Changing a Variable in One Scene to Change a State in Another

I am a return user to Articulate after many years, with very limited experience in it back then. Tons of Captivate experience since then, so please be gentle.

I have a project where I have one scene used as a custom, guided navigation. Click on a Picture/Button (in Ready state) and it takes you to another scene.

At the end of the (other) scene, click a button and return to navigation. This button also changes a variable to (2) and the navigation scene is supposed to hide certain layers and shows a layer because variable is now (2). Also when the variable is (2) the state of a duplicate of the initial picture/Button is changed to (Complete.) in the shown layer, and the next navigation picture/button's state is changed from (Normal) to (Ready).

I could not get the change of the variable in one scene to be honored in another. The return to the navigation scene/slide would see no change.

My workaround was to have a blank slide ahead of the navigation that (changes the variable) and (jumps to navigation slide) when (timeline starts on this slide.)

This is repeatable and consistent for the three navigation buttons in the navigation slide. I have three blank slides ahead of navigation, each changing the variable, to change the look of navigation.

What am I missing here? My variable works,  and my triggers in navigation slide work, but it seems the variable change isn't honored from scene to scene?

Thoughts?