He leaves, ruffling Emily's hair as he walks past.

It isn't obvious that she's watching the interactions, but she is. They confuse her a little, the casual seeming affection, the lack of any fear at challenging an authority figure (telling their father what to do), and him acquiescing.

She twists her fingers together, looks between Edie and Emily. "I- what now?" (She doesn't exactly like asking, but she hates not knowing.)

"...Well, we need to find you a room, first thing, probably. One with room for a cradle and stuff."

"I-" she bites at her lip. "Don't need-" much, a room, a bed, she'd made do with a mattress in a corner back at the church, and wherever she'd been able to hide while she'd been on the streets.

"...You've seen how huge this place is, right? There is going to be absolutely no trouble getting you a room."

"I- sorry. Okay," she looks up at the mansion again. It is big. (There must be so many places she can hide.) She'll still wait for Edie or Emily to lead the way - she doesn't know the rules yet.

"--It's fine. We'd find you a room even if it wasn't huge."

She blinks a little, and then nods. It still doesn't make sense to her, why strangers would be this good to someone like her. (There has to be a price.)

"Thank you," she says instead of anything else. (And there is nothing there except genuine gratitude, because they didn't have to do any of this and they have anyway.)

"You're welcome. Do you have any preferences?"

She shakes her head. She's never really thought about what she'd want if she had a room. Wouldn't say she did even if she had, that they're giving her a room at all is enough. (It would be nice to be somewhere out of the way, she thinks, maybe be able to see the grounds.)

"Okay. Do you want to see some possibilities and pick?"

"I- I'll be fine wherever you put me?"

"I'm sure you will. But it will help me decide if I know what you think, and there are plenty of options."

"O-okay," she agrees quietly. (If it'll help, she'll try.)

Edie loops an arm around her shoulder again and takes her around to see empty rooms, mostly out-of-the-way ones with views of the grounds. There are options on several different floors, and a couple of them have balconies.

They pass a lot of kids in the halls, some of them walking, some running, some alone and some in groups, some looking perfectly baseline and some with very visible mutations.

She's not good at providing preferences, although she does try. However, she definitely seems to prefer the ones on lower floors, and while the ones with the balconies catch her attention, she flinches away from the idea of taking that much.

Her reaction to the kids is mostly to shrink a little into Edie's side again (too many new people), although there is no discernible difference in her response to those who appear baseline and those who have visible mutations.

Edie picks a room for her on the second floor with a balcony.

"I-" She wants to argue, because this is too much. (But she didn't decide. Edie did. Surely that makes it okay?) "Thank you," she says instead. "I. Thank you." She manages to stop herself from saying that several more times as she looks around the room. (Still next to Edie.)

Edie hugs her. "You deserve this, okay? You've been through a lot of awful stuff, but things get to be better now."

The idea of deserving this feels wrong. (She hasn't done anything to earn it.)

She presses her eyes shut as she leans into the hug (and cautiously wraps her arms around Edie in return). It hadn't been that bad, really (had it?), she hadn't liked what had happened, and she hadn't liked being hurt, but... She needed to be disciplined when she messed up, and she had owed them (they hadn't had to give her a roof over her head).

"I don't know what happened to you," she murmurs, "but any situation that leaves you a pregnant runaway at fifteen is not one anyone deserves. Ever."

She shudders slightly. "They were going to-" she starts (because she's convinced now that that was what they were going to do). "They said it was a sin, but they were going to make me. And I couldn't let them." (She doesn't know why she's saying this to Edie, but she couldn't have stopped the words falling from her mouth if she tried.)

"That's evil of them," she says firmly. "I don't know who they is, but I can say with high confidence that they were bad people."

She starts to shake her head, because: "They looked after me," she insists. "I just- I couldn't let them do this. She's done nothing to them!" (But there's some doubt to her insistence now, because that they would want her baby dead before she was even born feels wrong to her, especially when she knew they thought abortion was a sin.)

"The fact that they raised you does not entitle them to do whatever they want to you," she says firmly. "If they told you it does, they didn't say it because it's true, they said it because they wanted to do whatever they wanted without you knowing you're entitled to decent treatment. Maybe they thought it was true, but if so they thought it because they were evil, not because it is."