He can feel her there too, just around the edges of his mind. It's not invasive, but it's not entirely familiar either. The impression of her mental presence so similar to the one he knows and expects and yet... it reminds him of so many versions of the woman he's met, either inhabited by something else or displaced by time.

"We all are, Jeannie," he says. It may not even be entirely true, but it seems to be the best guess of some of Deerington's brightest. "This place... no one knows what is it is. How it's made. Where it exists. But I'm here. And so's Kurt. And Jean-Paul. There's more and more of us gettin' stuck here everyday." He steps a little closer, tentatively still but growing in comfort just to know she does seem as real as any of the Sleepers here do. Not merely some figment of their keeper's imagination, designed to torment him some more. Or maybe he's being naive to believe that.

"How long has it been? How long have you been here?" he asks, holding his hand out more purposefully now. Waiting to see if she'll take it.