[Enoch covers the hand that has grasped him with his own, caring little for the blood - you don't accept having a bond with a vampire without expecting some blood. That the blood is Beckett's doesn't bother him so much, in this state. Just part of his trial. But the mad, broken laughter still pierces him. The very core of who he is, after all, will not die. It can and, though he doesn't know it, will be, all that remains even if everything else is gone.

That doesn't mean it can't be bent in a way it wasn't meant to, however. It's expressed oddly, an off-kilter lilt to his voice, light and gentle but viscerally wrong like the way a broken limb rests.]

Oh-....oh, all right, perhaps I am hurting a little, seeing you like this. But it's all for the best. We're not taking anything from you, Beckett. Teaching humility isn't erasing pride. It's controlling it, tempering it. Once you understand that, it will be easy.

[He gently pats the back of Beckett's hand.]

This part is difficult, I know. You're hurting. You say you aren't, but I hear it in your laugh. But you'll make it. The Prophet will choose you, and we can serve her side by side. I have faith in you.

[When he gets back upstairs, this is one of those statements he'll look back on and wonder just how much didn't come from him, aside from the Prophet thing.]

[Enoch chuckles gently at the questioning. That's Beckett, isn't it, always asking. He likes that about him whether he's brainwashed or not. The difference is, here, brainwashed, he's trying to teach. He'd sought out the person he knew was going to be the most willing to learn, for their shared insatiable curiosity.]

I knew you'd have questions. I'd be happy to help you understand.

[That sounded perfectly normal, for a moment, save the serenity he shouldn't have while kneeling in a pool of Beckett's blood. But then, there was nothing there that directly contradicted who he is, aside from that, is there?]

She wants everyone to be converted, so we can all live in the new world together - and that's why you, and why us. Everyone deserves at least our best efforts to convert them.

It is...well, this. But we're unsuited to it. We can cling to our pride, and try to feel as if we're in control, but are we?

[And there, there it is again, that wrongness, that shift in cadence where what the brainwashing says he must say cannot draw on his personality without twisting it to an unnatural degree. The grafted skin.]

[As he is now, it doesn't reach him. The brainwashing is too new, too strong. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe the day after. But today, Enoch, or the man who looks and speaks like him, looks back on that night with no uncertainty. The only sign now that it's something other than himself as Beckett knows him is that discordance in his tone.]

I didn't understand. I thought of helplessness as a thing to be overcome, not understood and learned from. You will see, too, when this is done.

She is the one who saw what we didn't see - that's why her symbol is an eye.

[It may mean more than that, and part of him dearly wants to investigate his own belief system further. The part of him that belief system is tacked on to knows it won't hold up to scrutiny. So he has no motivation to act on that desire.]

The conversion process is to teach you humility and helplessness. We all need it.

The one who brought about the end to everything, what she saw.

[A difference Beckett would be equipped to notice: Enoch would have elaborated under normal circumstances. He can go on about things and concepts that mean so much to him, and yet this thing that is the center of his being right now gets a sentence or two at a time instead of his typical speeches on what it all means.]

I knew you would be eager to learn!

[He sounds so proud of Beckett! Good questions, ones he probably won't hear the rest of the process (he's right).

Except he finds he doesn't like getting them as much as he used to. Because he can't freely share what he (thinks he) knows.]

And I so badly want to keep giving you what you seek. As much as I wish I could reveal everything to you, the questions you ask now are ones I can't answer. You'll be ready after the conversion.

[He doesn't offer anything further than that, but slips his fingers under Beckett's grasp on his wrist, to pull his hand away without letting go of him, either.]

[He settles on his knees at the plea to stay, caring little for the blood that still soaks into his jeans legs and cloak, and obliges the unspoken plea, too, tightening his hold on his hand.]

I would be happy to stay. For you, anything, within the bounds of the Prophet's will. I do regret being unable to act outside of it. You love your revelations and your uncovered meanings... In time, I promise.