....????

This is not quite Hana's worst nightmare, but. It's definitely up there.

Oh no what has she done, who has she hurt, nononono she should have never been born -

"... can I have my partner," she mumbles incoherently to the ceiling. Maybe someone will hear her, somewhere.

"As soon as we've determined you're safe," says a pleasantly calm and professional voice in Japanese. "I'm sorry for this. We don't think you did anything wrong and in fact as far as we can tell you acted admirably in a stressful situation and should feel proud of yourself. We just need to make sure you are not currently compromised."

"Okay," sniffles Hana, who is kind of unhappy with this particular procedure, even if procedure is usually so incredibly great. "Please let me know if there's anything I can do to assist."

And then she can begin quietly crying, because: she earned it, okay.

(At least someone said she acted admirably and should be proud of herself. They might be lying, but. ... It's nice to hear.)

"Please let us know as soon as you remember everything that happened before we tranquilised you. That may take a while, and that is a normal and expected effect of tne tranquiliser, so please do not worry."

"Mhmm," she whines. "It's - I don't - it's very confusing? I... can try to explain..."

She does find systematically working through what happened from her perspective somewhat soothing. She is following A Procedure, and Doing All Of The Tasks. This is despite what she's relaying being extremely confusing and more than a little distressing, especially when she gets to the part of trying to explain her - complicated emotional state and what logic she used to justify using her projection powers at someone in a - somewhat hostile fashion.

"So, I, um. ... Trusted myself and. Trusted the people around me to know what to do. I was - really mirroring my own emotional state at him, nothing, um. Complicated. Is - um. There anything else you need to know?" (DID SHE DO A GOOD JOB???)

"No, your description is consistent with our observations. You have made tactically sound decisions that you shouldn't have had to make and our procedures will be updated so that situations like these don't happen again in the future.

"Do you believe you are currently under the influence of any mental effects aside from those inherent to your backlash?"

"..... I don't know how I would know?" she says, after a pause. "My - emotions make sense with what I remember but - I don't remember sending out any kind of suicide watch alarm. Or even how I got out of the tent and in front of him."

"Kang Jaeha-san erased your memories and those of all present of the few seconds just preceding and just following your sending of the alarm, and then he did the same for the memories of you going after him. Those effects are not ongoing; the memories are just gone."

???? why does anyone even have that power.

"Okay. Well. To my perception and current knowledge base, I do not think I'm being tampered with."

"It is not our current assessment that you are, either.

"Thank you for your work, Fugimura-san. Do you wish to be teleported to your shared silo with Min Woo-young-san?"

"Yes please," she says, immediately and without hesitation.

"Please standby."

It takes one second.

And she is suddenly being glomped by her partner. "Why is it that everyone in my fucking life is so obsessed with giving me heart attacks. Good God, Hana, are you okay?"

WHINE.

"I have a whole lot of feelings and will need to cry on you but I think I am physically unharmed???" she says, leaning into him. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to give you a heart attack. ... Proverbial, yes?" Because if she gave him an ACTUAL HEART ATTACK she will fling herself out of the nearest window.

"Yes, proverbial, girl. I'm so proud of you. You did so well. Did they tell you that? I told them that if they kept you for a minute longer than necessary I was personally getting you out, you were amazing, I know it's procedure but fuck procedure, procedure almost let that bastard walk off to do God knows what—"

"... I actually was following procedure for most of that..." protests Hana, but then she reassures: "They did tell me they were proud of me though, and said I performed admirably."

"You did, you did so well, God—"

The people in his life really, really need to stop giving him heart attacks.

Lean.

"Also I think he was going to commit suicide because he tried to have Kim Hye-jin assassinated and he couldn't see another way out. And, well, also Nightmare, but. Quasar was avoiding him, not Nightmare?"

"...how did you know all of that?"

"There aren't a lot of people that would want to kill Kim Hye-jin, and there aren't very many good reasons for Quasar to avoid an S-rank dungeon so systematically? And you have been very worried about me every time I went to work, even though I don't go into Nightmare."

He closes his eyes and hides in her hair.

...and starts crying.

???? oh no, has she done something wrong????

She will pet him and see if this helps????

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, it's been—so much—this man has been, has been—and then Tae-hwan—" sob "—I'm so tired. I'm so tired of all of this, I'm so tired of, of—" He hugs her more tightly. He's trembling a bit.

Pet pet pet pet pet.

"Yeah. I'm sorry. I think it's over now, though? There was an email last week to the Nightmare staff about a new humane solution for rogue espers, in retrospect it seems very conveniently timed."

"...what??"