Abigail takes Marcy's other hand. She knows full well she's trying to comfort both of them.

Annisa is spending way too many of her limited brain cycles freaking out about feeling fuzzy but she thinks she feels less fuzzy than she did a couple of minutes ago. She still doesn't remember graduation at all but she feels halfway oriented, other than that. She should -- say some things that aren't stupid. 

This is surprisingly hard. 

Also she has to stop crying or she won't be able to talk. This should be easy as there's no reason to cry. 

"Thank you. For getting me out. 'm okay. Everything's okay. You should - your families - not a good day to be at a sickbed -"

They should let her sleep. 

They should tell the truth.

"It's not. Graduation day anymore. You were in magic stasis for two months."

She should tell everyone Annisa's awake--but not yet. Some of them will want to talk to her, and she should definitely get to rest before that. Just her parents, today.

"Oh. 

That's a long time. 

Were you - guarding - not fair to you-"

"It was fine. Your parents helped, and we hired some people. I bet your parents will want to visit as soon as possible, once I tell them you're okay."

"Indri's twelve, they can't leave. You should tell them, though. They'll be - happy."

"I will. We should let you take that nap, now. We can stay here or we can go out and a guard can come in if you'd rather."

"I'd rather my allies but I shouldn't say that, they have other things to do," says Annisa sleepily. "The guard is fine."

"I was just going to embroider, I can do that in here no problem. Sleep well." (Now that fabric and thread are cheap, it's nice to have a way to build mana that doesn't require floor space and can be done while already exhausted from exercise.)

Annisa sleeps, mostly well. Occasionally she whimpers and occasionally she tries and fails to startle awake at motions or voices.

Marcy has no idea what her own sleep looked like the day after she graduated. Quite possibly it looked exactly like this. It still hurts to watch. (The other three left once it looked like she was out, to do their jobs and build mana and update their and Marcy's parents.)

Annisa's parents are the only people she told that the operation was going to be today. Now she sends them another email:

Everything went well! Annisa woke up and talked for a bit and said to tell you she was back. She was pretty fuzzy from being out for so long and still exhausted from graduating but the healer said she'll be fine once she's had some time to rest and recover. She's sleeping now. I don't know how long it will be until she feels okay to deal with traveling but I'll keep you posted.

Thank you again for all your help; none of this would have been possible without you.

Thank you

I don't think we could possibly repay you but I am sure Annisa will do her best

she's a clever girl

Marcy contemplates whether she should say anything and gets hit with a wave of exhaustion. Knowing what to say would require knowing what she's feeling and it's like trying to pick up several gallons of peanut butter with her hands. She puts the phone down and embroiders and keeps an eye out for mals, and eventually manages to come up with a sentence that's both true and worth saying.

She helped us get out.

It would be worth grieving a hundred children, to see one Annisa grow up.

Marcy hopes she's that strong, someday. Even in an enclave, you don't have kids unless you know you can bear it.

She's amazing.

When Annisa wakes up she's in pain and disoriented, but with-it enough to recognize the pain as not an emergency and the disoriented as potentially an emergency. She sits straight up and - "Marcy?"

"I'm here." She gets up from where she's sitting in Eliza's desk chair. "How are you feeling?"

" - confused! Where are we?"

Yes, complete sentence! "In one of my sisters' room in Boston. Do you remember the last time you were awake? Abigail and Franklin and Kevin were here."

"We graduated? It's over? - I don't remember anything after, uh, last night checking everything and pretending we were going to try to get a good night's sleep instead of pacing in our rooms."

"Yes! We graduated! We all made it but you got stabbed really badly and spent a while in stasis. So, uh, it's October 24th now. But we're out!"

"....wow. I -" Headshake. "I guess that's all that matters. What a first impression on Boston, though. Am I cleared to do stuff or am I supposed to wait until my chest feels less stabbed?"

"I think you're good to do stuff as long as you're careful to stop if it feels like you're making it worse? Relatedly if you want, like, food or something I can go get it." This last proves to be a mistake, because it makes Marcy remember that she was too anxious for breakfast and then too busy guarding for lunch. She should have texted her dad and asked him to bring up a sandwich.

"We should eat. Have you been worrying about me and not enjoying being out at all."

". . . Yeah." She should tell her about the loan, she deserves to know, it's not actually embarrassing any more than taking out a loan to start a business is embarrassing. And if she puts it off it's just going to get weirder. "Also I'm probably going to keep being busy for a while because I borrowed a bunch of mana from the enclave to pay the healer and I'm trying to settle up in a hurry. But I am also going to be enjoying being out a lot more now that I know you're okay."