Kate Freelander

Outside the window of her hut, the world is stained pre-dawn gray, the color of the sky when a concrete building implodes. Kate's eyes feel about as gritty. She rolls away from it, closes her eyes, and tries to count herself into sleep. Her body relaxes, the slow heaviness of exhaustion creeping up her limbs with each deep breath like she is drawing it up through a straw. Her mind starts to drift. Some Wonderland thing of Jim talking to dinosaurs and Garris lifting his shirt to show off as much ink as Adam Levine, Steve, and Shemar Moore. She falls...

Awake - heart hammering, head rushing, body vibrating - and she grabs for situational awareness. She's upright. On her feet. Not in her hut. Wearing her working leather, and armed with Hollow Earth upgrades to Sanctuary weaponry. The gritty, cemetery ash gray is the sky and the ground and the destroyed buildings, and the clothes of the Herusans who pass. She ducks back a step against a fallen building, a space that used to be an alley and looks for landmarks. Like the transport system with its speed-balls and the blue sky and arched spans and finds nothing but new construction, shells of large buildings that look like Cabrini Green tenements instead of steampunk London.

Is she dreaming? Is this like coming to the island? Where is she? Is she alone? Kate turns her head and spots - none of her teammates. Not Will, not Magnus, not Declan, not Henry, not Biggie, not even Abby, but Dunham. Her heart's still speeding when their gazes connect, but her mouth quirks in something like a smile. Somehow, Dunham being here makes sense. Since dreams don't, maybe this isn't one. Whatever it is, Dunham dressed like a Fed and carrying, at least doesn't lessen her chances of getting out of here alive. And because she likes the blonde, it means she's not getting out of here alone.

"Let me guess. Couldn't sleep, took a wrong turn on the way to dreamland and wound up here?"