Ami slept like shit and is slow to rise, but she hears Magini asking Shiro about his memories and then she's wide awake. (Nothing, of course it's nothing. Why would there ever be good news for her.)

She can tell Magini is miserable from here, but - she can't really do anything about that. 

Keith can't do anything about that either, but what he can do is hand out spares of equipment useful for hiking in the desert and exploring caves. He has three actual water flasks plus an improvised one made from a cannister that formerly held something else, five flashlights (two of them look older than him, but they still work fine), two equally ancient headlamps, two coils of paracord, a big box of emergency flares from which he hands out two each, and enough protein bars and trail mix for everybody.

Shiro gets one of the headlamps. Keith keeps one of the ropes, the improvised water cannister, and one of the old flashlights. 

Magini refills the large water bottle she brought with her, packs the supplies into her backpack, eats her breakfast, and finishes charging her devices. She takes the other headlamp. 

She thanks Keith for the supplies, but doesn't start any conversations or make eye contact with anyone while getting ready.

She's anxious to get going, though, and after she's finished with her prep she quietly asks Keith if she can go pack their stuff into his hoverbike. 

"... I'm worried about Magini," Ami admits quietly to Shiro, when she finds a moment. "This isn't like her at all." 

"Lots of people aren't their normal selves in new and stressful situations," he points out gently. "But you know her and I don't; what are you worried might happen?" 

Ami reviews her memories of the night before. Magini was saying -

"I'm worried about her making reckless and unsafe decisions and justifying them because the stakes are very high," she says, after a bit. "I don't think she's wrong about the stakes, but..." she trails off, not sure how to word her concerns but hoping Shiro will get it.

"But the stakes being higher means it's more important than ever that we're making the right decisions," Shiro finishes. He doesn't think it's exactly what Ami was going to say, but it hopefully gets at some of what she's worried about. 

"I think you're right to be worried: it's one of the failure modes the Garrison warns us about in mission training, and I noticed her talking along those lines last night. If we're both keeping an eye out for her, though, hopefully we can work together to rein in her more reckless ideas, like we did last night. I don't think she's at the point yet of going off on her own without talking to us first...?"

Oh she is so glad Shiro is here. "Probably not, no. And she'll do her best to explain where she's coming from, if she disagrees; she hates being misunderstood." 

(The fondness she feels for Magini is clear in her voice.)

He nods. "That helps a lot. I know it's not fun when your friends are having a bad time, but this is a lot better than it could be. I think it'll be okay." 

She keeps the pang she feels in her chest at the word friends off her face, mostly, and nods in agreement. He thinks it'll be okay!

"How are you doing, Ami? This is a stressful situation for all of us; you need to take care of yourself too."

"I'm -" somehow she doesn't think she can get away with saying she's fine.

She shrugs. "it's a lot? But I'm keeping it together; I'm good at that." 

And, hmmm. "...Are you doing okay? You've been through more than the rest of us." 

Well, he'll be a hypocrite if he tries to claim he's fine, and she wouldn't believe him anyway. He wouldn't believe him. 

"...I've had better weeks," he admits, trying to keep his tone light. "It's nice to be back on Earth, though." 

"I'm really glad you made it back," she says softly. "I - we all thought -" 

Instead of finishing the thought, she finds herself hugging him! 

There's a moment's delay before he hugs back. 

When he does, it's a little too tight for a fraction of a second before he corrects it, and then it's just comfortingly firm. (He's slightly extra cautious with his right arm, if Ami is paying any attention to that right now.) 

Ami doesn't seem to notice.

"...sorry. should have asked first," she murmurs, but she can't bring herself to feel too bad about it, because Shiro is alive, and if he survived maybe Matty did too, and she hasn't really been letting herself think about that yet because there's still an emergency, but she can feel it there in the back of her mind, a beautiful and terrifying box filled with equal parts hope and fear, and she's not sure what's on the other side of all this but right now she needs to believe that maybe it will all end up okay... 

(She's trembling.)

"It's fine." 

Hug. He's not gonna end this hug until Ami seems done with it or something interrupts them. 

"Bike is packed," Magini announces as she walks back inside. "Are we ready?"

She blinks several times, processing what she's seeing.

He gives Magini a smile. "We'll be out in a minute or so." 

Does Ami take the hint and start moving? He'll give her a minute to unhug of her own volition, but they kind of do need to get going. 

yeah, that's fine, no rush, not like the fate of worlds plural is possibly at stake here!

She shrugs and goes to study Keith's conspiracy board. 

Ami disengages quickly with a murmured "thanks" and hurries to pack up her backpack. (It doesn't take her a full minute - she was almost ready.)

When they make it outside, Keith has used some of his spare paracord to add handholds to the rear end of the hoverbike. He hands Magini and Ami a carabiner each and shows them the anchor points he's created for them to clip themselves onto. 

Magini eyes the knotwork and then nods approvingly. She looks at Ami, and then adjusts the other girl's carabiner for her ("you don't want it attached there, could get tangled on your bag"). She doesn't make eye contact. 

She straps herself in. "Ready!" 

????

"... Ready." 

Off they go! 

The reason for the safety precautions becomes clear pretty quickly. It turns out that Keith just kind of drives like he's in a car chase all the time.