He's a fossil preserved in amber, a statue: unmoving and unchanging, while the rest of the world moves on around him. Because the Hargreeves mansion itself is a mausoleum, and nothing in there, after all, has changed in two years. Since the moment the last teammate left — since Allison walked out — the only sign of passing time is the dust accumulating in the corners and Grace's careful tidying-up of the bedrooms (Luther hadn't let her touch Allison's at first; forbidding any alteration like that might jinx it, still hanging onto some faint desperate hope that she'd be back again before long). The dwindling fan mail. A few more trophies in the cabinets.

What difference does any of it make? Not much. They might as well have stopped all the clocks, cut off the telephone, when she left.

(But then that postcard. The postcard and her hasty scribbled letter afterwards, which threw open all the doors again and took Luther down off the shelf, dusted him off, brought him back to the world of the living.)

There's a few more niceties exchanged, why are you in LA, is somebody going to attack us, and Luther, smiling, explaining about the museum opening, and no, kid, you're not in any danger. Eventually, though, Joe is self-conscious enough to thank them again and then finally withdraw, fleeing back to his mother's side, beaming. Luther watches him go, something inscrutable on his face, before he falls back into the line himself alongside Allison. His hand settles on her shoulderblades, nudges her forward.

"Do you get tired of that?" he asks, quietly, his voice low and for her ears only. "Or do you miss it?"

She's getting there as an actress, but her star hasn't soared as high as the Rumor yet.