Wipe her face of moisture, wipe her hands of blood.

The relaxation that the shower had brought with itself turned out to be ultimately transient, unfortunately yet not at all unexpectedly. Short of finally getting done with their leave, there likely wouldn't be anything else that would help with that at all. Too much weight on her shoulders, too many opportunities for something to go terribly wrong, too narrow of a tightrope on which she was trying to currently balance herself on.

Just gotta wrap a few things up and wait, wait a little bit longer, that much she was hopefully still capable of.

Anne's hands grew shakier with every article of clothing, the simplest tasks in the world suddenly turning borderline paralyzing. Just clothes. Just put these things on, one at a time. One at a time. One limb through this hole, another through that one. Trivial tasks that she kept fumbling repeatedly, needing an embarrassing amount of time just to assemble her rudimentary outfit, taking a moment to appreciate it in the mirror afterwards. Black shirt, jean shorts, purple hair tie.

Pale face, bloodshot eyes, unnerved expression.

A couple more rounds of wiping her hair later, she was good to go. Colder air of her room sent shivers through her body, goosebumps only adding to her most likely miserable appearance by now- but what can you do, what can you do indeed. Interior of the house seemed to be much quieter now, mom's probably done with whatever it was she was cooking in there? Good opportunity to go in and grab whatever.

But first, status update for one chubby fairy.

1:20 PM.

"Gonna try to grab something from the kitchen again."

Roll from her stomach over to her back, an intense sit up, predictable reply-

"Aight. Goodness, you look tired."

"Goodness, I am tired."

"Once you're done with this, maybe you can try taking a nap? We still have time."

The very idea sent a cold dread through Anne's body, even the slight risk of missing their departure filling her with fear.

"No, I can't, I can rest on the plane."

"You look like you'll doze off long before then."

"Then slap me back awake if that happens."

Pippi's eyes managed to pull off an incredible double somersault in response to that comment, flawlessly landing onto an unamused, half lidded look afterwards. Performance worthy of a gold medal in ocular gymnastics, but the Clefable would've rather taken her friend getting even a couple hours of extra rest over any chunk of shiny metal, no matter how valuable.

"C'mon. You know better than to pretend to be powerful than your own body."

"I also know that my body is feeble and would sleep until tomorrow morning if I let it."

"Good thing that I won't let it!"

"How?"

"I'll set the alarm clock to five and slide it into your shirt so that it will wake you up."

"What if batteries run out?"

"I'll keep glancing at it every few minutes."

"What if you get distracted?"

"That's what the "clock inside the shirt" strategy is for."

"What if both happen?"

"What if my wings were made of pudding?"

The non sequitur effectively derailed Anne's thought process, hands frozen mid gesture as she stared at the continuously unamused fairy, Pippi eventually clarifying-

"C'mon. You bought this clock *last week*. You changed the batteries yesterday. Did you seriously go through all that just to not even use any of it in the end?"

"There's always a risk-"

"The taxi cab could just not arrive. They could hold us at the airport because of one random bullshit reason or another. Your landlord could just not show up with your key. The fucking plane could just crash and leave us both dying in an inferno. You're smarter than yielding to every "could" out there you dummy, but this exhaustion isn't helping one bit. C'mon. If you don't wanna do it for yourself, then at least do it for me so that I know you're conscious when handling paperwork at the airport."

Anne found herself unable to come up with anything in response to that either, much to her frustration. Frustration that was only amplified by how slow her thinking was getting by then. Pippi's words had much more of a point to them than her human was comfortable admitting to, on behalf of the sheer discomfort that the necessary course of action that such an admittance implied taking.

Guess in the end, Pippi was there for her too, and was more than capable of waking her up if needed.

"I- I gues-"

Not a swat this time, but instead a precise, double grab. Each hand of the fairy grasped a hand of her human, muting them both. Long, increasingly softening glare from Pippi, culminating into letting go of Anne's hands and just hugging her tight.

Gods did she need that.

Nowhere near enough to fully soothe her, but it helped more than Pippi could ever know. Or at least more than Anne thought Pippi could ever know, the fairy herself perfectly capable of knowing the exact amount of comfort her every finger wag provided, and applying that knowledge there and then. Her human was an interminable dummy at times, but goddamn she was her dummy.

Couple pats on the back, couple steps back, a calmer, more composed look.

"Better now?"

"I-I think so, yeah. Thanks Pip."

"Anytime, dummy. Gonna grab these cups and such?"

"Yep, yep, lemme get that done."

"Good! Grab me a snack while you're out there too~"

Two dummies belonging to each other.

For once, the march to the kitchen was uneventful. A couple probing looks from around the corner revealed only the presence of Marie, and hers was the one presence that Anne didn't mind at all, even now. Thank god for the pretense she'd established earlier.

"H-hey Anne!"

"Hey. Making lunch?"

"Mhm! W-what about you?"

"Same, grabbing something for Pippi and a couple things for our camping trip."

"H-hope it goes well! Wh-where are you g-gonna be going to?"

Where, where indeed.

"Probably just over to the Moor, maybe we'll visit the Dragonspiral ruins again."

"Ho-how are they like?"

"Really grand from what you can see of them. Most of it is fenced off so it's mostly just exterior, but it really makes you wonder why the natives built it."

"I-I thought it was something to do with Reshiram and Zekrom?"

"Could be a shrine, yeah."

All the while, a small pile of drink- and kitchenware was beginning to assemble next to Anne, more added to it by the moment. Cups, a medium pot, cutlery- enough to be able to make the most miserable of dinners, everything else could be dealt with later.

Almost everything else.

The thought made the older teen pause, fingers softly tapping the cupboard as she glanced at her sister. This could very well be the last time she'd ever get to see Marie. In just a few hours her big sister will be gone without as much as a goodbye, and Anne had a hard time imagining Marie's reaction to the eventual realization as anything but an utmost heartbreak.

I'm sorry.

I wish there was a better way.

But... I can at least do this.

Put down the cup, face Marie. Do it, she deserves it. She deserves one good memory of her sister. One step, another, closer- one more. In arm's reach, just reach and-

The younger girl jumped at the sudden touch, looking nervously over her shoulder. Couple moments later and the startle was gone, replaced by warm relief and even warmer comfort, Marie's hug ten time stronger than Anne's.

"L-love you Marie."

"I love you too Anne! I-is everything alright?"

Nothing was, nothing could be, maybe nothing would ever be. But goddamn, she wanted her sister to have at least one moment of comfort she herself had been denied for so long.

"Yeah, just- stay strong for me while I'm gone, alright? Summer school's rough, but... you'll get through it, I believe in you."

Even tighter hug, a firm nod, a couple sodden sniffs.

The alarm goes off at six.

Farewell, Marie.