"I will apologize to her when I go in."

"Sure.

"Do you expect we'll have the kids in here before then, or - how much time does that sort of thing take, about?"

"It doesn't take that long but I don't have the DNA yet so I haven't sent out a ship yet."

"Cool.  Jordan's out and about, so - he doesn't have a mobile.  So I'm not sure whether to try and hunt him down or just have him potentially come home after they're already . . . here."

"It will take some hours just for the ship to get out and back, how long do you expect him to be gone?"

"All day.  So you guys could come visit Princess without him being around.  In case . . ."

"Right." Sigh.

"I don't think this was his fault but I don't know whether he'll think it is."

"The real risk would be that he does any curse-tempting drastic thing in response."

"I don't really see any available drastic actions that he'd be at all tempted about.  What's he gonna do, off himself and find a different N.Y.E. to join up with, because it's going so well for Jackie?  Murder me?  And he's too sensible to do any of the things that he might actually want, like deciding that because it's his fault he should cut himself out of our lives.  I'm just - worried about him.  As himself."

Nod nod.

"I don't know.  If it were you would you rather have it be like, 'And they're right here!  Being approximately fine!' or would you want time to process it."

"I'd probably prefer the second thing but I'm not sure!"

"I might go drive around in a bit and see if he's in any of the places I expect, then.  I guess I'm glad to have had some warning . . ."

"Warning?"

"Just, before they get here."

"Yeah. I can send a ship out once I have the DNA. I'm not sure if they'd rather recuperate from being rezzed here or in Atriama, new resurrectees are generally kind of fragile."

"Oh.  How . . . new?  Felicity seems fine?"

"Felicity is a substantially bigger nebula. But they should be okay in a few hours."

"Okay.  Is there anything else I should know to prepare for?"

"Well, they'll look different. Also are nonbinary now since the New Year's Eve was a boy."

"What's that?"

"Non-binary as in not adhering neatly to the gender binary at least in internal felt sense, I don't know what physical sex they're going with."

"Oh, you just mean she's," Ian puts on a determined expression and makes a gesture of sorts using his posture, squaring up his shoulders and drawing his arms back, "you know, odd?"  He slides back into his mild slouch.

"Whatever you just did was completely lost on me as a form of communication."