[ Mako mentions the doors and Ford nods, excited. ]

Exactly! I believe each reality we saw was connected with the doors in the sinkholes.

[ As for whether the desert in May was that same desert, Ford hums. ]

That's harder to say. I don't believe it was actually that reality, but it may have been a reflection of it - like how the architecture in October was altered to resemble Trench, and the whole city was converted to a forest in the spring prior to that.

[ He says it absently at first, like he's not wholly committed to the idea, but the more he speaks the more sure of it he feels. ]