She freezes at the sound, something twisting in her chest that she doesn't want to name. For a moment she just stares at Cara's face, watching the tears track down her cheeks.

"Stop that," she says, but her voice comes out wrong - too quiet, too uncertain. She tries again. "Stop crying."

It doesn't work. Of course it doesn't work. Crying isn't something you can just order someone to stop doing.

She looks back at the screen, at the messages. People she's keeping Cara away from.

She closes the laptop.

"We're done with that for now."

She does try to stop crying, at the command, holding in the sobs, but the tears keep flowing, and her breathing gets horribly ragged. 

It's not fair, she'd been trying so hard to get over them because they left and they don't need her anymore and she didn't want to beg for scraps of their attention, and now - now -

"sorry," she whispers, because something about this is upsetting Vera, though she has no idea what... 

"Stop apologizing." She doesn't know what to do with her hands. With any of this. "Just... stop."

She sits there for a long moment, watching Cara struggle to breathe through the tears. The ragged sound of it is grating on her nerves, making her skin crawl.

She reaches out, almost reluctantly, and pulls Cara against her. Not gently - more like she's arranging furniture. But the contact is there, skin against skin where their arms touch.

"Breathe," she says flatly. "You're going to hyperventilate."

The order helps, interrupting the horrible spiraling grief she's feeling and giving her something to focus on, breathing steadily, in, and out... 

(The guiding helps, too. She finds herself leaning into it without meaning to, though she does her best to keep it mild.)

"thanks" 

She doesn't respond to the thanks. Doesn't know what to do with it.

They sit there for a while, Cara's breathing slowly evening out. The contact is doing its work - she can feel her own head clearing, the morning fog of too many choices receding into something manageable.

"Who are they?" she asks eventually. Not gently, but not sharp either. Just... asking. "The ones in the chat."

She takes in a deep breath. "...Reve and Mags? I .. the 3 of us were dating, lived together, until they moved out west last month." 

"Ah." She doesn't know what to do with that information either. Exes. People Cara was in love with, probably still is, based on the crying.

She shifts slightly, adjusting her grip. Not softer, exactly, but... settled.

"You'll need to reply to them eventually. Not now. Later, when you can..." She gestures vaguely at Cara's face. "Not do that."

She's quiet for a moment, then adds, almost reluctantly: "We need food. Breakfast. I'll order something."

It's not comfort. It's logistics. But it's something to do that isn't sitting here watching Cara fall apart over people who left her.

She nods hesitantly at Vera's first statement, and then more firmly at her second. Breakfast sounds really good right now. 

Vera seems uncomfortable with all of this. Right now, she's being weirdly nice (for Vera), but Cara finds herself tensing up a bit, wondering when the other shoe will drop.

(She's stopped crying. Absentmindedly, she wipes the tears off her face.)

She pulls out her phone, scrolling through delivery options with one hand. The other stays on Cara's arm - not out of kindness, just practicality. She thinks better with the contact.

She doesn't look at Cara. Easier that way.

The silence gives Cara time to think about... what to say to Mags and Reve. Responses and their consequences spiral outwards in her mind. 

Doormat - she reassures Reve. Says it's okay, that she knows the two of them are so busy, especially with the semester kicking up. She's missed them badly, but she knows they still care about her. She's grateful for the help, but she has things covered. When she's ready to talk about her backlash / powers, they'll be the first to know.
(She feels a familiar aching emptiness in her chest. You should apply to the program! she remembers telling them again and again. I know it feels like a long shot but you two are amazing, and the worst that'd happen is that you put 10 hours into the application and end up staying here with me anyways.)

Distant - she tells them it's fine, they're all busy with their own lives, and that she's got this under control. She tells them that she'll reach out if she needs anything, in a way that makes it clear that she doesn't think it's very likely she will. Reve gets the message as intended - Mags reaches out a few more times, just in case, and Cara has to give an "I'm good, thanks!" each time. They get over it, Reve well before Mags.
(Not horrible, but - she really hopes this isn't the best outcome.) 

Casually cruel - she reacts to Reve's apology with poop, laughing, and clown emojis, and doesn't reply further. Reve is hurt, blames herself for abandoning Cara, and doesn't reach out again. Mags, caught between the love of her life and their mutual ex who she'd been trying to stay close to, tries her best to reassure Reve and eventually gets angry at Cara for cutting them off like this. 
(No, no, no. She feels sick just thinking about it.)

Honest - 
(her fists clench, fingernails digging into her skin, the muscles tensing enough to be noticeable to Vera)

She feels Cara's arm tense under her hand. Looks over, sees the clenched fists, the whitened knuckles.

"Stop." Not harsh, firm. "You're not replying to them right now. I said later."

She turns the phone screen toward Cara, showing the delivery app. A diner with decent reviews, twenty minutes away.

"Eggs? Pancakes? Pick something."

-she stops,  thoughts stumbling unpleasantly.

She blinks, looks at the menu blankly for a few seconds, and then points at the blueberry pancake platter at the bottom of the screen.

She adds the pancakes to the cart, then scrolls through for herself. Eggs, bacon, toast. Simple. She doesn't have the energy for decisions right now either.

She places the order, then sets the phone aside.

"Thirty minutes." She doesn't move her hand from Cara's arm. "You need to take your medication. The stuff you brought."

It's not a question. She remembers the six pill bottles Cara grabbed from the bathroom. HRT and ADHD meds, she'd said. Important enough to pack first.

She looks around for her backpack, and then has an idea. Vera said she could talk, so...

"...it might make sense for me to skip my ADHD meds? It'll make me dumber, but starting tomorrow I'll sleep a lot more, too."

Maybe it's not good to give up control like this, but... she has so little already, and... being asleep is easier. Safer.

She considers that for a moment. Cara sleeping more means less time having to manage her, less chance of her doing something stupid or having another breakdown. But "dumber" could mean harder to give instructions to, more mistakes.

"How much dumber? And how much more sleep?"

She's weighing the tradeoffs. A Cara who sleeps eighteen hours a day is easier to handle than one who's awake and crying about her exes. But she needs her functional enough to respond to messages, to not raise suspicion.

"Take the HRT either way. The ADHD stuff..." She shrugs. "Your call. But if you get too stupid to follow basic instructions, we're putting you back on them."

Doesn't she have friends with ADHD ... does she have friends? ...not important right now, Cara.

"...worse at paying attention, mostly? And... 12 hours of sleep, maybe more." 

She fishes out her hrt, popping 2 blue pills into her mouth. 

"Twelve hours." She turns that over in her head. Half the day, Cara unconscious and manageable. Half the day, Cara awake but scattered.

It could work. Cara asleep while she's in class, awake when she gets back for guiding and message management. Less time for things to go wrong.

"Fine. Skip the ADHD meds." She watches Cara swallow the HRT dry. "But you eat first. All of it, when the food gets here."

She leans back against the headboard, pulling Cara with her by the arm she's still holding. The position is becoming familiar - Cara tucked against her side, close enough to touch.

"What else do you need? To not die this week."

(She doesn't swallow, actually - she seems like she's holding the pills under her tongue? She's good at talking around it, though.)

She nods in agreement. She's easy to move around - a slight bit of pressure to signal where Vera wants her and she's there. (Unconscious habit from years of being a snugglebug, or her backlash working on more than just the spoken word? she's... not sure.)

"...to not die, or not to be miserable?" she asks, after a long enough pause that it's clear that this is actually a question. 

She considers the question. It's almost funny - Cara asking her for clarification, like she actually cares about the answer. Like Vera's opinion on her comfort matters.

"Not to die," she says flatly. "Miserable is your problem."

But even as she says it, something twists in her stomach. She thinks about the crying earlier, the way Cara had fallen apart over a few messages from her exes. A week of that would be... exhausting. For both of them.

"...What would you need? To not be miserable."

She doesn't look at Cara when she asks. Keeps her eyes on the wall, like the question doesn't matter.

Oh.

"... conversation?"  she says softly, hesitantly. "Something to read or a show to binge will help a lot too, but - I get lonely easily, and it's worse after long stretches of null." She shivers, despite herself, trying not to learn on Vera too much but failing to fully conceal that she wants to. 

Conversation. Of course that's what she wants. The one thing Vera is worst at.

She feels Cara leaning into her, the slight tremor running through her. Needy. Pathetic. But also... not entirely unreasonable, given everything.

"I'm not good at..." She gestures vaguely. "Talking. About nothing. Small talk."

She's quiet for a moment, thinking it through. Cara needs stimulation to not go crazy. Vera needs Cara functional enough to manage messages and not have breakdowns. There's a solution here somewhere.

"I have textbooks. Chem stuff, mostly. And my laptop has some shows downloaded." She pauses. "When I'm in class, you can watch something. When I'm here..."

She trails off. When she's here, what? She's not going to sit around chatting about feelings and exes and whatever else Cara wants to talk about.

"When I'm here, you can ask questions. About... whatever. I'll answer if I feel like it."

Cara lets out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding.

"Okay. Thank you." 

She pauses, discarding a reassurance that Vera probably would hate, wracking her brain for a topic. School - seems kinda stressful? Friends - lol. Esper awakening - fraught.

"What color were your eyes, before you awakened?" 

She blinks, caught off guard by the question. It's so... mundane. Not about the kidnapping, or the backlash, or any of the horrible things she's done in the last day.

"Brown," she says after a moment. "Dark brown. Boring."

She glances down at her hands, then back at the wall. The esper gold had come in gradually over hell week, eating the brown bit by bit until there was nothing left of what she'd looked like before.

"Why?"

Cara shrugs. "Just curious. It's... one of weirder parts of the whole deal, I think? The hair and eye colors." 

It's a bit odd, imagining Vera without her gold eyes. She doesn't say this. Vera probably wouldn't want to hear it. 

She waits, next question ready if Vera doesn't have a follow-up. Her body language is visibly relaxing. 

"Yours are already changing." It's not a question. She'd noticed the flecks of color starting to bleed into Cara's irises yesterday, though she hadn't mentioned it. "Another few days and you won't recognize yourself in the mirror."

She shifts slightly, adjusting Cara against her side. The contact is comfortable now, familiar in a way that makes her uneasy if she thinks about it too hard.

"Your turn."