She opts into the local esper allocation flex pool when she travels for Tia's cases, to keep her skills up. (Tia isn't necessarily thrilled about this, given Cara's current backlash situation, but she agrees it makes sense. They start getting caught back up on her backlash when Tia finishes her case.) 

The well-oiled logistics gears churn, and spit out a few dungeon assignments for her, one at a time. Tiny things, all of them; it's the calm before the storm, after all.

Flywheel is, by now, a well-trained gear that can slot easily into different parts of the mighty clockwork machine that is humanity's collective dungeon response system. She gets her assignments, shows up promptly, and clears them according to agreed-upon plan, unleashing massive amounts of kinetic energy in just the right place and time to destroy barriers, monsters, cores. As she finishes each one, she returns to Tia's waiting arms.

(She worries a little bit every time, of course, because even a tiny baby dungeon can grow fangs at the wrong moment, and Cara's been using her power a bit irresponsibly, lately. But she's so proud of how far they've come in just a year, how much they've accomplished together. How could she not be?)

Her client gets operated on successfully, kept awake and functional and taking multiple business meetings throughout.

Willowbark, as promised by contract, wears headphones during the operation, one hand applying her power to the man via his exposed shin, the rest of her attention on Flywheel's recent dungeon footage that she's reviewing and taking notes of.

Tia sighs with relief once it's all done and it's time for her to leave.

She reunites with Cara and gets them both to their hotel room, where they can guide each other and recharge Cara's flywheel.

Then the confluence begins, and the notifications start popping up one by one from DRT allocation system.

...Cara looks over at Tia. (She doesn't say anything; she doesn't have to.) 

Tia nods grimly. They've talked about what confluences are like, what Cara should expect, and how she'll help. They've been sure it's coming for a while now, after all, and this isn't her first time playing sideline guide to a combat esper during a confluence. or the second. 

She pulls Cara into a tight hug. "You're ready for this." Tia isn't not nervous, but... Cara's power is incredibly good for keeping her safe, as long as she's getting the support she needs. (And while confluences are dangerous, they can also be big opportunities...)

Her first dungeon has victims being thrown violently up and down into the air by gusts of wind. She waits for them to get close, then extracts them with her power, jumping into the airstream catching them physically while stopping their fall, charging her Flywheel as she does. (She hands them off to the DRT squad right away. She can't really talk to people in dungeons, after all.)

The core is at the center of an angry windmill that moves around slowly on wheels, its blades sharp and spinning fast. It tries to slice her with them.

She stops the entire rotor assembly. As it tries to creek back up to speed, she steps backwards, unclipping one of the heavy metal spheres from her belt, and with all the force she's gathered in the last ten minutes, sends it rocketing so fast the air trembles.

When the core shatters, she feels the fragments of it fly outward, which is all the confirmation she needs. She calls it in and walks out of the dungeon to where Tia is waiting for her.

By the end of the day, it takes Tia over a few hours to clear Cara's newly-acquired backlash, but as always, it feels really really good. 

Yeah. (...she's tired..zzzzz.)

Day two, dungeon one. 

It's early in the morning. Neither of them got quite as much sleep as they would have liked, but she's ready.

The assignment is a weaker dungeon again, mostly empty grass and weird deer. It's the kind that DRT teams usually clear out on their own. But it's a confluence, so of course a giant armored bear is fiercely guarding the core. (One of the gunmen tried to shoot out its eye. The bear responded by eating his gun. And his arm.)

Willowbark makes sure her darling is ready, with her flywheel spinning strapped securely on her back and her gear on her belt and a detailed plan with backups in her mind and some last words of advice and encouragement. (She hates having to be careful not to touch Flywheel, but - it'd be bad to kick up her chronic backlash right before she goes in.) "Remember to be conservative with your power usage. Something bigger could show up today. Be safe and stick to the plan, and you'll be fine. I love you."

"Love you too," she replies, mostly on autopilot.

With her payload in hand, the soft vibration and subtle tug of 5000 RPM on her back, and no outside noise passing through her custom-built helmet, Flywheel enters the portal. 

When she emerges, even her fancy noise-muffling helmet can't fully protect her ears from the screams.

The encampment area is... chaotic, to put it mildly. And Willowbark is nowhere to be seen.

If you can't find me after a dungeon, report in by radio. I should still be nearby.  She touches her helmet. "Finished with the dungeon, only lightly backlashed." 

Willowbark's reply comes in fast, her voice full of stress. "Flywheel, I'm two blocks west and three blocks south. Get here as fast as you can - people are in danger - "

Willowbark is still talking and Flywheel can still hear her, of course, but the backlash tugs her into action. (She lets it guide the way, of course. It's the right thing to do.) 

Her initial jump sends her flying above the roofline of the block; she cuts it short, and heads southwest.

"- I need you to get this kid to a hospital. He needs help quickly and they can't get an ambulance here in time. I'm coordinating with the paramedics, near the center of block -"

- as she approaches the damaged high-rise, a pulsing scan with her power notes a heavy chunk of metal, just beginning to fall off the side of the building. It's almost certainly not going to hit anyone, the main fail zone has been cleared of everything but rubble, but - Willowbark said she needed to hurry to the hospital, and this'll help.

Flywheel, on her way into the debris-strewn plaza, adjusts her trajectory, her power painting arrows in her mind of the two paths. She catches it at point-blank range when it's only two meters above the ground, and tucks the energy into her backpack for later. (Her backlash ticks up, of course, but - this is an emergency, and it's good to have extra juice in the tank.) 

Willowbark and the paramedics help load an unconscious, hastily-bandaged teenage boy into Flywheel's arms. "Eight blocks north. They'll be waiting for you at the ambulance loading bay. Hand him off to the staff there, then come right back and find me, okay?"

(She almost reaches out to check her partner's backlash, but remembers not to at the last second. Ugh.)

Flywheel nods. 

The kid would get the brunt of the air resistance, if she did this the easy way, so she turns to face south and lets her back break the wind as she goes flying through the air. (It's the kind of thing that would be terrifying, if she hadn't practiced it. But she's at the center of the world, when she needs to be, and her power, used appropriately, is very good for making sure she doesn't hit anything or veer off course.) 

She lands with a half-spin right in front of the hospital staff, gently lays her patient on the stretcher, and starts her trip back. No time for pleasantries.

Her aerial viewpoint means she's one of the first people to see a fifth of the high-rise tear itself off the rest of the building and start falling into the plaza below.

Her power and current positioning means she's probably the only person with a chance of doing something about it, if she wanted.

She's at the center of [the world|a hair-thin shaft 1644 meters long with a 1-meter sphere on each end] - 

A loud alarm blares in her ears, breaking her concentration.

It's followed by her partner's terrified voice. "Cara, don't try to - it's too big and you're too far away, it'll kill you! I'm - I lo -" 

(Later, Cara will wonder about whether she could have overcome her backlash and ignored Tia's last request, if she'd tried harder. For now, though, her brain is filled to the brim with a horrible panicky static and one now-totally-futile task to finish.)

It's his old friend from Casablanca, fancy seeing it here. He's sent an emoji to June - they'll both last longer if they're touching base occasionally while they can still function - and he's called Paula, and he's getting started. It's bigger, it's meaner, and it breaches as an opening number now. He wishes he'd killed it last time.

There's an esper rummaging in the rubble over there...

"Hey, what're you looking for?"

The esper is wearing a motorcycle helmet and perhaps cannot hear him? At any rate, she doesn't respond.

(She flips over a large piece of rubble with her power. ...Tia wasn't under it.)

Her protective leather jacket has several gashes torn into it. On closer inspection, one of them is bleeding.

He parkours up the rubble to get closer, waves in front of her face. She's going to attract worms doing that.

...headtilt. (He clearly wants her attention, so she gives it to him.)

"You''ll attract worms doing that, they sense motion - are you stealth -"

- she taps the side of her helmet, the near-universal gesture for I can't hear you.

(Let me handle talking to strangers for you, Tia had told her. Though - it's - she -)

...he'll try sign language, maybe she has a hearing related backlash and if she does it'd be smart. "Who are you?"

Oh. He's trying sign language. (She doesn't know sign language. :( )

...he obviously wants to communicate, though. And this is an emergency. 

...she takes off the helmet.

"Can you hear me?"

Nod.

"The worms for this dungeon are attracted to movement. If you don't have a stealth power or expect to be able to kill a worm you shouldn't handle search and rescue like this. What's your power?"

"Kinetic energy sensing and manipulation." She pauses to think, because they did talk about Infested Wasteland, a few months ago. "...I could kill one." (It'd be a lot of backlash, though. She could run from one more easily.)

"You're not from Toronto, is your partner in town with you?"

...she looks at the rubble pile. "I -" her voice hitches.

"- ah. Okay. What's your range, if I'm holding you up you won't transmit through the ground and if you're not right on top of the rubble a worm won't eat you while you're at it."

 "My range is pretty high." (...it doesn't really matter, though? Why...)

"Can you look for your partner from... there," an intact ledge.

She looks at the ledge, and then at the rubble. "I could? ...but it'd be a lot of backlash." She's supposed to be conservative with it.

"...long shot but check me?" Hand.

She removes a glove and reaches out a hand.

She's pretty compatible with him! And she's moderately backlashed - mostly acutely, but there's some chronic in there too, if he's paying attention.

"...okay, I don't think even with me on hand you're in a state to do more backlash intensive activity right now. We didn't kill Arrakis in Casablanca and we probably won't kill it here, it's around for the long haul, gotta pace ourselves. I'll call in that your partner's under there and they'll see if they can spare someone - who is it -"

"Willowbark." Pause. "...I - I know she's dead, just - she told me to come back to her, and I -" am not finishing that sentence, apparently.

"Oh. You're sure?"

She looks back out at the rubble. "I saw it fall." And did nothing.

"Okay. Uh, who's your agent?"

"...Willowbark handled that stuff."

"...who was her agent?"

"She didn't have one." Tia handled her client contracts herself. Didn't like the idea of delegating that.

"...okay. Unless you object, I'm going to lend you my agent, rent a temporary silo near my partner's to put you in, and see about guiding you down there. In your opinion do I need to know your backlash for that to work?"

"No." (She's not supposed to tell people about her backlash.)

"And do you object?"

"No." (She's supposed to be careful about her backlash, and she - she can't -)

Her eyes water.

That's so understandable. He squeezes her hand, and calls Paula. "Paula, an esper named Willowbark went down to an Arrakis worm, I found her partner attempting to retrieve the body, can we get a rental silo not far from June's, we're compat and she's under a heap. I think I can still run with June but might need to schedule funny."

Willowbark's partner does not react to any of this.

"Thank you, Paula. She's - ah - what's your codename -"

"...Flywheel," says Flywheel.

"Flywheel. They were apparently working as independents so if she can borrow you for the immediate term? No, I don't. No. That was my thought also. Thanks, Paula." He hangs up. He's not very backlashed, getting a good combat esper situated to contribute to this clusterfuck is higher priority than him continuing to run around not attracting worms. "Flywheel, my car is over there and I think there's still a clear set of roads to the neighborhood in question. My partner can't do guiding while either of us is asleep, so I can cover both of you without cutting into anybody's dungeon or break time if you can. I realize I'm a complete stranger but I'm not going to be weird about it, would that work for you?" Will she accompany him to the car.

She doesn't see any reason why it wouldn't work for her. "Yeah." She will accompany him to the car. 

(There's still that bloody gash on her shoulder, but if it's bothering her she's not showing it.)

There's first aid stuff in his truck. "Okay to bandage your shoulder there?"

Oh, huh. "That's okay."

Antiseptic, bandage, there. Espers heal pretty clean. He gets in the driver's seat.

It's obvious that she's supposed to get into the passenger's seat. Seatbelt on, helmet in her lap.

Hand?

-she looks at it for a moment, then figures out what he wants.

He is not backlashed enough to insist on making conversation if she doesn't seem to want to.

The silo is an apartment in the same building as June's.

She doesn't seem to want much of anything, really. She's easy to lead into a building, though.

"Do you need anything?"

Does she wh - oh. Right. 

"...I don't know." (She's supposed to be clear about her uncertainty, when she can.)

...

"The last time this came up did it turn out you needed something?"

Did she? (...she's backlashed. She's supposed to find Willowbark and let her takes care of things when she's backlashed. But she can't. Because Willowbark is dead-)

...Flywheel begins to cry.

"Do you have any existing processes for guiding with secondaries."

...headshake. 

"Okay. Uh, I'm going to propose that we get a few layers off, and snuggle, and I will do a little power use to get you down faster and we'll see if that helps, and I'll be on the phone with some people during that time. Does that seem okay?"

Nod.

(She's supposed to try and be proactive, when she can, so....)

Flywheel removes her tattered jacket, revealing a few bruises on her arms but no additional cuts, and then begins taking her shirt off, too.

Seems reasonable but he'll stop her if she tries to de-bra. He's got dust gear on, because Arrakis, and that all goes off in a neat pile and the normal shirt under it too.

Flywheel does not de-bra proactively, no. ("A few layers" implies "not all of them", after all, and she's a lot better at thinking these things through, backlashed or not, than she used to be.)

Couch, snuggles, queuing up some phone numbers, and a bit of hovering.

Flywheel is easy to guide in this manner! And they're compatible enough that even low-bandwidth methods like cuddling are pretty efficient. 

(She doesn't seem to mind that he's on the phone.)

She did not seem really likely to! He's calling around to see who's worked with her and Willowbark and see if he can figure out who needs to be told what happened and how Flywheel can fit into the Arrakis response and also talking to evac-related people.

It might be faster to ask Flywheel some of these questions, but Haru can discover via the magic of phone calls that she's been working dungeons in the area for the last few days, that she and Willowbark normally work out of Cleveland, and that Flywheel has a moderately versatile sensory power in addition to her kinetic energy manipulation.

Phone calls don't turn up any obvious people to notify - neither of them seem to have known public associates beyond the "regular coworkers" level.

When one call goes to voicemail he does ask, "Do you know if Willowbark had family?"

"...she had a brother that she never talked to."

"Nobody she did talk to though?"

...he probably doesn't just mean family. "She was... distant friends with a few other medical espers. And she talked to the younger sister of her last partner, sometimes."

"Was she in touch with her last partner?"

"...he died a few years ago."

"Wow. Okay. I guess I'll call Tess -" He does this and Tess picks up and he gets her dispatched on further steps of finding out who in the world might need to know this, and then. "Do you have anybody else who should know about your major life news?"

Flywheel visibly thinks about this. 

...then she starts sobbing desperately.

"Whoa, whoa, I'm sorry, I don't know what I tripped on there but I didn't mean to, sorry -"

She manages a headshake (it's not his fault) but she's crying pretty hard, still. 

Yeahhhhh she sure is. "Is there - someone I could call who could help you -"

...violent headshake, but something about that gets her to stop sobbing, at least. 

"...okay." He adjusts the snuggle slightly and picks another number out of his contacts.

That's fine. Flywheel can get her breathing under control while he does that. 

Poor Flywheel. No, random person he called, he is not even going to slightly think about trying to capture A Fucking Sandworm. Yes, next random person, the zoo can remain open during the confluence, everything in it is certified orphaned. Yes, person who called him, whatever horrible thing Cricket just said is not best understood as reflecting on his underlying professionalism but for best results you might want to pair him with someone he's worked with before like Hyperion or that Kevin Shields guy, there is some onboarding cost for Cricket's personality.

During the last phone call, he can tell that Flywheel seems like she's listening curiously, in addition to whatever else she's feeling. 

"I'd offer to introduce you to Cricket but he's working Isoceles right now and might be there all day if they can find enough escorts for him, he's a monster not an esper so he doesn't get his own backlash."

Hesitantly: "He's the 4D cat, right? I remember -" 

- something that makes her sad, apparently.

"Yes, the 4D cat. With wings. You've... heard of him?"

"...did a term paper on ex-dungeon monsters, as an undergrad," she says, very slightly mournfully. 

"I'm Traceless if that rings a bell."

She nods. "Monster Park." 

...that's not a sentence. what's wrong with her. well,

"That's right. I mean, I don't formally run it, but yeah."

"It's a good project."

Wow, an opinion! Good job, Cara!

"Thank you! It was much more of a pain to place captures before it was established, I'd have to call a dozen places sometimes."

Huh. "Did some of those end up at the Park, after it was up and running?" 

"A few, yeah, usually not right away but the park made it known they'd have a home there and a few places were glad to have the space for a normal octopus or whatever."

A cute little line about abnormal octopi starts forming in her head. She smothers it, reflexively.

"Neat." 

Do you ever think about the moon she's not saying that

"Yeah, I didn't really appreciate the extent to which zoos and aquaria construe themselves as more than tourist attractions before I started asking them if they wanted an octopus with nine arms."

"Huh. What else are they doing? ...conservation stuff?" 

She's hasn't come up with a way to say please feel free to get back on the phone if you'd like to talk to somebody who isn't broken that isn't terrible yet but hopefully she'll get there soon

"Yes, and research that is about animals in particular according to normal biology, and outreach and education likewise."

which they can't do if the octopi don't even have eight arms, of course would be a perfectly reasonable thing to say here and isn't even that - but she just - she can't - 

She makes a small strangled noise, and doesn't say anything. 

"...plus you have like, different people interested in the job..."

okay she can't do this!!! "I don't seem to be amazing at holding up a conversation right now," she says, interrupting him, "so if you need call someone who can?" 

or you could just tell me explicitly to keep talking to you, that would probably work,

"Yeah, sure, sorry, my bad, I'll call -" He picks a name, and the phone rings.

"Not your fault," she whispers, as he's dialing.

(And she's not done crying, apparently, but she can at least keep it quiet while he's on the phone.)

Seems like totally his bad, she's grieving and he just markov-chained his way through a conversation while she's still backlashed, but okay! He gets someone to answer the phone and they talk about where the big names like Athena are being deployed instead of here. Arrakis wasn't worth Athena in Casablanca but it might have been here and now, except: confluence.

Huh. Apparently Baek Ji-woo is here for this? 

(Willowbark really looked up to her, and could probably really use some healing right about now,) wow! useful observation!! Thanks brain!!

Baek Ji-Woo has some kind of circuit arrangement between cities especially during confluences and Traceless isn't sure who she's there to see but she'll be in town, apparently.

Eventually something changes with Flywheel and she shifts slightly, looking for a chance to get Traceless's attention. 

"One sec -" Mute. "Yeah?"

Oh. "Um. I should drink something."

"Yeah, absolutely, water good? I don't know what they stock these places with." Is she familiar with the traversing the floor while guiding dance.

Flywheel seems a tiny bit surprised but she's definitely familiar with the procedure, yeah. (And water is fine, of course.)

Her hands shake very slightly as she drinks, but she doesn't make a mess.

Could be a backlash thing! "Anything else you want? They'll have some kind of food but it won't be personalized at all..."

"...I don't know."

(Come on. Think it through. Just because -)

She forces herself to take a slightly shaky breath. "I had breakfast pretty early. I should probably eat something and then use the bathroom."

Wow, look at her go! All the adults at the kindergarten are going to be soooo prouuuud,

He stops hovering, alights on the floor. What's in this fridge, looks like applesauce and baby carrots and a thing of chicken salad and a bag of milk and a tub of cheddar cubes and a bag of spring mix and some salad dressing and a loaf of bread and some salami. "I wonder who picks this stuff. Any of that look edible?"

He doesn't mean that literally, her brain helpfully reminds her. thanks! might have gotten that confused! she replies, angrily.

Her brain has nothing else to say, which suits her fine.

She'll go for some applesauce and milk and bread and a few of the cheddar cubes.

...he unmutes his phone call and resumes chattering while finding a way to sit with her while she eats.

Yeah, that seems like a good idea. (Sorry.)

Flywheel eats pretty mechanically. When she finishes, she'll excuse herself to use the bathroom.

(Distantly, she notes that she feels like crying.)

He's back on the couch when she comes out and holds up an arm.

"...thanks," she mumbles, as she climbs back onto the couch and curls up against him. (Presumably this is some kind of signal re: combobulation levels?)

She continues to be conveniently guideable, like a good backlashed esper.

Phone calls continue.

At some point she should try fucking getting over herself for long enough to hold a conversation so he doesn't ?have? to be on the phone while he guides away all this fucking backlash she got by - by -

"Do you need to head back out there at some point?", she asks eventually.

"It's a long haul. If you weren't a dungeoneer - by the sound of it a really heavy hitter - then I'd probably hand you off to somebody at some point, but getting you up and running is much more important than getting me into Arrakis some hours earlier. I'm good for rescuing people from it but there will continue to be people having this problem for weeks, if you can kill worms or even dent them it'll be fewer and right now the clearest path to that looks like me sitting with you till you've come down from the nasty - week? longer? - you've had."

Oh. Oh. Okay, this all makes a lot more sense now. She doesn't relax, but she looks less confused.

(...this isn't very efficient guiding, if his goal is to get her back in play; presumably he has some preference that he cares more about than suffering through his backlash that requires having someone to talk to. Good to know.)

...right, she's supposed to be helping him with his backlash that requires having someone to talk to. (idiot.) 

Come on, Cara. Focus. This shouldn't be hard. 

"We -" uncomfortable swallow. "I am pretty sure I can kill a worm, if it's partially-surfaced and in motion. ...more smoothly if I have some stored momentum for mobility." 

She cocks her head slightly. "...nasty week?" (She's been having a bad day, obviously, but...)

"I think you're sitting on some chronic?"

Oh.

Right. 

She shrugs, awkwardly. "Willowbark can't - couldn't - cosleep," which is only a partial explanation but the rest is stupid and terrible and he didn't actually ask, so. 

"...right, neither can my partner, which is why I am usually held down to like three or four dungeons a week..."

"I sometimes" like at night "use my sensory power to help me fall asleep and when I do I wake up with some chronic backlash. It usually got guided away in the morning, when there was time." Her voice is flat and vaguely stilted. 

She feels like an idiot, probably on account of just having said I'm a fucking idiot to the rather nice man attempting to take in a stray combat esper. But it's a confluence and if they're maybe going to work together he should probably know so it's not like she's just saying it because-

"...I guess that'd do it. Well, I can cosleep, if you're comfortable with that."

There's surprise and maybe a ghost of a smile, on her face. "I'm comfortable with that." pause. "...I'm trans, if that matters to you." 

"...I suppose it could save me a couple confusing seconds at some point, so good to know, but it doesn't matter, no."

"Alright." She pauses.  "...and, um, thanks. I know I'm a bit of a mess" (lol. lmao.) "right now, but I still want to help." (She has a lot of practice, remembering that, even when her backlash tries to make it elusive.)

"I appreciate that! The folks Arrakis is eating will too. Do you have your own dust gear accessible or should I order you some, come to think -"

"I don't have much in Toronto" anymore shut up "but we did have more projectiles back at the hotel room." Along with her personal phone, some spare clothes, and, and, and, 

(Her face falls.)

"...are we talking, like, inadequately labeled and secured ammo, that I should call the hotel about."

Quick headshake. "Oh, no, it's just compact mass for me to railgun, nothing explosive." She's not an idiot. (lol! lmao!) "I have a few with me, but it's good to have spares." 

"Should probably get your stuff anyway though, do you wanna delegate my PA to fetch it? Can one normal person carry everything?"

"One normal person can carry everything, yeah." Pause. "It would be helpful if your PA went to grab it."

She can list off a hotel name and room number. "There's a room key in my jacket." 

"Cool, do you wanna meet her or should I stick it in the mailbox?"

"...whatever's easier?" 

"...sure, I'll call Tess -" Tess picks up. "Hey, Flywheel's got a bunch of stuff at her hotel room, you should be able to carry it, can you come to the rental silo for the room key and go grab it?"

Huh. 

She waits for him to get off the phone before asking "will it bother you if I ask questions about your backlash?" (He's very compatible with her, which of course feels good but she's having a hard time letting herself enjoy it, for the obvious reasons.)

"No, go right ahead, it's public and everything. I get lonely. It's not that bad as long as I am at safe levels and within the range of activities that wants to allow, but I can't read a book and have to have my phone set up to do the thing where it interprets me while I pretend like I'm talking to a person because I have a specific talking-to-robots issue."

She nods. "Got it. I can try and help with that." Pause. "...probably this is obvious but I might be kind of shit at it? I'm -" 

(How are you planning on finishing this sentence, exactly? "having a bad day"? "a bit out of practice"? "a scared kid in over her head"? "a fucking idiot?" You're what, Cara?)

"- not doing so great," she says, barely above a whisper.

"Well, you know what, the bar here is my existing partner I have had for like ten years. I have never had a conversation with her. I'm used to doing the phone thing. I don't need to know your backlash details but please do not on my account feel like you're falling short."

Oh. "I can probably do better than a shyness backlash." 

She sighs. "I'm not supposed to talk about my backlash but also it's - not what's - I -" 

Her eyes start to water up again. She strains against her impulse to cling. "s-sorry." 

"Not - supposed to -?" He is maybe slightly hyperattuned to the possibility that somebody he's snuggling might want to be snuggling more. Snug.

(Okay, maybe she can be a bit clingy. As a treat! For being so well-behaved!)

"Um." fuck. How to even - "I... shouldn't?" Ugh.

"...ask me again when I'm clear? I can explain it better, then."

"That's kind of been my plan, yeah, I am not sure what your deal is but I do get a more-mental-than-physical vibe and would love to hear from you with all of your brain in working order."

"It's mental, yeah." (And so's she! Haha, get it?) "...seems like most things compatible with loneliness would be?"

"Not necessarily! I met a Brit once I was quite decently compat with whose backlash was anaphylaxis. The galaxy-brained opposites thing can get really galaxy-brained."

"Anaphylaxis. Huh. That's... Huh."

"My guess is that, like, anaphylaxis is about things being identified as dangerous even if they aren't? Swelling up to keep stuff out, rallying the microbial troops to handle threats, definitely not inviting them in for tea and gossip. Tragically the hookup was awful."

Something at the end there gives her some kind of emotional reaction before she tucks it neatly away. "Huh! Yeah, I can see that. ...'s a shame."

(Come on, say something,)

"What were you in Britain for?"

"Wasn't, he came across the pond for a weirdass psychic dungeon."

Wow! Who could have foreseen the possibility a Brit might leave Britain? Not Cara, apparently!

(it feels like we're being a bit melodramatic, here, she thinks to herself. ???fuck you???, her brain replies, which, like. fair.)

She sighs. "Do you ever go overseas for dungeons?"

"Not often but a few times. I did Arrakis last time it showed, in Casablanca."

"Neat! We travel a decent amount for work but never that far, we usually -"

aaaaand now she's sobbing and clinging to him. "I - she's -" 

Hug. Hug hug.

"I c-could see it happening and she yelled at me while I was reaching for it and t-told me not to and I - I -" She's hyperventilating too badly to finish the sentence (which is kind of pathetic, when you think about it shut!! up!!)

"Oh my god, that's horrible."

It takes her a bit to calm down enough to clarify but she really should, so she forces herself to breathe. "S-she said it would have k-killed me to t-try and, I was, I was p-pretty far away, but she -" and oops it's More Sobbing Time! 

"I am so sorry that happened, that's awful."

"It's - if I'd've been closer - If I'd've been faster -" if I had actually cared about her the way she cared about me - 

WOW he kind of wishes he could shut up and merely hug her instead of having to find new ways to say that it sucks when your partner dies in front of you by being a bad triage tradeoff. "Letting somebody go is always the worst even if you barely know them, I can hardly imagine."

Well, Cara can't either! She didn't get to let go! The choice was made for her! (Who are you kidding, you didn't even try to fight it, you let her die-) This is stupid that's not even what he meant, 

She does a bit of a hysterical cry-laugh. "I don't - recommend the experience -" 

"Yeah I can't say you're making it look really appealing." Hug hug.

This makes her cry-laugh much harder! "Well I'm glad I'm not - falsely advertising it -"

She clings to him like he's a log in a storm.

"It'd probably be a really fucked up thing to do if you were doing it yeah."

"They say misery loves company but I cannot imagine this being more fun if someone else was going through it right next to me-" 

(Honestly, it just sounds unpleasantly distracting! Imagine trying to have a miserable pity party and having to worry about Tia's other partner who presumably had a less inconvenient backlash, and therefore -)

"Well, as of my last information all my loved ones are fine."

Wow! Great! Love that for you! 

(She doesn't have any response to that she can really verbalize. She's just going to cry.)

"Sorry."

Headshake. "'snot your fault." She takes in a deep breath and squeezes him. "I'm - I could ask you to stop using your power if I wanted to cry on you without you talking, and I didn't, so,"

(...in practice, that would require her to know that she wanted that, of course, but let's not get caught up in trivial details like "what Cara actually wants"! They can think about that never later. People are dying all over the city!)

...she shifts, trying to increase the amount of skin contact they have.

Yes absolutely snuggling is good. "I can call people. I have a lot of callable people."

...she could ask him if his backlash lets him make out with her instead of talking. That'd be simpler for both of them, maybe. More efficient.

She opens her mouth.

...she closes her mouth.

Wow! Cool! She ✨ Doesn't Want To Do That ✨, right now, apparently, and noticed that even through her backlash! Good work, Cara!

(...say something, dipshit! You're leaving him hanging again.)

"Where do you find them? The people you call, I mean."

"Oh, all over. I talk to dungeon vics whenever they're in a state to and if they're good conversationalists I swap contact info and sometimes one'll follow up. Blog commenters. People I cold-call about their research or for interviews or for something to do with the zoo. My mother introduces me to interesting people because she's actually an extrovert in real life. Sometimes I fall back on just talking to Cricket - he's allowed into June's silo and he can sit on me and purr and explain television shows to me - but less often during a confluence."

"...man. That sounds -"  And then she - she can't quite finish sentence because 

because the thing is that it sounds so much less terrible.

What if her backlash made her live the way she used to live. the way she misses living so badly. What if her backlash made it mentally necessary to keep in touch with her friends and loved ones so she could keep up her career of saving lives. What if her backlash left her with any fucking agency, any control over her life, what if her backlash had made it so she couldn't ignore -

"...really inconvenient," she says, after too long of a pause. (She's shaking, a bit.)

(Wow! Good job! Really convincing! Surely he won't think you're asshole after that!)

"...I have thought 'wow that sounds so much better than mine' at people way too often to get ticked off at somebody letting it happen out loud, even if there were such a thing as objective backlash badness different people get ones that suit them more or less."

She sighs. "...I think I would have done better with your backlash, yeah. I'm - not especially introverted."

"I have come to a sort of truce with it, I can get a lot done on the phone these days, but it's not ego-syntonic."

"Yeah, that makes sense. I'm sorry, mine isn't either" and I bet you'd like it way less it's not a competition??? 

...also there's nothing there he can work with, so. "...you seem like you're doing an impressive job of making it work for you."

"Thank you. It's taken a while, I was way less good at it when I had just awakened and had no friends."

If she has feelings about that one, they sure aren't visible. "Yeah, that seems like it'd be really hard." Hugsqueeze.

(Good job not being weird about that! Soooo brave!)

"I lucked out hard with Cricket. I'd been thinking of getting just a normal cat."

"Yeah, it does seem like that would have worked much less well, for -" 

...she sighs and cuts herself off. "Sorry, can you call someone? I - I can't -" in addition to my many other flaws, grief makes me a huge bitch, apparently! and you don't deserve that. (she's not saying that, apparently. Cool.)

"Yeah, it's late enough in the day I can -" He cues his phone again and is presently on with somebody new.

Great. Okay. He'll be fine. He literally volunteered for this and presumably did not do so with any expectation of her doing anything besides being useful against Infested Wasteland and the usual things people get out of guiding and also helping people who could be in any kind of state, including not talkative. 

And she has little enough backlash that she can. Actually think.

 a fifth of the high-rise tears itself off the rest of the building and starts falling into the plaza below

(She manages, with a lot of effort, to keep her crying quiet and her breathing mostly normal-paced. He's on the phone.)

He looks her way sympathetically sometimes but keeps the ball in the air with the phone calls including when he gets up, nonverbally ushers her to the fridge, and fixes himself a chicken salad sandwich. He is not especially apologetic about talking with his mouth full but does take small bites.

Traceless's backlashed table manners are, perhaps shockingly, very low on the list of things Flywheel cares about right now.

Tia is gone. Tia is gone, gone, gone, they'll never go back to her cute little house in Cleveland, never go over a dungeon together, never hold each other after - after - 

At least she died thinking Cara was basically doing okay. (Avoid having Difficult Relationship Conversations with this one weird trick!!!)

Eventually Tess calls; she's got the stuff from the hotel room. "Do you want her to bring it in, either before or after putting your shirt on, or leave it in the hall?"

(It takes a moment for her to derail her stupid pointless train of thoughts and stuff it back into the box.)

...Shrug? "It's fine if she comes in." She's wearing a bra.

He goes to meet Tess at the door and they can drag in objects!

(Hey, quick question: did Tess separate out Willowbark's things from Flywheel's somehow?)

(How in the world could she have distinguished them?)

(Just checking!)

Flywheel flinches pretty badly as she recognizes some of Willowbark's possessions. 

She wants to slap herself. (oh! hey! a ✨Thing She Wants ✨) How was this a surprise? How is she this stupid? She settles with biting the inside of her cheek, kind of hard.

"...Tess, can you inventory everything in the next room and then if Flywheel needs something in particular we can find that specific thing?"

"Yeah, got it." Into the bedroom. There's two; even if they sleep here they don't have to do it among the suitcases.

"I - it's -" she swallows miserably. "...sorry."

"No, I really should've thought of it."

"...well, first time for both of us, right."

If he should have she should have too, it's her dead partner who she's apparently insanely flinchy about for mysterious reasons

"I guess so. Thank you, Tess."

"I hope neither of us gets much practice," she says quietly.

She remembers to thank Tess for the help before missing the chance to (though, perhaps predictably, not before mocking herself for forgetting.)

Tess shows herself out after texting Traceless a list of stuff.

She's tired of thinking in pointless vicious circles in her head (for now, anyways! She's sure she'll be back to it soon) and apparently the thing she wants to do about this is think out loud.

"I'm not sure what my life is supposed to look like anymore," she whispers. 

"...yeah. Uh, I really recommend getting your own agent, you can borrow Paula for the duration of the confluence but after that that's the sort of thing you want to have for career guidance and then maybe you can work out what the rest of it should look like from there?"

Flywheel nods. "I know I need an agent, I definitely couldn't keep track of all the important little details even without the mental backlash. T - Willowbark - " she interrupts herself with something on the spectrum between a flinch and a sob. "- Tia. Her name was Tia Brown. And she was really good at that kind of thing. She had lots of checklists and cared a lot about getting things right and making sure I was equipped for success - she helped me figure out my power and how to use it and, and," shaky inhale "and she's gone and so I need to find a new agent but I don't actually know that's supposed to go because I've never done it before-" 

Stop. You're being hysterical. 

She takes a deep breath. "- so if you happen to have any tips for how to do that I'd love to hear them?" 

"Iiii chose my agent mostly on the grounds that I was already in the Maple building and from there I narrowed it down by, she answers the phone really fast and it's not inconceivable that one day this will save my life. I have been happy with her and with the agency in general but don't have a lot of worked examples. I can ask some people?"

"If you have people you expect to have good advice, I'd be interested, though I fear I might be. A bit difficult to work with, for a while." (Hahaha! It's funny because-)

"Well, I guess that suggests... an agent with more experience who'll have run into things like this before?"

"Yeah. And one with experience with handling mental backlash, though presumably that's more common. And after that it's just talking to people and figuring out if I trust them to be responsible and competent." She sighs.

"Yeah. I can ask June's brother what her agent is like but I guess that's very... indirect... information about how the agent is at handling mental backlash..."

"Yeah." She shrugs. "I can probably figure it out."  All she has to do is talk to people and figure out if they're trustworthy and competent. She can do that. 

"How would sharing Paula work?" 

"She'll - you can read her number off my screen, I can't strings of numbers at the moment -" Behold. "She'll need to know how your power handles in terms of what dungeons it's good for, and at least practical upshots of your backlash like how long you can work at what kinds of things and how much downtime you need in which you're completely unbacklashed on top of the guiding time for self-maintenance, and then she'll be the interface between you and the demand out there is - you can ask her to just give you an itinerary, or a list of options, and she'll get you briefings on what kind of sensor data we've got and how much money everything's offering and stuff like that. And if I'm your acting partner for the duration she'll coordinate between us."

Flywheel can get the phone number and think about all that. She makes some kind of face at practical upshots of your backlash and another very different one at how much downtime you need in which you're completely unbacklashed, but she nods. "I assume for now mostly it'll be Infe - Arrakis?" 

"Probably, yeah, since it's in our backyard and we can't exactly plan around killing it, but it won't be here the whole confluence."

...she wants to kill it. (Well, too bad! But at least she has a lot of practice wanting things she obviously isn't getting. Like a relationship with her parents. Or her -) 

(Her hands ball into fists.) She nods.

"- I mean we might get lucky, just, that's not the way to schedule."

"Yeah, it makes sense." She takes a deep breath, trying to calm down. "Sorry. I'm - really angry, apparently."

(Revenge? On a whale dungeon? What are you, some kind of idio- I guess that's not news, carry on.)

"Yeah, legit."

Somewhat clingy blue girl. "...I don't like being angry." she whispers, hiding her face from his gaze. (Even when pretty backlashed, she remembers that about herself. It's been true her entire life, and, and -)

"It would lose an emotion popularity contest."

She snorts. "I certainly wouldn't vote for it."

(Her brain keeps going back and forth between hating the way his backlash makes him Just Say Things and finding it kinda charming. She snaps at herself irritably, each time. Shockingly, this doesn't seem to help.)

"I can get Paula on speakerphone, talk all three about the agent sharing?"

"Um. I am still a bit backlashed? And also -" her breath hitches "-  I am not doing great! I probably won't make a very good first impression! But we can try it, if you don't think it's a bad idea." He'd know better than her, presumably.

"We can put it off but her usual work hours where I'm not paying emergency rates wrap in a few and it'd be good to have an idea of what we're looking at tomorrow. Also any minute I'm going to need to leave you here and go sit with June. Though I can have you on a call as well as I can anyone else then if there's followup at that point."

Right, yeah. "Alright. Let's give it a try."

He calls Paula! "Hey Paula, I've got you on speakerphone with Flywheel, I've suggested she borrow you since she does not at present have an agent of her own and it's not a good time to be hiring, can we go over how that'll work? Flywheel's never had a conventional agent."

"Of course, let me give you the introductory spiel -" Paula leaves gaps in the conversation for Traceless to talk but otherwise this seems pretty well rehearsed.

Flywheel can introduce herself and make other appropriate mouth noises and, when the opportunity presents herself, explain her power, since that's part of what they're doing here. "My power has a sensory and an active component. The sensory component lets me detect the positions and momentums of objects within an arbitrarily-configurable contiguous volume as long as it's radially symmetric on some plane and I'm at the center. Backlash cost over time goes up with volume sensed." She pauses for a moment to let them both absorb that.

(She's squashed the emotions out of her voice. Not the time.)

"Linearly?"

Nod. "Or close enough to it that it's hard to tell the difference."

They both have technical questions along those lines as they continue.

"The active component of my power lets me take momentum from anything I'm sensing or give my own momentum to something. Transfers are lossless, obey conservation of kinetic energy, always leave the source stationary, and change the velocity of the target all at once and so do not apply the normal stresses associated with sudden accelerations. Momentum given to the target can be either angular or linear, in an arbitrary direction. I can treat me and something I'm connected to, standing on top of, being carried by as one object. Backlash cost of these transfers increases sublinearly with the amount of momentum transferred and linearly with the distance of transfer." 

"What are some standard ways you use it in the field?"

"I have a backpack with a dungmat flywheel in it. I usually go into dungeons with a fair bit of stored energy in that and use that for mobility and then to eliminate high value targets, typically by propelling steel-lined lead spheres through them. Against large very moving targets, like Infested Wasteland's worms or I often will attempt to mount them and use the momentum from their movement instead. I can also stop any essentially incoming physical attack that doesn't catch me by surprise, including bullets." She pauses. "You can find some videos of me working dungeons on youtube, one of the Cleaveland dungeon espers uploads his gopro footage."

"How would you get aboard a worm?"

"Using stored momentum for mobility, or getting some from it trying to eat me."

"And you're good at aiming that in what would have to be an arc onto a moving target? Wow."

"I can also make adjustments mid-flight, if needed, but I have had lots of practice."

"That's really cool."

Was that a ghost of a smile on her face? "Thanks. It took a lot of work." And she's proud of it! All that training really has paid off, just like Tia sai-

(She tries not to cry. She thinks about the moon, eyes glancing upwards momentarily.)

Paula eventually disconnects to go look up videos and reports relevant to deploying Flywheel and plans to have a brief ready to go in the morning for how she and Traceless can synergize in Arrakis.

Flywheel visibly sags when the phonecall ends. "She seems very competent."

(Which is not a predictor of how good of an agent she is! ...probably Traceless not firing her for several years is, though, he seems the type of guy who'd have standards. She's got enough of her brain back to have picked up that he's pretty unimpressed with Cara's prior arrangement, even if he hasn't said anything. Maybe she should poke at that, she's kinda curious. maybe don't use the guy taking care of you as a stove to poke? Just a thought?? Just a piece of advice???)

"She knows what she's doing, yeah. I was arguably misusing her for years before I had Tess and split out assistant tasks from agent ones and she maybe shouldn't have put up with that but now I do have Tess."

Oh, good, a distraction. "What caused you to make the switch?" 

"Tess graduated college! I was by then very ready to hire her. She's a blog comments find, posts as 'Cricket's biggest fan'."

"Awwww, that's sweet. How long ago was this?"

(Normal conversation! She can do this. She's great at this! Ask anyone, ask her fr-)

"About five years back."

"Oh, huh." She pauses. "It's easy to forget how gracefully espers age, sometimes." 

And she's out of practice figuring out how old people are - well, probably he awakened younger than she did, actually. He could definitely still be in his late twenties. (Who cares!!! Age doesn't matter! They're espers! What matters is-)

Man he literally already mentioned his partner he's already had for ten years. This shouldn't be a surprise at all! She's just an idiot!

"I'm 29 if that matters."

"...doesn't matter to me. Willowbark was in her late 40s." She pauses long enough for her brain to yell at her for the obvious thing. "...but, uh. I'm only 23? If that matters to you."

"I am not aware of any practical implications of this information but good to know."

Well, it implies I was 22 last year, and 21 the year before it, and - she's not saying that. (...maybe she's a bit glad she doesn't have Traceless's backlash, actually, because if she did she'd just be saying these things and she wouldn't have room in her head for thinking things that weren't you stupid fucker, why did you say that, probably. as opposed to now, where she's making great use of the space in her head!) 

-she shrugs. "Just checking. Some people care. ...Though if you cared you would have asked." (It's not a question. She's not bad enough at people to have not noticed this about Traceless, by now.)

"Yeah probably. Unless I had a really good reason not to." His phone makes a noise and displays an inscrutable emoji. "Okay, June's about ready. You're - safe to leave alone yea backlashed? You should have my number - and Tess's in case -" Here those are. "I'll come back for overnight and see if you can sleep the rest of it off."

"I'm safe to leave alone. My backlash is convenient, that way." She pauses. "I should not use my power and stay here till you get back?" (She enjoys this trick, even if she can only do it at relatively low backlash levels and Tia did eventually figure it out.)

"Is... there a reason you want that said explicitly... because my immediate response is like, what if a sandworm tries to eat this building, do I need to build in a contingency here..."

Flywheel sighs. "I'm not a robot" with this much backlash "and can handle myself in an emergency, sandworm or otherwise. It's nice to have a plan." And also to put a finger on the scales, because she's been thinking about the moon a lot today and it's distracting and this being told not to use her powers would, in fact, help!

(Some part of her is very upset about this. She ignores it. Another part of her feels like she's not being super fair to Traceless. She feels some kind of way about that one, but not enough to explain her backlash to someone she met hours ago while still backlashed.)

"Okay, yeah, the plan is for you to hang out here, ask me or Tess or Paula as the case may be if you need anything, and not rack up any more backlash."

She nods appreciatively. "Got, thanks. And, um. Sorry. For not being easier to manage."

"You have nothing to worry about there, we'll figure it out." He pats her shoulder and puts his shirt on to go.

Tragically, her backlash won't let her interpret that one as a broadly-construed instruction that's not actually tragic, if it actually worked like that things would be - well, different. Hard to say how, really.

She can attempt a smile as she waves him goodbye. "Sa-" he can't say hi for you, this is his partner he hasn't had a conversation with in ten years, don't be dumb "-see you soon."

"See you."

And he's off.

She waits until she can't hear his footsteps, and then waits another thirty seconds after that.

Then she falls to her knees, sobbing desperately. 

Tia's gone. Tia's gone and it's Cara's fault for not being there and now nothing will ever, ever be the same and she feels so lost.

She wails.

Who are we performing for, exactly? she thinks, angrily. He can't hear us! Nobody can! 

(This doesn't seem to make her stop crying, weirdly. )

Eventually she at least gets worn out bored of sobbing and thinking about how Tia's last action was making sure Cara didn't kill herself. Again. (Like she did the first night they met! It's symmetric! It's like her highschool poetry, pretentious and terrible!)

Okay. Whatever. She's over it.

Stand up - oooohh her head hurts, huh.

Probably she's dehydrated. From all the crying. 

Does the silo have electrolyte beverages? Or the powder you can mix into water.

Yup, it is supplied with electrolyte beverages in the cupboard.

Yay.

She chugs one and drinks half of another, and then remembers to try and use the bathroom, even if she's not sure if she has to, because she's backlashed.

...she should take a shower, while she's at it. She's kinda gross. 

She turns the water pretty hot and loses herself in the sensory experience, which, as things to lose herself in, isn't terrible. (She doesn't hum - there's nobody there to hear it, but habits change.)

Eventually she turns off the water and dries off and gets out of the shower and then - has to go pick through her luggage to get a set of casual guiding clothes out. 

Ugh. 

She'll just. Grab the rest of her clothes and bring them over into the room she was in with Haru, and leave the other stuff behind. She doesn't want to touch her personal phone right now. 

Is there a laundry room?

Yup, in-unit laundry.

Cool. She can wash all her dirty clothes. 

She's not supposed to use her powers and separately she doesn't really want to, but she still thinks about the moon, about the satellites above her feeding Internet and GPS signals, about an entire city, an entire world of people moving around out there.

It doesn't matter. Lots of people get intrusive thoughts! Cara is kind of an insane wreck! They won't post about that online because it isn't news. 

...and it's not even unreasonable to be an insane wreck right now. Her partner just died! Maybe she should try being nice to herself about it? Would that kill her? 

...obviously it won't kill her but she doesn't want to do it. It feels obviously wrong. 

(...why?)

Well. Because Tia is gone and Cara doesn't know what to do with her life, now.

But, even more than that, because she... 

...it's pathetic, that it's this hard to think about even now that Tia is dead and they'll never have to actually have the conversation that Cara kept putting off.

That's the core of it, really; she caused all these problems and things would have been different (and Tia might be alive!) if she'd been even a little bit less of a coward.

And even now that it doesn't matter if anyone notices she can't even let herself look at it! She keeps flinching away. 

And she hates herself for it! That's all there is to it, really.

Okay. Well. Can she at least hate herself for it usefully? For a change of pace?

...probably, yeah.

She goes and rummages through Tia's luggage, ignoring the various horriblesharp feelings this causes (or marinating in them a bit. As a treat!) and grabs her passport, because it'll have all the info she needs.

Then she gets on her work phone and figures out who she needs to call report Tia's death, since Tia didn't have an agent who can handle these things, and calls them.

(Even with some of the ways this system is streamlined during a confluence and for people who are on record as espers, it's deeply unpleasant for her, but whatever.)

She's shaking pretty badly, by the end of it, but it gets done.

What next? She could... reach out to Aunt Rachel? Her old friends?

...it takes a lot of self control to not throw her personal phone against the wall (coward, coward, coward,), but she does manage not to, slipping it back into her suitcase instead, still powered off.

She almost texts Traceless to ask about the address and then remembers that Toronto has been invaded by giant worms so probably it'd be kinda fucked up to order delivery, and also there's perfectly viable calories here even if there's nothing she actually likes eating.

She makes herself an applesauce sandwich and forces herself to eat a few more of the cheese cubes along with it.

And then she cries some more, apparently, because she's still not over the death of her mentor and lover and primary social contact, or something. 

(...she thinks, distantly, about how obviously traumatized Tia was by what happened to Skyler, Neal, and Alice. She'd almost never talked about her former partners, outside of a few very specific contexts, but the echoes their loss had were - hard to miss. And it was obvious, after their very first night, that Tia was very very determined to make sure that Cara wouldn't join them. And hey! Here she is! Still alive! Good work, Tia!)

I'm going to want to order some dinner for before we crash tonight, you want anything?

...I try not to eat meat. What kind of place did you want to order from?

Does Chinese sound good? They have like mock duck and stuff.

Group Cart

Sure, Flywheel can pick out something vegetarian and spicy from a Chinese place.

(Then she'll clean up the various messes she's made in the silo, before he gets back.)

Traceless comes back before the delivery drone arrives, but only just. (All the silo apartments have appropriate stickers on the kitchen windows to signal drones, and trays to set things down on so you just have to open the window to grab them.) He looks like he's not backlashed any more, probably.

Flywheel is just as backlashed as he left her. (Also, she's very obviously been crying. Her eyes are red.)

That's really so understandable! He opens the kitchen window preemptively because one time he ordered sushi and it nearly fell off the tray due to being placed slightly too close to where the window had to slide. He's also got his Surprise Overnight bag out of his truck and puts some objects from it in the bathroom.

"Welcome back," she says, trying to sound normal about it and even mostly succeeding.

"Thanks." The delivery arrives. He grabs it and decants boxes from bag. He's got potstickers and eggdrop soup for himself. "You holding up tolerably?"

She shrugs. "I mean. I'm tolerating it?" Siiigh. "I even did some things while you were out, so. Yeah, I guess."

Food exists and can be eaten! Hers has EXTRA EXTRA HOT written on the receipt and the box.

(...'s nice to be eating food this spicy.)

"Whoof," he remarks when that box opens. "Oh, you're left-handed, convenient." They can hold hands while they eat.

(Yay! She's convenient!) Handholding is good.

He's pretty quiet when he's not backlashed. Munches through his soup and dumplings.

"Do you think you'll be able to get clear overnight, either with or without me picking up some more backlash first?"

She lets go of his hand and then touches it again, thinking. "Not sure? But it seems likely to get me pretty close, at least... Compatibility is really high on my end."

"I've got a couple feet of distance with June and this isn't that but it's really good, yeah. I can fall asleep backlashed but it is less practical for me to be on the phone so we'd need to be having a conversation."

She thinks. "Alright, I can do that." She can... tell him a story, maybe. Something nice and non-fraught. Her online social deception game tyranny era, maybe. 

Takeout containers go in trash. "Anything to take care of before we get ready for bed?"

She thinks for a bit. "Pre-bedtime bathroom stuff?"

He nods. "You want it first or shall I?"

-shrug. "No strong feelings."

"Okay." He will in that case be the one to go brush his teeth and change into pajamas (pants only) et cetera.

Oh, hmmm. "Do you have opinions on whether I should wear some kind of top to bed?"

"You're not going to bother me skipping it but I move around in my sleep, if that's going to be a big deal and not a haha-oops then probably have something on?"