"Mm, or close enough. I hear the pleading might be worse," he said, but he smiled. "Trust in yourself. All the voices, all the words you'll hear as we travel through that space, they don't matter. To get you home in the right way, the lasting way, we need to get back to the train."

For the whole of it, those uncomfortable minutes that stretched out to a tiny eternity, through the riots of rainbows and voices and not so much a river as a flood that wished to swallow them whole. He tightened his grip on her hands, a squeeze of reassurance.

"Are you ready?" Have you said your goodbye, as much as we get one, in these limited times?