Mae looks up from its book.

"It's interesting so far! It's an old Asimov book about time travel."

"Oh? I do love time travel. Maybe I'll have to check it out! How're the characters?"

"Hmm… I like them, but I feel like the world-building is more of a focus than the characters, so far."

She nods. "That's something I've noticed with his writing. I've read the Foundation books, and they definitely leaned that way a bit as well."

Mae nods.

"I don't think I've read those, except maybe some of the first one, but that tracks."

"Yep, I lucked out in the foster-daughter lottery. Thoughtful and smart and has good taste in books."

She reaches out and squeezes Mae's hand and keeps driving home.

Mae smiles and leans its head against her arm, then goes back to reading.

Awwwww.

The drive home doesn't take long, and soon enough Sable parks the car and heads for the trunk.

Mae doubts it'll be much help with the groceries, so it hops out of the car, then grabs its books and trots over to the front door.

Sable cheerfully lets it in as she brings up the first load. "Feel free to go read while I get everything inside. I'll put the avocados in the kitchen and get all the clothes up to your room to be sorted later, and then we can make food together. Feel free to put on some music if you want."

"Oh, thanks!"

It goes inside and begins doing just that: playing some music, then sitting down to read a bit more of its book.

At one point it sees Sable come through carrying a bag of avocados, which she sets on the counter since they'll be used immediately, but otherwise she's mostly just tromping from the entry room up to the upper floor and back down a few times.

Eventually she comes back to the living room with a smile. "Okay, everything's put away. You might wind up wanting to rearrange where I put all the clothes, but it's all hung up and folded and such. How're you doing, sweetie?"

"Pretty good!

The book continues to be good—though I'm not sure I like the protagonist very much."

It sets the book down, and hops over to the kitchen to help make the guacamole.

And they can dance along with the music while making first guacamole and then burritos, getting all the various fillings prepped, shredding the cheese, and warming the tortillas.

Mae sits back happily.

"Oh, this looks delicious!"

"It really does. Thanks for showing me your guac recipe, cutie."

"Aww, you're welcome! I had to guess for most of the ratios, but that's what tasting is for!"

Mae begins spooning ingredients onto its tortilla.

Sable does as well, and then turns to Mae. "So, you mentioned a theory about some of the things you know, sweetie? Feeling up for telling me about that?"

"Oh. Right."

Mae pauses for a moment, setting aside the spoon it was using.

"…Can I take a minute to think about it first?"

She nods encouragingly and keeps assembling her burrito.

Mae sits down and closes its eyes.

Ok, what are its concerns with telling people?

Well, for starters, they might think it's insane. Sable seems more likely to take it seriously than a lot of people, but it's not entirely sure it believes what it thinks it knows, so it can't really expect her to.

Still, it thinks it trusts her to at least take it seriously and talk this through with it, instead of just shipping it off to some institution.

Next… if she believes it, she might feel weird about having decided to foster a child who, as it happens, is nearly her age?

But that's not a good reason to keep something from someone. If anything…

…

…Ok, yes, yes it should tell her.

Mae sits up, opens its eyes, and looks at Sable.

"…Okay.

…

…Can we sit on the couch for this?"

"Sure." She nods and carries her plate over.