"Gonna make a pie from heaven above, gonna be filled with strawberry love . . ."

[sugarsyrup]

Since dawn there have been wonderful smells floating in the air, all warm and lovely and creating a wave of extra heat radiating from the kitchen

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[i_flynomore]

Lynette comes into the kitchen a little while later, to make herself a sandwich before she goes back to work. There are smudges on her face and a streak of grease in her cropped hair, rust stains on her clothes.

She has never had pie before; pie is an anomaly. Also to-day has been fraught with tape-flash, and she's skittish and on edge, and could desperately use someone to gentle her.

[i_flynomore]

Well, that's something no azi could possibly refuse, not something phrased like that. She nods obediently and takes the plate and a fork and a few bites.

[sugarsyrup]

And Miz Deliverance smiles the way only a caretaker type can, quietly pleased. "There's a good girl. Is there anything else I can get for you?"

[i_flynomore]

It is rilly good pie omg, and Lynette is starving from spending all morning working, and she only doesn't eat too fast because of her manners training. Said manners training, incidentally, leads her to say, "No, thank you, sera. You're very kind."

[sugarsyrup]

"I'm a grandmother. It's what we do." Granted, most grandmothers don't bake magic in, but. Minor details.

[i_flynomore]

She nods. Born-men can be grandpeople, after all. She's about to take another bite when she gets an even worse flash, and she drops the plate, and stands stock-still to the sound of shattered china.

[sugarsyrup]

Miz Deliverance doesn't jump at the sound, only bends to collect the pieces. "Maybe you should sit down," she says, nonchalantly as if Lynette simply looked weary.

[i_flynomore]

Shaking now, "I'm sorry, sera. Let me do it. I'm sorry," as she tries to kneel.

[sugarsyrup]

Deliverance flaps a hand at her. "No need. Sit. Rest."

[i_flynomore]

"I'm sorry," again, as she obeys. She tucks her hands between her legs and tries to stop shaking.

[sugarsyrup]

"Nothing to be sorry for," Deliverance insists, dropping the pieces neatly into the trash bin. Oddly, not even the tiniest fragments have been left behind. "How do you feel?"

[i_flynomore]

"I'm all right. I'm all right, sera. It's nothing."

[sugarsyrup]

Gently, "You can tell me. You don't have to, but you can."

[i_flynomore]

She puts her face in her dirty hands. "It doesn't make sense to any of the born-men anyway, sera. There's nobody here who can fix it. I'm sorry."

[sugarsyrup]

"It doesn't matter. I'll listen." She doesn't add a 'you might be surprised, but it's there, unvoiced.

[i_flynomore]

For some reason that she absolutely cannot explain, she says, "It's tape-flash. I took a tape I shouldn't have, and now it's in my head, and sometimes I can't think who I am, or what I'm doing, and it doesn't stop. And I don't have a ship to fly any more. And Percy's gone, he took it too, and he's not the same any more, and he won't talk to us, and he's not here anyway. And Wayne too. Wayne's gone too. And they're my partners. I don't know what to do without them." She flushes. "I'm sorry, sera."