saveourearth | Til the end of the line, Fur better or Fur worse.

When: In the midst of the confusion after the petting zoo animals have been release
What: Don't look, he's totally not walking off with a Rabbit.
Who: Jim and the 'Goddamit, Jim' Squad

He doesn't remember making this decision.

He only knows that He picked up this rabbit to take him back to the cages, and the big fluffy floppy bastard started to nibble on his earlobe and boom. Smitten. Bones is his now. He had the full intention of going to the owners to ask if he could buy the hopper, but instead, his feet took him in the direction with the least people and animals as fast as possible.

"I'm going to get you the best run, Bones. Get you all that rabbit food that rabbits like and all that Jazz. I have a garden, too. Do you know how rare gardens are in Mossgate? You probably don't. They're expensive. And rare." Bones simply bops him in the face and snuggles in. Jim takes this as agreement.

He's still walking. It doesn't seem to have really realised that he's actually in the midst of stealing a Rabbit.

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"My eyes did what now?" He asks as he begins to prop himself up on his elbows, still thoroughly confused.

"My head feels... Well, I know about things I definitely shouldn't know about? I've got Schematics for a Ford car in my head, which is normal, sure, but this one is from... 2236?" More specifically, he knows how to hotwire one, and how to fudge the identification sequence for it to believe that it's the owner.

He rubs the back of his head where he hit it on the ground and fucking hell, his ribcage hurts.

"I'm so confused." He feels the need to say it out loud. "I knew about the numbers, but what else has been happening?" He's been mostly locked up in his labs, occasionally seeing the exchanged between other Numbereds.

"They changed colour," She reiterates, "They became bright blue for a moment. Don't worry, they're back to a normal brown now." She reassures him somewhat half-heartedly. It was alright for some, having their eyes go back to normal.

Sadie does shoot him a somewhat disbelieving look. "A...2236 Ford? Really?!" She glances at Walter before looking back to Jim. "Sometimes, when that hollow feeling happens, it changes people or gives them something. Like when you saw my eyes change at the Aurora, and just now, you know something you never did before right?"

Since Sadie actually saw 'the eye thing', Walter just lets her cover that part.

His eyes first go wide as Jim explains - a glance exchanged with Sadie - and then narrow sharply.

"Definitely an alternate universe; I don't know how Ford would be able to last that long...

"As for other news, well, you heard over the Network when Stone and I were checking out what sort of Boundary we have around Mossgate, right?"

Bright blue... the same colour as the reflection he saw in the Radiation chamber panel in the vision he had in the aurora. The one of his death.

His eyes?

And he's certainly never been this reckless before. Even in the RAF he was a relatively reserved recruit. He'd just thought that this new part of his personality was because he'd finally settled in one place for the long-haul for once.

Evidently not. Who was this... Him he kept seeing?

He nods at Sadie, understanding dawning in his eyes.

"I see, so we're... all getting these things? I didn't really feel hollow this time, but I definitely felt like I was viewing it in third person. This is so weird," He turns to Walter now to shake his head.

"I was on a conference call at the time I think. I'd signed myself off the Network so I wouldn't start replying to people that weren't there."

Sadie nods, "It seems like it. If you were viewing things in first person did you see yourself or someone different?" When she had had her experience earlier today it had all been first person, why the difference between the two?

She looks at Walter, interested in hearing what he had to say about his experiment.

"Like watching a film?" Story, he wants to say, but film comes out instead. Watching, not reading.

Walter chuffs.

"Sam wouldn't have complained if you'd chimed in, anyway."

Now with Sadie's attention as well, he straightens out a little.

"We found out that there's a spherical Boundary around Mossgate. Not certain how deep it goes below ground, but we weren't able to reach the highest point."

And it had definitely been more than a circle.

"If you go outside of it, you forget everything related to your Number. The people you've met, what you've remembered - or witnessed, I suppose - in these flashbacks, and any physical traits that you've gained."

"That's-" Impossible? Was he really about to say that, with a girl with piercing yellow cat eyes and a bum back from his trying to escape with a rabbit? Was he really going to say 'Impossible' with his own two heathen lips?

"Crazy." He's not wrong, but it still doesn't come out as confident as it could be. Instead, the cogs are turning in that hyper-fixating brain of his.

"Did you guys... Do you know where the centre of this circle is at all? I don't... I... Aaarrrgghhh," Brain overload.

"Okay. How about, we go put Bones back where he belongs, I go get yelled at, and then we go back to mine or Costa or somewhere just to talk this shit over?"

Sadie gives him a sympathetic smile as she adjusts her grip on the wriggling rabbit in her arms, "Crazy's a pretty good way to describe all of this."

"I won't be able to stay for long, Mum wants me home soon but I can definitely stay long enough for you to get shouted at."

"I can only wish it was the craziest thing I've ever heard, not that it doesn't come close," Walter deadpans.

Unfortunately, he's serious there.

"And the sphere centers over the mouth of Moss River. I wouldn't rule out the water itself playing a role, either."

Which incites a grimace that emphasizes how much he detests that part of all this, too; stories of 'something in the water' conspiracies are everywhere.

Walter nods at Sadie.

"I can serve as escort the rest of the way out - I doubt they're going to let you loiter, Jim. And it'll mean they won't send someone with you themselves," he adds.

He sighs, tipping his head back to stare at the sky above. There's a niggling voice in his brain telling him he could still run, no one but these two have to know.

He pushes it down.

"Yeah. Alright. Lets get going."

Jim will be sentenced to a hundred hours of community service, to be served at the very location where he tried to commit his theft. The judge hopes that it will help him to appreciate just how demanding the upkeep of a rabbit is (after all, he says, they are like little horses if you keep them right, and there is a lot of annoyance in his words) and to appreciate the work that the zoo is doing. Should he try to steal from the zoo again, though...

The threat hangs in the air. It's quite clear that there is at least a fine attached to it.

Til the end of the line, Fur better or Fur worse.

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and then he gets comminity service, the end.

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