She's supposed to go back to school in two weeks, is the thing. She's already signed up for classes, and she's already paid tuition, and it'd annoy her to just let that go to waste.

And she'll get some annoyed and worried messages from her mom, who probably won't get it for at least a few months and there will be some very tiring phonecalls Stavi won't be able to dodge in there.

...and she'll miss Kai, and Tom, and Lexi. (She'll try to stay in touch online, but she's not sure she'll succeed. Her friends drift away, when she doesn't get to see them regularly, and she doesn't know why, but she's not stupid. There's a pattern there, and she's at the center of it.)

But - 

but it'd be insane to go back now, is the thing.

The tuition is annoying, sure, but it's chump change. Another semester of school is four months. 

Stavi sighs. She's not stupid. She's just procrastinating, her brain "helpfully" trying to find third options that aren't. there.

Stavi closes her flight search from SFO to ONT and tabs into Slack. Her fingers bang out ctrl+k➡mid-ter➡enter as a header, a simple chunk of message heading, the message body already flowing from her hands.

stv: I'm staying.

(She sees the first ‼️and 🎊 reacts show up, and doesn't need to check to know that they're from Leigh. She can see the woman's screen from here.)

Now she just needs to email the school administration, turn her phone off defensively, and email mom.

The code is good. It works and it's not slow and as Stavi greedily scans the output she can see that she finally fixed the fucking mangled dupes because that last test case was actually definitive (get dunked on, Carl,) and her fingers are only shaking a bit as she writes up the PR description and sends it and then links it in #game-changers.

-and then not fifteen minutes later she gets a DM from Alex and it's about. 

fucking UI timelines?

stv: ???
stv: who fucking cares?

AlexiShin: Stavi.
AlexiShin: The UI is really important.
AlexiShin: I know you're full-time now, and working closely with Leigh.
AlexiShin: And I get that your contributions to the core algorithm have been valuable, these last three weeks.
AlexiShin: But you can't keep ignoring this. We need to sync on a timeline here.

(She's really annoyed. The punctuation gives it away.)

stv: don't think we do?
stv: don't think it matters

AlexiShin: Stavi. 
AlexiShin: Of course the UI matters. The entire algorithm is useless without one.
AlexiShin: Logistics teams won't switch to it just because it's better.
AlexiShin: You're being ridiculous.

stv: 'm not
stv: the ui just doesn't really matter

Alex doesn't respond.

Stavi gets a DM from Leigh, though.

LeightUp: Is there a problem with the alg??
stv: ? no
LeightUp: Oh thank frog
LeightUp: you gave Alex a bit of a heart attack tho, girlie
LeightUp: Why'd you tell her it didn't matter?
stv: bc it doesn't 
LeightUp: ?what?
stv: even if the alg is right and the ui is good and we a good adoption rate
stv: it just doesn't really matter that much

What's gotten into her?

She takes off her headphones and grabs her jacket. (Stavi is already wearing hers.) "Let's go chat on the roof," she says to Stavi, standing up.

...sure, whatever.

Stavi follows the woman who's become her best friend over the past five months away from their desks and over to the elevator, and out onto the armchairs on the roof. 

Leigh sits, and motions for Stavi to sit beside her. "What's wrong?"

She shrugs. "Nothing in particular?"

She stares at Stavi in confusion. "Girl, you've been one of the most dedicated people here to the mission since before you even formally started interning here. I think something is wrong."

"I mean - we'll save lives, and some money, and make some too. And then what?"

Confused stare.