Her various extremities are still in casts and the like. She squares them away. "Make sure nobody comes in before I have a good plan. Is there some obvious option besides brainwashing everybody, re-injuring myself, and allowing the media to descend upon me to find out how I got God to heal me?"

"...We could just change all the actual, like, records," he suggests. "...Nah, probably wouldn't—well, wait, hang on, what if we just wish you up to look like you've still got a shitload of broken bones?"

"Then I lie in this hospital bed for months, I guess, but that still might be best. Maybe I can refuse medical care and 'recuperate' at home? No, I'm a minor..." She digs through her backpack and seeks Helpful Charts.

"We could," he stops, swallows, tries again, "just let your dad in on the whole magic thing. He seemed... okay, I guess."

"...that sounds pretty workable," says Alice. He sounds fairly uncomfortable with it, though.

"My dad is not like your dad," Bella says. "Would I live here if he was?"

"Oh, I know your dad is not like my dad," he says. "But I don't... know it. You know? Like, I get it on the head level, but the gut level still wants to be about a state away from anything to do with him."

"Yeah," he says, passing it over.

"Yeah, I'm awake - don't get in the car now, I wanna talk," Bella says. "Okay, so. I'm awake. I am much, much less hurt than what you think you saw. I want to go home, and I can't leave against medical advice since I'm seventeen. Can you check me out of here?"

"Well, Dad, I could explain that, and you could not believe me, and you could ask me to prove it, and I could do that, and you could spend all afternoon hyperventilating," Bella says. "Or, you could take me out of here and not have to take weeks off work to be able to visit me and I won't have to eat hospital food and you won't have to eat your own cooking."

He giggles softly.

"I'd really rather not prove to all the doctors that I'm ready to leave first," Bella says. "I think I can prove it to your satisfaction - yes, Dad. I know you are not a doctor."

(Snort.)

"I couldn't stand on my head even if I hadn't been hit by a car," Bella says. "But I can walk around the room. Will you take me home if I can walk around the room? Please?" Pause. "I'll make the nice chicken recipe for dinner..."

...Alice takes out his notebook and writes something in it.

"Yes, that one, with the capers and the lemon juice. C'mon, Dad." Pause. Pause. "Yes, contingent on my being able to walk around the room, without doctor or nurse supervision. Then you roll me out in a wheelchair - well, Dad, no I don't think lying to my doctors would be a great idea normally, but telling them the truth, which you declined to have explained, would get a lot of attention. From, like, reporters."

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