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The days had marched by in a solitary manner, the first two spent in the infirmary and the next few spent holed up in her room simply because that was what she had been used to. Any other time things went poorly, Abbi had retreated to that small place of solace and spent her time trying to piece together a continually fraying consciousness, so it felt natural to do the same once more.
They had all tried so hard, they had all put their lives on the lines and for what? One good mask and one broken one.
The blow had been crushing to say the least, probably worse for everyone else but Abbi had felt it acutely nonetheless, quiet and curled up in her cot in the infirmary, angry she had suffered more scarring on her already eternally scuffed up legs. When they had discharged her she had moped for a few days, but finally decided, after a certain turn of events, that she really ought to just continue being the person she had been in the cave.
There she had been brave, even while horribly frightened, and been able to do what someone else needed to get by. It hadn't been much, but the whole group might have scattered had she not lit the torches and ran with them to the bridge. They undoubtedly would have been lost if she hadn't talked to Otto, and though she felt irreparably guilty over having to leave Stormy in that pit, it had turned out for the best.
So why not keep going?

It had been difficult, but she had managed to procure a trip through the portal to a fairly sedate place alongside an older Moon who had happily helped her complete a very small mission. There and back again was easy and once back Abbi sequestered herself to her room once more, only this time the whole place was not quiet. She played music, she listened to something other than her own breathing and tended to her wounds before she mustered up the strength to tend to others.
It took her another day before she was ready, but one cloudy afternoon she wandered down the hall, a huge paper bag filled with boxes wrapped in Disney Princess paper in one hand, and stopped in front a certain door. The girl took a breath and knocked a cute, quick pattern before she called out in her best singing voice: "Do you wanna build a snowman?"

"C'mon let's go and plaaaay!" She continued, her voice gaining a little more strength and actually honeying to something nice now that she had committed herself. "I never see you anymore, come out the door, its like you've gone awaaaayyy!" One arm tossed out to the side in a very 'princess pose', since Abbi was now dedicated to her part. Plus, she felt she had some time to play things up a bit since Stormy had yet to come to the door.
"We used to be best buddies, and now we're not... I wish you would tell me whyyyyy!" The girl quickly set down the bag and put her hands on the door, lifting up to peek in through the peephole.
"Do you wanna build a snowman? It--" The door opened abruptly, surprise coloring her smile that didn't ebb as she laughed once, quickly, and finished in a silly voice, "It doesn't have to be a snowman..." Abbi laughed at herself, flushed a little for her performance and laughed again when she didn't know what to say at first.

"O-oh! Uh I just wanted to drop by and see how you were doing..." Someone had always dropped by to see Abbi after stressful events, the first had been Nevada and the girl felt she owed it to Stormy, for a variety reasons, most of which were not involved with her own guilt.
It was hard not to look at the little hat Stormy wore, dreadfully hard given that Abbi knew what wasn't underneath it anymore. Someone in the infirmary had told her, had informed her of what happened, but it was still hard to believe without actually seeing it. But the girl kept her gaze firmly on her friend, certain Stormy would feel just as awful about it as Abbi would have in her position.

The bag was brought up with a crinkle of wrapping paper and crunch of the bag itself, Abbi's grin growing wider as she tilted her head to one side.
"I brought presenttsssss~" As though they might be a ticket into Stormy's room, she shook the bag again and blinked hopeful, big blue eyes at her friend.

Still nervous that she had been seen singing (which felt very different from just being heard), the girl continued to blush and laugh and attempt to stammer out something else funny to say. It really only stopped when she was pulled into a sudden hug, the hand that held the bag staying straight down with the weight of what she'd brought while the other hovered in the air uncertainly before it curled around her friend.
"I-its... Its not that good... I'm no Indina... But um... I took chorus for a few years! I even got in the advanced class..." Even if she hadn't ever bothered to go to the concerts they performed. But she smiled nonetheless and followed Stormy into the room without complaint, careful to only peek once, or three times, at Nevada's vacant side of the room before she noticed bean bag chairs.
With a squeak she crashed down into one with a sigh, snuggling down into the silly goodness of it before she wiggled into a better, more conversational, position.

"Yeah yanno, ok enough." She sat up and kicked her feet out in front of her, heels resting so that her toes pointed at the ceiling. "Went to my room for a while... Asked Ripley to bring me some food and they didn't leave fooorrrrrr... Three days?" Maybe it had been four. It didn't really matter, not in the end.
"But better than I could be!" Poor choice of words. "Better than I was after the trip to the Sahara, that's for sure." Stormy had been overcome with bugs then too, hadn't she?
Yikes, Abbi wasn't so good at this...
"What about you?" She chirped quickly, shuffling the bag between her knees simply for something to do. "I mean like, if you don't wanna talk about it... That's ok I know it was... Um..." A hand waved through the air in an indeterminate fashion that could have meant anything. "But I know talking makes me feel better... Sometimes."

"Yeah! Yanno they make you take an elective in high school and like... I couldn't play an instrument and I didn't want to take art and my Dad owns an autoshop so taking shop class was like totally out of the picture." She laughed, surprised things could go back to being silly and easy like this. Often times Abbi forgot that Stormy was only a little older than she, just a few months really. They might have even been friends had life thrown them together sooner, or they might have resented the other for being too similar in a sea of cattiness called school.
But that thought is let go, smashed under the strange far away look in Stormy's eyes.

Even if she doesn't quite understand it, Abbi feels bad for having mentioned anything at all. She tells herself, quite hastily, in the same manner she used to talk to herself when she did not have Viveca to tell she'd done something wrong, that Stormy isn't thinking bad things. That she is only thinking of puppies and kittens and singing in fields of flowers, or hugging Gale, or saying something to her weapon.
But Viveca rumbles with a prod, ever content to be a bubble buster and voice of conscious. Abbi looks down at the bag, considers what she could say to make any of this better and says nothing because Stormy speaks first.
"Y-yeah?" She's not sure what to say, because she's not sure who Stormy is talking to exactly. There are still bandages under Abbi's high socks, little ones that will be taken off in a day or two and carefully peeked under to count up the new scars. But Stormy has lost all her hair, has her own bandages on too.

So instead of saying anything about that, Abbi shrugged.
"Nah, nothing too bad besides more bugs... I don't think... I talked to Vivi about it and she said there was... Something that tried to... To change our minds?" She speaks absently and instead began to shuffle in the bag she'd brought. "She said it gave us nasty thoughts, or at least did to me. She said it wasn't me, but it sure sounded like me." The girl shrugs, a perfect depiction of how she feels about all of it.
The mission soured, it went wrong and she can't fix anything. It isn't that she doesn't care, it is just that she is too small and too weak to change things. At least the big things.

With a small turn up of one side of her mouth, Abbi upends the bag to pull out a very normal sized package. It is wrapped in bright pink paper, dotted with big images of sparkles and various Disney princesses. Ariel smiles up from underneath giant letters that read 'OPEN FIRST'. The other presents scatter at her feet, each in similar paper, but she only laughs very lightly before she sticks out the present in her hand at Stormy.
"Here! These are all for you but... This one'll be best to open first!"

There was a fair deal of toning down going on, but more for Stormy's sake rather than to pretend things had gone well. Things had gone far better for those up above than it had down below and Abbi knew this far too well. She'd gotten lucky, she wasn't about to tell Stormy just how lucky they'd been.
"You still did it."
It wasn't good, but it was the best she could think of. Reluctant to dwell on it further, Abbi wiggled the box at the girl until it was taken.

With an expectant grin she watched, and waited, and hoped this would be ok, that she hadn't royally messed up by bringing gifts. Unused to someone taking their time with present unwrapping, Abbi got a little fidgety as she waited for Stormy to pull off the paper. Her hands poked idly at the bag, then pulled up one sock, then twirled in her left pigtail until finally the thing was unveiled.
And there was silence.
{ I told ye it was a bad idea! I told ye and ye did'na listen and now she's gonna cry! Jack'n'Sally ye'r a right idiot }
But the girl balked inwardly, refused to believe what her headmate saw and broke into a smile when Stormy finally spoke.
"You like it? You wear really muted colors so like-- I thought you'd like it!" That didn't explain things and for a moment longer Abbi tugged on her own hair before she "oh"d loudly and fished around for a smaller box. This one was the size of a large bracelet box, wrapped in paper that sported at least four different princesses.

"That's got... A few in there. Just so you can... Wear a different one each day." Inside the small box were five wig caps, three nude, a black and a nearly white, pale blonde color. "The lady at the store said you could wear the same one every day, but I thought that might get grody really fast... Your head is really hot and emits a lot of heat... An-and its got a bunch of skin cells up there, always shedding, yanno? So I thought maybe a few would be good, so you can switch them out!" Another laugh left her as her hands fumbled for another box.
This one was poorly wrapped, clearly the ends of the roll and left over pieces taped in strange corners and places to cover the notion of a box underneath. But as Abbi offered it, her eyebrows curled a little even though she smiled still.
"I didn't have to, yeah. But I wanted to... So I did!"

When Stormy went silent, Abbi spoke more, just to fill the void created. There were very few people she'd ever encountered who could leave quiet without disruption from the teen and unfortunately for Stormy, she was not one of those select persons.
"I-I mean like if you don't like them we can totally return them it was just that like-- I thought maybe that you would-- In the off chance you wanted-- I wasn't sure but--" She tripped over her words like jumping to new ideas, not even an idle hope that someone would finish the thought for her so much as just in a hurry to get it all out. No one knew what she thought but Viveca, and Abbi, accustomed to it before the advent of her weapon, just wanted everyone to know she wasn't one sided.
But when Stormy begins to cry, she stops and goes very quiet.

Her hands jam together in her lap, waiting for something else to happen beyond the tears, though she half expected them, but when Stormy is surprised and wipes them away, Abbi realizes she was slightly off. She had fully expected the gift to backfire, to be thought of poorly, but Stormy has seen what she was going for and has cried anyways. Somehow that seems easier to handle...
"No, its ok..." The girl says softly, rummaging around in her pockets. She only finds lent and a few grains of sand, so instead turns to the unended bag of presents. There has to be something in here, she knew she'd prepared for this and with a very loud "AHA!" Abbi offers her friend a pack of Tinkerbell decorated tissues.
"You think so?" She begins tentatively, trying to keep herself from rushing back into speaking.

"I mean, I did go a little bright but I figured... Yanno... You might want something really bright to... Lighten things up!" She means her life even if Abbi is reluctant to just come out and say it.
But she is quite willing to talk about where she procured them and sits up with a grin.
"New York! I took one of my leave days to go get them, an older Moon lady came with me she's super sweet. But I used to live in Connecticut and its a pretty short train ride to New York so Natalie uh my step-mom and I used to go a lot and I always saw this one really cool wig store but never got a chance to go. Plus, yanno, my dad totally wouldn't let me wear wigs." Abbi laughs and picks up a small box to hand over. "But so I did a little bit of shopping! I may have gone a little over board but the wigs were all so pretty and I wanted you to have options..."

When Stormy said it was ok, Abbi nodded. Once, to show she understood. Because she did, even if she was sorry she had made her friend cry at all.
When Stormy said it again, Abbi nodded again before she tried a smile. It felt easier when her name was said, something strange that made her realize she was with another person and not a game with predetermined phrases. Sometimes it was easy to pretend otherwise, but not today.
"You've never been to New York?! Omigosh, I thought everyone had gone!" A third box is offered again, practically vibrating as Abbi handed it over. This was rather exciting after all.

To be asked about home did make her sigh wistfully, falling back into the bean bag chair to think it over.
"Its not always cold... It gets really cold in the winter, yeah, but the rest of the year is nice! Really nice, actually... But some parts are busier than others. I lived in a pretty small town." Her forefinger and thumb pinch to show just how small. "We could walk wherever we wanted, the whole town had nice sidewalks and big oak trees next to the road. Like one of those towns they show in all the movies, yanno?" Abbi laughed and shrugged. "Nice, I guess... But pretty boring. How about Illinois? I've never been there!"

Still shocked that she'd met someone who'd never visited the Big Apple, she wiggled in the chair.
"Gosh, you'd totally love it! Its so bustly and big and there is so much to see and do and so many people!" Abbi kicked her legs out so she could sit up quickly and clench her fists together. "We should totally double date there! I bet Gale hasn't ever been and Ripley's Canadian so he's probably never gone either! I can show you all around! There's this great pizza place that's a total hole in the wall but it is DE-LEESH!" Forefinger and thumb bent together in a circle that was brought up to one of Abbi's eyes so she could wink through before she dropped it with a laugh. Glad she had something to gush about while the other girl worked through the present, she couldn't help but notice the emotions playing across her friend's face. She might not be able to name them, but she saw them and filed them all away. Maybe one day they would make sense, maybe one day Stormy could name them for her and it would all come together.
But for now, the girl nodded at the mention of home life.

Part of her felt weird talking about this, especially since she had shucked away most of her fondness for home in attempt to make herself content with the here and now. But now that they had begun down this proverbial road of conversation, Abbi felt herself opening up with an odd feeling of lightness.
"Aurora sounds like such a pretty name! And sounds just like home... It always snowed in the winter, no matter what. I'm pretty good walking in the snow, I'm small enough to be like an elf and just walk on top of it!" She laughed again and sat back in the chair for a moment, wondering what else she could ask Stormy. "Did you like it there? Or did you like somewhere else better?" That wasn't safe at all, but there was a certain appeal to the dangerous memories now that they had gone through a cave together.

Which quite nicely flowed into the next thing.
The girl blinked at the teen opposite her before she shook her head lightly.
"Why would I be mad at you?" Abbi asked, genuine curiosity apparent in voice and face. For once she went quiet and said nothing else, instead blinking blue eyes across the way. There were still three boxes yet unopened at her feet, but she didn't pick them up or even look at them. Not when she was confused about why should she be mad at Stormy, who needed the gifts enough that she had cried over them.