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Aldaras doesn't bring up the knife with Annie again, nor his sister, or various ways she could be hurt. Annie has homework, so she doesn't stay at his apartment too long. He goes back to having nothing to do - there's some more pacing, some quiet freaking out over Annie and her safety, and then he distracts himself with obsessive preparation for taking care of the knife.
He'll - pack with the assumption that he can save his sister. There's lots of non-perishable food, packing as much as possible with the least amount of weight. Water, too, but that one's a bit harder. It's always heavy. Whatever, that's fine, he'll just - obsessively pack some more things. Pack, pack, pack.
Predictably, he runs out of things to do. Except think. Which has become something of a minefield, lately. To keep him from doing something stupid. He can't think about Zevaia, can't think about the knife, can't think about the Dean and how insanely long it's taking him to get the smallest tidbits of information out of him. He can't think too much about obsessive ways to make sure Annie's safe, for fear of becoming some kind of psychotic, controlling stalker or something.
But trying to not think about Annie is a recipe for failure or insanity, so he distracts himself with - what ifs. What would have happened if he'd met her without the necklace's and tracker's side effects combination, what he would have done if she'd asked him to kiss her...
That helps the time pass by faster.
touchedinthehead
keep_busy
She doesn't ask, because it's a lot harder to figure out how he'd feel about being asked on the phone.
touchedinthehead
He knows he has things to do and he probably hang up the phone now, but... He missed her. It was harder to notice when he was so focused on dealing with the knife, but - now that it's taken care of, he missed her so much.
"How are you?" he asks, his voice all - gentle and soft and sort of oozing, 'I am in love with you.'
"How are you?" he asks, his voice all - gentle and soft and sort of oozing, 'I am in love with you.'
keep_busy
"I'm fine. I'm so glad you got the knife," she sighs. "Do you want me to tell the department for you? They might be in a good position to get a path cleared between you and someplace you can get a boat, so you don't have to carry it past people who aren't protected and will try to get at it even while it's wrapped up."
touchedinthehead
"That'd be great, there's also some injured uncut, and - they don't feel any sort of pain. The department should probably know that, and - honestly I should go find doctors or something to look at them all."
touchedinthehead
"I do genuinely want to keep talking to you," he says, softly. "But if you'd like me to shoo, I do have things to do so I won't be - weird or unbearably upset or anything."
keep_busy
"I'm not busy," she says. "But you're busy. It's up to you what ratio of hanging out on the phone versus, I don't know, attending the hasty wedding of the happy couple or calling the bounty posters who now owe you money or whatever, you should be doing."
touchedinthehead
"I - well, yes. I should probably be doing those sorts of things." Pause. "... I missed you a lot, are you okay?"
touchedinthehead
"I - this is really stupid, but there was a - person earlier, who touched a new artifact and it made him say something kind of horrific and there was no reasonable way he could have known it. It was sort of scary, I'm - glad you're okay."
keep_busy
"Do you want to tell me what he said?"
This is different from asking outright? Isn't it? Maybe?
touchedinthehead
"Basically that everything with the knife was going to go horrifically wrong and that I was a failure and wouldn't be able to either save my sister, or keep you from -" He winces, making an audible little pained sound. "- being cut."
keep_busy
"Well, you got the knife. And I'm fine. I've just been showing up at classes and doing homework and - stuff."
touchedinthehead
"Yeah," he says. "So it was probably just - saying something another person finds really horrible when you first meet them, or - something. I'm glad you're okay."
touchedinthehead
"Were you?" says Aldaras, sounding - somewhere between gooey and in love, sorry that he worried her, and genuinely touched.
keep_busy
"Yeah. If you'd touched the knife after being necklaced it might still have gotten you, if order of operations matters."