that stupid," Nathan protests half-heartedly. He suspects Jamie is perfectly aware he isn't that geographically out of touch. But if she can still joke around, that's a good sign in his book.

"You're not that stupid—I know, I know you're not." Jamie laughs weakly, but it's a laugh nevertheless, so Nathan allows himself to think he's doing well so far. "I'm messing with you. In all seriousness, though... Tajikistan. That's my answer."

Tajikistan?

She's gotta be making that one up on the spot. Nathan runs with it, anyway.

"That's a good one. I've never heard of Tajikistan," he confesses. "Obscure kind of place. Nobody ever even thinks about that country and you can't possibly have many subscribers there. So if push comes to shove and everything online gets too bad, you could always pack your bags and escape to wherever Tajikistan is. You could fake your death and start a new life in some village with less than a hundred inhabitants."

"...A new life doing what?"

"Fuck if I know. Raise chickens?"

Now Jamie is really entertained; Nathan can practically feel her smiling through the phone.

"I think we both know I'd get bored of that within a day."

"Within an afternoon, probably," Nathan points out. "And that's my most generous estimate."

"Maybe I should be offended, but you're so damn right it hurts."

Nathan can't help but laugh himself now. "Okay, forget about Tajikistan. That poor country isn't ready for you. We're going to Iceland for real, though. You said you'd look into it, but have you been able to do so yet?"

"I... No," Jamie mutters. "I had to get that stupid video out first."

"It's out now, so you don't need to worry about that anymore. Or about anyone's commentary on it, because all those people don't know shit. But if you're looking for further distractions, how about making those arrangements to get to Iceland as soon as possible?"

"That's as decent a distraction as I'm going to get." Jamie pauses briefly. "I'll take care of it today and send Veronika an update. Maybe we could meet up at her place tomorrow to discuss the specifics?"

Nathan nods uselessly. "Sounds good to me."

"Great. And... Thank you. For talking. I needed that." Jamie sounds a little less broken now, still far from okay but just a little better. Nathan thinks about his front yard again—about how it still isn't Wonderland, but it might be once enough time has passed, and maybe the same principle applies here.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Nathan."

"Yeah," Nathan replies. "See you tomorrow."

They end their call. Though he advised Jamie not to do it, Nathan scrolls through Twitter a little longer, hoping against all odds the tweets might infuriate him less this time. They still leave him seething.

The Internet is a vicious place. The whole damn world is a vicious place.

But it can be just a little better sometimes, in all the little things—a simple conversation or a garden temporarily free of weeds. It can be just a little less bleak than it was before.

And maybe that will have to be enough.