“Yes,” she admits, because she has managed to notice that being honest has mostly been the better choice.

Sanna sighs. Out loud. "Okay. Thanks for being honest. But I do wish you'd told me that when I said that stuff." Meredith said earlier that the subject was upsetting; she didn't say it was so upsetting that it would just bounce right off her! "And for future reference, in general I will want to know, right away, when you haven't really been absorbing what I say."

How to make this not too much about feelings… "I'm not talking just for the pleasure of hearing my own voice, you know? I'm trying to actually convey information to you. So if you're not taking in that information, then I need to know that. Especially because… I was actually saying all that partly for your benefit. I was letting you know what kind of behaviour cuts ice with me, to give you some idea of how to get more of what you want. I didn't have to do that, you know? And it's hard to justify doing nice things that I don't have to do, if you're not even going to let me know when I'm wasting my time."

…Ugh, was that still too much about feelings…?

She leans back against the bench, sullenly muttering under her breath, "I guess someone who has all the time in the world wouldn't think of it as an important resource." (Meredith can still hear this, of course.)

"Anyway. I don't know how much of that made sense to you, but the bottom line is, in order for communication to work you need to tell me when it's not working."

She probably made her point well enough with the first five-ish sentences, why does she keep turning everything into a fucking essay

Honestly, you probably can't elaborate too much around Meredith, at least if you are also summarising it clearly. There is a pretty big cultural (for lack of a better word) gap in the way that needs to be covered.

“I'll try to keep that in mind going forward.” And she can add it to her mental list on how to interact with Sanna. The other items so far include prioritising the truth (1) because she can't reliably predict how Sanna will react to things anyway (2) and asking her to elaborate if she's even slightly unsure what she means –and possibly even if she's certain– because, again, her presumptions are usually wrong (3)... there's probably a lot more she should add.

Meredith doesn't react to the muttered comment because, firstly, it's mostly true and, secondly, she isn't quite inept enough at social interactions to believe she was meant to reply to it.

Christ, did literally any of that get through? No 'Thanks for trying to do a nice thing for me'? No 'Sorry I let you waste your time'?

Ugh, what the fuck ever. Meredith being good at social niceties is a want, not a need. And if it turns out she didn't absorb the essay speech brief lecture, Sanna can reiterate it through e-mail later.

"Okay. Thank you.

"Anyway, I've decided that what I was going to say can wait until I e-mail you." And it's only mostly because the cold is devouring all her brain power! "For now, suffice to say that if you stay out of Kalette until I e-mail you, and don't tell anyone about me or about this conversation until I e-mail you, then I don't foresee us having any problems between now and then."

But was what she going to tell her? :< (Probably nothing interesting but what if-)

She considers that for a second, and, actually, there’s something she needs to ask, “If Elias contacts me before I receive your e-mail because he wants to verify that you are indeed who you say you are, so he can tell you about the supernatural, am I allowed to reply?” It’s likely not something that will happen or that would be a problem if it did but what if it is. Anyway, she had already decided earlier that it as best to ask, she’s been wrong before during this very same conversation.

“Other than that, I understand and I’ll refrain from bothering you until the I either receive your e-mail or a week has passed,” per Sanna’s earlier words.

Meredith asked a clarifying question! This is a positive development, and Sanna should give some kind of positive feedback. "I'm glad you asked that, I didn't really think of that." Because she's too cold to think.

"Um…" Come on, brain. It's totally unreasonable that you can't work equally well in literally all circumstances. "In that scenario, I will have already contacted him, in which case he already knows about me, so it's fine if you reply to confirm that I'm who I say I am.

"I'm not sure if I'll use my real name when I contact him though, or any name at all, so I'd appreciate you not using my name with him unless he already knows it. Uh… If he's adamant that he won't talk to me without knowing my name, and for some reason he's adamant about getting it from you instead of me, then you can tell him my name. This includes a scenario where, like, he says he wants to confirm that the name you have matches the name I gave him, because even though that implies he already knows my name, in that scenario he's obviously not going to tell you what it is, so for all you know he could be lying.

"…I guess that also applies mutatis mutandis to anything else he asks you about me. Just, as a general rule, please only say the minimum necessary to confirm my legitimacy to his satisfaction, and nothing more than that. …But also, like, there's a limit? If 'the bare minimum' ends up going well beyond 'Is this person who she says she is' and 'What is this person's name', then I think you should just not answer the other stuff, and wait for an e-mail from me. Or wait for me to not e-mail you so you can come bug me, as the case may be. But I can't predict every possible scenario. If you're uncertain, or if something happens that isn't covered by what I've already said, you're just going to have to use your best judgement. I don't super trust your best judgement, but if we're going to do this at all then I don't really have a choice." Sorry not sorry.

She can have a useful thought sometimes! Just not most of the time.

“Got it, I'll follow your preferences as best seems suited. Stick to sharing as little as possible, right?” Which is kind of a redundant question, mostly so Sanna can know that she's understood, so Meredith stands up before she has even finished asking it. Her speed remains close to that of a human while doing so and she pauses for a moment once upright –long enough, in her opinion– in case there is anything Sanna would like to add.

Oh, she's leaving? Sanna kind of thought she'd go inside and then Meredith would leave, but this works too.

"Yep, that's the gist of it. Thanks. Uh…" See, now she's all discombobulated. Meredith did something mildly unexpected and now Sanna has to pivot, how dare

"Looks like you're about to leave? In that case, I'm gonna head in." What time is it? Not 8:30 yet, so she'll have more than half an hour to warm up and decompress in the library, woohoo. "Uh, at the risk of giving you ideas, please like, actually leave, instead of invisibly hanging out to spy on me or something.

"And if there's nothing else, then… Yeah. Bye for now."

The reason she’s being so quick about leaving  in the first place is to avoid being tempted into lingering around, she really doesn’t need (or want) the reminder that she could. Because she would really like to do it but it would also make a mess of the —already complicated— situation.

Meredith nods at Sanna and turns away from her. She leaves fast enough that it can barely be seen as she jumps onto a nearby building and blurs away over the rooftops. It's not meant as an intimidation attempt on her part but, well, it's still a casual display of her inhuman agility and all that it implies (which Meredith hasn’t taken into consideration).

That's fine actually, it's mildly disconcerting but if it means she's gone faster then Sanna welcomes it.

Sanna gets up and casually walks inside and locks herself in the bathroom again, and finally lets herself shiver. She immediately starts shaking like crazy.

Wow, fuck, Sanna always kind of wondered how much of a difference shivering could possibly make, because she was always still cold, but it turns out it makes a big fucking difference! Now that she's letting herself notice how cold she really is, she's realizing her body actually kind of hurts, the way her hands hurt if she spends too long in the cold without gloves on. And now that she's warming up, it hurts even more.

She briefly wonders if she was putting her life in danger by sitting out there so long without shivering – until she remembers that she survived worse temperatures for longer periods before the Commission found her. (In retrospect, she's not sure how. She doesn't have blubber like a whale, so why didn't she die of hypothermia? One of so many questions she could've asked Miles or Neil or the Commission at any fucking time –) She doesn't remember her body hurting, but maybe she just got so used to it that she stopped noticing. Or maybe she just doesn't remember it, because the cold and loneliness was so mind-numbing that her brain couldn't process things. She doesn't remember a lot of things from back then, because of that.

…NO, BRAIN, YOU STILL MAY NOT HAVE AN EMOTIONAL FLASHBACK.

Are you sure? I'm pretty sure nothing is ever going to be okay ever again, so who cares if it happens now or later?

That's blatantly circular logic. You're using a mental state you caused to justify the mental state you caused. You're so full of shit, brain.

Okay but like. That means it's already happening. So why fight it.

Really, why fight anything ever again. Nothing will ever change and you will never feel okay again and maybe you might as well die actually?

Ugh, what the fuck ever. She wanted to wait until she got to the motel, but it doesn't make that much difference. Well, except for her being mad at herself for not having perfect self-control, but that's kind of a constant state of being.

So, sure, she can spend the next five or ten minutes feeling like everything is always going to be awful forever.

BUT SHE WANTS HER BRAIN TO UNDERSTAND THAT SHE IS SUBMITTING UNDER SIGNIFICANT PROTEST AND SHE STILL KNOWS IT'S FULL OF SHIT.

She is cold.

She is lonely.

She's not remotely hungry, but that's about all she has going for her.

And really, she might as well be starving to death, for how empty she feels.

She's so numb that she can't even cry anymore.

It has been an eternity.

She doesn't remember what it feels like to be warm.

She is never, ever going to be warm again.

And even if she is, it won't make that much difference.

She wants so badly to get out of this cold. She hates herself for being too cowardly to risk her life looking for someplace warmer.

She fought so hard to live. She hates herself for lying here day after day wondering if it was worth it.

She hates herself for being a hypocrite. Hating her life but refusing to risk it.

…Okay, brain, wow, are you done being a fucking drama queen?

Yes?

Great. Holy shit. So now can we do some actual thinking please?

Eh, can it wait until the motel?

Oh, NOW you wanna wait until the motel? Fuck you, brain.

But sure, whatever, there's nothing she specifically needs to do here. Unless she forgot something because she's a fucking idiot

She comes out of the bathroom, lets the staff know that Meredith is gone and everything's fine, calls Rey to let her also know that everything's fine, and then marches to the door and – finds herself stopping short at the door, going back outside means going back into the cold – but nope, fuck you brain, we're going – and runs across the street to the conveniently placed motel.

(Seriously, thank fuck it's literally across the street, if Sanna had to spend any significant time in the cold again tonight she would actually scream.)

She formed this plan when she was still convinced that Meredith was going to just stalk her all the time forever. At this point she mostly doesn't think that anymore — she figures that Meredith probably did actually leave and isn't sticking around to stalk her again and find out where she lives — but at least for tonight she's not taking any chances. So, motel. She already has all her work stuff — she's literally still wearing her housekeeping smock — so she doesn't have to go home.

(While she's checking in, she gobbles up a protein bar by way of dinner. Ever since she could afford to spend money on protein bars, she's been keeping a couple in her bag ✨just in case✨. She KNEW it would come in handy someday! Even if it took a vampire threatening her entire sense of security to make that happen, she feels so vindicated right now.)

When she gets to her room, she turns up the thermostat to a reasonable temperature (which for her is like 25 degrees), and puts the blankets near the radiator to warm them up faster, and gets in the shower and stands under the hot water until the hot water runs out. By then the room has warmed up nicely, and so have the blankets. She puts them back on the bed and curls up under them and luxuriates in their ✨WARMTH✨

(The bed is way too big and soft — if Sanna were capable of drowning, she might say that she feels like she's drowning in it — but being warm is the priority, and even if she wraps herself up like a burrito the bed is going to be warmer than the floor.)

She goes on her phone and pulls up the audio recording she started taking when she decided to confront Meredith.

Her thumb hovers over the play button.

She really, really wants to start playing it now and typing up a transcript now — because ✨what if a cosmic ray hits the phone and flips just the right bit to delete the whole thing✨ — but 1) she's really fucking tired, and 2) more importantly, if Meredith is still around then she might be close enough to hear the recording and thus know it exists.

She closes the recording and puts on a YouTube video for background noise.

Eventually — once the warmth has really soaked in, so that it feels like a part of her, so that she feels cozy and safe, so that she can't remember what being cold was like — she finally lets go. Lets out all the fear and frustration and stress that she was holding in during the actual conversation.

She starts crying.

She cries because she really thought she was going to die, a few times.

She cries because Meredith simply knowing she exists makes her feel unsafe, makes her feel like she might never be safe ever again. And she can't make Meredith unknow that she exists.

Her whole mental equilibrium has been thrown off, possibly permanently.

She cries because Meredith could still end up being the worst thing that's ever happened to her.

She cries because this also might be her best shot at seeing Miles and Neil ever again, so she can't even be properly mad about it, and she also can't just tell Meredith to take a hike and endure whatever consequences come of that. Because if the consequences include death, then she definitely won't see Miles and Neil again, and that matters now because she has hope now.

Finding a reason to hope she'd see them again was supposed to be a good thing, the best thing, but right now that hope just feels like a prison.

(A prison where she's locked in a cell with fucking Meredith.)

A good thing happened. The best thing. And she can't even feel happy about it.

Eventually she's crying more for that than for anything else. In mourning over the joy she was supposed to feel in this moment and can't feel.

She is totally going to punch Meredith in the face someday. She is going to find a way to make it hurt. Maybe she'll befriend a dragon and get the dragon to punch her in the face She can workshop this plan later.

She cries for maybe five minutes.

She feels a lot better after, but still pretty wound up. Enough that she sort of suspects she won't get any sleep tonight,

so she's surprised when she finds herself blinking awake the next morning.

Huh. Okay. Score one for not having to get through an 8-hour shift in miserable exhaustion.

And so, Sanna goes to work.