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Mary is in her room, reading the Bible. The Bible is super interesting. The Bible is so much more interesting than the pervasive wrong feeling in her head. Her assignment for her sub's Bible study group this week is practicing gratitude, and she's currently endeavoring to do so without lying to herself. She is grateful that she can get away with being alone when she reads the Bible. She is grateful that the Scripture is distracting. She is grateful that she might be able to get away with sneaking out to the library in a few days and reading something she hasn't read like twenty million fucking times okay this is against the spirit of the exercise. The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control...
He withdraws his hand graciously.
"We'll do everything in our power to help you get back home, Peka," he says reassuringly. (He figures the reassuring tone is helpful even though she can't understand what he's saying). "Now, let's figure out where you're from."
He opens his laptop and pulls up a map of the world.
...she rummages around on her phonelike device and finds a map. It's a city map, not a world map, with a neighborhood color-coded in red and everything marked in an unrecognizable alphabet.
John blinks. Well, that doesn't look like anywhere on Earth.
He points to a few of the countries on the world map. "Country," he says. He points to her map, then to the map of the world again. "Country?"
She doesn't seem to have a country map on hand. She just stares at his world map and shakes her head. Points at her city: "Tapa itak te Tapa pona."
"She just got here, sweetheart, let's give her some time." He turns to Peka. "Are you hungry?" He mimes eating. "Tired?" Mimes sleeping.
"Well, we don't have any baby things in the house." This is very pointedly addressed to Mary.
Mary is given a strict time limit and instructions not to speak to anyone other than the cashier and some money and a kiss on the forehead, and is told to pick up some formula and diapers and other assorted baby materials.
And in the meantime John can help Peka get acclimated to the language! He starts by teaching her the names of various items in the kitchen--"table," "chair," etc.
Peka tries. She takes some notes on her phone. Eventually she displays what might be a battery indicator - a pie chart with the white share now slightly less than half.
John beams at her whenever she gets something right.
When he sees the battery, he winces. "I can't help you there." He holds up his phone next to hers and shows her that the charger ports look different.
He can get her a pencil and paper if she wants to continue to take notes without running down her battery!
...it's kind of hard to take notes one-handed with pencil and paper while holding a baby, which she does not want to put down. She isn't sitting, either, or touching anything.
Yeah that's pretty weird.
"You can sit," he says, pulling out a chair and gesturing towards it invitingly.
Also shrug! He wonders if she has a dom with rules about furniture. Well, it's her decision.
"Do you want me to take the baby?" he says. He mimes cradling the baby, then holds out his arms. "So you can write down words?"
"Hmm." He frowns. "Afraid is--" he makes a scared face. "Touching is--" he touches the table. "Are you afraid of touching?"