"All week. Please."

Lucien can hug her now!

It doesn't help but she wants it anyway and isn't going to stop wanting it and the wanting it is fully capable of co-opting all her goal-orienting capacities. "Thank you."

"I can figure something out for all week if you'll need it. Also I can answer your questions now I am very sorry for not doing that earlier but I was worried you were some sort of trap."

"My, uh, universe, doesn't... contact other universes? Is that a thing here, how does that work, can I ever go home?"

"We only have contact with one and I'm pretty sure they don't have espers and would know about Leviathan - also they are the same year as us which is 2011. I don't think it's impossible to send you home in theory but don't know if it will happen in practice. I can. Try to help with that. If you want."

"I won't be able to try out my powers enough to even figure out what they are, if I'm the only esper. This right now is awakening backlash and it'll go away on its own in a week but power-use backlash needs guiding from a compatible esper to go away. So I need to go home to my universe. If you can do it this week I can stop imposing you and go back to the plan where I impose on my parents."

"I don't think I'll be able to do it this week - there's maybe one or two people on the planet who I know about who could help and they are both very very busy with saving lots of people. Possibly there is some sort of more common power that could help with backlash?"

"Also the alternate version of you who lived here had parents - or at least a dad - who I could contact if that would be helpful? But if you need to impose on me that is um. Also okay. If that's what you want."

"I don't really know what it means for this Lorica person to be an alternate version of me. Could we just ask her?"

"She was killed by Leviathan about a month ago," with Lucien's oh so clever plan contributing. Probably he should tell her that soon so she's not receiving hugs from him under false pretenses.

"Oh. I have actually no idea if my dad would like it if, should I be killed in action, an alternate universe version of me should show up to demand hugs and attention, but I guess it might be worth asking in case that would be welcome. I guess that's - assuming our dads are also the same, I don't know if they would be."

"He teleports? He's stable and reasonable as a person?"

"Um. Also during the fight a plan I had to stop Leviathan from doing too much damage went wrong and it allowed him to kill her when ordinarily she would probably have been fine."

"Just um. Thought you should be informed. Of things."

"My dad isn't an esper and teleporting wouldn't be in my top ten guesses of what he'd get if he were but he's stable and reasonable, sure. ...is that supposed to be a reason not to hug you, I'm temporarily insane and definitely still want to hug you but I think even if I weren't you being sad about another version of me whatever that means having died wouldn't be a reason not to."

"Okay."

"I can maybe find a recording of him speaking at an interview and see if it matches? You have the same voice as Lorica. Also you act like her at least somewhat though I never saw her in a similar um. Emotional state. Also Tattletale's power wouldn't get this sort of thing wrong, I think."

"Oh yeah I'm usually not like this at all. I'm an introvert. So I expect to get worse over the course of the week and then not want to talk to anyone even though in theory the backlash level should stay the same. What's Tattletale's power?"

"She's got very good intuition. That matches Lorica though it's somewhat confounded by her power having her go into a sort of fugue state where she invented things and didn't want company."

"I don't think there's inventing things espers. People with powers here are 'capes'?"

"Technically capes are people who use their powers, people who have powers are parahumans but most parahumans are capes. There are a bunch with inventing things powers."

This is really not a great position for his leg and his arms are starting to get tired but he doesn't need to do anything about that this second.

If he shifts she'll shift with him uncomplainingly. "There's 'inactive' espers, usually because they don't have partners. To guide them."

He would shift if his brain were better at suggesting how exactly he should shift instead of freezing up about determining how to comfortably cuddle his dead crush.

"Most capes can use there powers without downsides - though some like Tattletale get migraines with overuse - so you don't see many inactive ones."

"How does she get rid of the migraine?"

"It goes away on it's own eventually, I think? If no one makes it worse. Which uh, we probably did."

"Oh no."

"She will still recover but I am uh, not going to call her again for anything less important than verifying you weren't some sort of trap was."

Lucien squirms a bit.

"Also um, we should probably change positions, this isn't very good for my leg and my arms are starting to get tired."

"Of course, however's good for you is fine."