"Then you should sleep. Should I stay?"

"If you're okay with it."

"Mmmhmm." And she'll hold onto her, massage her shoulders gently.

She goes to sleep. 

She eats. She reads a little. She washes herself a little and finishes the job with prestidigitation, since she's still kind of in too much pain to want to do a very good nonmagical job of it.

She asks Zakiya if she can maybe see her husband again and ask him about the helmet. While he's waiting for her to come up with things she wants.

"That makes sense to me."

Nod. "You can ask?"

"Yeah. I'll ask."

And she does this, and reports that Hagan will come to see her in a few hours.

Nodnod.

She can wait. She stares at the wall and thinks about what she wants to say and does not do anything else.

He comes in. "Hey. How're you doing?"

"I thought of something I wanted. If you want me to talk about it."

"Yeah, I do."

Nodnod.

"I want to know that you'll take the helmet off. Not now. Not soon. Not even definitely when the baby's grown up, since we don't know what he'll be like. But - when Osirion doesn't need you anymore. Even if I can't ask you to, by then. Even if you don't want to talk to me anymore. Even if I'm dead. That's - what I wanted, more than to make the pain stop, or to be happy, or to be safe. You said I was entitled to it, the first day we came here, even if you were horrified at the idea, so I thought - I thought as long as I gave you everything else, then maybe I could still have that.

"I was going to - not ask until it was time, because I knew you didn't want to make promises, but - Zakiya thought it would be better for me to ask now."

"Oh. 

I think - I can learn to be good to you while I'm like this. I don't have to take the helmet off to be someone you can feel safe around."

"I would would like for that to be true. But - I think this is very very bad for me. And also it's - not actually about having you, I didn't actually expect that at the end of twenty years there would still be enough of me left for even the good version of you to find anything worth caring about in her. 

"But I don't want you to go to hell. I want you to keep existing. And keep existing somewhere where you might be okay, someday, given enough time. Even if I'm not."

"Oh.

I - guess that's fair. I'm asking you to give me - this entire life, so you - get the next one, if you want it. Sure."

- relieved sigh.

"Do you promise? You won't change your mind? Even if I can't ask - "

"Are we talking about you are too sad and out-of-it to ask or about if you change your mind."

"I guess - I meant if I couldn't register an opinion. Either because - sad, or insane, or dead, or - Zakiya thought I wouldn't be able to get an audience with you, in twenty years, if I stayed like this. But - you don't have to do it if I'm specifically against it."

"Unless you tell me that you've reconsidered, when Osirion no longer needs me I will take off the helmet and we can go frolic in Elysium together forever. You have my word."

She manages the tiniest ghost of a smile.

"Thank you. Very much."

"Mmhmm. I love you."

Nodnod. "I - think I love you too.

"...I could try to get better, then, I think, but - I am worried that you might only love me when I'm in pain."

"I don't like you being in pain. I miss - the way you used to be, all the time. I haven't said anything because it seemed cruel, to demand this much of you and then tell you I miss how you acted when I hadn't demanded so much of you."

...nod.

"I think you mostly only say nice things about me when I'm hurting. You used to only do it right after I'd let you hurt me very badly. And now that I am in pain all the time you do it all the time. I don't even - I think I traded away the ability to have positive feelings about it, as part of being able to do what you said, but if it means something about how you feel then I don't want to - assume you will still feel the same way about me if I stop being in so much pain.

"I will try to get better if you ask me to. But I don't think it will work, if you think you will start resenting me for not suffering enough for you."

"I won't. I won't claim I never felt resentful but - not of that, I didn't want things to hurt."