Eventually Karen wakes up. Her insides still feel bruised up - she really hopes she hasn't seriously injured anything that's gonna cause problems for this plan, that would suck - but it's not really any worse than that time Spike covered her face in bruises, so.

She waits for Ryan to wake up. She's not really an expert but she thinks maybe if you sleep with someone you are supposed to be there when they wake up.

At some point Ryan wakes up. Looks around for her, smiles.

Smile. 

"Hey."

"Morning."

"Morning." She kisses him, because that seems like the thing to do.

"M'gonna go see how my dog is. He gets lonely."

"Sounds good. See you later."

"Yeah."

She finds her clothes and pulls them on. If she focuses she can avoid hissing from the amount of moving around this requires. She heads back to her room and closes the door and flops tiredly onto her bed.

I kinda wanna say I'm fine but I have a policy against lying to you, so, uh, I've been worse.

You did not sound fine. I - figured if I did anything he would probably not go along with continuing - this - but do let me know if you'd like me to anyway.

Nah. It's not his fault. He was nice. I just - I did not think it was going to hurt that much.

She's just gonna burrow under her blankets so she can't be judged by, like, the walls of her room.

Sorry about the - man, did everyone hear that?

Uh, probably. Don't be sorry. You didn't do anything wrong.

Mrrgh. Time to hide in my room for the rest of my natural life. Or possibly just until next month, but then back to hiding.

It's really really really really not supposed to hurt that much.

I dunno. Maybe I'm broken or something.

- I realize everything about this situation is already deeply unfair, but this? Deeply unfair.

Yeah, no kidding. It's really not - I am concerned that you'll hurt yourself or something if it's that bad every time.

This is plausible.

That is concerning.

I'm gonna - come up with a plan revision at some point, I guess, before next month, but right now I'm gonna -

- cry. I'm gonna hide under my blankets and cry until my insides stop feeling all bruised up. This is my plan.

Do you want me to bring you anything?

I dunno. Food I guess.

You'll still be proud of me if I'm defective and can't slay any gods, right?

Of course.

Just gotta hear it.

- it probably doesn't actually make any sense to give up based on this if I wasn't gonna give up before, s'not like a few minutes of excruciating pain is gonna be worse than going to hell, but - I dunno. If there's a medical condition or something and things are messed up inside - it might just not be possible. And it's not like anyone here's gonna be able to figure out what's wrong. At least not if you and Wishbone don't have any guesses.

I can't regret trying, but -

- oh, won't that be fun. Get to go to hell and not even take out any gods on the way down.

Karen -

Nothing for it, now.