Dahlia knew what it sounded like when Quinn was putting herself back together, the quiver in her voice, the hitching in her breath. It was like plugging a hole in a boat with your hand; good enough for now, but a little water still leaks in, and eventually it fills up, or your arm gets tired, and you sink. Some days Dahlia felt she was up to her neck already. Some days she didn’t. 

Seeing Quinn on the other end of the line made it one of the latter days. 

She looked like a mess, but Dahlia couldn’t judge. When she turned on her own camera, the face she saw shocked her. Greasy hair pulled into a bun, eyes sunken into dark pits, lips chapped from long, dry stints in the sim pod. Her clothes were rumpled, her fingernails were jagged from chewing, and if she chanced a brief sniff at her arms, she had no doubt she might retch on the call. 

Quinn laughed, Dahlia blinked, and then she burst into laughter too. Uneven and garbled and teetering on the edge of something less happy, but she could hardly control it. God, she looked like the dead. 

“[color=skyblue]Yeah,[/color]” she said, when she finally got ahold of herself. “[color=skyblue]I think we can swing that. Not like we’ll miss them here. I’ll tell her tonight, after I go through every ounce of soap we have and maybe take a nap. Think I need one of those, bad.[/color]”

It was so stupid. [i]She[/i] was so stupid. A glance at her recent sims would have told her how tired she was, how badly the spiral was impacting her abilities. Besca had said it a thousand times: it didn’t matter how much she trained if, when the time came and she had to act, [i]this[/i] was the state she was in. She couldn’t protect Quinn if she felt like a zombie in her own skin. And right now, at least in this single moment, she didn’t have to. Quinn didn’t need saving—all she wanted was a god-awful protein shake. 

“[color=skyblue]Call me again. Whenever. Okay?[/color]” She laid her head back against the wall, settled into something that might have resembled a smile in the right light. It felt comfortable, anyway. However long this moment of clarity lasted, she was glad for it. “[color=skyblue]This’ll be over before we know it.[/color]”

Maybe a little balm didn’t hurt.