Hailey spends another minute or so like this, soaking in the closeness—

Before a thought suddenly occurs to her.

"Why are we still standing?"

She crouches down slightly, twists a bit, and slips an arm under Momo's legs, the other supporting her back, and lifts her off the ground with no visible effort at all, then sinks smoothly to the ground, setting her into her lap and squeezing her close, burying her face in Momo's dark hair.

Why are they?  More like why were they!

She's very glad she's not standing, because if Hailey had put her down still upright she would have fallen over from swooning.

That said, as much as this is much, much nicer, "...Maybe give me more than a moment's warning if you're going to be scooping me up like that, hm?  You rather surprised me.  Not that I mind what you did," she murmurs, "but you're not the only one who has reflexes."

"Eheh. Fair point. Sorry, Momo."

She gives her an apologetic squeeze and keeps cuddling there, sighing and letting herself keep relaxing into the experience.

"No hard feelings."  She would do much the same as Hailey did, but it's hard to hug someone with your arms tied up, so she just...  Leans into Hailey a bit more firmly, or so.

(...Honestly, she's finding this rather relaxing too.)

She sighs more and actually nuzzles her face into Momo's shoulder, just drinking up the contact now that her literal decade-plus of touch-starvation was over.

"Thank you," she murmurs, not lifting her head at all.

...Hailey really needed this, didn't she?  "Just glad I could help."

"If I could've touched any of the others, wouldn't've been this long wi'out friendly touch, 'cause the other Pirates are safe, but we can't, not for real. It's been a long time."

"Then I'm even more glad that we figured this out."

"Me too," she murmurs. "Y'r really great, y'know?"

"I just...  Try to do the right thing.  What compassion demands.  With consideration, but without hesitation."

"Sable's like that too. Always tries to do the loving thing, whenever she can, whoever it is." She sighs fondly. "I'm... the harshness she couldn't bear. I get angry where the world makes her sad. For all that I've got my separate history, that's the need that carved me out separate."

"...If my arms were untied and it was actually a good idea, I think I would be hugging you now."

Hailey chuckles softly, smirking. "I appreciate the thought. I like being me, though. Sable keeps me from burning myself up on the anger, and I keep her from wringing herself dry for people who're too hell-bent on harm to save yet."

"...Huh.  I've never known myself to have known anybody - besides, well, Kiyuko and the vestiges - who was like you, but that's...  That you work together that way is really - interesting?  I don't want to say it that way, you're not some science experiment, but...  Huh.  It's definitely...  Something that seems worth thinking about, for some reason."

"Plurality has its advantages, for sure. It's bloody weird, and it makes life complicated, but we wouldn't give it up. All five of us are made of stories as much anything else, and we all love each other, and fill gaps for each other, Sable just came to her stories after the fact, rather than having the narrative inform the reality from the start like the rest of us."

"...You know, considering that we're in a multiverse where the stories that you came from are probably all also real - where I, for you, came from a story -

"...I do have to wonder if that's ever going to become relevant."

"Oh good question. Predicting would depend on knowing whether there are any like... attractors guiding the portal picks, but that's not sommat we can see from here, not with the powers we got for now."

"That's not precisely what I was thinking about, but it does seem rather unlikely that this will become any clearer until we start doing things."

"Yeah, and we do have shite to do to get this island set up — hygiene tech and practicing and so on."

She leans up and shyly presses a little kiss to Momo's cheek.

"Should probably untie you."

"Probably, yes."

"Scooping again," she warns, before scooping Momo into her arms and standing up, then setting her on her feet and waiting for her to be steady. "Don't wanna risk having you on top of me when I untie you just in case this didn't nail everything."

"That's probably a good idea, yeah."

...Is it odd that she almost doesn't want to be untied yet?  Probably not, considering that she's seen the amount of stress that not-that caused Hailey originally - but Hailey knows herself much better than she could possibly, and she's not showing any signs of impending regret.  And it will be useful to have her hands available for assembling.