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She nods. "I danced it with Luke, and then I woke up. I dunno what it does when you're already awake. Open your third eye, maybe." She doesn't sound like she believes that.

Hap doesn't look like he believes it. He accepts the rest of her answer, breathing in and processing all that's happened. She didn't lie about any of it, but her heart's only begun to slow down over the past couple of questions. Deceit, present or premeditated, could have used thrill as a smokescreen. She could be excited about the chance to pull the rug out from under him again.

His finger taps a waltzing rhythm on the device as he sieves through the possibilities.

Nothing is certain except that she did see her brother and he taught her something new.

"Okay, we'll practice. In the evening. I'll bring you up a few hours earlier than usual."

Joan has a bright flash of inspiration: she could punch him in the gut with no effort at all. It makes her heart start thudding again. The application of violence is a vital skill because it gives her vitality.

"Okay." She sits up a little straighter. "What now, you tie me up again?"

She hasn't decided if she's going to fight him or not.

Her pulse purrs in his ear like the rev of an engine. He can't account for that. His heels plant firmly on the ground, his own heartbeat rising.

"No," he sighs. If he gases her, she may forget the motions, and if she's strung out on recurrent doses, he isn't sure the dance will take effect. Hap suspects that she has to want what the Movements can give her, or why would they have first revealed themselves to a soul as hungry as Prairie's?

"We'll do what we did tonight. When I knock on the door, you go to the corner, and stay until I call you over. When I walk you up or down, you walk ahead of me. You don't stop or turn around, or there will be consequences. A lot worse than a little cut on the cheek. Understand?"

Joan rubs at her face, nodding absently. No longer does she think that eye contact will win her sympathy, or prompt respect will endear her to him. "Juvie rules. Cool."

She's never been to juvenile detention, but let Hap assume. He clearly thinks she's lower than pond scum anyway.

"Does your little machine think I'm lying?" She leans forward a little.

He lets the comparison slide. Hap may be wary but his admiration hasn't entirely waned. Soon, he'll be remiss not to be able to offer her something to show it. A shower. A cup of coffee. A new set of clothes.

He can't do that, and she doesn't want him to. Not really. Her gratitude could be genuine and she'd still toss it aside as if it were a cheap ploy.

"You're not lying. You're agitated. Admittedly, it makes it hard to tell, but I'm choosing to believe you." Lying to him about this would be beyond forgiveness. Not only does she understand that, she's seen him act without reason. He's not proud of it but it can happen. He believes unconditionally that she's too good at surviving to be that reckless.

And yet, something about this rankles. She goes a little bit stiff, as though tensing for a fight, a blow, something dramatic that will render the world with meaning. Gentleness and subtlety are limp and meaningless things, when set against the potency of fear and pain.

"Why?" She sniffs, rubbing her nose on her sleeve. "You don't believe me about anything else."

He sees her brace for something and does the same, his hand resting still as stone over his leg.

"What are you talking about?" He squints with skepticism. "That's not true."

In her self-focused nervousness, she fails to see him brace, unable to think of him as anything but a perpetrator.

"You didn't believe me when I said I wouldn't run. When I said I wanted to help. You always think I'm lying, or- or delusional." She grinds out that last word with palpable bitterness; this is somehow more egregious than her imprisonment. "If you'd believed me, I never would've gave up on you."

"Joan..." Listlessly, Hap shakes his head. He did ask. Her answer overfills the vessel of his question, too messy for him to catch it all. She has a point: There's one thing he's never given her credence on, but how that's become everything is beyond him.

"Don't you think I want to believe you? It's just— It's impossible for you to know you wouldn't run. That's not lying. That's not delusion. That's the volatility of the mind. God knows I've done things I swore I wouldn't."

In the mood to be insulted, Joan grinds her teeth. Always, he acts like them fucking was the worst thing that ever happened, when it's one of the few things since her kidnapping that's kept her sane. She hates being misunderstood. It's excruciating, it makes her want to howl at the moon.

Instead, she presses her bare heel into the carpet until her leg hurts. Finally, some control.

"You wanna do a lot of things and you do 'em. But believing me?" She sits up straight, holds out her hands and shaking them-- "Too far, too far! You can believe in other dimensions and life under death, but believe in some white trash?" --and pressing them to her mouth, a pantomime of a shocked gasp.

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