"Yeah, I'll sort it. I know a couple people in that branch. Obviously it's just till her actual family is found, but you know the clearance rate for missing-child cases of this kind as well as I do." 

He sighs and rubs his forehead. "Oh, and any information you can get about the house she lived in before she got here would be great to have, just for those extra slivers of a percent that we find her real folks. I saw the way she lights up when she talks about her moms; if she can get back to them it's worth prodding and poking at her a bit, and I figure you probably will have better rapport with her than I would."

She nods. "If she gives me anything you can use, I'll pass it on, for sure."

There's no chance of anything the Songbirds remember being useful, of course, because of the alternate world problem, but if something miraculously turns out to be something the police could use helpfully, she'll pass it along, definitely.

"I really hope she gets to see them again. I wanna meet the women who raised such a sweet and brave kid, they clearly did a good job so far."

Yes, she does want to meet them. Including her apparent alternate self??? The multiverse is weird.

Lying with the truth is something Sable is an old hand at, for all that she doesn't usually have much cause to use it.

Elm nods. "Thanks." 

He takes the completed form and gestures to the door. "Take the kid home for now, she needs somewhere to sleep the night anyway. And thanks for coming in promptly too, I know it must've been a disruption to your schedule especially on a Monday."

"Any disruption's worth it to take care of a lost child. You've got my number, give me a call when you've got a temp SSN for her. Have a good day, Officer Elm, and thanks for the help."

Out she goes.

She smiles at Lily when she gets back to the waiting room. "What d'you think about coming to stay with me until we find your moms, sweetie?"

"That sounds wonderful," Lillian says with genuine warmth in her voice. "Back to your house again then?"

"Yep. Let's go think about maybe getting some lunch in you, then we'll get you some clothes."

"Alright!" Lillian puts all the enthusiasm she can muster into the word, which is considerable. 

And out they go to the car. Sable makes sure Lily gets in okay, shuts the door behind her, and then gets in as well.

Then she lets out a breath.

"Well, go us. That went perfectly."

She starts the car up.

"I did end up telling them you look like my auntie Hailey. I hope that was okay." 

"Yeah, that should be fine. Not something they can do much with, and helps them explain why you latched onto me so quick."

She pulls out of the parking lot.

"Any preferences for lunch?"

"I have no idea what the names of any of the local cuisines are. Do you have fast food? Persine wraps? Uh, Ohalan food? Pizza? Wursts?" 

"Yes, no idea what a persine is, describe Ohalan food and I'll tell you if it matches anything here, yes, and lastly wursts sound like bratwurst which is a type of sausage here."

"Persines are a very common fruit on my world. They'll grow just about anywhere and they have compounds in them that are the basis for our modern hormonal birth control. Women have to avoid them when they're trying to catch a baby, but they're less major a part of the diet these days than they used to be centuries ago. It used to be that if you were poor enough to have to eat persines consistently you just couldn't have children, and you'd have to avoid them deliberately to conceive. Ohalan food is fish and tropical fruit mostly, like salmon fillets and sushi and pineapple and stuff like that. Wursts are a sausage in a bun wrap thing with sweet sauce." 

"Persines don't exist here and I wish they did, they'd probably change the politics around birth control a bit. Ohalan sounds like Japanese crossed with Hawaiian: fish is popular in both, sushi is Japanese, pineapple is more common in Hawaiian cuisine. Wursts are hot dogs, the technical name for the specific type of sausage used is a Frankfurter, but that type has been casually called a hot dog after the bun-wrapped meal for a while now, and you can use other types of sausage as well. Are those some of your favorites?"

"More things I expected you to have than things that were my absolute favourites. Though pizza is good. I just figured it was more likely I'd find something similar in fast food."

She nods, thinking. "Well, all of those exist except persines. Any other options you want to check on? Also, wanna tell me more about the texture sensitivity you mentioned this morning?"

"I can't eat anything green and leafy, and most vegetable textures are troublesome for me. Starchy vegetables like potatoes are fine, squishy vegetables like peas and beans are fine, fruit textures are fine, it's specifically the structured or crunchy textures of things like bell peppers or lettuce or cabbage or even onion if there's too much of it. It's not at all an uncommon thing in my world, maybe as rare as needing glasses? It helps if there's some other texture in the dish that overwhelms it - wraps are usually good unless they have a bunch of leaves in them, but I can eat, like, diced tomato, most kinds of salsa, and stuff like that if it's in a wrap with meat. I can't manage salads, some people in my world can but I'm not one of them." 

She nods thoughtfully. "Okay, that changes up which veggies I stock. Hm. Most things I put onion in can have it cooked down enough to lose all the crunch. Peppers can be just swapped out, we can get most of that flavor through spices derived from the peppers than the peppers themselves. Lettuce almost never plays an important flavor role. Yeah, this should be pretty doable, and drowning any remaining veggie textures in meat and sauce and bread should be easy enough. We'll just make sure to get you a good multivitamin that covers anything you're missing from the crunchy green things and call it good."

"Sounds good to me. Persines cover most of that for me in my world, but multivitamins will do as well." 

And she pulls out the music albums and starts going through them again. "I think I'd like to listen to Hold Your Color again, if that's okay?" 

"Sure!"

Into the stereo that goes, and they can jam to that the whole way home.

"Any requests, given it seems we have most things that aren't persines?"

"Frankly I could really go for a wurst right now. Or as you call it a 'hot dog.' Please tell me you do not actually eat dogs?"  

She laughs and shakes her head. "There are maybe a few places in the world that very occasionally do, but no, it doesn't happen here in the US, nor most countries. It's just an expression."

"Good, good, good to hear." She giggles and starts bopping her head to the stereo. 

"Actually, I think I'm shading Foxbox now, so - one second -" She taps a switch on her wrist bracelet and it switches to a red spark, and her head falls forward for a second, her eyes closing, before she sits up and looks around.