Chelsea is humming to herself and sometimes reaching over to pat Panacea's arm.

The third time Chelsea's hand reaches for her, Panacea lets out a small squeak of anticipation.

"Awww, do you want us to pull over and snuggle for a bit?"

Panacea try to say a thing aloud and when that doesn't work she finds herself nodding instead.

Chelsea pulls into the next turnoff and scootches across to sit in Panacea's lap.

Chelsea's side is a few inches away from Panacea's left breast and Panacea is so very very aware of this. And also of Chelsea's breath warming her cheek and also of Chelsea's hand which is touching her side, separated from her skin by Panacea's thin cotton shirt, and also Chelsea's weight resting against her thigh and also a dozen other tiny things which Panacea's brain is trying very hard to pay attention to.

Ahhhhh snugglesssssss and also whatever Panacea did to make it feel like guiding.

Panacea is extremely happy and also maybe starting to hyperventilate and also so so full of awareness of everything about Chelsea (and Chelsea's brain, with the changes she made to make them match).

Pet pet pet. "My love."

"Eventually we will get somewhere we can stop with a bed in it and we can cuddle more comfortably."

"Mm...."

"Mm?"

The syllables that come out of Panacea's mouth could, if put in a different order, be words.

Pet pet.

The world is apparently shaking, for some reason.

"Are you all right? Am I too heavy to be sitting on you like this?"

"-you're. Um. No?"

"That's good. Is something bothering you?"

"You're. Um."

"Everything is shaking?"

"...I'm not noticing an earthquake?"

"I um. Might just be me?" She can try taking breaths about it maybe.

"I love you."

"I love you too." Smooch right on the end of Panacea's nose.

Panacea wiggles very very happily about this.

She's cuuuute.

What if she kissed Chelsea on the nose???

Then Chelsea would smile at her like so!

"You're beautiful."

"You're beautifuller!"

Panacea stares at Chelsea's eyes and leans against her, feeling her entire body laid out before her in exacting detail.

"-you're hungry."

"- a little, I guess."

Panacea is used to having to be the responsible one in these circumstances.

"Let's go and find food? And also a place to sleep?"

"Of course, my dear." Back into the driver's seat she slides.

Panacea feels the way she always feels when VictoriaChelsea moves away from her. But, as usual, doesn't show it.

Needs must. There's a rest stop and they can get KFC.

Panacea can also take a turn at the wheel, once she notices Chelsea flagging.

She's so sweet.

So long as Chelsea doesn't touch her she's a pretty decent driver, despite being rather new at it.

She can keep her hands to herself.

This is both disappointing and probably for the best.

Patience, patience. Soon.

There is only one hotel in town, with three rooms and breakfast made by the owner each morning.

How cute! They will check right in as their present identities. Chelsea likes her eggs sunny side up.

Panacea likes hers scrambled.

And then they are in the bedroom. Which has one bed.

And they can snuggle in it!!!

This is very good for about five minutes and then Panacea is hyperventilating and freezing up.

"My love, what's the matter?"

"It's.... I've thought about this every day for years and now that it's happening it's just.... so good I can't really think properly? I'm not sure if that makes sense."

"I can try to calm you down?"

"-oh I was thinking we might have to go slower but that sounds like it might work just as well."

"We can also go slow but you're getting so worked up just from snuggling." Caaaaaaalm.

Callllmmm....ish. Mostly calm.

"Well, it's snuggling you," she says with a rather dopey smile.

"And I love you very much and we can take as much time as you need."

"I love you too."

What if... she was holding Chelsea's hand.

That would be lovely. And she'd be so calm about it.

So calm! It's actually almost disconcerting, the sensation that her heart beat should be speeding up, but isn't. 

But why focus on that, when she can be focusing on moving her hand further up Chelsea's arm.

"Mmmm," sighs Chelsea, scootching forward to bonk her head onto Panacea's.

That makes it so very easy convenient to kiss Chelsea on the forehead. And on the nose. And even on the lips.

(Panacea's heartbeat stays steady as she progresses down Chelsea's face, the feeling of escalating tension resolving as soon as it surfaces.)

Mmmmm kisses are goooooood~

Kisses are good and Chelsea has perfect lips and a perfect mouth and kisses perfectly....

Bliss. She will lie here kissing her beloved for hours or until they fall asleep.

Panacea does eventually doze off along with her beloved, her lips pressed against Chelsea's when she does so.

zzzzz

In the morning they are joined at the breakfast by the two other guests, one of whom introduces himself as Evan and his brother as Andy, who is apparently not much of a morning person.

"It's nice to meet you! I'm Marissa and this is Wendy." Or so it says on their fake IDs.

"What brings you to Hawthorne?"

"We're passing through - probably, I suppose there'd be nothing stopping us from staying. You?"

"We grew up here, and our dad's place doesn't feel as big as it used to so when we're in town to visit we stay here instead."

"And the foods better here." interjects Andy.

"-that it is."

"It looks delicious!" she agrees when their plates arrive.

"Wonderful as always Norma." Andy comments to their host.

"You got the eggs exactly right," Chelsea pronounces.

Panacea smiles at Norma as well, which hopefully counts as a compliment without actually requiring her to figure out what to say.

"Thank you! Let me know if there's anything else I can get you from the kitchen, I'll be just around the corner."

What if Panacea and Chelsea held hands across the table. This would seem extremely normal and unsurprising to everyone.

While in other circumstances this might seem a bit odd, it seems perfectly appropriate to everyone in the room at the moment.

Eeeee...

Her beloved really has the softest skin and the most beautiful eyes in the world.

There's really nothing better in the world than eating perfect eggs and holding hands with her beloved in a cute B&B.

There really isn't.

Panacea is content to spend lazy days in her room with her belove, touching each other slowly, smiling, kissing. She gets a tad homesick a week in, but it passes fast, as soon as she rememebrs that Chelsea is her home. She's never had the opportunity to act on her feelings, never had the opportunity to be as close to her love as she wanted. It's just like she fantasized about for years - no, even better, because this sister-lover understands her, in a way that her late crush never could. She feels, for the first time in her life, truly content.

And of course their lovely hostess won't mind if they just kind of keep staying here in exchange for vague chores that she is always satisfied with despite them barely existing. (Not not existing, occasionally Chelsea really is in the mood to wash a few dishes while gossiping or something.)

And one day they are joined at breakfast by a rather anxious but hopeful young girl, anticipating a new chance at friendship, and her mother who, as far as any empaths can tell, doesn't exist.

"Hi I'm Ke-ndra. Kendra. Nice to meet you!"

"Nice to meet you too, Kendra, I'm Marissa." Can she... nudge Panacea's leg forward under the table so that she's touching ankles with "Mom".

Well, she can nudge Panaceas leg so that it's intersecting with where the mom's leg should be.

"How long are you here for?"

So it's a total illusion and not like a robot or something, good to know. "We haven't decided yet, what about you two?"

"Oh I'm just here to meet new people. I'm not sure for how long."

She's barely pretending her mom is real at all, which is interesting. What does Panacea make of this?

Panacea has no idea what is going on! Hopefully Chelsea has this covered.

"Certainly at least by the time you're due back at school you'll be on your way?"

"Oh um, I guess yeah but everyone at my last school was sort of terrible and I didn't really get along with them so maybe I'll find a new school here?"

(Kenzie really really wants Cherish to like her.)

She could start by being less incredibly suspicious??? "I suppose there's schools everywhere."

Nod nod. 

"We were actually thinking about homeschooling her." says holo-mom.

Oh, holo-mom can talk. "Wouldn't that make it harder to meet new people?"

"Well, she's very gregarious, I'm sure she'll find friends wherever we settle."

(Kenzie isn't completely sure how adults talk but hopefully she's doing a good job at it.)

"I'm noticing the gregariousness, yes." She's almost through her toast.

"Sorry, I know it can be too much sometimes." Kenzie is sort of terrified that she's messed up here, why did she think this was the right way of introducing herself, holomom is probably just making everything worse and there are other people around so she can't explaining herself and she should have done it entirely differently.

"Well." Last bite of toast. "I'm sure if you're staying here we'll see you around. Wendy, are you all done eating?"

"Yes."

Not really but she's lost her appetite.

"Thank you!" Chelsea calls to the hostess, and she whisks Panacea upstairs.

Oh no they hate her!!!!!

"What's going on?"

"Her mom does not exist. She's some kind of cape. I don't actually think she's hostile, that or she spoofs me but not well enough to fool me about her mom, but I don't know what she's doing here."

"Oh."

... Panacea's first instinct is that they should call her mom. Which is just about the least helpful instinct, for so many reasons. 

"Yeah. So I guess we could leave, this can't be the only nice bed-and-breakfast in the state."

"Do you have any idea how she found us in the first place?"

"Not a clue."

"I can probably figure out a lot more about what's going on if I can touch her, but that sounds risky.... Normally I will just call for backup in a situation like this but that's not really an option..."

"Yeah, it's just you and me."

"I could try making something to knock her out? I'm not sure if that would help."

"It'd cover our getaway, if we're getting away, but it wouldn't explain how she found us or what she wants."

"I can probably get her to tell us?"

"How?"

"By changing her brain so she explains herself? It's hard to explain in words, but it's not actually that difficult to do."

"Sounds good. I don't have control quite that fine, and usually I wouldn't exactly want it, but this is - strange."

"I'll need to touch her - I can fill the inn with spores that will knock everyone out?"

"That'd work. Maybe at night, so no one falls over and they're just all sleeping very soundly."

"Okay."

Hrm... probably Kenzie shouldn't knock on Panacea and Cherish's door like she planned on doing. She already spooked them earlier and their plan sounds like it will work just as well and they'll probably feel safer with it than with her surprising them. But this means she has hours and hours of time on her own... well, there's plenty of tinkering to be done with her moving in. Her lab isn't exactly portable so reassembling it from the parts she brought is almost as challenging as building it in the first place, and she's got plenty of ideas for improvements. She can reroute the optical laser cord through the same waveform computer as the auditory data goes through and...

... oh wow it's dark already, and she's not in bed, which would defeat the whole point of their plan. In to bed she goes, playing herself a recording she fabricated of Chelsea and Panacea singing her a lullaby. She's just so excited to meet them for real.

Chelsea peeks in on a different fellow resident to make sure the spores are working.

This guy is very thoroughly asleep, and having some wild dreams.

In that case she and Panacea should look in on the kid. She seems emotionally matchy enough with the other asleep folks?

Yep, she's fast asleep, having trippy dreams.

Chelsea does the obvious things like not opening the door with her bare hands and rolling an ottoman in there first to check for traps but once it's as clear as she can reasonably make it, Panacea can go do her thing.

This is even easier than she expected. Kenzie can wake up now.

"Hi that was a really cool dream - I knew you were going to do something because I was listening to you through the door and also it's impressive how you faked your death the Protectorate thought it was real and I made sure my Friendly Finding Box didn't let them know it wasn't when it found you - I made it to find you the first time you ran off with Lacuna - and you seemed so nice so I followed you sorry I'm talking so much you were going to ask me questions about how I got here also Chelsea I like what you've done with your hair it's really nice and you should do my hair too."

And a deep breath in.

"Why were you following us to begin with?"

"Well first it was because the Protectorate wanted to find you after you left with Lacuna, and this time it was because my FFB found you and I watched you and read what the PRT wrote in your psychology profiles and it said you really wanted everyone to love you and get along and -" hiccup "-and no one wants me to love them or gets along with me. And also Panacea is famous and has a superhero family which I've always wanted to have and so I figured if I came I could have those things."

"Where does the Protectorate think you are now?"

"They think I died too! I figured you guys probably had the right idea and did it myself. I was having a rough time beforehand so I don't think anyone was suspicious. And then I came here with my holo-mom - I brought the FFB and some lab things though there's still a bunch to setup, my things suck at being moved around."

"Would you definitely know if anyone besides me noticed the holo-mom?"

"Yes, there's eye tracking and you two were the only ones who looked at her for more than a second or got nearby her at all enough to notice and we only stopped at one rest stop before getting here, I can show you the footage if that helps - though my fancy screens aren't setup yet so it will look mostly like ordinary footage and not 3D huh I'm surprised I'm not very tempted to go on about tinker things the truth thing you're doing seems to make me go on about lots of other things even more than normal and normally I go on and on about tinker things but I guess that's not how it works is it wow panacea your power is cool."

Panacea really has no idea what to make of this, except that she feels sort of bad for Kenzie in addition to being anxious about the whole situation.

"Thanks."

"What do they think killed you?"

"I blew up my lab."

"Thoroughly enough that they won't notice you didn't leave a body or any bits of one?"

"Yes."

Chelsea looks at Panacea.

"She's definitely not lying about any of it."

"I can tell that much, I just want your opinion on whether we should - add to our little band, here."

"Oh uh. If it's safe? Yeah." Panacea can tell how much Kenzie wants to join... it reminds her of herself, in a way. And she really doesn't want to hurt her.

"Yes please? Please? Pretty please??? Please please please please please  sorry I can't stop saying please I think it's the thing Panacea did makes it hard to just say things on the inside. Please. P-"

She can filter now.

"-lease. Okay I'll shut up now sorry."

"Okay. What have you got installed in this room?"

It turns out, quite a lot! Mostly cameras and screens and a projector and some trackers, minimal tools for maintaining the important stuff, and the bare bones lab equipment which she's in middle of bootstrapping.

"What's your specialty?"

"Cameras and difficult to move boxes. And also screens but that's part of the camera specialty."

"...difficult to move?"

"Yeah. It's very inconvenient."

"Difficult to move how, like, you can only build them anchored, or they come out big and bulky...?"

"They come out big and bulky. I can make non-bulky things too, but it's harder. Especially if they aren't cameras."

"Well, I don't think we're planning to go anywhere any time soon so I suppose it's not so inconvenient if your things take up space."

"Oh good!" Does this mean they're letting her stay??????

"Welcome to our little bed-and-breakfast, kiddo. Do you want to pick a new name so nobody notices yours cropping up here?"

She is smiling the biggest smile everrrr.

"Oh! Hmm a name um. Penelope??"

"Cute!"

"I have a rule that says I can't hug people who are my friends."

"...why?"

"I do it too much if I'm allowed to." But other people don't have to listen to the rule.... not that she can say that, since that is also against the rule after she started doing that a lot.

"Who made this rule?"

"A therapist. It seemed like a good idea since I don't want to stop having friends just because of how I want hugs."

"It seems completely normal to want hugs if you ask me!"

"I um. Want them too much and can't keep myself from hugging people even when they are upset with me. Unless I have the rule."

"Can you stop hugging people if they ask you to?"

"Yes!"

"Then the rule seems silly to me!"

Well, Cherish is an adult so... Kenzie is going to gingerly hug her new friend.... for half a second and then she is giving her the hardest hug she can manage because it has been wayyyyy too long since she hugged anyone who liked her.

D'awww.

Panacea joins in the hugging, sandwiching Kenzie. 

Hugs!!!!

Chelsea might be able to pick up on how in this moment Kenzie is one the happiest of people ever!! Everything is better and it was worth all the scary parts of getting here, just for this hug.

That's SO nice. What a good kid.

Kenzie is even happy crying a little.

Pet pet.