"That's not what I meant."

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"You don't remember me. And he's. Still. He's not--he's still the way he is."

"Yeah."

"I wish I could figure out how to convince him this was real. I know it probably wouldn't help, but--if he's going to die I want him to die knowing we're alive, that we're going to be okay, that I love him and I'm going to miss him so much but he--he was an overwhelming net positive in my life--"

"I think that'd mean a lot to him." Hug.

Hug. "Yeah. But--if he thinks I'm Sauron--I don't know that I want to tell him if that won't result in him knowing it, instead of just thinking that was Sauron's latest way of fucking with him."

"I want to say 'if we actually help him die, he'll know' but - of course, not exactly -"

"I want him to know before he dies. I want him to look me in the eyes at least once and see me and not a hallucination. I want to have at least one conversation with my brother in the rest of eternity that he knows he's having with me, I don't--think that's too much to ask--"

Hug.

Yeah okay she's just going to cry on him for a while.

That's totally okay.

That's good. At one point she gets up to get napkins from Bar to blow her nose on so she doesn't get snot as well as tears on his clothing and starts crying again.

Eventually she peters off and stops.

"You know what would have been nice?" she mutters. "Dealing with this while I still had a body that wasn't dealing with sixteen-year-old hormonal shit."

Hug. "If we find another version of your universe we can wait to break the news to the Imliss until she's 20?"

"I'm not sure that doesn't imply waiting to reunite her sister with her husband until she's twenty and am--mostly okay--I just sometimes start thinking about that and get really upset, I am not actually really upset the overwhelming majority of the time, and I don't think Tyelcormo could say as much when he thought Idaia was still dead."

Nod.

"So. Good thought, but. The tradeoff's probably not worth it."

"We can discuss it with involved parties when it comes up, but telling Tyelcormo that Idaia's alive but that it'll be better for her to wait a few years would, if true, work."

"I'm not at all sure that it would--not if we were at least sixteen. I mean, certainly remind her that she doesn't have Orome's birth control anymore, but other than that--

And I'm not sure it would do me all that much good, anyway, knowing what happened to him is awful but thinking they're all dead isn't really better."

"Okay."

"Honestly I think a much better avenue for helping other Imlisses--I mean, other mes who are Imlisses instead of Emilies or whatever--is getting her a therapist."

"We can get you one of those."

"At some point, yeah."