Robert is roused from the depths of his sleep by rapid knocking and a dog barking. It isn't a pleasant way to wake up, especially when he checks to find himself minutes before the witching hour. Someone better be dead or dying, he thinks as he pulls his broken body up from the pullout couch he sleeps on. Every step cracks his joints in a new way that's almost but not quite loud enough to overtake the knocking.
There's a long list of people Robert was expecting to be on the other side of his front door. Mandy was at the very bottom, but alas, she's the one that's still throwing her fist forward even after he's swung the door open. He blinks blearily at her. Part of him thinks he must be hallucinating. The other part of him feels are shoulder bump rather harshly into his as she just strides straight into his apartment without so much as a greeting.
Robert closes the door instead of kicking her out. He steps back into his living room to watch her drop a cardboard box onto the couch. Beef sniffs at her heels and ankles. She squats down to pet Beef's head. It's a moment of sanity, Robert realizes, when he flicks the lights on to find that Mandy is not doing great at the moment.
Overworked and exhausted blue eyes stare up at Robert. She opens her mouth. Closes it. She's shaking subtly. She gives Beef one last pet before rising onto her feet. She tears open the box with one hand. The other one reaches toward him, but it doesn't make any decipherable gesture. Robert doesn't know what she wants from him until Mandy is pushing a journal against his chest with a hardened expression.
He should tell her that it's too early for this. He should, but he doesn't. Instead, he sits down on the edge of his couch. He rubs Beef's head with one hand while the other one pulls the journal open. He knows where to go only because there's a light blue ribbon being used as a book mark.
It's a handwritten journal. Robert vaguely recognizes the handwriting, but it isn't Mandy's. It's someone else. A woman writing about the days of her pregnancy. It's followed by a few short passages over the course of weeks instead of days that seem both sad and disjointed. The entries become more consistent again. Robert realizes now that this journal must belong to Mandy's mother since the woman talks about her daughter, but then it clicks that the way Mandy is being described implies she's older. The baby (if they were born because Robert gets the feeling something happened) wouldn't have been as old as Mandy is described to be.
And then there's mentions of a son nicknamed B. The woman writes about longing and distance. Some paragraphs are inked with pure regret while others are her trying to convince herself that she made the right choice.
It's at this point that Robert looks up. "I'm sorry. What am I looking for?"
Mandy nods rather violently. She reaches into the box. She digs around and pulls out a thick, thick folder filled with tons of papers crammed together. Mandy sets it in Robert's lap. She opens it, showing him... Golem's file?
Mandy points to his age and then the date on the journal. Though they coincide, Robert doesn't realize what Mandy is implying until she starts pointing at different dates on Golem's crime sheet that are cross-referenced with the woman talking about her son's 'mistakes.'
Robert continues checking dates while Mandy returns to the box. She pulls a single paper out this time. She sinks into a squat, leaning partially against Robert's knees as she shakily puts the paper over the journal and folder. It's a letter of recommendation. Someone pulled a lot of strings in order to get Golem into the Phoenix Program.
And this handwriting? Robert finally recognizes it. Vitalia, a member of the Brave Brigade.
Mandy leans further into Robert. He lifts his eyes to her. She looks equally close to crying as she does screaming, but only a whisper leaves her lips, "Tell me I'm crazy."
Robert opens his mouth. Nothing comes out. Mandy looks more desperate than before. "Tell me I'm reading into this. Please. Tell me that it's too far-fetched. Tell me I'll never know for certain so I shouldn't even entertain it."
Robert lifts the letter. He folds the journal with the folder still inside. Robert sets all of it back in the box, not bothering to see what else Mandy brought. Instead, he looks back to her. He grabs her hands, squeezing reassuringly, "What do you remember?"
Mandy obviously didn't want him to say that, but when she looks away, she answers his question. "Mom wasn't around much when I was younger. She tried to be. Except there was this one time when her powers were... malfunctioning. She had to stay away. I had to stay with my grandfather. It was for almost a year. And when Mom got me back, she was really sad and scared. She seemed to stay that way. But we never talked about this. No one told me I was going to have a younger sibling. Is that because it didn't happen? Or because they knew something could go wrong? And as for why they didn't tell me..."
"You think it's because your mom put your little brother's soul in a construct and didn't want you looking for him?"
Mandy laughs, a tad manically and definitely with a sob trapped beneath. "See? It sounds stupid. It is stupid. What the hell am I thinking? I don't know who B is or why my mom cared so much about him, but it can't be Bruno. That's so fucking stupid."
"...but you believe it?"
Mandy looks at him like she would rather die than answer. "I do."
Robert nods slowly. Mandy's forehead lands on the edge of his knee and she collapses onto the floor. Beef immediately climbs into her lap. He is singlehandedly keeping her from breaking down, Robert thinks, as he tries processing all the rather damning evidence.
"And we can't ask your mom or grandfather?"
"He's dead. And she's... We can't ask her."
"Then, we'll have to find Bruno's old master. They might know who gave them the baby construct."
Mandy looks up. "We?"
Robert smiles at her. "Yeah, we. You came to me with this, so we're going to figure this out together. Whether it's our Bruno or someone else, we'll find your brother."
Mandy sniffles but smiles back. "Thank you."
"Of course. Now, where do we start..."
