The orange finds a scarf for Emma's hair so they will get fewer questions on the bus. The bus ride is bumpy.

Nita curls up on Emma's shoulder-then-lap and whimpers occasionally when they hit a particularly bad bump, but eventually slides into a less painful state half dozing, half painkillers. Emma pets her quietly and is careful not to dislodge her pillowcase.

And now they are at a little apartment building and the elevator ride up to the orange's place is quite smooth.

Nita is asleep again as soon as she hits a horizontal surface.

The horizontal surface is a soft couch, from which the orange has hastily cleared decorative pillows. There's another just like it, at a shallower-than-right angle to the first and oriented around a glass-topped table; the orange motions for Emma to sit there. "Can I get you anything -"

Emma does not so much sit as let her legs give out. She's not tired, per se, she's not burned out like Nita and she already napped through the adrenaline crash at the clinic. But she's lost and confused and Nita is sick and she has no idea what to do- she derails the train of thought as best she can before she starts crying again. It won't help, it won't-

Some tears sneak out. She manages not to start sobbing outright.

"I don't- I just- thank you, um, you've been so nice already, I just. Really need her to be okay."

"Can I get her anything?"

"Uh, I don't really know, I'm not a doctor or anything... painkillers and water and sleep, is most of it I think? It takes a long time to recover." She looks worriedly at Nita's couch. "And I can't just leave her on your couch, you've been too kind already." (And we're already imposing and can't forever, but we're stranded and clueless and don't know anything else...)

"If she stays unconscious I know how to get water into - Amentans, and you look similar... My husband won't mind."

Emma has no useful life skills here beyond an ability to translate, she can't take care of Nita herself. Imposing it is. "Thank you. Thank you, I don't know what we'd have done. Um, is there anything I could do to help around the house or anything? I can cook- uh, maybe not here I can't- I can clean things?"

"- oh, no, that's not necessary."

"Are you sure? Or if you need something translated, but, uh. There's not much I know how to do here."

"It's really all right. You're lost aliens and we don't mind having you on the sofas."

Emma manages a weak giggle. "I don't feel like an alien."

"I suppose one wouldn't."

"You don't even look that different. I guess some science people somewhere will be happy." She frowns. She recognizes that grammar, the woman used it earlier about actors- "...are your words colored somehow?"

"- colored?"

"I'm not sure I have the right concepts- uh, the words for doctors and scientists are different and I can't figure out how and all my brain is coming up with is 'green'?"

"Oh, yes, greens are scientists. Oranges are doctors. In some countries greens are doctors but not here."

Those are clearly noun-colors not adjective-colors. "Uh, so what, oranges like your hair? Am I a brown?"

"I don't know if you're a brown. Is that how aliens do castes?"

"Oh, it's a caste system thing? No, we mostly don't have those. Well, um, some of my dad's business friends are [Vaishya], I guess?"

"Oh, how odd. We have a caste system. I'm an orange."