"Yeah."

Her heart is beating absurdly fast. She really hopes there's no way for him to notice this.

Pat pat. 

"Do you have - questions -"

"Not immediately pressing ones. Kind of unclear on - how long we're planning to wait or what we're going to do while we wait."

"We have to stay here until they raise them. It's - you know what it was like in Cheliax when Aroden died -"

Nod.

"I can't leave Osirion to be picked over by six different foreign vultures and a civil war. Even if I hate them all and would be delighted for the whole place to slide into the sea."

"That makes sense."

"But hopefully they'll get them back soon. If not, maybe there's someone distantly related in an afterlife who didn't die of old age but refused resurrection who can be persuaded to not refuse resurrection in exchange for being pharaoh. 

And, worst case, we live here. We'll live. It'll be hard but I'll take care of you."

She is not remotely persuaded of this. The distantly related dead person thing is a good thing to attach some hope to, though; it's begun to occur to her that if Osirion had the resources to solve this problem then they would have solved it some time in the last four months, but maybe they just - maybe if someone can be contacted and have the situation explained to them.

"I understand."

He kisses her forehead. "Love you."

- she's not sure whether that's a relief or whether it's going to leave her feeling sick. She already felt sick. But maybe everything's better than she'd hoped, maybe he means it, maybe he's just snapping at people because, like, his entire family is dead, maybe the helmet doesn't actually reverse his alignment on both axes?

And maybe it does.

"Curious about what all the helmet did to you."

"I assume it changed my head around to match the alignment. I don't like having my head shuffled, obviously, but I'm glad of the change on the whole, I was - awful, earlier. I know you mostly hadn't noticed. I was - weak, and constantly making bad decisions and feeling indignant about their consequences, and categorically unwilling to expect things of people that might inconvenience them. And I don't know if I'd have done this or if I'd have let Osirion burn."

"I don't think you were weak."

Kiss. "I had one arm."

She really kinda wishes he would stop doing that. Probably. She - wishes he would establish something more of his basic safety as a person before doing that.

"I don't think having two arms has very much to do with whatever the helmet did to your head."

"It kind of does, actually? I'm still not any good at words but I was - bad at things and tolerating this because admitting it was bad would make me too sad. And I couldn't actually protect you, and that was actually bad."

She doesn't feel very protected but that is still a really terrible thing to say.

"You think if you were stuck in the deep plane the way you are now, you'd have figured out how to have two?"

"No, but I wouldn't have been lying to myself about it, and I could've done better in the fight where I got it. And not gotten Verita kidnapped in the first place."

"I'm not sure how alignment affects that, but I guess that makes more sense."

"I don't think it has to be about alignment. But a big part of what I was doing with my life, before, was throwing out things that made me sad and not bothering to get things that I needed and - being aggrieved at the universe - and the helmet didn't think much of that, and neither do I, now. It didn't interfere with how I feel about you. And you were - really good, today."

She can't actually immediately think of anything safe to say to that, so she doesn't say anything.

Probably that means that was the requisite amount of reassuring. 

He paces.

She stands where she is and tries to be as calm and unsuspicious as she can. It's easier not to melt when he's not touching her. She still feels sick. 

"What things did you need? That you didn't bother to get."

"Didn't tell Fazil and Mahdi the truth about who I was. Wouldn't have said anything to you, ever, if we hadn't happened to get stuck. If I'd learned about the situation in Osirion, I wouldn't have felt comfortable telling Fazil and Mahdi to hurry us home, even though I knew it was important, I would've let them argue it out themselves."

"You think you needed them to know? Even before?"