The scene unfolding in the living room of Alyx's apartment hours later had the awkward solemnity of a school play.
Lily's banner—WE LOVE YOU, ALYX—with hearts drawn around it, hung on the wall, having been put up so quickly before Alyx returned with the coffee she offered her unexpected guests.
Alyx was now sitting on the only stool in the room, convinced to receive them under the false pretext of a 'group emergency meeting to discuss... a thing.' Her expression was full of suspicion, and her presence was wrapped in a scent of cigarette smoke, coffee, and paint.
"What is this?" asked Alyx, her gaze sweeping over the banner, then the serious faces of her friends. Her posture was erect, but Robin noticed how her fingers clung to the edges of her coffee cup, trying to simulate a normalcy that hid the fine tremors, though clearly visible if you knew where to look.
Ted cleared his throat, holding his card with sweaty hands. "Alyx, we've... well, we've held this meeting today because we're all... worried."
"Worried," repeated Alyx in a murmur.
"Yes," Marshall continued, stepping forward with his crumpled card in his hand. "Since you moved, you haven't been yourself. And I don't mean we miss you doing the dishes or rigorously cleaning the apartment. It's because of what we saw at brunch and how I've seen you since. Also, what Robin saw at the gym... You're training like you're preparing for a war, you sleep little, smoke like a trucker, and..." his voice dropped to a softer whisper, "...you cry in secret."
Alyx blinked. A brief moment of vulnerability crossed her face before the mask of serenity reaffirmed itself, though with slight cracks. "I have my own apartment, my own habits, and that's what I'm supposed to do, right? You know, move on."
"But not towards an abyss! And you're going there in a direct downward spiral!" Robin couldn't contain herself any longer. Holding her card, she began, "Do you know how many times I saw you smoking on the balcony in a single afternoon? Five, Alyx... Five. And then, when you drink coffee... I'm not sure how much you consume, but it must be too much because your hands constantly shake like leaves in a blizzard. And that's not stress; you know that's... your nervous system begging for a break."
Lily, who had remained in the background, stepped forward. Her card was a drawing—a simple, affectionate sketch of the three of them: her, Marshall, and Alyx, sitting together on the old sofa. "We miss you," she began, her voice breaking. "And we're scared. We know you're not well. It's an unhealthy distance, and you're clearly hurting yourself, as if you believe you deserve it."
Alyx looked at the drawing and for a second held her breath. Then, her gaze hardened. "So this is an intervention?" she asked, followed by a dry, humorless laugh that escaped her lips. "Seriously? The banner, the cards, and the circle of concern. Who's next? Will Barney pull out a pie chart with percentages and variables?"
"In fact, I have a spreadsheet!" said Barney, unable to contain himself, pulling out his envelope. "Alyx, your trading profits from the last quarter defy all probabilistic logic. And unless you have a crystal ball or are committing a federal-level financial crime—which, between us, would be impressively cool—this is a sign of compulsive, risky behavior! Which is another clear symptom of concern!"
The silence that followed was palpable. Barney's observation, born of paranoia and selfishness, had unknowingly touched the most exposed nerve—Alyx's central mystery.
Everyone saw the color drain from Alyx's face. It wasn't a pallor wrapped in massive anger, but the marble-white of true panic—the same that Marshall had identified seeing the last time he came here.
"You have... no idea what you're talking about," Alyx managed to say, though her voice lacked all its previous strength and had a clear stammer.
"Barney, this isn't helping," Ted hissed.
"Of course it helps! It's an angle no one had considered," protested Barney.
It was then that Alyx stood up. The stool screeched against the wooden floor. The tremor in her hands was now undeniable, visible to all.
"You know what? You're right. I'm a mess. I know I drink too much coffee, smoke like a chimney, beat myself up at the gym, and cry over a love that left months ago." Her gaze, charged with icy fury, swept over each of them. "But all of that, all this beautiful and pathetic spectacle, is mine. This is my mess now. It's my grief. It's my tortuous, self-destructive path to move forward. And you know what this intervention has achieved? It's only reminded me why I left in the first place."
"Alyx, no..." began Marshall, trying to stop her from closing off.
"No!" Alyx's voice cut through the air like a whip. "I left because I couldn't breathe. Because every corner of that old apartment screamed a memory of something that had died. Because taking care of everyone, being the rock, the sensible one, the one who cleans up the vomit after another's breakup, was emptying me from the inside until only this... this... shell was left, needing coffee and punches to feel something. And your solution is to come here, raise a banner, and tell me to stop? As if it were a stupid hat?"
She approached the banner, looked at it with contempt for an infinite instant, and then, with a brusque movement, tore it from the fireplace. The sound of the paper ripping was brutally loud.
"Get out," she said, her voice now a tense and dangerous thread. "All of you. Take your well-intentioned concern, your cards, and your stupid espionage theories. Take them!" No one moved; shock had paralyzed them.
"GET OUT!" she screamed, and this time it was a heart-wrenching cry, loaded with so much pain and rage that it made Lily take a step back.
It was Barney who reacted first, with an unexpectedly subdued gesture. He nodded. "Alright. The Protocol has been... rejected."
"Tactical withdrawal, team."
One by one, ashamed and devastated, they left, with Marshall last, his unopened card still in his hand. "Alyx, I'm sorry..." he murmured.
She didn't look at him.
When the door closed, the sound of the latch clicking shut resonated like a gunshot. Alyx let herself fall against the wall, sliding down to the floor. The trembling was now uncontrollable, shaking her entire body, and tears joined in—tears of rage, humiliation, and indescribable fear—as they rolled down her cheeks.
Barney was right. In his idiotic and clumsy way, he had touched the truth. Her knowledge of the future—that damn curse that gave her an advantage and robbed her of peace—was at the center of everything. It was the engine of her compulsive productivity, the reason she saw every moment with Marshall and Lily as an emptying hourglass, the source of the panic she felt at the thought of being discovered.
She snatched Barney's card from the floor—the one talking about her impossible profits—and held it against herself with trembling hands.
They were getting close. Of course, each in their own way: Robin saw the symptoms, Marshall the pain, Lily the guilt, and now Barney the anomalous pattern.
Soon, surely, someone would connect the dots.
The intervention had failed spectacularly. But in its failure, they had achieved something: showing Alyx that she could no longer hide.
The group wouldn't give up. And her secret—which explained the bruises, the insomnia, the financial success, and the terror in her eyes—was no longer just hers. It floated in the air of the apartment, in the unasked questions, and in Barney's spreadsheet.
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