A quick, reflex step is taken as he stood and shook from the effort - his legs looking as though they were going to give out any moment. She wanted to help him stay on his feet and be there for him, but the thought of touching him caused her ever-nice ways to falter. Undoubtedly she would chastise herself for that later - she knew the moment he said her name that she wouldn’t be leaving this cave without him. If she had to send Hemlock for help to drag him out of here then so be it, but he would return to the sunlight and he would get better. Perhaps then it would be easier to focus on her distrust, when those bones were no longer visible and that voice was no longer hoarse. She hoped Resplendence would help her - there was no reason to think that the dun doctor wouldn’t. She just needed to get him there and she wasn’t sure if she was going to be able to do it herself. He needed healing, he needed help.

But they had only just begun. The trip to the surface was inevitable, she felt, but it would not be happening for a little while yet. She needed to find her voice again. The little owl perched between her ears stirred but he did not interrupt. Not yet. Dark eyes just watched the wraith-like creature before them, wondering why Alysanne was trembling as she fought to stay still in one spot, to not just give in. She needed to be strong for once in her life.

That apology felt like a slap - they seemed to be exchanging verbal blows - as though those two words could magically heal everything. She wished they could, but they did nothing for her. She had hoped that maybe they had all been lies when they were being spat at her while he was sick - maybe he was just trying to hurt her. But she felt the weight of the truth and she believed them. “Sorry for what? For what you said? For stealing away my memories? Or for lying to me about it all this time?” Anger tried to rise but it couldn’t break through the sadness that was there, the heartache that was present for so many reasons. For her friend who was in such terrible, terrible shape - for the memories that he had stolen from her. And now, now the questions that had been harassing her when she was alone at night come to her. She had been careful, so careful, to not be alone lately - to focus on anyone else and not what was happening with her. Alysanne did not want to deal with anything that had been spoken that day - not Mikey’s feelings, not the knowledge that Sasha would continue to abandon her again and again, not the missing memories.

Were they why she couldn’t sleep unless someone else was there? Protecting her from the darkness? Why she had taken to wandering, racing, at night instead of sleeping. It wasn’t their time in these caves, it was what she learned while she was here. The flashes that had been resurfacing here and there - of cries and pain, of her sweet sister, of blood.

Tears she wished would sink back into her welled within her eyes and she turned her head to hide them from him, the glow of the plants glinting on those little droplets of salt water. Still with her head turned, she whispered softly in the darkness - her voice shaking as she suppressed the sobs. “What were they? Tell me what it was that you took from me. I need to know. I need to.” She had been agonizing over it ever since she had found out, wondering what it could be. Was it something terrible? Or had he taken something else, and how much of her past was she missing? All this time he had been her best friend and she never knew. Why hadn’t he just told her? Did she really come across so weak as to not be unable to handle the knowledge?