action + text; (canon update catch-all)

[rumores]

wednesday 10/14, early morning; (closed to klaus)

As the car pulls up in front of the apartment building where she used to live (where she lives, some part of her brain corrects), she can only stare in silence. She doesn't know how or when it happens, but one second she had been standing in front of their father (in front of Ben), and then she had woken up in some office as someone rambled about orientation, Eglaf, and being displaced. And, in that moment, the memories of Eglaf had started rushing back, colliding with everything that she has lived through for the last two and a half years.

Now, she's here. In Eglaf, Florida, in front of the building that is now home (again). She doesn't remember the conversation after orientation, or even if there was one. She doesn't even remember agreeing to get in the car. But as the haze in her brain begins to lift, the car feels suffocating and she gets out just as the man driving her asks if she's feeling okay or if he should take her back to get checked out.

Allison, we’re different than everyone else, she remembers Luther telling her, in her home, in her kitchen. In the life that she had, with the man that she will never see again. We’re special. And good or bad, that means we don’t get to live normal lives. Here or anywhere.

Is that why she's back here? Is that why they saved the world, but had ended their own? The thought makes her vision blur for a moment, but she doesn't slow down her trek to her apartment. The sound of her boots seem to echo in the quiet weekday morning, but she doesn't have the energy to really care right now. She just needs to sit and regroup, at least enough to figure out what the hell she has to do next.

Shifting her coat to her left arm, she moves to unlock her door. Just as she does so, though, the sound of the front door opening at the apartment next to hers catches her attention, and she lets out the breath she had been holding at the sight of her brother. Some part of her hadn't known what to expect, unsure how much time had passed here and if her siblings would even be here. But Klaus is here, still her neighbor, and she smiles even if it wavers. God, she thinks, if this isn't the version of her brother that she remembers from her first round in Eglaf, she might lose her mind.

"Hey, Klaus."


Network, locked to the Hargreeves, Prim, Sirius, Derek;

[ When the video comes online, she looks a bit different than the last time she had been on the network. There's a cut and a bruise on the left side of her cheekbone where Lila had managed to get her during their fight, but other than looking somewhat tired, she seems relatively okay.

She sighs. ]

So. Apparently it was my turn to go home for a bit.

[ It's until then that she realizes she's talking for the first time on the network, that there are some here that have never heard her talk before, and a faint smile crosses her lips. ]

I just got back this morning, voice and all. I'm okay, just...trying to absorb everything. If you want to swing by, feel free; I'm home. I'll be rejoining the search tonight, and I'll be at the gym tomorrow.

Everyone okay?


Network, OTA;

Hey, everyone. I'm back. Thanks for helping Klaus continuing the search for those that are missing. I'll be there tonight, so if you're joining us today, I'll see you soon.

Comments

[imprudency]

The way her smile fades doesn't go unnoticed, but it doesn't need explanation, either. Klaus lived through the sixties, too. He saw her in the last week or so leading up to the apocalypse, after all, and he'd met Ray. He saw the life she left behind, saw the battles they all faced together there at the end. His heart aches in his chest for her, and his only response to the lapse in her expression is a soft kiss pressed to her temple. They have time to talk about all of that later.

"I'm glad you're back. I don't like being in charge of things, Allison," he all but whines, tilting his head to rest against hers. "There's a dog watch rotation going on for the boys, because god knows I'd kill them by accident so when you want them back you'll have to pray to the ether to figure out who has them. We've done two searches for the missing locals, I covered Derek for a few training shifts at the gym, and I ate my body weight in food to drown my sorrows. Though I assure you, alcohol would heave been cheaper and kinder to my waistline, thank you very much."

He draws back finally and looks her over. "And you show up prettier than me. Between you and Ben, I'm not sure who I'm going to have to kill first. Jesus, we all really did get sexier."

Rolling his eyes he reaches for her hand, giving it a squeeze. "Oh, shit. I have something for you." He's reluctant to let go of her hand, though, and it shows in the way he shuffles back toward his door once then looks back at her. Maybe this is some hazy fever dream, brought on by fear and stress, and she's not really there, standing across from him.

But he releases her hand, disappearing into his apartment for a few seconds. There's some noise within, like he's woken one of the men in the apartment, before he comes back out, two dolls cradled against his chest. "I saved these. I... well, I didn't know if you were coming back so I took ownership of them both. You'll have to pay a large finders fee to have them returned, but I'll give them to you on loan. There's a very perfect little girl these belong to, so don't scuff them up."

And with that, he offers out the two little dolls, as pristine as the day she left.

[rumores]

The smile on her face is more genuine when he brings up the dogs, relieved to hear that they’re still here and they’re okay. The mention of a dog watch rotation makes her chuckle, shaking her head slightly. “I guess if they’re getting spoiled I’ll let them enjoy it before I bring them home.”

God knows that, as much as she wants to see them, she doesn’t have the energy right now for it and it wouldn’t be fair for them. At the same time, though, she knows at some point she will definitely want them back; not only because she already misses them, but because the idea of living alone all over again makes something in her ache in a way that makes it hard to breathe.

She focuses on Klaus, though, as he fills her in on what she has missed. And, without hesitation, the look on her face is nothing but pride for her brother. For the searches, for him helping out with the gym, and the fact that he’s here, sober... She’s so goddamned proud of him that she doesn’t bother hiding it as she kisses his cheek. He’s definitely stronger than she had been when he disappeared, considering she had been quick to leap into the nearest liquor store to drown herself in whatever bottles she could find.

Before she can tell him as much, though, he’s making her laugh again and then he’s going to his apartment. In the meantime, she opens the door to her own place, pausing at the door after she sets aside the coat and gloves that she had been wearing. Despite the fact that she hadn’t disappeared for more than two days, that she had just been here, the place looks almost too generic and she she sighs under her breath. Apparently she can have some of this life back, but a lot of the personal touches she had added are now gone. She has to start over. Again.

When Klaus emerges from his apartment, she’s idly playing with her wedding ring but she pauses at the sight of the dolls against his chest. For a moment she can only stare in disbelief, especially after seeing the almost-pristine condition of her apartment, and she can’t help but glance at Klaus almost as if silently wondering how he had managed to find them again.

“I can’t believe they’re still here,” she admits, her voice barely above a whisper as she takes them into her arms. The arms that have been aching to hold that very perfect little girl that she and Klaus had gotten the dolls for, and her breath shudders as she feels hot tears spill down her cheeks. Between her time in Eglaf, and then in Dallas, plus the time that she hadn’t seen her daughter prior to the world ending, it feels like it has been an eternity since she has last seen her, heard her voice, felt her arms around her neck. And, while that longing for her isn’t new, the wound is just as fresh. If anything, right now it stings worse considering she thought that she’d be seeing her, that they’d be together again.

This is the Sparrow Academy, Reginald had corrected them, and the nagging thoughts about what that could mean for her old life, for Claire feel like they threaten to crush her.

She’s beyond grateful for the dolls, though. For the chance to have something tangible that, while they have never been held by Claire, they’re something physical that she can hold onto.

“Thanks, Klaus. God, I thought...” She breathes out a short chuckle, but it betrays her as it comes out as a choked sob. She thought she had lost these, too.

[imprudency]

"I think I showed up right after you left, but they were still here."

Klaus can see the cracks, then, when she gathers the little dolls into her arms and cradles them as if they were the very child they speak of. He's never met Claire, and he likes to think he will one day, when the portals are fixed and their family stops being ripped apart. He can't help but picture a life where he lives next door to his sister and niece, where he can drag a man he loves (is that what it is?) to family dinners and holidays, where they can all laugh without the death of worlds nipping at their heels.

Shutting the apartment door behind him, he moves for her again, arms outstretched, and tugs her into his chest, the dolls pressed between them as a hand falls to her hair.

"Yeah, I thought a lot of things, too." Between this place and home, between his siblings leaving and returning. How many dangerous, angry concoctions had he cooked up in his mind to try and find her? To save her? But a tiny, desperate part of him had been right. How unfair, to pull her from that place, to rip her from being one step closer to a daughter she loves.

It feels similar to the day he emerged, dusty and bloody from the battlefield, tossed into reality again with his heart left behind, shattered in the A Shau valley dirt.

"We'll figure it out," he breathes against her hair, pressing a kiss to her crown. "And I won't stop until we do. None of us will. Until then, you just get it out, hm? I'm not going to let anything happen to you. Not anymore."

He can't really make that promise, he knows. But if he can shield her, if he can help those situations he can control, he will. He knows now, what he has to do. After all, like Five had said, there's no giving up. That doesn't solve anything, and while he may not always be a man of action, he knows he can do something now. Even if it's only this: holding everyone together, putting pieces back into place.

"It isn't fair. None of it's fair. And we were taught to deal with so much pain, Al. We know how to handle blood and guts and wounds, but we don't know how to deal with a broken heart. And hear you me, little miss, we will find her. None of us will stop until we do. Us Hargreeves are awful stubborn like that. I think that's a learned quality too, as much as I hate to say it."

He turns his head and presses his lips to her forehead, letting them linger before he turns his cheek against it. "Your world might be broken, love. When you look behind you and you remember and fell all of those things from different times and they feel impossible, remember that the love part? That's the real stuff. It hurts like a bitch, but it's the realest thing we've got."

[rumores]

It’s impossible to contain the way her emotions bubble to the surface, the way that the grief and sorrow take over. She tries to swallow them down, to shove them back to where it’s safe and she doesn’t feel like they’re swallowing her up, but right now she can’t. It’s all too fresh. She’s suddenly far too aware of the gaping hole in her, the way her heart feels like it’s detached from her body, and she can’t quite stop the way that another sob tears through her throat as she cries against his shoulder.

We don’t get to live normal lives, she hears Luther in her head again, and she almost cringes at the reminder. Here or anywhere.

They had risked everything to save everything. And they had - that newspaper confirmed it. But what if her daughter doesn’t exist anymore? What if she never sees her again? They had saved the world, and Allison had left behind her marriage to a man she loved because it meant getting her daughter back. But now, their whole world is different, and she’s terrified to think of what that could mean. After all, she had never become a Hargreeves. There was never an Umbrella Academy. How had their lives been altered?

Klaus’s voice manages to pierce through her thoughts, his reassurances making it easier to think a little more clearly as she pushes the thoughts away as much as she can, and she nods slightly. He’s right. She doesn’t know if it’s her desperate need for him to be right, or if she actually believes what he’s saying, but either way she has to hope and pray that they can figure it out. That they can find her, that maybe it’s not all lost, because she doesn’t know where to go from here if this is it. One thing is the heartbreak she feels over the life she had and lost with Ray, but she knows that as much as she’ll miss him, she can survive it. Claire, though? She would trade her spot here in Eglaf in a heartbeat, if it meant giving her a chance to be alive, to be okay.

She doesn’t know how long it takes for her to find her voice again, but when she speaks it’s at least not as broken as how she feels. “God, apparently I’m a mess after interdimensional travel.” It’s a poor attempt at a joke, but she also knows she can’t stay down for long. If she does, she doesn’t know how in the hell she’ll get back up.

“I’m okay,” she tries to assure him, even if she knows she doesn’t sound convincing. “I just... It all happened so fast in the end.”

[imprudency]

"Time travel's a bitch and then we die. It's a very exciting life we lead, you know."

Klaus sways with her for a moment in his arms, keeping her huddled close. Nothing about what's happening here is okay, but it might be, one day. They have people like Five and Tony and Sirius and Felicity and so many others working to use their skills for good here, and maybe next time they'll win.

He takes a deep breath and gives her one last squeeze before he draws back, gripping her upper arms and even dipping to look her in the eye. "You're not okay," he says softly, recalling his conversation with his brother for a moment and he smiles at the thought. "But as a cheeky, asshole of a schoolboy once told me: you're in good company."

No matter their differences, no matter the time spread between them and the wild things they experience, they always find each other again, broken and battered, but together. "Take it a day at a time. Eat your body weight in donuts or something exciting like that. I mean, I did. It didn't really help but the donuts were delicious."

Hands slide back up to catch her face between his palms and he kisses her forehead again. "I'll come stay with you a while, yeah? Can't let you luxuriate in this big, fancy apartment all by yourself. Ooh, I still have some of your clothes, too. That I borrowed. Long term." He tilts his head a little and sighs, looking back over at her.

"It's really good to have you back. And to hear your voice again. I mean, the brain games were fun and all, you could do some really kinky shit with that you know, but that aside, I'm glad you're back. Who is Klaus Hargreeves without Allison, his moral compass and all around nanny? Time will tell."

[rumores]

Old habits makes her want to say that no, she’s okay. She has to be. But it’s Klaus, and the way he’s looking at her - how she already knows he understands makes it hard to really put up that wall. Especially when he tells her that she’s in good company, and she can’t help but huff out a small chuckle. It wavers, a few tears slipping by unchecked, but at least she doesn’t break down any further. That, she thinks, is at least some sort of victory.

The suggestion to take it one day at a time is met with a small nod, a silent promise to do so, even if deep down she already knows what she wants to do and what she’ll end up doing. If she could, she’d probably lock the door and isolate herself for a few days, trying to sort herself out. But if she’s only been gone two days then that means not much has probably changed; she doubts everyone has been found. She doubts the gym isn’t needed anymore. She needs to give herself a purpose - or, rather, picking it up again since she had just been doing that before being thrown back to 1961, and who knows. Maybe that will help her find her way again.

“It’s nice to be able to talk to you instead of just startling you with telepathy,” she admits with a smirk, leaning in to kiss his cheek. “And it’s good to be back with this version of you. Not that the one I just saw wasn’t great, obviously, but I’ve grown quite fond of you, Klaus Hargreeves. But, ew, excuse you, I’m not your nanny. I’m your sister. And I’m so, so proud of you.”

She kisses his cheek, and reaches for his hand so she can pull him with her to the couch. Her head is starting to hurt from the time travel, the crying and everything in between, and she suddenly just wants to sit with him.

As they settle on the couch, she gives his hand a squeeze. “And, you know, I appreciate it but you really don’t need to stay. You have your own life, Klaus, and if I recall correctly a boyfriend you enjoy spending time with. I don’t want to get in the way of that. I will, however, take any clothes I can borrow because I already feel way out of place as it is. I need some modern clothes.”

[imprudency]

"I got used to it eventually. Give me some credit where credit is due."

He holds his hands up in mock surrender but is no sooner pulled toward the couch. The moment he settles down into the cushions he leans into her side and props his head on her shoulder, much like he would if they were poised to watchin ridiculous TV together.

"Gross, stop that. The 60s made you nice, I don't like that one bit," he all but giggles a little. "I don't want another version of you. Like the one from my little soiree back home was lovely but none can compare to Eglaf's very own Allison Hargreeves, bad bitch extraordinare." He fans a hand out across the distance as though her name might be lit up in some invisible marquee.

Sighing, he squeezes her hand and sits back up, laughing. "Oh, no, no, no. That's not how this works. He told me I am his soul, Allison. I don't think you could get in the way even if you tried." He waves a hand, flippant and casual. "And like I said, turnabout his fair play. I love a good couch crash, and we can even play big spoon and little spoon together, you hear me? Run around, teach some people how to fight, obtain world peace, and come home to dinner and a movie and maybe some nail painting. I've gotten very good at it with Lydia, thank you very much."

He won't let her lose herself to the sorrow. He knows what that feels like, and if he can keep her close to the surface, can help her tread, it might not feel so bottomless, might not feel so difficult. "So accept your fate. You should feel so lucky you get to spend so much time with little old me."

[rumores]

Allison laughs, wrinkling her nose at him when he calls her nice, but it dissolves into fondness when he says he doesn’t want another version of her. “I’m glad to hear that,” she tells him as she rests her head against his, “because I don’t plan on going anywhere. I’m afraid you have to keep me now.”

As Klaus speaks and tells her that Tony told him he’s his soul, she raises her eyebrows, wanting to tease him but she can’t. Not right now. Not when she’s so damn happy for him that he had found someone good, that cared for him. When Allison had been vouching for Klaus to give himself a chance to be in a relationship after Dave, to be with Tony, she hadn’t realized how much she was almost talking about herself. Now, though, it’s almost as if she can see Tony being to Klaus, what Ray was to her, and she’s beyond happy for him. Because, while her heart feels shattered right now, they had spent a year together. A good, happy year that, like Ray, she wouldn’t trade it for anything.

“Well, if he doesn’t mind, I guess,” she concedes. “I guess he’ll have to deal with his soul staying here. But if at some point you change your mind, that’s okay. Really. It’s not like you live too far away or anything.”

She knows how hypocritical it sounds, considering that argument hadn’t gotten her to budge when Klaus had been hurt, but the way she sees it, it’s different. She’s not physically hurt, after all, even if right now she’d much rather be physically maimed than dealing with the tangled mess that’s within her.

Taking his arm, she pulls him back to their usual spots on the couch and she curls up beside him. “I do feel very lucky. And I want to hear about this whole business of you being your boyfriend’s soul? How do you feel about that?”

[imprudency]

“Oh, please, I have no doubt that he’ll delight in all the time he can spend in his shop instead. Won’t miss me a bit.”

Klaus laughs at the thought, something fond in his expression as he speaks. He wraps an arm around her shoulders when they settle into their usual spots, squeezing her tightly. “Besides, why wouldn’t I want to spend time with the indomitable Allison Hargreeves, movie star, civil rights activist and bad-ass diva? I would be stupid if I didn’t seize the opportunity. It’s a real wonder this place doesn’t explode by the sheer perfection that we are.”

He knows he’ll be staying around at least a few days, unwilling to let her sit with the effects of leaving a life behind on her own. Returning to Eglaf had been both a blessing and a curse: knowing the life he left behind, knowing that Dave had been sent off to a war, knowing that an apocalypse had been nipping at their heels without being able to stop it? It’s not easy to wrestle with, but there’s comfort in moments like these, where he gets to share a life with his siblings in a way he would never have been able to before.

Klaus blinks up at her when she speaks, coming out of his thoughts looking a little startled, and he lets out a huff. “Oh that little thing? It’s nothing.” He blows a raspberry and waves his hand at her, though there’s a tiny bit of heat rising into his cheeks. “The shop is the man’s soul. I swear he probably gets more hot and bothered by scrap metal and computers than he does anything else.” He rolls his eyes a little and gives her a little shake with his arms.

“Besides, this isn’t about me, thank you very much. You’re the one that’s just returned, new voice, new sassy hair and all. Don’t try and spin that one around, you.”

[rumores]

The fondness in his expression as he talks about Tony makes her smile widen. Considering how rough life has been for Klaus, she’s so damn glad that he’s getting a chance to be happy. That he has an opportunity to be in love, because she can see it in the way he speaks about Tony and had seen it during that week that she had kept vigil over both of them, and she can only hope that he’ll get an opportunity to enjoy it and hang onto it for as long as he can.

That’s why, when he says that it’s nothing that Tony had called him ‘his soul,’ she scoffs as she rolls her eyes. “Right. Nothing. It’s not like I had first row to how your boyfriend stares at you like you hung the stars, or anything like that...”

It doesn’t surprise her that Klaus catches on that she’s trying to deflect, but to her credit, she does want to hear about how he’s doing. She may have only been gone for two days in Eglaf, but she feels so disconnected despite that just due to how long it has been for her, that it’s almost as if she’s trying to make sure nothing actually changed too much.

And, well. Yes, she’s definitely deflecting to a certain degree. She can’t help it.

She sighs. “I don’t know what I can tell you that you don’t know? You were there...at least what you told me when you came back from your own little blast from the past. I didn’t remember it at the time, but it all just sort of came back to me as I was driven over after orientation.”

Orientation she can barely remember, but it’s not like she hasn’t lived through it before. She doesn’t think anything of the gap between arrival and suddenly being in front of the apartment building, because she’s assuming it’s just the shock of it all.

“I’m still reeling, I guess,” she admits after a moment. “I thought after the sixties, that’d be it. We’d go home and everything would be okay, but...I didn’t expect what we found after that.” She settles closer to Klaus with another small sigh. “I’m glad to be back here. At least it doesn’t feel like I’m starting completely over.”

[imprudency]

"Oh, please, he looks at everyone like that. He has those real puppy dog eyes, you know. Just wanna pinch his little cheeks, pat his head, and tell him he's a good boy. He bites, though, watch out. And he's very stubborn, but at least he's housebroken, so I guess I'll keep him for a while."

Klaus rolls his eyes at the thought and sighs, wiggling to find a more comfortable position on the couch, and he all but tugs her into him, cradling her against his chest like he does occasionally during their movie and TV nights.

"The not remembering it is the weird bit. Showing up and everything comes back like a neat little present waiting to be unwrapped was more disorienting than the time travel." Showing up with memories that span nearly four years, only to remember what he'd been doing two days before in Eglaf? Strange, startling shit. "Almost worst than a bad trip, trust me."

But she mentions that she's reeling and he sighs, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. "Yeah. I guess I dodged the bullet on that one, but what a real shit show." Who knows if they can fix what they broke back home, but he hopes that the portals here might offer some kind of alternative solution. If the portals will let them travel to any universe, any time, anywhere? Then there's the option of getting Claire, of bringing Allison exactly what she needs right here and now.

"I'm glad you're back. I'm sorry, too, for everything. But at least here, I've got your back. Though I think sixties me would also have your back, he might just fall over a few times in the process, and his hair is not nearly so good as mine. Oh, and your hair. This sassy new look. And while you do the sixties some serious justice with that dramatic jacket, Al, I think you and I need to go on a very modern shopping spree. What say you? Shopping, coffee, the gym. Assuming that devilish boy of mine doesn't already have something planned. Did I tell you he's sneaky too? Little shit."

[rumores]

“Oh please,” she counters with a laugh, nudging him with her elbow. As much as telepathy has helped her while in Eglaf, she finds herself at least glad for this shift. Allison had made her peace with the possibility of not being able to get her voice back, as much as one can become resigned to that kind of thing, but having these kind of interactions with her brother... She’s glad it’s not just something that happened in the sixties. That they can continue them here - that they’re even better, considering their bond in Eglaf.

As she settles against Klaus, she finds herself relaxing, the muscles against her shoulders that had been rock hard with tension slowly letting go - not completely, but at least enough that she can actually notice the difference.

“Oh I definitely prefer this version of you,” she agrees with another small laugh, this time warm and fond. She smiles, half tempted to tell him that they don’t have to go shopping especially because she doesn’t know how her money situation is after leaving and coming back, but she knows Klaus and that he probably won’t take no for an answer. And she definitely knows that she needs new clothes. The hair is already something she doesn’t want to keep long term (it will remind her too much of Odessa, of Ray), but at least the clothes situation is something she can change.

“That sounds like a plan.” She tilts her head so she can kiss his cheek, but she doesn’t move to stand. If anything, she just settles back against him, suddenly too comfortable to move. “Oh I’m not surprised. I think you might get bored if he wasn’t.”

[imprudency]

"Right answer."

Klaus rubs her back slowly, finding his own fatigue starts to set in the longer they lounge together like this. He's spent the last two days tossing and turning, jumping at the faintest sound from the apartment next door, hoping to hear her coming and going. To have her here again feels like a weight has lifted off his chest completely and he can breathe again.

As she settles into him again, he wraps both of his arms around her, holding her snug to him. "You're right, I guess. Why do you always have to do that? The whole being right thing, it's very annoying."

He kisses her forehead again and allows his head to fall back against the arm rest of the couch, getting comfortable. "I warned him, you know. Making me his whole soul is a bad idea, but he didn't listen. So I think his soul must be some strange cross between a 60s gay club and that one acid trip I took back in 2018 that made me see dancing giraffes for fucking days. But I didn't argue, just let him insist, like he does. That whole stubborn thing I mentioned, you know, but at least he's pretty." He sighs wistfully and tilts his head to rest his cheek atop her crown.

"You know, this might be incredibly selfish of me, but I think we should have a lazy morning. Nap and bask in the sun like two happy, fat cats and get a nice brunch after. Get you some sexy new 2020 clothes after that... well. Whatever your heart desires, really."

[rumores]

“Mm, it’s a gift, deal with it.”

Even if she doesn’t turn to him, he’ll be able to hear the smile in her voice as she teases him. He’ll also be able to hear the way her words get a little softer, her own physical and mental exhaustion finally too much for her to try to ignore. She’s too comfortable here, like this, and she wraps her own arms around him as she unconsciously closes her eyes, a small, tired chuckle escaping her. “If he has you for a soul, I say he’s pretty lucky. A bit wild, obviously,” she adds with a playful tone, “but he’s lucky to have you.”

Just how she considers herself so fortunate to have him, and she gives him a small squeeze. This familiar spot, the all too familiar embrace, is enough to soothe the raging pain her whole heart seems to be in, and she’s so thankful for the fact that they’re not moving that she just nods slightly. Right now she just wants some sleep, a way to silence the headache she already feels throbbing against her temples.

Right now she just wants her brother, and she’s so damn glad to have him here with her.

“I like that plan,” she responds quietly, unable to hide the way she’s already dozing off. She stays silent for a moment, her breathing already evening out, before she adds quietly, “I love you,” as she falls asleep.