Anix had insisted on carrying her back to the hab, though Haven knew she was perfectly capable of walking. Something a little bit like embarrassment tickled her, and for a time she was worried that the xenodrug was wearing off and she'd go right back to hating herself again, but the embarrassment never grew into the hurricane of self-loathing that she was used to. It was just that: a little embarrassing.

  This was new territory for Haven. Having a state between feeling nothing and feeling all-consuming hatred for herself was, perhaps unsurprisingly, nice. Even in Secretary Mode, before, she never felt so free to simply feel without worrying what would come next.

  Once they got back to the hab, Anix finally allowed Haven to touch the ground, though she was never more than a meter or so away from her at any time. She ran Haven through a few cognitive warmup exercises, and then told her to make a fried egg on toast.

  After a moment's thought, Haven went to the compiler, ordered up the necessary ingredients, and climbed back up onto the stepstool. She heated up the cooktop, brushed a bit of butter across a slice of bread, and gently id it down to brown. The egg opened up easily enough (though she broke the yoke again, which was a little annoying). A quick handwash ter, and she cast a shotgss of water into the frypan with the egg and cpped the lid on.

  It was no stroganoff, but it was easy.

  "Very good!" Anix said, finally speaking up to praise Haven and ruffle her wig a bit. "A very good sign! You're even taking complex action based on simple instruction! We'll have to test it more, of course, but if we can extend this behavior to conditioned responses, I think it very likely you could live as an independent with nothing more than a bit of assistance from your hab AI — and that's if you're not living with that cutie Tara," she added, giving Haven a gentle poke with a vine and smiling.

  Haven sat with that for a moment, staring at the egg as it steamed away under the fogged-up gss lid. It was almost time to take it out. "I'm sorry for all the stuff I said earlier. About domestication." The idea of it still prickled at the back of her mind — Trish's description of it wasn't gone from her memory, after all — but Anix's reaction to hearing it had definitely cast it in a new light, and the Affini had never been anything but kind and endlessly accommodating for her.

  "Shush," Anix said. "Not your fault in the slightest. You were given incorrect information that, frankly, I am stunned you were even able to encounter. Which reminds me, I really do need to schedule that wellness check for — Trish, was it?"

  "I don't know her st name," Haven said. She felt a little guilty that she might be getting someone else in trouble, especially someone who had been nice to her and tried to help her out, even if she apparently had a weird axe to grind about the Affini. "Sorry."

  "We are going to have to do something about this habit you have of apologizing for literally everything, too," Anix said as she extracted her tablet from inside herself and began tapping away at it. "Your neurological reflex to pce all bme on yourself may be suppressed, but the verbal reflex is an entirely different part of the brain. And as it happens, it's no difficulty to find her — in fact, I already have, and no surprise, she's presently in a wardship. Well, rather than a wellness check, I'll just draw up a Finding of Fact by Third Party for the committee, then."

  Another tingle of distant shame for ratting someone out, but compared to the depths she'd descended to before, this was a puddle at best. She lifted the lid and pulled out the egg she wasn't going to eat, levering it onto the piece of toast with a spatu. "Is she gonna get in trouble?"

  "She is going to get the assistance she needs to shake such wrongheaded ideas about florets, just like you're going to get the assistance you need to live a happy life in the Compact — domesticated or otherwise." She gave a little headpat with a vine as she typed. "Either way, you will both be happy. That is the Compact's promise to all sophont life, my little flower, and never forget it."

  "Right..." As Haven climbed down from the stepstool, she couldn't shake the idea that something was missing from the conversation, and it was only just before the hab AI chimed, announcing a visitor, that she realized that she'd forgotten to harangue herself on the subject of not being deserving of the effort.

  It was simultaneously a tremendous relief to not have had to thought that, and very, very odd to have had the space to be confused about it.

  "Ah! Good, good, they're here," Anix said, tucking her tablet away inside herself, dozens of tiny vines seizing it and pulling it slowly into her foliage. Another vine at Haven's back steered her gently for the entryway. "They've been worried sick about you, of course."

  Haven was still grappling with wondering who would be worried about her (a question of which of the several people she knew, as opposed to the question of who would be worried about her, which was also a very odd feeling) when the door opened and she felt herself being lifted off her feet not by vines but by two strong and very terran arms. She was hanging there, being squeezed, legs dangling helplessly in midair, arms pinned to her sides, for a long moment before she processed who was speaking.

  "I am so sorry," Tara was saying. "I thought it was just dysphoria and your stupid father, I never realized-"

  This feels really nice. It took a moment for the thought to percote, and it enjoyed all the open space inside Haven's head to spread itself out. Tara was still going on, gently letting Haven back down to the ground.

  "-if I'd known I would have-"

  Haven id her head on Tara's shoulder. That felt even better.

  Now Tara was saying something in Russian, which Haven didn't understand any of. But that was okay — she knew how to say everything she needed to say, and without using a single word at all. Tara's arms loosened as Haven gave a gentle push, which gave her just enough room to stand on her tiptoes and press her lips against Tara's. Many things might have been difficult to get started, now that she was on the xenodrug, but this? This would never be one of them.

  "It's okay," she said. "I'm okay now." And she was.

  "I still feel like an ass for not noticing-"

  "Tara, flower, if I didn't notice, and Thyrsiflora didn't notice, and indeed every affini who has been involved in Haven's care didn't notice, you can scarcely bme yourself. This was a very deeply buried little impulse." Her vines coiled back around Haven, and swept Tara in for good measure. "But the cyclokatapnothane has very effectively suppressed it, and now it's just a question of whether Haven can maintain self-care to a degree acceptable for an independent or not."

  Tara looked up at Anix, uncertainty still written across their face. "What do you mean?"

  "It's...hard to do stuff," Haven said, hugging Tara and leaning into them. "Hard to get started."

  "More specifically, suppressing the intrusive thoughts has the side effect of seriously impeding little Haven's executive function," Anix added. "But with direction, she is still able to engage with even complex tasks. We just need to ensure that reminders, conditioning, and the like will suffice as a support system. If we can't do that, then yes, she will need someone to look after her full time, which means domestication."

  "Well, what about me?" Tara said, looking back down at Haven. "You don't think I'm about to run out on you, do you?"

  "No?" It was so, so strange to be able to say that and mean it.

  "Tara..." Anix knelt down next to the two of them. "I certainly appreciate the feeling, and you are very good for Haven. No one is arguing that. But taking care of her is not your responsibility, it's ours."

  "Anix, I've been taking care of her for years," Tara replied, pulling Haven in and squeezing her. "In what world do you think I'd even want you taking that away from me?"

  "And we would never separate you," Anix replied with a soothing stroke down each of their backs that squeezed them together just a little more. "But you deserve to be able to rest as well. We would never burden you with the degree of responsibility and care that an affini assumes, little petal."

  Tara was silent for a moment. "Okay then. Haven, you and me, either way. Either we get you functional enough, by their standards, or I'm coming with you." They looked back up at Anix. "Package deal. Both of us, or neither of us."

  "That wasn't necessarily what I meant," Anix said, "but I certainly appreciate the feeling. And it is very sweet."

  Haven turned her ck of a face up to Tara. "You don't have to-"

  "I want to," Tara said. "Neither of us may have asked for it or wanted it, but I followed you sixty years into the freaking future, Haven. You really think I'm going to abandon you over this?"

  Haven took a moment to think. But only a moment.

  "No, you wouldn't."

  A hot bath had done wonders. Scoparia's idea, of course, but not an unwelcome one — Trish was carrying the shock and frustration and anger and betrayal in every muscle group she had, all of them aching and twitching and taut. The heat had soaked in, loosened it all, scoured the feeling of Koer's vines on her skin away with what little dust and grime and sweat one collected on such a perfectly manicured Affini station.

  Toweled off, hair still damp, she pulled on a fresh set of clothes and returned to the ridiculously oversized common room. The moment she walked in, the scent of rich cooking hit her nose, fresh herbs and butter and savory things. A vine gestured from the direction of the kitchen, reaching around a wall, a few sprays of white flowers making it easy to spot.

  "This way, Trish, I'm in the kitchen!" Scoparia called. When Trish came around the corner, there Scoparia stood, hovering over a rge pot on the cooktop, stirring something into it with a wooden spoon while a small forest's worth of her other vines chopped, minced, ground, and pureed other ingredients, adding them one or two at a time to the pot.

  "What-?" Trish's voice caught for a moment, and Scoparia beat it to answering.

  "I'm making chicken noodle soup," she said, smiling down at Trish before turning back to the pot, "which I am reliably informed is a balm not only for the terran body but for the terran soul as well. Also, I've invited Piper over for dinner, because no doubt you would appreciate another terran to keep you company at the moment."

  "Surprised you didn't just invite a bunch of florets and get me high enough to want to cuddle with them," Trish grumbled, crossing her arms. Even as she did, she felt a hot prickle at the back of her neck.

  She didn't look up from the cooking, but then Trish had long since learned that where an affini appeared to be looking was at best polite social signaling and at worst hunting behavior. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but did I not say just a little while ago that, despite my every instinct demanding it, I was not going to drug you silly?"

  "And two hours ago, I thought Koer was going to help me. Things change very quickly when there are affini around."

  "That, I suppose, is quite true. We are not wont to allow unacceptable situations to continue." She tapped her spoon against the pot twice to shake a few herbs still clinging to it back into the broth. "How are you feeling?"

  Trish took a breath, thought it over. "Better, I suppose," she said. "Still mad as hell."

  "I do not suppose I can bme you for that," Scoparia said. "But we should do what we can to help you let go of that feeling, too. Carrying it around won't do you or anyone else any good."

  "If you're expecting me to just forgive them for what they did to me, good fucking luck."

  "I do not expect anything," Scoparia said, finally turning her glittering indigo eyes to Trish. "I am simply saying it would be the best thing for you."

  "You were mad at them. What, am I not good enough for it?"

  "I was quite upset with Koer, yes. Then I learned the full context of what was going on, and while I cannot say I agree with how she handled the end of her mission..." She paused, set the spoon down across the top of the pot, her vines gathering up all their various jobs and mise-en-pcing them. "I would certainly not have been able to keep going at their job for sixty years, I know that much. You would have been a happy floret decades ago. And maybe that would be better for you, but I imagine it would rather defeat the purpose of maintaining a hemerosyncretic ward in the first pce."

  "So you're okay with it? With me being gaslit for sixty years?"

  "The problem, Trish, is not that Koer spent sixty years caring for you and ensuring that you were happy and active in your community despite carrying a feralist worldview. The problem is that they seem to have been unprepared for it. If they developed stress-induced phytoneuropathy, as you said...." She affected a sigh and shook her head. "I can only imagine the pain they must have been in. Must still be in, emotionally if not physically. That is our blessing and our curse, Trish — we are extremely good at empathizing with others, even when that is quite unhealthy for us."

  "Well, I don't have that particur superpower," Trish replied, gring up at Scoparia, "so you'll forgive me for not instantly shedding all ill feelings I have toward them."

  "There is nothing I need to forgive. Your feelings are your own, as I said." One vine reached out, and hesitated just short of Trish's shoulders. "I don't think it's healthy for you to cling to it, certainly, but I don't think you're somehow at fault for being angry."

  Trish eyed the vine warily. "Then I'm going to keep on being angry, thanks."

  "That is certainly your prerogative, at least for now."

  Trish looked away. Koer's words, much as she didn't want them there, were still bouncing around in her head. One line in particur churned to the top: If you choose integration, really genuinely choose it and not just as a scheme to get out of being domesticated- but how the hell was she supposed to trust anything Koer said after what had just happened?

  "It is my duty to take care of you," Scoparia continued. "My duty to ensure a good outcome for you, whatever that outcome may be, and I intend to uphold that duty. If it becomes necessary for me to assist in removing that anger, I will do it, but for now, I leave it in your hands."

  "And that's it?" Trish said, finally looking back up at Scoparia. Her eyes were burning again. Scoparia must have been chopping onions. "That's all there is? Be angry until you decide I'm not allowed to be angry anymore?"

  "Be angry if you must." Scoparia knelt down, and vine reached out those st few inches to rest around Trish's shoulder. She didn't push it away. "But not at the expense of your own life and your own happiness. I too am upset. I am upset that Koer's superiors didn't notice notice what was happening sooner. I am upset that Koer didn't notice themself — and even once they did, they no doubt they felt compelled to overstretch themselves on your behalf. I am upset that you could not be given the ending you deserved, one where you were happy in their vines. I am upset that your species so badly poisoned its own culture to the point that the NFPO decided that a hemerosyncretic ward was needed in the first pce." The vine tightened gently, a soft hug. "I am very upset, Trish. More so, I think, than I have ever been before. And I mean to make things right."

  The salty taste was back on her lips again.