Hugs are nice and Bell approves. When her hands are free, she catches one of her Sherlock's with one of hers, because handholding is also nice. "How're you doing?" she asks Other Sherlock.

Bell makes a sound that resembles, "Asplughflnnn?"

He looks at Other Sherry in mild dismay. "That was mean."

"I'm very sorry," he says. "Overly personal question. I ought to've known better."

Meanwhile, Sherlock squeezes Bell's hand, attempt-at-comfortingly.

Bell puts her forehead on her Sherlock's shoulder. "Well," she says.

"Help me out here," says Tony. "Is this a conversation we should be having, or should we all forget it never happened and go get hot chocolate?"

"Well. I don't know. Do you want to have the conversation?"

"...Yes?" he tries.

"Okay then. We can have it. Hot chocolate also sounds really good though."

"Great," says Tony. "Other Sherry, I love you very much, but go away."

"So, this is awkward," remarks Bell, squeezing her Sherlock's hand hard and making no eye contact with anyone.

"Yep," Tony agrees. "I think we should all get hot chocolate and then go somewhere. Like back home. Or somebody's room."

"My room's closest," says Shell Bell.

Sherlock plays the appropriate recording.

"...Oh, man," says Tony. "I wanna hug you. Can I hug you?"

"Yeah," says Bell, putting her mug on her nightstand.

"I like you too," she murmurs.

"Well, great," he says with a tiny smile, "we've got that much going for us."

"With all aforementioned caveats," says Bell, "I can give you a... maybe? I don't know. I've been avoiding thinking about it."

"...Why? Have you been avoiding thinking about it, I mean."

"Because I'd decided not to do anything, so it was unproductive, at least until circumstances changed."

"Well. Do you wanna think about it now?"

"I usually -" She gestures at the recorder. "Do my thinking alone, aloud. I'm estimating half an hour, will you be terribly bored?"

"We've got hot chocolate and snuggles," says Tony. "We'll keep. You want us to clear out and wait for you downstairs?"

"If you don't mind. You could check the Belltower, if you do get bored or if I take longer than expected or something."

"All right," says Sherlock. She gives Bell a hug and a quick kiss, then detaches, leading Tony out.

Bell talks to herself.

They observe a familiar face. (And her also-familiar, oddly pale companion.)

"Hm," says Sherlock.

"...Does one of me know you?" Bella asks Tony, tilting her head. "Hello."

"Hi!" he says. "Yes, one of you does! How many of you have you met? Are you new? Have you been to the Belltower?"

"Just one other. Why, are there lots? My personnel officer ran into her kid and we've been interacting since. I've been here several times. What's the Belltower?"

"Shell Bell? Oh my word that's precious," laughs Bella. "Belltower? Is it a literal tower in the backyard or something? Because that's what I would do, assuming I could get Bar to give me the local equivalent of a building permit."

"Nope, it's a room upstairs," he says. "The Bells are kinda strapped for cash so one of my alts is paying for it."

Alice, meanwhile, is looking at Sherlock.

And Sherlock is looking at Alice.

"Well, that's silly, if it's a Belltower then a Bella should be covering it. Bar takes imperial asters, I'm not going to run out any time soon," says Bella, grinning. "Let's see the place and I assume it'll convince me to fund it."

"This way," says Sherlock.

Tony bounces along after her.

"I think Bell said something about the other one doing the decorating, Sherry what's her official nickname—"

"Amariah," says Sherlock. "And I am Sherlock, and this is Tony."

"Sherlock? That's a girl's name where you're from?" blinks Bella. "Oh, a guestbook." She picks it up, reads it through lightning-quick, and then picks up the nearby pen and fills it out equally lightning-quick.

"Not traditionally. Would you be at all interested in helping Bell take over our world?"

"Is she having trouble with it?" Bella asks.

"Considerably."

"I can fix that," says Bella confidently. "I am extremely magic."

"Excellent," says Sherlock. "She will be along in her own time. Would you like me to catch you up on the situation meanwhile? She summarized our troubles in her Bellbook entry, I believe, but I expect you will have questions."

"Yes, please do," says Bella, taking a seat and clasping her hands over her knees.

"Where would you prefer I start? I don't know how much detail her summary gave you."

"You haven't read it? It says your government is lousy and she doesn't have any of her own magic, basically, but I don't know what in particular you're going to need. I can just visit and handle stuff magically myself once I scope it out, but I think she'd probably rather have her own supply. There is a slight complication to magic the way I do it, though," she adds, glancing at Alice.

Shell Bell chooses this moment to walk in. "Hi Sherl- oh wow! Hi! I'm Shell Bell!" she exclaims when she spots the other her.

"Hi!" replies Bella. "I've nicknamed myself Stella in your little book. I was about to ask - do you happen to know a cooperative masochist?"

"...That's a weird question," says Shell Bell. "I don't think so..."

"Ah," says Sherlock.

"...Ah?" says Stella-Bella inquisitively. "I ask because my magic system, inconveniently enough, involves turning pain into wishes. I can be the sorceress-empress of the stars with a moon palace and all that good stuff because I have him." She gestures at Alice; the gesture turns into a grab and she kisses his cheek. "Unfortunately, one of the very short list of things that I cannot wish for effectually involves changing the rules about where wishes come from."

Alice beams and hugs her.

"I expect I could manage," says Sherlock.

Stella peers at her. "I'm not ruling it out, but you aren't one of Alice, and I'm still frankly astounded that he occurs in nature," she says after a pause. "Wishes come in sizes. I think Shell Bell can probably manage without stars - I was planning to for a while - but she'll want at least some hexes, and those are serious business. I have only ever made one, and it was when I was hit by a van and broke most of the bones in my body. If Alice hadn't fixed me up, it's possible I never would have woken up and dubious if I could have walked again or regained the full use of both hands, even so. Does that sound like the sort of thing you could manage - regularly?"

"Not with delight, perhaps," she says after a moment. "But if necessary."

"There is another possibility, especially if Shell Bell objects to you being not-delighted, which is the distasteful subject of mental editing. Your entry says you don't have the mental opacity thing," Stella says to Shell Bell. "So I could - but even if you don't have the power you probably have the dislike of things fussing with your brain, I imagine that's the first thing you'll wish for. If you want and Sherlock doesn't mind I can just boost whatever Sherlock has to start with."

"I'm... not mentally opaque," agrees Shell Bell. "There was this holiday here, once, and it involved... nonconsensual mind-altering drugs - run if you see red and pink and lace and this shape everywhere -" she gestures. "And they mind-altered me and I did not like it, but Sherlock, you didn't like it either..."

"I didn't like it because it confused me," she says. "I am not sure what I think of being edited for amplified masochism."

"Well," says Stella, shrugging, "I can also just go spend several hours in one of those bedrooms there with Alice and come out and dump a lot of complimentary wish-coins in your lap, but I think you'll want a supply of new ones, and given the time oddities of Milliways I will not always be able to respond promptly to requests for top-ups. I am happy to help, though. I have an embarrassment of riches. My magic is fucked up but I have a way to use it really, really well."

"What do you prefer?" she asks Bell.

"I... don't know," says Shell Bell. "Can you tell us more about how the magic works, Stella?"

"That nickname's going to take some getting used to," chuckles Stella. "Yeah. It's good that you've got people working with you already, because the minting power is a little picky about where the pain comes from. I could wish myself a square's worth of pain, but I couldn't make a coin out of it - no bootstrapping. But if I wish Alice a square's worth of pain -" She does, as casually as she might poke him in the arm - "then he can make a square out of it. If I were working alone I'd have to operate solely through physical injury, which I'd certainly find unpleasant and I imagine you would too."

"Hm," is all Sherlock says to that.

(Alice grins at his Bella. Alice loves his Bella.)

"I can comfortably - well, not literally comfortably, but unproblematically - make triangles and squares," says Stella. She bites the inside of her cheek, and holds up a glowy red square. "These will actually accomplish a fair amount if you're smart about it, although triangles are only for very minor tasks - they'd be an edge, in a world with no magic, but not a decisive one. A square will conjure you a nonmagical object, or give you about five minutes' worth of some nonmagical skill or property - I masochistified myself for a brief period once, before I got hit by the van, when we didn't have a hex to turn Alice into a mint and we were trying to figure out a way for me to tolerate it. It wasn't my favorite experience, and I'm not actually sure if my ingot power would let me do it more sustainably if I tried. Pentagons can do permanent nonmagical skills - languages are what I've done the most, though I can also play the flute and kick ass at aikido and such. Hexes are for permanent magic powers." She floats out of her chair. "And similarly large-scale stuff. And stars... are for terraforming, or eradicating diseases from the face of a planet, things like that."

"Could I," says Sherlock, "try this brain edit, and reverse it if I don't like it for some reason?"

Bella tosses her the square. "You want help wish-designing or do you think you've got it covered? Oh, and I've already got an agony beam installed, let me know if you want to take it for a test run."

"You're very casual about this," observes Shell Bell.

"Blame him," laughs Stella, aiming a thumb at Alice. "Amariah's got one too, the book says, though as of the writing they weren't dating; check up on her later and if you can stomach it ask what they get up to."

"That's a range," says Stella. "Going from ten 'triangles' -" She offers up ten triangles' worth of pain. "Through ninety-nine." She skips up to that, then backs off. "It goes up by orders of magnitude. A hundred and up for a pentagon, a thousand and up for a hex, ten thousand and up for a star, and one time Alice made an eight-pointed thing that I consider probably evil and have not attempted to use."

"A thousand, then?" she requests.

Bam. Still in "plain". "Because this was designed for Alice, who finds the agony beam to be just about his favorite thing," says Stella dryly, "it comes in flavors. This is plain, but if you have a request, I can oblige. I am like unto an ice cream parlor."

"Well," she says, "the masochism edit worked. And I should have no trouble producing hexes if I make it permanent and someone is willing to... beam at me."

"I... guess... I can do that?" Bell asks, looking uncertainly at Stella. "Did it take a lot of getting used to?"

"Not that much, but it helps that, one, Alice makes fascinating faces when in pain, which Sherlock doesn't appear to, and two, I can read his mind and confirm at whim that he's having fun with it, which my best guess is that Sherlock wouldn't care for," says Stella.

"Make her able to read my mind," Sherlock says immediately. "—If you want, Bell."

"Um - are you sure?" Bell asks.

"I said I would transmit to you my entire knowledge of the world if I could. I meant it," says Sherlock.

"You're sweet," sighs Shell Bell, and she hugs her girlfriend tight. "Okay. Um, how does yours work, Stella? I don't know if I just want the same design that's optimized for Alice."

"I get everything in a visual channel as a first pass. He can tell when I'm doing it - Sherlock, that feels like so, but it could be anything - and it's in words and images and symbols for various sensory experiences, mostly, most of the time, with a little blob that changes shape and color and so on to reflect his emotional state. When he doesn't think in words, I get the words I'd be thinking if I had that thought, and if I wouldn't be able to translate it either, then the magic itself makes an attempt - these three possibilities appear in different colors. Otherwise I get a black box, the symbol for something I didn't manage to include - I've updated it a couple times to cut down on those, I get very few anymore. Things are tagged with whether they're current experiences, a memory he's thinking about, an intent, or whatever. Everything has a border in grayscale to indicate affect towards the bordered thing - more white is better. I can 'open' any of these things to get a more detailed look at it, which is not just a visual channel and can be very... heady. Oh, and I can sort through his memories the same way, which feels slightly different on his end, like so."

"I see no immediate flaws," says Sherlock. "Except that this visual channel of yours is likely to be very busy."

"Very," says Stella. "I have some... boosts. Actually, when Alice turned into a vampire I needed those boosts to not just utterly drown every time I opened up the emotion-blob; vampires have serious mental horsepower. If I'd tried to do without it's entirely possible my ingot power would have decided that mindreading was dangerous and I shouldn't be allowed to do it. Something similar happened to our vampire alt with her daughter. I can give the boosts to Bell too. Actually, Bell should probably just have all the superpowers I do, although it's probably worth explaining them first so she doesn't step off a curb sometime and be confused about why she's floating."

"You can fly?"

"Shell Bell," says Stella, almost reproachfully. "Of course I can fly. And if I'm not touching the ground and not paying attention, I default to hover, so I don't fall out of the sky."

Sherlock laughs.

"I wanna fly too," announces Tony.

"You want my design, or your own hex to figure it out yourself?" asks Stella comfortably. "By the way, Shell Bell, these guys get stuff on your say-so, I'm just expecting based on having met the vampire us that you'll be similar enough to me that I can substitute your judgment here - feel entirely free to veto anything." [Including,] she adds, adding Bell to the brainphone, [privately like so and then I'll make up a reason to turn them down on my own.]

"My own hex, why not," he says.

Shell Bell nods.

Stella squares a hex off her bandolier and tosses it in Tony's direction.

"Thanks," beams Alice.

Tony gives him a speculative look.

"Ooh," says Alice.

Bella rolls her eyes fondly.

"I think we should have a long conversation about your superpowers," Bell tells Stella seriously.

Sherlock listens in fascination.

Tony gets bored and goes off to make out with Alice.

"What can I interest you in?" Stella asks Shell Bell.

"Um, all of that?" says Shell Bell, half laughing, half hungry.

"One 'all of that' coming right up," says Stella. Hexes go, not that Shell Bell can notice them except by the sudden additions of senses and flexible powers under her control. "Sherlock, what about you?"

"I would like a pentagon with which to achieve masochism," she says, "and the coin power itself, suppressible regeneration, and everything you've done to improve your brain."

"You want to do these yourself? You can still copy mine that way," offers Stella. "That's usually what Alice does when he wants one - although his regen is different from mine; mine anaesthetizes and his hurts all by itself."

"Given the givens, I'd prefer his version," she says. "I have no opinion on which one of us should accomplish the wishing."

"Coming right up," says Stella again. And a moment later: "There you go. Although with you and Bell having the same cognitive boosts she's going to have trouble keeping up with you if she reads you."

"You're sweet," repeats Bell, and she places a kiss on Sherlock's cheek.

"So, can I ask," Stella says, pointing between the two, "how'd this happen? Me and Vampire Bella are both straight."

"...The aforementioned mind-altering drugs helped," Shell Bell says. "I mean, I did it on purpose - but first the holiday thing had to... show me what it would be like? And then I could."

"That is the most screwed up way to celebrate Valentine's Day of all time," opines Stella.

"Is that what it's called? We don't have it."

"Hearts and lace and pink and red and love potions? Yes. That's a fucked-up Valentine's Day."

"Noted," says Sherlock.

"I'm sorry that happened to you," Stella says gently to Shell Bell. "Although it seems to have worked out over the longer term."

"We slept through most of it, and yeah, it did work out," Shell Bell says. "But yeah. Thank you."

Sherlock smiles at Stella.

"Noted," she repeats.

"If you decide not to tell her immediately - oh, Alice doesn't know it, please don't say it aloud - you might want to magic up some kind of deadman switch arrangement so she can get at it if something miraculously gets through all your layers of magic awesome," Stella tells Shell Bell. "I don't know if stars can resurrect the dead, I haven't tried it yet, but it wouldn't astound me."

"I'll think about it," Shell Bell promises.

Sherlock considers, and then says nothing.

"I want to know," she says. "But you said you would think about it, so I will wait until you have before I ask."

"Like I said, Alice doesn't know," Stella says. "The person who told me knows, and Lazarus, who can see magic and would probably have figured it out just by looking at stars enough, knows. No one else. Stars are a big deal."

"I understand. That's why I have to think about it instead of just telling her right away," says Shell Bell.

She nods.

Bell closes her eyes and looks.

Stella slips off into the unoccupied bedroom; it's backwards, but they seem like they might not want supervision.