"What I actually meant by that was 'magically in love with me' although I could make some confident guesses about some others, but you weren't exactly operating under, um, low-pressure circumstances yesterday in any way, shape, or form."

"...yeah. Um. I'm very introspective and I believe in obsessive notetaking and I read a lot and I'm interested in magic which just recently became a much larger category?"

"Hi, I'm a social malcontent with a hero complex and really good anger management techniques."

I love you. "Nice to meet you."

"So, magic--magic I can help with, I've been studying people with magic more than magic itself, but that has involved some amount of absorbing knowledge of their abilities and I can introduce you to people who know more. I'm finishing my junior year of high school, which would probably be more of a time sink than it was worth if having close acquaintances with a wide variety of people roughly my age has been immensely useful. I'm working on networking with other magical girls--and sorcerers and artifact users, but magical girls have better visibility--with an eye to creating an intersectional social justice organization. I haven't gotten very far yet, though."

"I was early in my first year of college. I was going to study artifacts but it turns out they don't let you do that unless you get near the mind-readers; I didn't have a plan B worked out yet."

"Early college? Nice."

"It's not that early for where I live."

"Lucky, then. Generally you don't start college until you're eighteen, here."

"I almost am."

"You're about a year older than me, then."

That's not too much age gap, right? Probably not. Is it? "When I got hit by the van it was - I guess you might not have the same calendar here."

"Sixteen going on seventeen and seventeen going on eighteen is fine," she reassures her at the look on her face. "There's a misogynistic song about it. It's March fourth, here."

"We don't have a month called March. It was early autumn for me. Misogynistic song?"

"I am seventeen going on eighteen, I'll take care of you," she sings/quotes.

Annie misses most of the lyrics because she collapses into a ball of screaming at the first note.

She cuts off--"Shit, are you okay?"

Deep breaths. Deeeep breaths. "I. Found. Another drawback."

Clearly the correct answer to this is hug.

Hug. Hug is improving and good.

"At least it's singing? There's one where it's contact with water," she mumbles shakily, burying her face in Edie's shoulder.

"...There's music in public places kind of a lot. Often with vocals. Just backgroundy stuff, mostly, but--we're lucky this bus didn't. Maybe we can find someone with a high pain tolerance to test the limits and see if there's a convenient way to mitigate it."

"Maybe. I don't even know what it goes with..."

"No one's singing right now. Push it to me? Or Emily if you can't stand the chance that someone might start."

"...I kind of can't." Annie holds her hand out to Emily questioningly.

Emily touches her hand.