It's not like it's anything Abby can control, but it still helps, hearing her promise not to leave. That they'll stay together. It takes what happened and twists it into something different, something that isn't predestined. Into a choice.

I feel like we were fated to meet, she'd said to Ellie over a year ago, sitting on a half-wall and watching the sun go down. But you were also my choice.

At the time it had seemed like a good thing, that strange intersection between destiny and free will. Maybe that's the trick of it. That she is fated to make the choices that will hurt her the most in the end, just like all the other heroes. She's no different from any of them.

Abby rubs her back, the palm of her hand following the curve of Clarisse's spine down and then back up again. She tries to match her breathing to it, inhale, exhale, repeat, focusing on that. And it works, sort of—a heavy exhaustion spreads through the core of her, making her feel weighed down in a way that feels almost good, because it means she's too tired to panic. She's aware of the way her eyes ache and her cheeks feel sticky with half-dried tears, and she wipes them with the hem of her shirt. Abby's still holding her other hand, and Clarisse could extract herself from it but she doesn't want to yet.

"We have to—tell everyone," she manages after a minute, grasping for something that makes sense. "Figure out what to do with all... her stuff."