"Ugh. I will nip out to the camper then, I suppose."

"See you there.  How should I interact with Ian and Princess . . . ?"

"Nicholas hasn't told them yet and I tentatively agree with this course of action given the givens."

"Alright.  Let me see - "

"- whether I expect myself to be a competent enough actress!  Yes, I think I can work with this well enough to not require riding to the camper with you."

"Oh good. Oh, also, remind me later, some dead cats want some folks checked on, but order of ops."

Off he motors.

Here's a Felicity with a gummy ready in an outstretched palm.

Nomf. Collapse into chair.

Hi.

Hi. Did I guess right about what you were after?

Yeah.

Haven't found a partner this quick?

You know surprisingly I actually have.  He doesn't want to talk to you yet, though.  But you only get to be aware of the crushing truth that you were born to - no, not born, created - purely to suffer - and that this entire universe is a joke - and -

. . . once.  So I'm waiting a bit.  I wanted this onscreened.

Oh, right, you're a Nudge now. You don't seem to like it much.

It's almost worse than being alive.  But it's more - distant, without a body and hormones and whatnot, so it squeaks into second place.

I think you fucked up Nicholas a lil bit. Nobody else knows yet. They will probably also be a lil fucked up.

Not as bad as I was.  . . . Or as they would have been, probably.  I've been going to do this for over a year, apparently, so I don't know what could have happened if I'd stuck around.

Over a year? I wasn't around to resurrect anybody a year ago!

Sure you were.  Happy incremented birthdays, belatedly.  Nothing very special happened visibly on them but that is when I offed myself, isn't that fun.  What a great present for everyone involved.

Somehow this sort of thing is more charming when Nudge does it, though I guess that might just be because he didn't off himself half an hour ago.

It's really throwing a wrench in my groove to be honest.  Ready for me to give you hints about last year's present until I get forcibly merged and amnesia'd about this?  There is no other way this conversation can end, I don't think.  Well, I could try and tell you other things you can't know, but fundamentally.

Forcibly?

I mean I picked the partner and it's not as if I especially want to stay like this very long, but, yeah?

If you don't want to merge with them I can rez you before they can - throw themselves at you or whatever?

Absolutely not.  It's - I'm not going to be happy but I'm going to be a person not fundamentally incapable of ever being happy -