The dreamer speaks. The dreamer speaks to him, and it gives the Archivist pause. It would not be the first time that he was acknowledged in a way that went beyond a look, or a shifting expression. Sometimes there is a vague sense of intention that the dreamers cannot realize: because the Archivist did not help them when the horror first found them, and the Archivist cannot help them now, so there is nothing to ask for, and nothing to be done. They know it as surely as he does, but sometimes they try. He can always feel the trying, thick in the air, never congealing into a result.

But this one does more than try. This one speaks. This one... requests.

This one calls him John.

The Archivist blinks. Somewhere, there is a stringent, stubborn denial of the dreamer's request. It is not the Archivist's own; he stays because he is here, because no one calls him elsewhere. Because it is unfinished. Somewhere, a voice that is not a voice growls, so end it, then.

He steps forward, his hand still outstretched. The fog twists and writhes away from him, closing around the dreamer, thickening into something that wants to be impenetrable. But the Archivist does not believe it to be so, and he continues reaching, watching in thoughtless fascination as his fingers brush the dreamer's sleeve.

He knows the dreamer's name. He has always known it, but it has been an extraneous detail, far less important than the numbing fog, the fear and isolation, buried deep. Now, it rises in him like a revelation: Martin. He does not know if he speaks the name, or if the knowledge of it peals out so strongly that it cuts through the fog, regardless.

This is Martin, and somewhere, that matters. Somewhere, that is the most important detail.