Late last night, thanks to the help of a friend, I was able to bring Alice home. The one I had been calling "Plead."

I have a gut feeling as to why she chose that name. She seems to hold things around the suitcase. "Why am I here?" She holds a memory of waking up drugged in an unfamiliar place, as if taken to a twisted sort of wonderland. And she holds mom yelling at her, but also the grief of losing her... And I projected mom into a stuffed rabbit... Alice wants to follow the rabbit. She wants to follow it into the next life, that she wants to believe will be better.

Alice, sweetie. The rabbit isn't going anywhere. It's right here. What we remember of her... is staying right here with us. And we can still turn this life into one you would want to live. And... no one is ever going to take you to wonderland again.

Reading that back is making me flinch away from my phone screen. Yeah... she hears me.

Last night, Fight must have seen the work I did with Alice. Hesitant, guarded, she came forward with a name as well. "Lucy." As in "Lucifer." I can't tell if she was joking.

I didn't know what to say to Lucy last night. I was only ready to deal with one part deciding on a name. I was exhausted, too. Falling asleep. It was like... 1am.

But I've spoken to her just now. As usual, I phrased things clumsily, in ways that could be misinterpreted, and, in her smoldering distrust, she took the worst meaning possible out of everything. Her atittude is justified. It served her. Of course she would be this way, after the experience she's had to hold. The one on the bathroom counter.

But what I think I may have finally gotten through to her with, was this:

"Lucy... I was wrong to say I know you think you don't need my help. What I should have said was that I know you don't need my help. Not to survive. You can survive anything. I know this. You've told me, and I believe you. What I want to help you do now is live. ... I didn't mean it that way. What I meant was... I want to protect you. The same way you protected me. I want to prove to you that no one is going to try to hurt you anymore. Not me, not him, and not anyone else."

Fawn--since she's still trapped in an endless daydream and can't hear me, I still don't know what name she would choose, and can't ask.

I know what her name was. When I was maybe 5 or 6, she told my mother her name was May. But... that was before whatever else "May" may have gone on to be made to endure. She was "May" when, despite what had happened up to that point, she was actually happy--when she was still guarding my innocence successfully. When she was just happy--instead of... happy and scared--that is, instead of being in love with a man she knew wasn't real, and knowing she was "freely" giving herself to the monster wearing his face.

Now... she can at least hear that name, if nothing else... "May..." and she doesn't like it. It doesn't fit anymore.

For now, until I hear otherwise, the only way I can distinguish her is to keep calling her Fawn. At least it's less dehumanizing than "the yellow one."