"Hello. I'd - like to be sent to where Rana is. Please."

Nodnodnod. "Now?"

"Yes."

"Do you need any - here." She gives her a wand of Sending. "I'm - not precisely sure how it'll work with the time difference but you should be able to use that to contact me. Just say 'Sending' and focus on using it and then say you want to be brought back and I can bring you back. Okay?"

She hesitates and then takes the wand. "Okay." 

And she teleports her twenty feet away from the fairy circle.

She fidgets with the wand in her fingers for a moment and looks at the circle and tries very hard not to cry, and then remembers that Rana must be watching her by now, and then forces herself to walk forward into the circle without thinking about it longer.

He is, of course, there.

" - forgot - forgot how you looked -"

- oh God.

"Hello." She should say something else, but she doesn't know what, and he's here, but he might never be here again, and it's been so long for him, and the half-fairy who looks like his brother said he loved her, but she doesn't know what he means by that, really, actually, and -

"I figured - I figured you'd - go find a human - who can - oh, come here -"

She runs to him and hugs him and sobs. She didn't really mean to do this, but she doesn't feel like she even made a decision about it, really, like it was the only thing she could possibly have done.

He hugs her. He hugs her and runs his hands through her hair and - 

"I - I need some time to get my words but I need to say some words first so you aren't hurting while I come up with the more words because I won't - be able to - while you're hurting - but I haven't talked to anyone in six sunsets so I don't remember all the words -

- I'm so sorry -"

She nods and cries and hugs him tight. Tighter than she probably should, really, but she doesn't want him to stop, doesn't want him to leave -

"Please don't send me away - "

"I - 

I promise that I'll never give you an order like that again." He is still hugging her but he says it very clearly and carefully.

- nod. Nodnod. Hugs. So many hugs. She has no actual excuse for needing hugs this badly, it's been less than a week, but she really really really misses being held.

"I love you."

"You... shouldn't?"

"I don't think that's how it works."

"I'm realizing that.

Uh. 

I.

I can't protect you. This makes me very unhappy but it's still true. You were unhappy, before - before the mindreading thing happened, before I told you to leave - and it'll just be like that forever, if you stay, me not being able to protect you and you being sad. I don't - I shouldn't have - I hurt you much much more than I meant to - but I can't protect you, I still can't -"

Headshake.

"I shouldn't've asked you to stay with the humans. I was stupid, and selfish, and I hurt you, over and over, because - I thought - I wanted to have more things than they could really offer, and - I should've known better but I didn't. And - I'm sorry. I'm sorry, and I'll try to be wiser in the future about what I ask from you, but I don't understand what - you mean, about not being able to protect me, I don't think - "

"No, no, you weren't selfish, you were - I didn't send you away because you were too much work. I couldn't protect you. We nearly died - we were so close to dying -"

Nodnod. "Should've left earlier. But - both of us."

"I just - you could marry a human. A human me, even, if you wanted, Hagan or someone. And they'd understand how to navigate all that and they could be lied to and still protect you - be mindread and still protect you -"

She sobs again.

"I don't want - if you think it's the only possible way to be responsible and good to the children then - I could do it, I think, If I absolutely had to, but it would be so much worse than - it would hurt so badly, belonging to someone else again - "

"No! I don't - I want you to be mine. More than anything. I - oh, don't be sad - I'm trying to figure out how you can be happy - please don't be sad -"

Hug.

"Wanna be yours again."