The other man glances between the two of them, clearly running some mental calculus of his own — do they know each other from the old life? does Stephen Strange have other friends? that seems unlikely — but whatever he sees seems to confirm the story. They are strangers to each other, albeit amiable ones.
"More than okay," Wong says. "You're welcome here. Be warned, though. He gets annoying. And as the Sorcerer Supreme, I won't be here that often; I have duties elsewhere."
Strange casts his gaze skyward. He's fairly certain that Wong finds any possible excuse and opportunity to rub the title in his face. "We should start a swear jar, except it's for every time you mention that you're the Sorcerer Supreme."
"But I am the Sorcerer Supreme. It's just a fact."
"You're still putting a dollar in the jar. I thought humility was one of the tenets of the Masters of the Mystic Arts."
"You're one to talk, Strange—"
All of it has the sound of a well-worn comfortable argument they've had over and over, and there's no real teeth behind it for either of them; instead, they settle into it like old colleagues and friends. Finally, Strange flicks a corner of his cloak dismissively, conceding the point. "Her problem, actually, is of professional interest to the other sorcerers too. There's something hinky going on with the magicians' magic, while ours is untouched. Apparently it's affecting Brakebills too."
"This is why you should stop sending the dean's calls straight to voicemail," Wong says, shaking his head. Then he turns his attention back to their guest. "Doctor Strange is actually pretty talented, attitude aside. You'll be in good hands. And the rest of us will chip in where we can."
The ensuing interaction between the two sorcerers only serves to confirm Julia's suspicions about them. If they weren't friends, then this banter between them would be a lot more heated and tense, more of a battle of words than a casual game of tossing them back and forth. It's actually kind of fun to watch — she almost wishes she had popcorn for it.
And then they get back to the matter of why she's even here, to begin with. Stephen's explanation is succinct but practical, but Wong's response nearly results in an untimely and unladylike snort — she just barely manages to hold back the reaction.
"Thank you, I appreciate that," she replies with a grateful smile. "Things have been getting pretty desperate on our end, so we'll take all the help we can get."
Even help with attitude, though she certainly hasn't minded his thus far...
Wong nods. "I'll mention it to the other Sanctum keepers. Maybe they'll have some ideas," he says, then adds: "A pleasure, miss Wicker. I'll see you around. Keep him in line for me."
"Hey—"
But the other man is already opening up a portal and then stepping neatly through, vanishing back to Kamar-Taj in a blast of warm humid air, sunshine, and a glimpse of cobblestones. Then the portal's shut again, and they're alone in the attic. Strange exhales a deep, woebegotten sigh and then finally shoots Julia a sheepish look.
"I used to be Sorcerer Supreme, you know. Save the world once or twice or thrice and this is the thanks you get."
It's one thing for a portal to open up to a different part of the same building, but seeing Kamar-Taj on the other side... It's the exact opposite of where they're standing now, and that glimpse leaves Julia itching to continue her attempts at creating her own portal.
Smiling in sympathetic amusement at Stephen's plight, she reminds him, "No good deed goes unpunished."
And then, because there's no way she can let it go, she crosses her arms and tilts her head to the side before asking, "Do you really send Fogg's calls straight to voicemail?"
Oh, he should've known this would come back to bite him somehow. Although, judging by the fact that Brakebills hadn't taken her, perhaps the faculty aren't Julia's favourite people either—
"He keeps asking me to guest lecture for a semester," Strange groans by way of explanation, with audible exasperation. "Do you have any idea how tedious it is to put together a curriculum? I mean, don't get me wrong, I love the sound of my own voice, but I don't love the idea of dealing with students. There's a reason I never went to a teaching hospital. I don't have the patience."
There was always that nagging itching feeling at the back of his mind whenever he had to observe someone else doing a procedure: he could do it faster and better.
"So for both their sake and mine, I let others handle the visits to Brakebills. It's a nice campus but whenever I'm there, it feels like someone's about to ask me for a generous donation to," he does airquotes with his fingers, "fund the next magical generation, and I don't have that kind of money anymore. I'll stick to helping you instead."
Julia hasn't had many interactions with Fogg, certainly not enough to have a fully-formed opinion of him yet, but she's less angry about Brakebills not taking her than she used to be, so he's got that going for him. The idea of Stephen guest lecturing there strikes her as hysterical, though, and reminds her of how she used to be with the hedges. If she could do things faster and better than them, then why bother trying to teach them?
She's changed since then, her patience slowly returning as she strives to use her magic for good. And the fact that he's willing to help her at all means he probably has that side to him too. In fact, she's counting on it.
"I'm okay with that," she informs him with a smile, letting it sink in for a moment before continuing. "So you used to be rich, huh? What happened?"
He's the one who mentioned it so she assumes it's a safe thing to ask about.
Stephen's mouth has a tendency to run off without him, scattering details he realises only a second too late that he's not quite ready to broach in full. He hesitates, still looking at her, and his gaze does not drift down to his hands.
He could lie — could hide behind the monks' values, mention something about Wong trying to teach him to detach from the material world — but as slippery and evasive as he can be with the truth and his actual feelings, an outright lie seems a bit too far. So instead, he settles for an abbreviated version of the truth, his voice staying at a calculated even keel.
"It's a long story," he says. "The doctorate isn't symbolic. I actually used to be a neurosurgeon at Metro-General in Manhattan. I blew through all of my hard-earned riches when I made my pivot to magic, though. Buy me a drink someday and I'll tell you all about it."
Because it isn't the sort of story he wants to broach dead-eyed sober. There's a psychosomatic twinge of pain in his knuckles just thinking about it.
He'd been a neurosurgeon. Julia's eyebrows raise slightly at that, this new information casting him in an entirely different light. That very specific profession takes time, a whole lot of it, and more skill and intelligence than most people possess. Add in the wealth that inevitably comes with it and...
Something happened to him. The details aren't important right now; no matter how curious she is, he's not ready to tell her and she'll respect that. What is important is that she knows something happened and that she should be careful with that knowledge until she better understands him.
"Leaving one life for another isn't easy, even when it's for magic," she acknowledges sympathetically. "I was a different person when I started down this path and I can't go back to being her. I tried: spent a few months at Yale trying out law school, but it... For better or worse, that's not who I am anymore."
He arches his own eyebrow; bemused, despite himself. "A doctor and a lawyer walk into a haunted house," Strange says. "Sounds like we'll need to swap those stories later. We'll have time, since you're staying here."
Because there's probably a tale there, too: unlike Brakebills' standardised testing and their preliminary examination with its pass/fail, he's aware that every hedge has a far more chaotic path to magic, unique to them. Probably with more than a few similarities to his own journey, too: catching a glimpse of something you can't explain, chasing down leads, digging your fingers into the cracks of a door closed to you, prying it open come hell or high water. And it occurs to him that maybe his own tale isn't all that long, really. He could technically summarise it quickly enough, gloss over the details: I was in a car accident and ruined my hands, I tried to fix it with science, I found magic instead. Skip the months and the operations and the agony and the ruin, jump straight to the fun part in Nepal and once that door opened.
But the devil's in the details. And Strange had recoiled at the aphorism magic comes from pain, but— there is that small grain of truth in it, isn't there? That's how his path had started, too.
They'll talk it through someday.
For now, though, he glances back to the stairwell. "Speaking of your stay: I suspect the Sanctum's got a room ready for you by now. Want to go find it?"
Those stories... There's certainly a lot she could tell him about her journey to magic, like how she forced herself to remember Brakebills after she'd 'failed' the entrance exam, using pain to resist the memory wipe that had been attempted on her. How she'd spiraled into depression in the weeks after when she'd been unable to find a way back. And then she'd been approached by the hedges...
Part of her is uneasy about telling him everything, though. It would be so tempting to skip the parts she's ashamed of — nearly getting Q killed with her revenge dream; actually getting Kady's mom killed; the months of rehab as she found her way to Free Trader Beowolf and everything that followed. But if he shares his story with her, she owes him the same, doesn't she? It's only fair.
They'll need a lot of drinks that day. But that day isn't today. Today, she's exploring Hogwarts.
"After seeing all this?" she says with a gesture to the room around them, leaning back into the excitement she'd felt earlier. "Hell yes."
"Oh, good. Because you're about to experience one of the most miraculous pieces of NYC real estate— we'd probably be screwed if this place wasn't bigger on the inside than it is on the outside, but y'know. Magic."
Strange leads the way back downstairs, to the residential hallway branching off from the one they'd been in earlier. As they pass each ornate wooden door, he points out the Sorcerer Supreme's room ("although he's right, he's not often here anymore"); his own living quarters ("in the event of an emergency and you need to reach me"); and then he's passing the various guest rooms, making a contemplative hm! noise as he checks the doors, trying to suss out which one is new and unoccupied. There's signs of life in most of the ones they pass — apprentices' robes, stacks of papers and books, half-finished studies — but then, finally, he finds the right one.
"Here we go," the man says, shoving open the door. It creaks and opens onto a bedroom which hadn't existed this morning. The single room isn't as large and sprawling as Doctor Strange's own set of multiple rooms (the benefit of seniority), but it's nice: there's a large window which looks out onto the Chelsea street and lets in light, the bed is large and lavish, and the lamps are cozy even if they're in the form of strange Victorian cherubs. There's a desk and a bookcase on the other side of the room, both empty; the wallpaper is forested trees.
"The Sanctum spins up a new bedroom whenever we have another sorcerer or trainee staying here with us. It's handy. I'll send one of the apprentices to get some towels for you, but otherwise, you can just move your belongings in at leisure, and we'll resume our portal exercises later." Strange pauses. "Can you think of anything else you need? I haven't actually done the whole housekeeping speech before."
Making specific note of Wong's and Stephen's rooms, Julia peers curiously into the other rooms that have clearly been claimed by others who frequent the Sanctum. She's looking forward to meeting some of those apprentices whenever they finally do visit again; she's always been a social person and at least they have something pretty big in common.
When they reach her room, the window catches her attention before anything else. The view is stunning, the quintessential New York City streetscape that she'd grown up loving and that makes her feel right at home. She half-listens to Stephen as he continues speaking, taking in the desk and bookcase just waiting to be her own, the elegant bed that looks incredibly comfortable, and the wallpaper—
"What?" she asks absently, unable to tear her eyes away from those trees that are both beautiful and painful to behold. His words catch up with her and she shakes her head. "No, I don't need anything else..."
Hesitantly, she walks over to rest her fingertips on the wallpaper, as if she needs to reassure herself they're just an image and nothing more sinister. Even though she's a little afraid of the answer, she quietly asks, "Does the Sanctum design the room to match the occupant?"
"Hm?" He'd been leaning against the doorway while she roams further into the room, exploring her new territory. "Yes, I believe so. Although the cherubs are universal, so I wouldn't read too much into those."
He can't miss that Julia is staring at the forest, though, her fingers splayed against that wallpaper. Strange re-settles his crossed arms beneath his cloak. There's some detail he's missing, he's sure of it, but which the Sanctum itself picked up on. It's a terrifically haunted space and such a cat's cradle of magical leylines that he's not surprised it could strike a resonant chord somewhere. The building's been here for centuries, soaking up magical energies, and it'll be here for centuries more.
There's a pithy question on the tip of his tongue — What, do you like camping? — but there's something to her softer voice, that contemplative hesitance, which makes him take it more seriously at the last moment. "Are you alright?"
Well, that's good to know about the cherubs because they're really not her style. If those things start moving in the night, she'll fling them all out that beautiful window without hesitation.
With her fingertips tracing the texture of the wallpaper, she wonders why the Sanctum has chosen to remind her of the horrible atrocity she'd committed only a few months ago. Is it reminding her that she has no right to ever let go of that guilt? Or is it reminding her that she's no longer that person?
"Yeah, I'm..." Her voice trails off as her hands fall back to her sides. She doesn't turn to look at Stephen while she explains because it's easier not to see his face when she confesses one of her many transgressions. She'd hoped to have a few more days to make a good impression before her skeletons came out, but maybe it's better that he knows now — if he turns her out, she won't have anything to pack. "When I was without my shade, I destroyed a forest of sentient trees. I didn't think twice about burning every last one. It was genocide."
"Ah." A beat. "You can paper over it if you like."
Although there's something uncomfortably symbolic about that suggestion: just painting over the wounds, hiding them from view. Maybe the better solution is simply to learn to live with it, but he's not about to tell her what she ought to do.
He doesn't sound as horrified as he might've, or others could've. He doesn't really have an answer as to why, except that— well, in the grand calculus of guilt and blame and agency, it sounds like she had a pretty stark influence swinging her decision-making. Carefully weighing over his words and picking through them, Strange adds, "I think you can safely categorise that as... extenuating circumstances, though. Most people don't expect to be hit with a kind of paranormally-medically-induced sociopathy." Another beat. With her facing the wall, he's looking at the back of Julia's head; the stiff angles of her shoulders.
"Do you think you would have thought twice if you did have your shade?"
Just papering over it is... too easy. It would be like absolving herself of her crimes, covering them up and forgetting the part she'd played in the destruction of an entire species. Like putting a patch on her memory to forget something horrifyingly painful.
She can't do that again. Straightening her spine, she turns back to Stephen, her expression open and raw but not asking him for anything. This is her life and her crime is not his burden.
"I wouldn't have even considered it," she tells him without hesitation, then turns one hand palm-up in a helpless sort of gesture. "But whatever the circumstances, I still did it."
Sighing, she glances back over her shoulder at the wallpaper and smiles sadly. "It's a pretty reminder, at least."
It wasn't strictly speaking a test, and yet Julia just passed with shining colours regardless. So Strange nods, a tight yet understanding expression on his face. Papering it over would have been too-tidy, too-simple, too-easy; she just scored a few more points in his book by resisting it.
"Then that's matters. Knowing when and why you would've done better. And in any case, we simply do the best we can with the tools and knowledge we have available."
His own guilt is less clear-cut, more circuitous and difficult to define. The Time Stone handed over, a decision made for an entire universe. Tony Stark's life on the micro-level, and the inadvertent casualties of the blip on the macro-level. The people who died coming back, reappearing in hospitals which weren't ready for them, or in vehicles which weren't there anymore— the statistics are gruesome whenever he sees them. He's not going to make it about himself, but he understands.
"At a certain point, living with your mistakes is all we can do. I'm sorry that happened."
Running from pain and guilt is something Julia is certainly capable of and this wouldn't have been the first time she'd chosen that path, but it doesn't feel right to do it now. She has to pay penance for the hurt she's caused, even if the only one she's answering to is herself.
That look of understanding he gives her is... unexpected. Julia's been able to relate to Stephen on a few things in the brief time since their meeting but she hadn't expected it to be reciprocated. It makes her want to know so much more about him, to learn everything he's willing to share about himself and the life that led him to this moment. That feeling overwhelms her for a moment and she just stares at him with lips parted like she's about to say something, surprise and hope flickering across her expression.
"Thank you," she finally says, meaning so many things with those two simple words. She thanks him for not rescinding his offer to help her; for understanding something of her situation; for not judging her for her past... For so many things.
'You're welcome' feels like the wrong thing to say. There's something weighty in that moment, something unspoken in the air between them, and the man is near-allergic to emotional vulnerability, so he finds himself uncertain what to do with it.
So. He ducks his head into a nod, and then pivots neatly to a safer topic. "That subway token, by the way. If you need to contact me telepathically, press your right thumb to the metal, firmly say 'Stephen Strange', and then project your thoughts at me. It should get through regardless of which dimension I'm on."
Then he cocks his head; considers. "Although I suppose I could've just given you my number. The reception in the Sanctum is garbage, though, be warned."
Changing subjects is a safer move for both of them and she's grateful for it. There will be plenty more occasions for them to dive into those tough topics, they don't need to tackle them all at once.
Julia listens carefully to the token's instructions and then bursts into an abrupt laugh at his afterthought. The entire thing suddenly strikes her as completely ridiculous yet perfectly fitting for their lives. Calling him on an actual phone hadn't even occurred to her until he'd mentioned it.
"It makes a strange sort of sense that the easiest way to contact you would be magically convoluted." She shakes her head with another chuckle and adds, "Technology gets kinda screwy at Brakebills, too."
His nose crinkles at the 'strange sort of sense'; ha, ha, very funny. But he truly hadn't thought of the phone first; it had just grown so much easier to reach for the magical solution. "It's nice to have alternatives. I like having both options on the table, both science and magic," Strange says.
He's not good with the delicate use of a cell phone these days, so he lets Julia fish out her own phone and tap in the numbers himself while he recites his aloud. It's been a long, long time since he gave a woman his number, but thankfully he doesn't overthink it, just swaps contacts with a kind of genteel casualness. It's an exchange between new colleagues — a way to stay in touch with each other, since she'll be coming and going from the townhouse — and nothing else, after all.
"I'll let you get set up, and tell the novices to expect one more for dinner. Unless we just do takeout. How do you feel about Thai?"
And then once they're sorted, in a glimmer of humour and a ripple of that scarlet cloak, he leaves the room and heads back out into the hallways, leaving her to get settled.
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ourladytrees) wrote2022-06-18 12:21 am
sry swapping to prose while juggling the npc
"More than okay," Wong says. "You're welcome here. Be warned, though. He gets annoying. And as the Sorcerer Supreme, I won't be here that often; I have duties elsewhere."
Strange casts his gaze skyward. He's fairly certain that Wong finds any possible excuse and opportunity to rub the title in his face. "We should start a swear jar, except it's for every time you mention that you're the Sorcerer Supreme."
"But I am the Sorcerer Supreme. It's just a fact."
"You're still putting a dollar in the jar. I thought humility was one of the tenets of the Masters of the Mystic Arts."
"You're one to talk, Strange—"
All of it has the sound of a well-worn comfortable argument they've had over and over, and there's no real teeth behind it for either of them; instead, they settle into it like old colleagues and friends. Finally, Strange flicks a corner of his cloak dismissively, conceding the point. "Her problem, actually, is of professional interest to the other sorcerers too. There's something hinky going on with the magicians' magic, while ours is untouched. Apparently it's affecting Brakebills too."
"This is why you should stop sending the dean's calls straight to voicemail," Wong says, shaking his head. Then he turns his attention back to their guest. "Doctor Strange is actually pretty talented, attitude aside. You'll be in good hands. And the rest of us will chip in where we can."
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And then they get back to the matter of why she's even here, to begin with. Stephen's explanation is succinct but practical, but Wong's response nearly results in an untimely and unladylike snort — she just barely manages to hold back the reaction.
"Thank you, I appreciate that," she replies with a grateful smile. "Things have been getting pretty desperate on our end, so we'll take all the help we can get."
Even help with attitude, though she certainly hasn't minded his thus far...
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"Hey—"
But the other man is already opening up a portal and then stepping neatly through, vanishing back to Kamar-Taj in a blast of warm humid air, sunshine, and a glimpse of cobblestones. Then the portal's shut again, and they're alone in the attic. Strange exhales a deep, woebegotten sigh and then finally shoots Julia a sheepish look.
"I used to be Sorcerer Supreme, you know. Save the world once or twice or thrice and this is the thanks you get."
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Smiling in sympathetic amusement at Stephen's plight, she reminds him, "No good deed goes unpunished."
And then, because there's no way she can let it go, she crosses her arms and tilts her head to the side before asking, "Do you really send Fogg's calls straight to voicemail?"
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"He keeps asking me to guest lecture for a semester," Strange groans by way of explanation, with audible exasperation. "Do you have any idea how tedious it is to put together a curriculum? I mean, don't get me wrong, I love the sound of my own voice, but I don't love the idea of dealing with students. There's a reason I never went to a teaching hospital. I don't have the patience."
There was always that nagging itching feeling at the back of his mind whenever he had to observe someone else doing a procedure: he could do it faster and better.
"So for both their sake and mine, I let others handle the visits to Brakebills. It's a nice campus but whenever I'm there, it feels like someone's about to ask me for a generous donation to," he does airquotes with his fingers, "fund the next magical generation, and I don't have that kind of money anymore. I'll stick to helping you instead."
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She's changed since then, her patience slowly returning as she strives to use her magic for good. And the fact that he's willing to help her at all means he probably has that side to him too. In fact, she's counting on it.
"I'm okay with that," she informs him with a smile, letting it sink in for a moment before continuing. "So you used to be rich, huh? What happened?"
He's the one who mentioned it so she assumes it's a safe thing to ask about.
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He could lie — could hide behind the monks' values, mention something about Wong trying to teach him to detach from the material world — but as slippery and evasive as he can be with the truth and his actual feelings, an outright lie seems a bit too far. So instead, he settles for an abbreviated version of the truth, his voice staying at a calculated even keel.
"It's a long story," he says. "The doctorate isn't symbolic. I actually used to be a neurosurgeon at Metro-General in Manhattan. I blew through all of my hard-earned riches when I made my pivot to magic, though. Buy me a drink someday and I'll tell you all about it."
Because it isn't the sort of story he wants to broach dead-eyed sober. There's a psychosomatic twinge of pain in his knuckles just thinking about it.
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Something happened to him. The details aren't important right now; no matter how curious she is, he's not ready to tell her and she'll respect that. What is important is that she knows something happened and that she should be careful with that knowledge until she better understands him.
"Leaving one life for another isn't easy, even when it's for magic," she acknowledges sympathetically. "I was a different person when I started down this path and I can't go back to being her. I tried: spent a few months at Yale trying out law school, but it... For better or worse, that's not who I am anymore."
no subject
Because there's probably a tale there, too: unlike Brakebills' standardised testing and their preliminary examination with its pass/fail, he's aware that every hedge has a far more chaotic path to magic, unique to them. Probably with more than a few similarities to his own journey, too: catching a glimpse of something you can't explain, chasing down leads, digging your fingers into the cracks of a door closed to you, prying it open come hell or high water. And it occurs to him that maybe his own tale isn't all that long, really. He could technically summarise it quickly enough, gloss over the details: I was in a car accident and ruined my hands, I tried to fix it with science, I found magic instead. Skip the months and the operations and the agony and the ruin, jump straight to the fun part in Nepal and once that door opened.
But the devil's in the details. And Strange had recoiled at the aphorism magic comes from pain, but— there is that small grain of truth in it, isn't there? That's how his path had started, too.
They'll talk it through someday.
For now, though, he glances back to the stairwell. "Speaking of your stay: I suspect the Sanctum's got a room ready for you by now. Want to go find it?"
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Part of her is uneasy about telling him everything, though. It would be so tempting to skip the parts she's ashamed of — nearly getting Q killed with her revenge dream; actually getting Kady's mom killed; the months of rehab as she found her way to Free Trader Beowolf and everything that followed. But if he shares his story with her, she owes him the same, doesn't she? It's only fair.
They'll need a lot of drinks that day. But that day isn't today. Today, she's exploring Hogwarts.
"After seeing all this?" she says with a gesture to the room around them, leaning back into the excitement she'd felt earlier. "Hell yes."
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Strange leads the way back downstairs, to the residential hallway branching off from the one they'd been in earlier. As they pass each ornate wooden door, he points out the Sorcerer Supreme's room ("although he's right, he's not often here anymore"); his own living quarters ("in the event of an emergency and you need to reach me"); and then he's passing the various guest rooms, making a contemplative hm! noise as he checks the doors, trying to suss out which one is new and unoccupied. There's signs of life in most of the ones they pass — apprentices' robes, stacks of papers and books, half-finished studies — but then, finally, he finds the right one.
"Here we go," the man says, shoving open the door. It creaks and opens onto a bedroom which hadn't existed this morning. The single room isn't as large and sprawling as Doctor Strange's own set of multiple rooms (the benefit of seniority), but it's nice: there's a large window which looks out onto the Chelsea street and lets in light, the bed is large and lavish, and the lamps are cozy even if they're in the form of strange Victorian cherubs. There's a desk and a bookcase on the other side of the room, both empty; the wallpaper is forested trees.
"The Sanctum spins up a new bedroom whenever we have another sorcerer or trainee staying here with us. It's handy. I'll send one of the apprentices to get some towels for you, but otherwise, you can just move your belongings in at leisure, and we'll resume our portal exercises later." Strange pauses. "Can you think of anything else you need? I haven't actually done the whole housekeeping speech before."
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When they reach her room, the window catches her attention before anything else. The view is stunning, the quintessential New York City streetscape that she'd grown up loving and that makes her feel right at home. She half-listens to Stephen as he continues speaking, taking in the desk and bookcase just waiting to be her own, the elegant bed that looks incredibly comfortable, and the wallpaper—
"What?" she asks absently, unable to tear her eyes away from those trees that are both beautiful and painful to behold. His words catch up with her and she shakes her head. "No, I don't need anything else..."
Hesitantly, she walks over to rest her fingertips on the wallpaper, as if she needs to reassure herself they're just an image and nothing more sinister. Even though she's a little afraid of the answer, she quietly asks, "Does the Sanctum design the room to match the occupant?"
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He can't miss that Julia is staring at the forest, though, her fingers splayed against that wallpaper. Strange re-settles his crossed arms beneath his cloak. There's some detail he's missing, he's sure of it, but which the Sanctum itself picked up on. It's a terrifically haunted space and such a cat's cradle of magical leylines that he's not surprised it could strike a resonant chord somewhere. The building's been here for centuries, soaking up magical energies, and it'll be here for centuries more.
There's a pithy question on the tip of his tongue — What, do you like camping? — but there's something to her softer voice, that contemplative hesitance, which makes him take it more seriously at the last moment. "Are you alright?"
no subject
With her fingertips tracing the texture of the wallpaper, she wonders why the Sanctum has chosen to remind her of the horrible atrocity she'd committed only a few months ago. Is it reminding her that she has no right to ever let go of that guilt? Or is it reminding her that she's no longer that person?
"Yeah, I'm..." Her voice trails off as her hands fall back to her sides. She doesn't turn to look at Stephen while she explains because it's easier not to see his face when she confesses one of her many transgressions. She'd hoped to have a few more days to make a good impression before her skeletons came out, but maybe it's better that he knows now — if he turns her out, she won't have anything to pack. "When I was without my shade, I destroyed a forest of sentient trees. I didn't think twice about burning every last one. It was genocide."
no subject
Although there's something uncomfortably symbolic about that suggestion: just painting over the wounds, hiding them from view. Maybe the better solution is simply to learn to live with it, but he's not about to tell her what she ought to do.
He doesn't sound as horrified as he might've, or others could've. He doesn't really have an answer as to why, except that— well, in the grand calculus of guilt and blame and agency, it sounds like she had a pretty stark influence swinging her decision-making. Carefully weighing over his words and picking through them, Strange adds, "I think you can safely categorise that as... extenuating circumstances, though. Most people don't expect to be hit with a kind of paranormally-medically-induced sociopathy." Another beat. With her facing the wall, he's looking at the back of Julia's head; the stiff angles of her shoulders.
"Do you think you would have thought twice if you did have your shade?"
no subject
She can't do that again. Straightening her spine, she turns back to Stephen, her expression open and raw but not asking him for anything. This is her life and her crime is not his burden.
"I wouldn't have even considered it," she tells him without hesitation, then turns one hand palm-up in a helpless sort of gesture. "But whatever the circumstances, I still did it."
Sighing, she glances back over her shoulder at the wallpaper and smiles sadly. "It's a pretty reminder, at least."
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"Then that's matters. Knowing when and why you would've done better. And in any case, we simply do the best we can with the tools and knowledge we have available."
His own guilt is less clear-cut, more circuitous and difficult to define. The Time Stone handed over, a decision made for an entire universe. Tony Stark's life on the micro-level, and the inadvertent casualties of the blip on the macro-level. The people who died coming back, reappearing in hospitals which weren't ready for them, or in vehicles which weren't there anymore— the statistics are gruesome whenever he sees them. He's not going to make it about himself, but he understands.
"At a certain point, living with your mistakes is all we can do. I'm sorry that happened."
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That look of understanding he gives her is... unexpected. Julia's been able to relate to Stephen on a few things in the brief time since their meeting but she hadn't expected it to be reciprocated. It makes her want to know so much more about him, to learn everything he's willing to share about himself and the life that led him to this moment. That feeling overwhelms her for a moment and she just stares at him with lips parted like she's about to say something, surprise and hope flickering across her expression.
"Thank you," she finally says, meaning so many things with those two simple words. She thanks him for not rescinding his offer to help her; for understanding something of her situation; for not judging her for her past... For so many things.
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So. He ducks his head into a nod, and then pivots neatly to a safer topic. "That subway token, by the way. If you need to contact me telepathically, press your right thumb to the metal, firmly say 'Stephen Strange', and then project your thoughts at me. It should get through regardless of which dimension I'm on."
Then he cocks his head; considers. "Although I suppose I could've just given you my number. The reception in the Sanctum is garbage, though, be warned."
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Julia listens carefully to the token's instructions and then bursts into an abrupt laugh at his afterthought. The entire thing suddenly strikes her as completely ridiculous yet perfectly fitting for their lives. Calling him on an actual phone hadn't even occurred to her until he'd mentioned it.
"It makes a strange sort of sense that the easiest way to contact you would be magically convoluted." She shakes her head with another chuckle and adds, "Technology gets kinda screwy at Brakebills, too."
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He's not good with the delicate use of a cell phone these days, so he lets Julia fish out her own phone and tap in the numbers himself while he recites his aloud. It's been a long, long time since he gave a woman his number, but thankfully he doesn't overthink it, just swaps contacts with a kind of genteel casualness. It's an exchange between new colleagues — a way to stay in touch with each other, since she'll be coming and going from the townhouse — and nothing else, after all.
"I'll let you get set up, and tell the novices to expect one more for dinner. Unless we just do takeout. How do you feel about Thai?"
And then once they're sorted, in a glimmer of humour and a ripple of that scarlet cloak, he leaves the room and heads back out into the hallways, leaving her to get settled.