"Do you want her to do it, or me? Or neither."

Does she-

"I do really think it should happen but I appear to be struggling with saying words to make it so," she manages to eek out after a long pause.

"Okay. Lucy, I think I should do it because you might be impaired at reading how she's reacting?"

“Okay, yes, please, I would not like to hurt her again today.”

...she pets Lucy reassuringly.

"Please take one deep breath," Haru tells Cara.

She breathes in, and out.

and then shrugs, a moment later. "Works fine, I suppose?"

"Enough of a test or should I repeat with a larger number?"

She shivers again. "It's... probably worth doing a repeat."

"Please take one deep breath."

...after she does, she clarifies "-oh, I meant a repeat with a larger number."

"Oh. Do you have a number in mind?"

"...Let's do 5."

"Please take five deep breaths."

She takes in a deep breath, and waits before letting it out. (4, 4, 4, 4, the therapist her parents had taken her to had said, and almost nothing else he'd said to her had really helped that much but this she was grateful for).

She's not backlashed enough to be some sort of robot, right now, the way she was yesterday (and - this morning don't think about it) 

She doesn't actually have to do this, for all that she started it automatically. It's comforting, noticing that she could stop, but she doesn't.

She counts to 4 again, and again, and again, and again, breathing slowly, carefully, and methodically.

"Okay?"

She nods, and squeezes them both. She does feel a lot better.

"-you can go back to what you were doing before all this, if you like. I think I'm good now."

Pet pet pet. “Box breathing is neat. I read somewhere that glassblowers do it but it was in a work of fiction so that might just be fictional glassblowers.”

Her eyes light up. "So you're saying I could blow fictional glass..."

“Anyone can do that. Watch.” She holds up her hands as though holding a pipe, and blows into its imaginary opening.

Haru snorts and gets up to go back to what he was doing (tidying up after the ramen, since the awakeners are on obligatory snuggle duty).

She makes a big O: face at this exceptional display.

"Beautiful and talented... what can't she do..."

(She gives Haru a goodbye squeeze as he gets up to leave, and then wraps herself around Lucy once he's gone.)

“I can also play air guitar.”

heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

She wiggles happily. "Oh, that's perfect, I can lipsync! We should start a band!"