[b]"[color=skyblue]—My voice. Listen to my voice.[/color]"[/b]

And then the threads of Quinn's mind snapped back together.

She pulled in a chestful of air, so fast that this strange body [i]lurched.[/i] Her arms slowly, slowly loosened from where they'd bit into themselves, and she brought the hands out in front of her. The claws were covered in that horrible thick black [i]stuff[/i], and they curled in on themselves as she closed her eyes. "[color=skyblue]Take my hand. Pretend for me.[/color]" 

There she was. [color=FFE63D]Her.[/color] Not whatever this...[i]thing[/i] was. [color=FFE63D]Her.[/color][i] [color=FFE63D]Her.[/color][/i] Quinn as she knew herself; pale, short, long braid, one eye. The world was so much easier from only one after all. She kept listening to Dahlia, and she let herself follow along.

Then it was suddenly all white in her head. Four walls. A door. With no knob. Closed. Her ho—no. It wasn't her home. It wasn't her room. The [i] room that she was in.[/i] The [i]room where she'd grown up.[/i] The light flicked off. Black black black, as dark as the ichor on the hangar floor and her panic started to grow. 

Then there was a bright flash of light. The door opened. And Dahlia was standing there in that brilliance, holding out her hand, smiling the smile she'd smiled on the boat.

[i][color=skyblue]Especially in the dark.[/color][/i]

She took the hand.

"[color=skyblue]Almost done.[/color]" She was almost done. The noise was all gone. She could—could think again. She could [i]think,[/i] could [i]hear[/i] herself think. The hate the HATE was gone, and she didn't feel so [i]good[/i] or [i]powerful[/i]. She just felt...[i]normal.[/i] Like [i]herself.[/i]

Then the thrumming came back. Or...part of it. She still felt...she felt like herself. She felt okay. She felt okay. But her whole body—no, not her body, something else [i]in[/i] her, not her body and not her mind but something between them—was [i]buzzing[/i].

She waited until she heard Doctor Follen say in her ear that she was done. She wasn't sure exactly what he said—darling? Wonderful? She though he said those, but she was still disoriented, and trying to hold herself—but she knew she was done. Besca was talking too. She sounded upset. But it was fine. She could disconnect. She was done. She was done.

She wanted to cry. But as she felt herself shifting, quaking...she was afraid. She remembered the sounds that these things had made back in Hovvi. She didn't know what it would sound like. And she didn't want to hear herself sound like that. She didn't want [i]Besca[/i] or [i]Deelie[/i] to hear her sound like that.

She was done. She could disconnect.

She didn't know how, at first. But just like connecting, when she thought about it—there she was. Back in the dark and the cold. Everything was suddenly quiet. So quiet. Like there had been a sound she'd been hearing, and now it was suddenly [i]gone.[/i]

Peeling herself from the chair, feeling the plugs [i]snap[/i] from it, she closed her eyes—EYE—and slowly, agonizingly—Dahlia still lingered in her mind—she pushed open the door. The light was searing to her eye. But she was tired. So tired. Rode the lift down again, staring off into space. So, so, so tired. The bitter smell of water was everywhere, oozing around her body in a thick miasma. She plodded around the front. 

Her brow was slick with sweat. Just like before, even beneath the heat suit, she felt dizzy and cold and clammy and pale. The smell felt like it was leaching through the suit and coating her skin. She felt like she wanted to puke whenever she smelled it and didn't know why. Her legs hurt. Her feet hurt. Everything still hurt. But she still walked up to Besca and Deelie. She draped herself around the other girl. She didn't have the energy for anything else. She was just [i]so...so...tiiiireeeed...[/i]

Linking her hands around Dahlia's neck, she let the rest fall limp. Her mumbling voice was indistinct, vague, blurry...[i]slurring.[/i]

"[color=FFE63D]Did I...did I do good...?[/color]"

[i]Then[/i] she let herself cry.

She cried for a long time.