"Sounds good to me," says Julie.

More magical girl stories, then.

And midway through the afternoon she snuggles up to Julie and cries.

- hug! "Something sad in a book?"

Sort of. Mostly not.

The other kids are just... never going to be okay, most of them, they're just not, and it's really sad. She is so so lucky and that is so so important but people shouldn't have to be lucky to be okay.

"Yeah. I know. I'm sorry, kiddo."

Snuggle. Sniff.

Snuggle.

She doesn't seem to have anything else to say. Doesn't seem inclined to un-snuggle, though, either.

Julie can read her new thriller novel while snuggled.

She eventually picks the kindle back up. Poetry, this time. And intermittent quiet crying.

Julie rubs her arm or kisses her head when she notices instances of crying.

She clings, a little, but it seems to help anyway.

Good.

Winona is home after work. She gives Dusk and Julie a collective hug before going to make macaroni and cheese. (It can be burrito'd for Dusk.)

Yeah, she'll unsnuggle for that.

"- it occurs to me that you're usually up for hours after we go to bed and I don't think we've ever actually said you can help yourself to snacks at night if you get hungry," Winona says. "You can - anything that isn't an ingredient, pretty much, if you ate all the spinach I'd have to think of something else for the soup tomorrow."

She has been having fruit sometimes, but that's good to know. She probably still mostly won't though.

"Okay, up to you," says Julie.

Yeah.

It's Winona's turn to pick the movie and she puts on a romcom. It doesn't have any magical girls in it, which Julie heckles it about occasionally.

(Kissing: still weird.)

Julie giggles and kisses Winona when this is opined.

It is! She picked some cute grownups but cute and weird are not mutually exclusive.

Julie laughs some more.

Dusk seems to be in a better mood by the time the movie ends. She hugs Winona and Julie and settles back in with the kindle.

The Glories invite a social worker over to observe them and assess the quality of their home environment. The social worker asks a lot of really nosy questions.

A couple months later, they get their court date and are asked more nosy questions.