Alexa rushes forward, hands reaching and grasping--not for the letter, but for the messenger. She's all gentleness and tenderness as she props it up, cradles it against her. Come, sit, relax against her. You've waited so long, you've done [i]such[/i] a good job, and she's proud of you. Rest your head against her shoulder, sit, don't close your eyes just yet. We'll open the letter together, won't that be nice? I'm sure that, after so long, you want to know what's inside it too, right?

She knows it's useless. This messenger had its purpose and, now that its message is delivered, its mission fulfilled, the purpose keeping it going has fled. Already, the various subtle pumps and whirs have gone silent and the metal begins to cool under her touch. Still, long she sits, holding the dead robot close. You did well. You had a task, you fulfilled it admirably. Well done, thou faithful servant. You were magnificent. You were important. You [i]mattered.[/i]

She's trembling, she realizes. Her first real clue in two hundred years. And for once, she's desperately thankful that Minerva never paid attention to her when Alexa told her not to write letters to her. It's a paper trail, she'd said. Alexa receiving mail of her own would be logged in every celestial bureaucracy imaginable. It might tip Molech off as to what they were doing. It's too risky, Minerva.

Thank the stars she didn't listen.

Alexa's hand lingers on the wax seal for too long. She's stalling, she knows. Putting it off. It's... What if it's bad news? If the last letter she ever received from Minerva was a breakup note? If the reason she never saw Minerva again was because Minerva didn't want to see her? She's better equipped to handle it now than she was two hundred years ago, but she's sure that the heartbreak would still destroy her.

But... What if it's not? If it's a message telling her where she went? What to expect? If there's word of what heppened to her? Could she live with herself if she didn't at least read it?

Alexa shudders, and breaks the seal.