Sara's breathing’s settled down a bit.  It's still not great, but the guiding was enough to help her get her stride after her impromptu giggle fit.  He's feeling a little disgruntled at having his celebration cut short, and he sets her back down.  His partner still needs guiding, though, so she can get a little handhold to tide her over.  Then he turns around to see what's so important.

Oh.  Oh.  That's not good.  He extends the faintest whisper of his power to the blue esper to see what's wrong and OH SHIT THAT'S NOT GOOD.  "BOARD AND STRETCHER OVER HERE, NOW!  That's really quite bad, it's pretty recent, we shouldn't need long to fix it.  Set her down on the ground, please, sir.  Ma'am, can you hear me?"  Is she in shock?  Wouldn't surprise me if she were.

"On the ground, are you sure, I can wait for the stretcher -"

"...I can hear you," Flywheel replies quietly. (She doesn't have symptoms of shock, but she's not reacting like someone with two broken legs, either.)

"The sooner we can push the bones back in place, the better, it's my power, I promise.  Ma'am, I need you to hold still.  Don't move your legs at all, don't move any bodyparts you don't have to.  My power comes with superstrength, and I just need you to hold still while it works.  How much pain are you in right now, on a scale from one to ten?"

"She's very backlashed, make really sure you definitely literally mean anything you tell her," Traceless warns softly, laying her down.

When instructed, Flywheel holds very very still. (It's not super clear, on casual visual inspection, if she's breathing very gently or not at all.)

She can't talk without moving, but he asked her a question, so those are body parts she has to move. 

"Above a 5," she reports.

What the fuck does backlash have - psych backlash.  Of course.  Above a five.  Yeah, of course it's above a five, your legs are broken.  Why are people breaking their legs like spaghetti over here.  "Okay.  You're doing very good.  Is it okay if I set your bones back into position?  Do you need pain control for that?"  Tim's dug through his vest and retrieved a pair of surgical scissors.  He's halfway through cutting one leg of her pants off before he's joined by a DRT medic who does the other for him.  He flashes a quick smile of acknowledgement.

Flywheel doesn't respond to either of those questions. (Closer inspection will reveal that she's breathing slowly and not very deeply.)

"Flywheel please breathe normally." Does she know what "normally" means at this moment, no idea, they will find out right here right now.

Flywheel reverts to breathing as she was before being told to hold still, which does seem like it'd get her more air.

Well, shit.  I guess I need to be really, really specific.  The fuck even is this backlash?  "Ma'am, unless you object I'm going to set your bones.  Can you hold still while I do it?"  Maybe that'll work better?

"I can hold still." (She already is, except as necessary for answering questions and breathing normally.)

She does not seem to be objecting.

Should he be holding her hand? Or possibly outright kissing her? Or would that make this worse either by making holding still harder or by making pain more directly bothersome - he REALLY needs to have a sit-down with her about this now that Arrakis is dead - he errs on the side of loitering very close by but not quite touching her so he doesn't interfere with the medic.

"Okay.  Remember, I'm about to give you real superstrength."  Don't give orders to do things.  "I'll need you to be very careful so that you don't break anything."  I hope that's vague enough it doesn't...trigger her?  And then, she's about to possibly feel agony or possibly nothing as her bones get carefully shifted back into position.  Then her muscle gets massaged back into approximately the right area.  Then the itching starts, as bone grafts to bone and muscle tears start to mend on their own.  It's deeply uncomfortable, but thankfully she's holding quite still.

Any agony she may or may not feel at having her bones re-set doesn't seem to cause her to move, so it's unclear what relevance it might have.

"You're doing great, ma'am.  It'll just be a few more minutes, then we can get you on the barge."  Tim gratefully accepts the opportunity to shed his latex gloves.  "Sara, d'you mind...?"

Sara has taken her mask off while he was setting Flywheel's bones, so now she sets her chin on his head when she wraps her arms around him from behind and takes his hands. 

He lifts his shirt long enough to stash Sara's arms and hands beneath it.  Then he nuzzles his head into Sara's chin.  From here, it's just a waiting game.  A few minutes later, he nods.  "Okay.  Let's get a board underneath her.  After that, can we get a portal to the barge, please?  All four of us?"  Maybe I should get a commscreen after all, it'd be nice to be able to do that with a gesture.  He speaks to no-one in particular, confident that someone will take care of the teleport.  Possibly one of the Dwarves, but there are plenty of support staff around.

A few minutes of scurrying later, and Cara is very tenderly boarded.  Yes, yes, she's resistant to injury under Aumento's power - but you don't fucking jostle a broken leg any more than you absolutely have to.

After that: vworp.

Traceless goes on metaphorically hovering but he will at this point hold Flywheel's hand; if the backlash is doing actual painkiller anything rather than just paralytic duty, well, she should be much improved by the time handholding gets her much improved on the other axis. With his free hand he's sending emoji to the June/Casey/June's agent chat and clarifying (since they haven't established a very fully featured emoji code for this situation) to the one that just has June's agent and Casey and Paula.

Now that he's making contact with her, he can tell that she is really quite backlashed. Maybe half again as much as when they first met.

No surprise there! She literally killed Arrakis! He really wishes he knew WHAT she has this much of.

Ah, shit.  They just got the barge cleared out.  Okay!  Look alive, everyone.  "Right this way, folks.  Any special needs, or just time and backlash?"  Eugh.  Fucking Tim.  I get it makes sense with his power, but we have goddamn surgeons.  Someday we need to sit down and teach that cowboy how to actually set a bone instead of just squishing two bits together and letting his power tank the rest of it.  Despite her inner irritation, she's perfectly professional. 

The espers are directed to the center of the circle, and Tim takes his accustomed spot.  It looks like someone's sourced a slightly dusty beat-up plush armchair as his throne du jour.  To prevent accidents, they've taken the legs off.  After all, you can't fall to the floor if you're already on the floor.

Ack why did no one come get her okay April time to go on another adventure, hup -!

She reaches Flywheel's side to see the damage with her power.

She stills, very abruptly, upon what she 'sees.' (She cuts off pain signals in the relevant areas, because she is herself.)

"..... who the fuck set these, and was Epione nearby for pain relief or was it done without any in her system."

(Flywheel doesn't respond very visibly to the painblock, but some of the tension on her face and in her jaw fades.)

Oh shit.  Here we go.  No strong opinions.  "I did, ma'am.  Field-expedient to prevent further injury.  It was, ah.  Quite bad.  Patient did not request pain relief when asked."

(April is getting kind of concerningly used to watching Ji-woo unfuck the human body. On the plus side she's also getting so good at being a sturdy backpack.)

...

She needs to count to ten so as not to start yelling. During this time, she turns to a minion and requests one of those saline spray bottles for her new patient's lungs. And pats April, the best backlash backpack.

There is, nonetheless, an aura of Doom.

"Okay, so, one. Just because a patient doesn't specifically request pain relief does not mean we ignore it entirely for expediency. Because we do not torture people when we can avoid it. Patients, especially esper patients, are often out of it and have difficulty meaningfully consenting. As medical professionals it is our duty to do the best by them even if they are completely incapable of consenting. For espers, especially combat espers who have just come out of a high rank dungeon, you should not assume that just because they don't say anything they have no preferences. If something takes a little longer but does not torture the patient, and the patient is not literally about to die - which she isn't - then you do not err on the side of torture."

Deep breath. Good job, Ji-woo, you have kept the volume low and the points sharp.

"Two. This is a fucking team sport. If you do not know how to set bones! Which I can tell you do not!" Shit, shit, losing the not yelling, tone it down. "Do. Not. Touch. Them. Get an actual professional. Neither one of us would be half as effective as we are without the amazing ordinary people that have trained their entire lives for putting people back together, but who did not win the esper lottery. I'm not going to touch how you have access to teleports and I am still on the continent, because I will not always be, but you, specifically, need to hire several bone guys to assist you with this shit, and before you touch anything broken, you need them to tell you the best way to set things. Or let them do it, with you directing what you're seeing."

(One of these days she is going to slip and say "I wanna be you when I grow up" out loud.)

Traceless sure wishes he knew what Flywheel was under such a pile of. The inability to feel pain is a real backlash! People have it! He interviewed a lady who has it and doesn't dungeoneer for the same reason that she's a vegan because her power is a fucked up torture power because she was willing to talk to him before he even awakened as an animals-and-monsters welfare activism thing! Being insensible to pain can kill you, which is a way more reliable backlash trait than being unpleasant per se! But as long as he himself is not too backlashed he is going to note-to-self to have a postmortem about that later with his free hand. Note to self do not assume the guy with the practiced bedside manner and the healing power that has a time-sensitivity component also practiced medical espering tradeoffs to Uisa's standards. The lesson probably generalizes beyond that and he will work out how later.

The following is a verbalization of Tim's subconscious thought process.  Timothy Bartholomew Delgado is not nearly this coherent under this sort of pressure.

Okay, sure, let's review the alternatives:

Do nothing!  OK, let's move on.

Risk a fragment of femur piercing the femoral artery, following a superstrength-powered muscle spasm!  No complaints from the patient then, either!

Call over someone who can set bones!  Sure, with a portable X-ray machine instead of a power that lets you see exactly where the bones are!  And we can cover her with a lead blanket and hope we don't disturb her muscle fragments, and continue to hope that those fragments stay away from anything delicate.  And by the time the X-ray machine was brought over, my power would have fixed everything anyway, probably.

Teleport Uisa over here...might...actually have been a good idea?  Shit.  This is what you get when you're used to doing fast work under pressure.

When he replies after a moment, his face and voice are - well, not perfectly flat, he's human.  But they certainly aren't expressive right now.  "We can review this in the AAR, ma'am.  In the meanwhile, I believe the patient should be largely recovered within twenty minutes, based on previous cases.  Let me know if you need to do anything else."

His body language is quite a bit tenser.  His shoulders are hunched, and his knuckles are clenching in on themselves.

Ji-woo blows a breath out through her teeth. This is the kind of guy that gets defensive and silently digs in when yelled at, not the kind that realizes immediately that he fucked up. Great. Perfect. Amazing. Fortunately he's still a baby, so she can forcibly beat that out of him in a couple of years. This is not the most effective strategy for handling this person.

"Fine." She says the next part very deliberately, because he has to know it as soon as possible: "But when in doubt, get help, because you are not experienced at this yet and need to conduct yourself accordingly."

And then she takes a deep breath, and she moves on. Always more work to do.

"I'm going to need to get the shit out of her lungs at some point - you," this is at Traceless, "you're her partner, yeah? How bad is her backlash level, have you two worked out guiding boundaries? Do you need a privacy tent?"

"I have known her for a couple of days, Willowbark was her partner previously, but, uh, yes. She didn't mind making out sans tent yesterday. Her backlash scale is not working right now" and he doesn't! know! why! "but it's a lot. My primary also was in Arrakis racking it up and does not have another guide - it might be relevant if you expect Flywheel to be medically stable for sleep-guiding tonight, because my primary can't do those."

Unknown to Uisa, he's actually willing to concede that he fucked up but he doesn't want to get in a dissection of his fuckups while the patient does not actually have functional legs. They can talk about it afterwards!  They have a patient to attend to!

"I mean, I could have called for help.  I'm used to - aggressive dungeon triage, solo.  But, it's not as important as our patient right now."  His next statement is directed towards the Legs Gal.  "I'm, uh, sorry, ma'am.  You can have the apology when you're, uh.  Less backlashed.  If you want it."

(It sure doesn't seem like it's doing anything for her now, yeah.)

Willowbark's...?

"......... Ah," says Ji-woo, putting some pieces together. She knew Willowbark had gotten a new partner (and was enamored with her) but.... this girl doesn't have any kind of support network, clearly, just this guy who is filling in for her right now after her death. Willowbark was - well. Not very good at asking for help.

It is becoming painfully clear that she perhaps really fucking needed it. She told her that she needed to get more staff - ugh. Not the time to think about it.

"Okay. Okay," she says, as she thinks. This? Is a mess. "Sean, guiding tent, please, we need to get this girl socially isolated, stat. Get it up over there, away from the crowds but still in the circle." She points with her free hand. "She is medically stable right now and will be for co-sleeping. I - assume I am not hearing what her backlash is because it's not on record. Are there backlash mitigation things she needs, since you're tragically incapable of being in two places at once? Do you know any secondaries she has?" Or did Willowbark fuck that up, too?

"One guiding tent coming up." He's put these up a couple of times during the short but extremely eventful Barge Era of his life. He can do it, with help if help is available, without it if everyone's busy with other things.

"I have not been told everything. I am not aware of secondaries but she is at least some compatible with Min Woo-Young, I have been told there's no agent to ask. I think you should be sure that you literally mean anything you tell her to do but I don't know the boundaries of that exactly, just that - I had to tell her to breathe normally after she was told not to move, so, uh, don't re-up that or if you do amend it with a clarification pronto." He's murmuring very softly, espers everywhere, mitigate the leak.

She was compatible with Starfist not useful, and also nobody asked her. But - when people are trying to help her, she shouldn't make it harder for them - "No secondaries," she whispers.

Handsqueeze.

Fuck. She gives a firm nod. "Understood." Tap tap, at a commscreen, and there's a little flash of blue to get one of her cards. She hands it to Traceless. "This has my number if you have specific medical concerns for her that you do not want to voice out loud." Because she understands how this works and is being smart about it.

"I'm going to try to get a hold of Woo-young, but I've got some compatibility with her on my end. Flywheel, can you rate the guiding on a scale of one to ten, from me in particular?" Fucking asymmetric guiding and its shit...

She concentrates. Traceless is a ten, Tae-hwan was a one... "...four?"

Number goes in his contacts. He does not in fact have specific medical concerns! He'd really like to have more specific things to be concerned about but "I'm incredibly embarrassingly ignorant" is really the main thing here. As an infosec measure he taps out a quick update to the June/Casey/agent chat.

Reasonable of him.

"Okay. Four is not the worst, and I'll need to fix her lungs anyway. I can be honorary backup secondary for today. Unless we win the lottery for like a fourth time this week - April, give her a quick boop for a compatibility check, please?"

Boop! "Pretty decent on my end?"

"Flywheel, rate April on the 1-10 scale for guiding, please?"

"...three?" maybe a bit higher because of the backlash, but this is the awakening girl so she'll keep having that much backlash...

"Asymmetry is a cruel, capricious bitch. Okay. Then my plan is - April, you go with Tim, for your cuddles. I and Traceless go with Flywheel into tent. Traceless goes to help his primary whenever he thinks is best, comes back for co-sleeping later, maybe tears me a new asshole if I've mistreated his charge any while he's away." She gives him a friendly sort of wink to let him know: yes she will be doing her best to do right by her, yes she is also trusting your judgement, do your best. "Does that work for everyone?"

The patient has no objections.

"June's not urgent and ideally I sit with her in one long block which might be like six hours, so assuming we don't think that Flywheel's backlash is net helpful right now...?"

"Nah, fuck backlash. You're cleared for oral guiding, but I still want to isolate her, considering."

The phrase "oral guiding" has, ironically, awful mouthfeel. He leans over and kisses Flywheel.

A kiss is, if you think about it in the right way, a request to be kissed back. Especially when guiding is involved.

Flywheel complies.

Well, Tim needs prefers line of effect to Cara.  But he can make do with a foot or something visible from the bottom of the bottom of the tent.  He sigh.  "Well.  Fuck."  A part of him is observing the muscles twist and the bones knit under his power.  Mostly done.  Good job, Tim, you just pissed off the best healer in the world because you were too busy fixing things fast to fix them right.  Swell.  Swollen, even.

Ah.  Uisa...doesn't know about part of his power.  Probably she doesn't know about the details of his power, which is part of why they...disagreed a minute ago.  He pitches his voice over to Uisa, "Ma'am, I'd rather be able to, uh, see the people under my power.  Doesn't have to be much, maybe a foot or something?"

"Oh. Legit." Commscreen booping; in a blue flash, she has a scalpel. "Sean, when you have a minute please cut a small hole near the bottom of the tent, facing Aumento? A foot flap, maybe. I got a knife for ya."

You know what, not the weirdest thing that has happened on this medical barge adventure. "Can do."

"Thanks! We should be good to move her over in a bit, I want to make sure this little bundle of nerves shakes out okay..." She frowns disappointedly at the leg in question. Behave, you! Straighten yourself out properly!!!

Sara, though very focused on keeping her breathing even, is at least present enough to squeeze Tim reassuringly at several moments in this dressing down and associated drama.

"Kiyaam, Tim," she murmurs. "No permanent damage." 

He murmurs back, in an ordinary whisper.  "Yeah.  Just - well, she didn't seem like she was in pain at all?  Maybe she - no, nevermind, her backlash isn't any of my business."  Was that a quaver in his voice?  No.  Couldn't have been.  Definitely not.

IT REALLY OUGHTA BE SOMEBODY'S they can have that conversation later.

She squeezes him harder, "Get a medic on team? Double-check decisions, bone specialist..." 

She has to stop talking, then, and go back to steady breathing. 

(Oh. Good. He isn't digging his heels in, after all. Just didn't want to lose face in front of patients. And his partner clearly has a good head on her shoulders. Yes get a fucking medic on his team.)

When the offensive bits of Flywheel's internals sort themselves out under Ji-woo's watchful supervision, they relocate to inside the tent. Via teleport. Because it is legitimately very cheap to move short distances via teleport, and she's not going to put this girl onto a stretcher as she is now, she's been through enough for now.

Her lungs still need fixing from Arrakis's shit, but that process (with Ji-woo instead of Airmed) is a bit involved, so she's holding off on that until her patient can meaningfully consent. She has backlash to burn right now, to guide this poor girl to something resembling rightness, she can just keep watch over the lungs like she's keeping watch over the legs and telling Flywheel's body to not accept anything from any strange sand-like particles.

"I'll get at her lungs when she's a bit less backlashed, if you're wondering. Me getting the gunk out is less pleasant than Airmed doing it, so I want her to be able to give feedback on what she wants," Ji-woo says softly to Traceless.

"Airmed's gone?" Kissing resumes.

Headshake. "Still on this side of the water, but busy with the others from Arrakis. Flywheel was wearing a helmet, yeah? On top of the shielding she got? And wasn't in the black sand for as long. So she's low priority on the damage scale."

Thumbs up.

Flywheel's eyes widen a bit at the teleport, but the thing she's Supposed To Be Doing right now is kissing Traceless (Is it fun? Is she getting a Good Grade in backlashed kissing?) and moving them to the tent was the plan even if she did not expect it to be done via teleport, what hey idiot maybe don't second guess Literally Baek Ji-woo!

"We will probably be able to get Airmed to fix this, just. The regen and the sand together combining might be a bit more... ehhhn. But she'll be okay, I'm nannying over her lungs to prevent its shit."

Return of the thumbs-up. His job today is smooching. He has more interesting dungeons lined up for tomorrow and will not have to come to a long-term attitude of acceptance about this role in the esper ecosystem but he can do it for a day.

Yeah.

She falls silent, focusing on overseeing healing of legs, and not-worsening of lungs, and thinking about how many ways Willowbark absolutely screwed this poor girl over.

...tears start falling from Flywheel's eyes. (She doesn't stop kissing Traceless.)

He is an eyes-closed sort of kisser so he does not notice promptly.

Ji-woo similarly doesn't immediately notice, and in fact only notices when she's doing a cursory extra (extra extra, actually) scan of What Is Up With This Girl's Body. The tearducts are doing things, is what it's doing. And not for health reasons, those are emotions hormones attached to those tears. (Ji-woo knows the difference.)

"... Ah. It's okay, you're going to be okay, you're safe and you did so great helping to kill that damn worm dungeon," she says softly.

This seems like it makes her cry more, actually? (She doesn't stop kissing though.)

He lifts his head a little bit to see what she's reacting to. ...Flywheel can comment while he's not actively kissing her, if she has anything to say in response to that. - oh, the backpack girl is gone, he was not really paying attention, is Uisa, uh, okay - he holds out a fist for a bump in her direction -

So, so valid to cry right now. Ji-woo will gently trace little circles into the hand that she's holding.

Hm? Fist..? Is this a request for esper boop? Sure, esper boop.

"...decent this way around? We can hold hands while you're working if my hand's better than hers?" he offers. "I can also start floating but that just adds more backlash accommodations into the mix."

(Flywheel is crying kind of a lot but does not seem to be saying anything.)

"...are you by any chance aware if you need anything," he adds to Flywheel.

"Decent on mine too," reports Uisa. "But I'm okay, my backlash is easy." Kind of a bitch, but easy.

She continues tracing circles into Flywheel's hand, for lack of a better idea.

...Flywheel snorts weakly. "Not really?", she whispers, tears still falling down her face.

If Uisa says so. He'd trade her that is rude do not indicate that in any way.

"Okay." Smooches resume.

(Honestly Uisa thinks wanting to trade her is pretty legit, her backlash sucks, but it sucks in a tangible quantifiable way instead of being one of those weird ones where she is mostly okay and then one little thing goes wrong and she falls entirely apart. And it doesn't mess with her, no mindfuckery or anything. It just hurts. As backlashes go, that's very easy.)

Flywheel doesn't seem super interested in kissing, actually. She's not going to like, resist, but she seems maybe too busy with whatever emotions caused the crying to involve herself much in the process. 

"...Flywheel? Do you... uh... need a break, should I stop...?"

How is she supposed to - well, he's reacting to something.

"M-maybe," she says, through her tears.

"Whatever you want is fine, we're here to help," murmurs Ji-woo, with perhaps a surprising level of gentleness for a woman who was ready to eviscerate another esper publicly to make a point. "Relatedly, I can and will if asked happily put in some earbuds and close my eyes for privacy reasons."

"I - " she looks at Traceless - "I don't know." She sounds faintly miserable about it, but it might just be the thing where she's crying.

"...I also don't. Obvious options include... I kiss you anyway, or I hold your hand and pick up a little backlash but a small enough amount that I can just text people and not distract Uisa, or I fuck off and sit with June and come back later..."

"...do you have one of those that you want?" She can't tell and it feels bad, not to be able to tell. 

"They've all got tradeoffs. Kissing is fastest but it's also what I was doing and it did not... seem to agree with you..."

"...I don't know where grief goes on my scale," she says, sounding very confused about the concept, and then sobs. (that's not an answer I don't CARE!)

He squeezes her hand.

Flywheel tries to talk through her sobbing. "I'm used to, Willowbark, handling me, when I'm backlashed, and she's, gone," 

If Arrakis had killed him he has arrangements in place for his complicated dependent who arguably needs them less. He's not going to say that. "I'm so sorry."

Ji-woo should probably also say her condolences, but what she's thinking instead is That dumbass was in a potential danger zone for no obvious gain with all of the knowledge of what the loss of one of the rare medical espers in the world means, (But they didn't know Arrakis had figured out extra portals) and She really fucked you up and then over, didn't she? and Good intentions mean jack shit when your actions have bad effects, and isn't that topical for Aumento's whole fuckup.

This girl is so very vulnerable, in all the worst ways psyche backlashes can be.

She's making some kind of expression, she's sure, but she doesn't say anything. She gives Cara's hand another little squeeze, and resumes tracing circles on it. (And keeping her lungs from accepting any sketchy shit. And making sure her legs are healing properly.)

...After a few minutes of internal flailing, Flywheel manages to stop crying.

The thing is... it can be upsetting, when someone thinks she's less present than she is, and accordingly is less careful than they might want to be with how they express themselves. (It's not like they have any way of knowing that just because she's cut off from her needs and goals and agency, she's still paying attention and making obvious inferences.)

And she shouldn't upset people unnecessarily. It's wrong.

"...I can tell you think she messed up," she whispers, barely audible to their esper hearing. "With how she treated me. I - it's more complicated, than that," and oops now her eyes are watering again.

"... I'm sure it felt that way," says Ji-woo, softly. "I'm sure she cared, I'm sure she meant well. But. No. Not really. You don't have this word in English, but she was your sunbae, your senior, setting you up for success is the whole point." And the rest she leaves unsaid.

Completely socially isolated, with no one to call upon for backup management or guiding, with no one able to help her is not, in fact, set up for success.

..............

(She should take responsibility for her choices.) "<W-willowbark-sunbae was... trying to set me up for success, Baek Ji-woo-nim>", Flywheel responds, in competent Korean. "<I didn't make it easy! And neither did her backlash.>" 

"Yeah. Which is why she shouldn't have tried to handle it all on her own," she replies, still in English. "There's no guild here, for you. And espers are just people. And people just aren't built to work alone."

Then her lip twitches. "Your Korean is very good, by the way."

"<I've been practicing. Tae-hwan-nim owes me tteokbokki.>" (She's still way too backlashed to deliver this with any apparent emotion attached to it, but some part of her knows it's A Correct Thing To Say, and so she can [make|let] herself say it.) (look at her, a sad little puppet, ineptly pulling her own strings because she let the only person who cared enough to do it for her DIE,)

(She - still shouldn't let them think it was worse than it was. It'd be wrong to. Especially since Tia isn't here to defend herself.) "She wasn't doing it alone. We made lots of the important decisions together. And she wasn't the one who isolated me."

"Sure. I don't want to discount your agency, here. But when I think of Tia," and she very deliberately uses her name, instead of her esper codename, because she knew the woman, even if it was a professional relationship, "I think of someone who was very isolated. And in a lot of pain." Hand squeeze. "But she had twenty years of experience, money, establishment, formal recognition worldwide. Other esper or agency contacts," hint hint, like Ji-woo, "that she could have introduced you to. And she didn't. I expect she wanted to be in her own little world with you where she felt safe and sound."

Traceless didn't know her at all - it's weird they were even in Toronto, who has a medical problem that they can't travel for and that Epione can't manage and that they can't solve with normal drugs - but he certainly doesn't know anything to contradict what Uisa has to say about it.

"she was trying to keep me safe," Cara whispers, and it's weirdly difficult for some reason, but she obviously hasn't finished her task and so she will keep trying to explain. "She hated talking about what happened to Stormcrow and Chronaegis, but - the important bits are all public - it wasn't just her backlash that made her feel like she had to - handle all the details, and it certainly wasn't something she was doing for comfort, it was hard on her," (she's sobbing again, though she hasn't really noticed.)

Traceless has the opportunity to let his backlash be the excuse to ruin June's life on roughly half the days in a typical week and he plans really hard around not doing that and someone who had a superficially similar problem, like Kuroko, but not a manageable one, should arrange not to have to manage it, and it sounds like Willowbark either set herself a task she couldn't succeed at or failed at one she theoretically could have and neither is great!

Arguably he has recently set himself a task he is not capable of succeeding at and he is going to need to fix that.

"Yeah. I know. And - the DRT and their agents absolutely did fail them, don't get me wrong, combat espers live and die by their support staff, and then also sheer luck on top of it. But those were pretty cut and dry, from what I read of them. It's scary. I see why she decided 'Fine, I'll do it myself,' with you, and I even empathize a little, just." Handsqueeze. "Erred too far in the other direction, I think. We're all only human, superpowers and prismatic colors or no."

...Cara is going to squeeze Ji-woo's hand and cling to Traceless's body and cry and cry and cry.

(Tia did keep her safe, from the very beginning until the very end. It's not her fault Cara decided to be insane and terrible and secretive about things instead of just talking to her!)

(Ji-woo might notice she's actually getting a bit dehydrated.)

He does his best to be clingable.

Yeah. Fortunately, Sean is a clever minion, and stocked them up with water bottles in advance. She scootches, grabs a bottle, opens it, and passes it to Cara without any kind of fuss.

(They should probably get an IV in her anyway, but Ji-woo is not made entirely out of stone, stabbing a complicated wronged, but grieving girl for minimal gain is a little beyond her right now. Besides, she's never gotten the hang of inserting them, even now. Nobody's perfect, not even her.)

Being handed an open water bottle by a medical esper is obviously a request to drink it, so she does. (Some of the water spills on her. She doesn't seem to notice.)

(She's still crying, but it's slowed down, at least.)

...she's backlashed.

(It's not good to be backlashed. She's supposed to try and get guiding promptly, when she can.)

She attempts, tentatively, to reinitiate kissing with Traceless.

He's not (at this time) going to second-guess that. Medical smooches it is.

Some time later:

"Hello the tent," a woman with a light Irish lilt is speaking outside. 

"Hello the miracle worker!" says the other miracle worker. "I have been sitting on the lung damage like a mother hen. My turn to make the rounds to everyone you've cleared out, then?"

"Am I in the way?"

"It sounds like," Airmed agrees. "May I come in? -and who is asking?" 

Nod from Ji-woo. "Okay." Hand squeeze to Flywheel. "I'm going to have to go handle other people and tell their lungs they shouldn't get cancerous. My pain-blasting is nerve based and will last for a little while after I go, but I'll get someone to bring you some painkillers, okay? My bad for not thinking of it sooner, that was me being dumb, sorry."

She does not feel qualified to say it's okay for them to enter the tent that is not hers, but she can clarify as she heads out: "Patient's secondary partner, Traceless."

(Flywheel squeezes Ji-woo's hand back a vaguely surprising amount given how little she's been present, but says nothing.)

She nods to Ji-woo as she passes. "Morganrath the senior's in Pendragon's tent," she thinks to mention, "She isn't being obstructive," thankfully. 

And, to the tent, "No, you're fine, then." 

"Ah, hell, that'll be a conversation... thanks for the heads up."

And then, yeah, off to go tell some lungs that they should sit down and behave themselves in the future!

"Mostly I mean do you need her mouth free, I'm not familiar with your power details."

Traceless is talking, so Flywheel waits. (She could say something to Airmed, she's a decent chunk less backlashed. But she wants to be rude and pathetic and useless just lie here.)

"No, I don't need her mouth free. Please do feel free to carry on- once one of you has invited me in, at any rate." 

Oh, she's a vampire she is not a vampire. He looks at Flywheel in case she has input.

Flywheel does not have input.

"Come on in."

Vampires are polite, much like Airmed! In she goes. 

"Let's see..." She sets a large rectangular case on the ground next to Flywheel's stretcher, and kneels. "I'm Airmed, in case you two didn't catch that at some point. I've been handling that nasty black sand the dungeon's been throwing at you all."

She offers her hands to both of them, "I'd like to check compatibility before we start, see if I should be avoiding unnecessary contact." 

Flywheel can take a hand.

Boop. Wince.

Well, luckily she doesn't need to touch Traceless for longer than a quick check takes. She lets go of his hand. 

With Flywheel, meanwhile, she isn't getting much of anything. 

"Can you give me a number on a scale of one to ten, Flywheel? Or negative, if it is uncomfortable. For our compatibility, on your end." 

"One, maybe less." (She turns to look at Airmed. She's obviously been crying kind of a lot.)

Poor thing. It's been a very long week for her, hasn't it. 

"Alright. I'll need to touch your chest, just over your lower ribs, to get a good sense for how much sand you have in there. Then, I will be removing it but by bit. It will take some time, but you should be sand-free by the end of the half hour." 

She glances over at Traceless, "Am I checking you, too? I didn't hear whether you'd been in the black storm, too." 

Flywheel is wearing only a sports bra and does not voice any objections to the treatment plan.

"I didn't get a faceful but I'd appreciate a check."

"Alright, I'll do you after Flywheel here, so stick around." 

So saying, she carefully sets her hands over the girl's ribs and closes her eyes to focus. 

-and then her eyes jerk open again!

"How long were you in the black sand for, exactly?" 

"About four minutes?"

"Ah." The length of her stay had not been made clear to her! "Well. I'm here, and this gunk shouldn't bother anyone ever again now. This might be a little uncomfortable," she warns. "And you may feel the need to cough. If you do, please tap my-" wait, no, she's being augmented isn't she, "-please pat the ground loud enough to hear so I can pause while you do so." 

"Uh. Is coughing useful or just a common side effect?"

"A common side effect, and not particularly harmful." 

Flywheel doesn't seem to have anything to add.

"Clear to resume kissing?"

"Go right ahead," and she will go ahead and pull her case closer. "I'm going to start now, Flywheel." 

So saying she does a very small swap to start, the air inside the tank for the sand. The sand makes a series of quiet clinks as they fall inside the case. 

Flywheel resumes kissing Traceless and does not react or indeed give signs of having noticed the change happening in her lungs.

He keeps an ear out for the signal assigned to being about to cough but kind of doesn't expect it to happen.

As it continues not to happen, Airmed continues to swap out sand for air. If left to get on with it uninterrupted, this will take twenty-six minutes from start to finish. 

(During that time, Flywheel gets an IV inserted into her left arm, and with it, actual non-magic painkillers.

She has also been given a button to press if her pain becomes unmanageable and she would like more drugs. The button is, of course, available for anyone else to press in that room, should they feel the need to.)

Flywheel's facial muscles move a bit when the IV is inserted, but she doesn't otherwise react to the proceedings. She kisses Traceless, like she's supposed to, and her backlash gets guided away.

(Sometimes her eyes water up and tears fall out, but that's just the kind of thing that happens to people now isn't it.)

At least it almost certainly isn't due to pain anymore. 

"...alright, that seems to be all of it. Take a deep breath for me, Flywheel? In and out, nice and slow, as is comfortable." They'll need to stop kissing for that, unfortunately.

He gets out of the way.

Flywheel can take a deep breath in, and then out.

"Good. Keep that up, let's see." 

She actually has a stethoscope, which she uses in addition to her senses for this. Any crackling in those there lungs? 

Nope! Healthy and sandless lungs on this dead-eyed esper.

"Mmmmhm, sounds good. You're all clear! Go ahead and breathe normally. I'll take a look at your partner here, and then I'll get out of your hair." 

"Where d'you want me?"

Flywheel will breathe normally.

(You could be more involved than this, her brain notes. You're not actually backlashed enough that you need to lie there like a weirdly-detailed CPR dummy with nice tits. You could be grateful, be a bit less of a bi- )

She doesn't otherwise react.

"Back or front facing me, sat up or lying down, as you please. I just need to get hands on your skin above your lungs to get a good look." She is currently gloving up, which will make her senses less clear but not appreciably so, and also will spare them the discomfort. "I could go at it from other angles but those are best." 

"You got it." He sits on the edge of where Flywheel's lying, there's not actually a chair in here.

Airmed places gloved hands over his lower ribs and examines the contents of his lungs. 

"I could get a fairly good look without touching you," she mention, absently, "But this sand is a bitch, and I don't want to chance leaving any behind. Hmm." 

Is there any sand to be found? Airmed will search it out in all its hidey-holes and drive it out of her patients. 

He was geared up and standing near the portal, but he was doing some tromping around on prior excursions; he's got a bit.

"You have some," she informs him, leaning back to drag her case over again. "Shouldn't take me more than three or four minutes at most. Same warnings as last time - it might tickle, shouldn't hurt, pat if you need to cough." 

Assuming no objections ensue, Airmed will indeed have the sand out of him within a few minutes. 

Unlike Flywheel he does want to cough at about the halfway point but he can pat first.

She leans away (and gives him a tissue) so he can do that, then continues her work. 

He will also be asked to go through the deep breaths crackle check once she thinks she has it all, proving to be clear as well.

"Right, that should be everything! Your lungs are clean and clear. Unless you've any questions, I'll be off to update Uisa and leave you two to recover." 

"Thank you very much."

"...thank you," Flywheel adds softly.

"You're very welcome! And thank you for killing that dungeon! You won't believe how much black sand I've got out of peoples' lungs over the past few days..."

Up she gets, case in hand, and out of the tent she goes! 

...she did help kill Arrakis, didn't she. Why.... doesn't she feel good about that... (Well. Probably because she's grieving mysteriously insane?) ...okay, but, besides that...

He's gonna... wait and see if she says anything... before kissing her right away. Maybe Uisa will be back in a second, maybe it's about time he got out of her face and sat with June, maybe she will dredge up the urge to cough from somewhere under the backlash, lots of possibilities.

Flywheel looks at him carefully, trying to figure out what it is that he wants. 

Unfortunately for both of them what he wants is one of the things she is most thoroughly coached to be careful about providing even when backlashed all to hell. "...backlash check?" he asks, eventually. "It's hard to tell precisely when I'm zeroed."

She runs through the checklist. "... four, and it'd be good if I could use the bathroom once I'm good to move again?" She says that second part loud enough that it should be audible to espers outside the tent. 

Ah, shit.  That's my cue.  "Scuse me, ladies, Sean."  He pops up and heads - not into the tent, he's not that stupid, but just outside of it.  He tries to go for a compromise pitch, not quite a normal conversational volume and not quite an Esper Whisper.  "I'd rather you stayed in there a little bit longer, if you can stand it.  There's...two chunks of bone that are still floating, and one that hasn't fully integrated yet.  I think it'll be a bit longer, forty minutes, maybe?" I'm pretty sure one of them happened during the transfer to the board.  Ugh.  Well, I'll add this to the injury spreadsheet.

After that, he'll lurk outside for a moment to see if he's actually needed for anything.  If not, he can go back to his friends.  ...friends?  Huh.  I guess they are my friends, by now.  You'd think a guy who can pressure-weld with his bare hands would notice when it happens to him.

"I can wait," she replies, sounding more like a person than she did earlier. "Thanks." 

Probably if it were at the point of being medically inadvisable to wait the medic would know but he's recently made an error by assuming that the medic would know a thing. She went before they deployed, that's a better reason to not have to ask her, out loud, in what sense she "can" wait. If she does need to be carried anywhere he's the best person for it since every other esper on the boat is busy or injured and many of them incompatible. And forty minutes isn't that long though that is also some estimate creep from the medic! Ugh. He sends a new emoji putting his ETA for June order-of-magnitude one hour out, that's long enough for her to order lunch or something. "Okay, we can probably guide a lot of the rest of this off in that time?" He'd love to be doing less tentative uptalk to someone who is this incredibly unhelpful about being uptalked-to but he is flying so blind and unlike when he is actually flying in the actual dark he can't rely on his power to prevent him from crashing into shit.

Flywheel goes in for a kiss and then pauses. "That was enough to let me decide, at least with this much backlash," she whispers, since not knowing is clearly bothering him. 

"Oh good." Kissing.

Well.  They seem to have it well in-hand.  Time to leave!  Tim...might have been able to catch some of that, but frankly he has no idea what Blue Girl's backlash is and he doesn't want to know.  So.

Unless someone deliberately gestures at him, he'll go back to cuddly sign language practice.

She should probably apologize to him about the last few hours, at some point, but her mouth is occupied at the moment.

For now, she'll put some effort into being enjoyable to guide. She's got plenty of practice with that. 

It's a good thing he is accustomed to being professional about this sort of thing. Approximately this sort of thing. But it is a very pleasant profession, yes.

Ji-woo returns before Flywheel's cleared to stand.

"Knock knock," she says, since she's unable to knock on the door of the tent. On account of how it is a tent. "Here to clean up lingering lung damage and cuddle, hope you got some actual pain meds?"

"I did, yes," says Flywheel, sounding... more like a person. "Come on in."

In she comes!

(For those paying attention: she's holding herself a little more stiffly, and her expression is more tired than it had been when they'd last seen her.)

"Glad to hear it!" she says, with only a tiny bit of forced cheer. "Okay, cuddles and telling your lungs to behave themselves for the next thirty years."

Ji-woo: noticeably more backlashed than she was before! Her backlash backpack has finished awakening, which is a good thing for her, but less good for Ji-woo in particular. Oh, well; the timing of it handled the lion's share of the work for Arrakis, anyway, so. No complaints from this healer.

"Where do you want me?"

"If you want to go to June now, that's probably fine?" Flywheel has had enough guiding that she handle herself, and - Ji-woo's backlash is pain. Flywheel could tell even before touching her that she's got a lot more of it than she did when she left...

(She attempts to increase skin contact with Ji-woo, to the extent that this is trivial to do with just arm movement.)

... trying to figure out esper cuddle arrangements while in pain is hard, though?

"Uhhh probably still kissing your partner, and I hold hands with you both?" she goes with, because that is the arrangement that requires the least amount of thought. Why does she have to make this decision? This decision does not require a Ji-woo. She's a little resentful that the guy who is most functional is making her make choices here, he's just as capable as she is as figuring out cuddling arrangements.

ANYWAY on to fixing lung damage! You! Lungs! You will behave yourselves!

"June's not expecting me for another half hour now." He obeys Ji-woo's instructions.

Oh, okay. Then that's what'll happen. 

(There's a bit of a discontinuity, where she pauses mid-kiss, but left to her own devices she'll resume like nothing meaningful happened.)

Jesus fucking Christ do they ever need to have a conversation this evening.

That sounds like it does not need her to reply to anything in particular, so she won't. She's fixing lung damage. Traceless first, because he's pretty easy, then Flywheel. She sat on a lot of problems for Flywheel, so there was less lung damage to fix compared to others, but: wow she had a lot of sand in those lungs. And she wasn't there to tell her cells not to trust any strange particles from out of town while Airmed was pulling the sand out of her lungs, so. Yep. There's some damage.

"... Done," she says, after a while. "Phew. ... uh, stealth guy, are you cleared to handle cuddle arrangements? I'm - like, still functional, but my ability to problemsolve things that are not medical emergencies is a little toast."

Behold! How an esper voices that they could use some help! With her words and everything.

...she breaks off the kiss. "...I'm low enough on backlash that I think it makes sense to have me mostly cuddle with Baek Ji-woo?" Who is a lot more backlashed, and therefore in a lot of pain...

"...okay by me. You good to like, make sure you get lunch and stuff? And we can meet at the silo this evening?"

"Yeah." ...Oh, she is hungry. "I'll get some food after my legs are better. See you tonight." She pauses. "...sorry for not telling you more last night."

"We can talk this evening. Yeah? - I might pick up an afternoon dungeon but I am competent to have a conversation backlashed, it is among the things I am most competent to do that way."

"Yeah, that makes sense." She manages a tiny smile at him.

"Okay. Get well soon. Thank you very much for everything, Uisa."

"It's what I do," she says, with a tiny smile of her own.

And he will see himself out of the tent and (since he teleported in) order up an OTTO! to take him to lunch while Paula finds him an afternoon dungeon.

Flywheel reaches out her now-free arm in a "come snuggle?" gesture towards Ji-woo.

Yep, she's coming for snuggles. She can, actually, manage the cuddle choreography competently this time, because it's a medical problem, not a social one. One person, and don't touch her legs! Easy enough.

Flywheel is good at maximizing skin contact. "...should I build some backlash?"

"Nope," says Ji-woo, immediately and without leaving room for any kind of argument. "My social skills tank when I'm backlashing, I won't be able to navigate your thing at all, and I'm not comfortable being in that position."

"It'd be ok if we're just lying here and not talking," she says quietly, because Ji-woo should have all the information she needs to decide. But she won't push it, obviously.

"Nnmhhrmmrhh," she replies, because her narration went and said no room for any kind of argument.

Yeah, no arguments here. She will shut up and guide the medical esper who is experiencing a lot of pain, in no small part because of her. (Idiot. why did you stand in the sandstorm like that?)

Not being privy to Flywheel's internal monologue, Ji-woo will just snuggle with her eyes closed.

(She misses Minseo. She wants updates on the fascinating new member drama. While getting guiding cuddles. Terrible that she does not have this.)

Hmmm. She should say something. (...what does she have to say to Baek Ji-woo? "I'm a huge fan of your work?")

"Seo Tae-hwan and Min Woo-young left this morning, right?" There we go, small talk about her guildmates.

"Yeah. Don't want to let their sleep schedules get too borked, and Woo-young should stay near his battery. It's not as mobile as he is."

"To be fair,” she says with a smile, "it's very difficult to be as mobile as Min Woo-young."

Snort! "True! But it's also hooked up to a computer thing, I think? So. Not mobile in general."

"It stores the teleports for us, not itself!" (that's inane. you're blathering.)

"Selfless computer sunbae here to help us all arrive on time, always the teleport-bridesmaid, never the teleport-bride. Or something."

"Selfless computer sunbae..." The delight is obvious in Flywheel's voice. "When will it be her turn to catch the teleport-bouquet..." 

"Well, unfortunately for her, she has no arms, soooooo...."

"Right, right, how could I forget? She lost them when she was just a young processor..." Headshake.  "War can be so cruel." (This seems like it's... better than silence, anyways?)

It is, yeah. Ji-woo is not quite emotionally up to high levels of wordplay right now, but being silly is better than being alone with the pain. She can't quite properly get into it, but this is fine. Above average thing to be doing when she's stuck doing nothing.

Snort. "Gotta work on our computer healthcare. Between this and the viruses...."

"If only your power worked on computers! We'll have to turn to another esper for help..." Tiny pause for effect. "It's a shame Scarlet Inferno retired, I hear she had really good fire walls." (Flywheel loves being above average, though she'd like to figure out something better to be doing than this...)

This earns another snort. "Hey, one of my hoobaes is a fire esper, bet she could fill in." Though, why would literal fire work as a firewall, that is not how anything - bad brain, be distracted. "Went to karaoke with her. She's a sweetie."

"Awwww." Wait, that rings a bell. Fire esper, Quasar... "She's - the one who was at White Star before she left and came to Korea, right?"

"Mhmm. Their loss, though, Quasar continues its glorious habit of thievery! Bwuahahahaha~"

"Yeah, I only read a bit about it but what I did read sounded like a huge fuckup on their part." She grins. "So who are you planning on stealing next? Skybreaker? Athena?"

"Probably not, honestly, we tend to take in rescue espers? Skybreaker and Athena seem like they don't need to be rehomed. Esper rehomed. Reguilded?"

"Yeah," she says, suddenly sounding rather distant, "the two of them seem like they're doing fine where they're at." What, are you a stray dog? Get over yourself! Idiot.

"Yeah," agrees Ji-woo. She gives Flywheel a pat. "Relatedly, if you'd like to be whisked away to Korea..."

Augh. She - "I - really am honored, and if it were closer I would have already said yes, but -" she takes a deep breath. "- the last time I moved to another country for esper reasons it was kinda hard on me, and I should - really probably wait a while before I try that again." (...can she be slightly clingier? Is that okay?)

Totally okay. Ji-woo even gives her some soothing pats.

"Sooooo valid. And Traceless seems cool. This is like... if you are hopelessly lost and overwhelmed and desperately want someone to help you? I will personally help you." Pat pat. "In general, not just running way to Korea-wise. You've been through some shit."

Yeah, that will get her a very clingy Flywheel. "I-I do feel pretty lost," she whispers, trying not to cry on the best healer in the world. (Much worse bragging rights than making out with the best teleporter in the world!)

"Yeah. I know. It sucks, I'm sorry." Pat pat pat, Ji-woo is feeling very maternal. Poor little baby esper... "You did help kill Arrakis though, so. That was pretty badass."

Kind of avenged Willowbark, in a weird sort of way, but Ji-woo has enough practice with death to literally never bring that up unless she's pretty sure Flywheel would find it legitimately comforting.

Flywheel looks like she's about to cry. 

And then she hears and tries to process the second part of that. "...Huh." 

"Yeah! Good job. Though uh, little concerning of you to launch yourself alone like that," she's read the report by now, "but - I really feel that was more of an overall organizational problem of the people in charge not putting enough defense on the strike teams, not really a your decisions problem? Ideally you would not be put in that position, but. You totally helped kill it."

"I - Skybreaker would maybe have been able to get her team there? She's really fast. But... Menhir had the sensing covered, and I can move and shatter a core, so - it just made sense." (She... helped kill Arrakis... are you fucking stupid? you were there? it doesn't feel real.)

"Yeah. It was potentially salvageable by some others present. But you're the one that salvaged it." Pat pat.

Flywheel seems like she's struggling to fully process this. 

"...'m a bit glad we don't have any way of knowing if it was me or Rhombus," she says, faintly. (This is inane, obviously, but she's too stunned to mock herself for it.)