"I'm certain you'll improve rapidly," Mina said. She took another sip of the tea she'd prepared.

Carl was, he had to admit, a little shaken. He'd thought that 'making tea' was a simple process of heating some water and throwing a teabag in—adding some condiments at the end since that's what tea-drinkers always wanted—but it turned out that this type of tea only made his daughter smile in the same way that he knew she did when she was trying to make him feel better about being a total noob at something.

There was no other option: he was going to have to put some time into learning how to make the perfect cup of tea.

It wasn't something he'd ever thought he'd need to do, but he was adaptable enough to recognize that there were times when a dad was gonna have to change his mind on certain beliefs to make his kids happy, like when he'd relented and agreed to let Sammy get her learner's permit the other day after refusing for months. Maybe he'd talk to Annie about it; she drank tea every once in a while, so maybe she could give him some pointers, and then he'd also have something to spend time doing with her, which he always enjoyed.

Mina set her saucer—she'd insisted that having one was an integral part of the tea-drinking experience—and mug down on the counter and gave him the kind of big hug that he was already feeling like he couldn't live without, the same as Bobby's subdued side hugs and Sammy's more aggressive tackle hugs. "It's wonderful simply to be able to be here and drink tea at all," she said softly.

Carl ruffled her hair a little. "I'm glad you're here," he said as he returned the hug, deciding even more firmly at that moment that Mina was a girl he absolutely was going to treat just like his own daughter.

Like Sammy and Bobby, she was the best.

----------------------------------------

"Alright, well I'm gonna set up and work here at the table for a while," Carl said. He pulled his folding company laptop out of his bag and set it on the kitchen table, where he'd decided to work so that Mina could feel like she had her own space in the house instead of having him barging in and out at any time—which might lead to misunderstandings or something anyway, and that was the kind of thing even an average dad was obviously going to avoid, let alone the best dad ever. "If you do wanna talk, or if you wanna hang out or anything, I'll be here."

He'd offered his ear in case she had anything she wanted to talk about, but he'd also been very aware that she was a teenage girl and she'd spent a very long time talking to Annie yesterday. From his exceedingly brief questioning on the very specific topic, it sounded like Annie had actually found a headband and, during her lunchtime, had logged into the game—which was still how he was gonna think about it, no matter what anyone tried to tell him, because he still thought the apparently-more-popular method of referring to playing New Era sounded a little pretentious, even if he worked at the company that made the game—to talk to her, and that was how they'd bonded so closely over such a short period of real-time, since obviously the game's time scaling functionality worked like that. Then they'd come back to the house and talked further and for many hours, and he didn't want to become the bad guy in this case by making it seem like he was piling onto some kind of inquisition.

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Did he have questions?

Obviously.

He had tons of questions.

But she was here now, and so was he, and she wasn't going anywhere, so he forced down his urge to uncover the answers to a number of the mysteries that he'd been curious about—like where she'd been before that she was able to get here so fast—since, when compared to her feelings of happiness and safety, knowing the answers wasn't going to change anything.

He'd just spent two full weeks with Mina while she went through some pretty serious stuff.

He knew her.

As a dad, that was enough for now.

"I'm certain I'll accept your offer later in the day," Mina said, showing a relieved smile that he recognized from Bobby and Sammy when they were tired of being asked questions about something. "I'd thought to read on my own for a short while? Annie's left me with a collection of materials—homework, as she termed it—and…" She held the ties to her hood and sank her head down a little into the collar of her hoodie, almost like she was trying to burrow away. "I'd like to impress her, if at all possible," she said more quietly.

Carl smiled reassuringly. "I'm sure she'll be really impressed by anything you do, sweetie. You don't have to worry about that."

"Still, I'll need to try my utmost," Mina said. She drew herself up with that resolved look like she'd always done when she was about to really set her mind to some kind of cool new design back in the in-game workshop. "I'd… I'd like for you to be proud of me here as well," she added before turning and scurrying—well, not exactly scurrying since she was Mina and almost always moved with a certain poise that seemed more fitting on a woman much older, but certainly moving more briskly than usual—towards the stairs.

While Carl might still be a little confused by the things that had happened over the past day, one thing he knew for sure was that he was feeling very proud right now.

He was proud of Annie for…well, just for being the absolute best, like she always was and tried to be.

He was proud of Sammy and Bobby for being so nice and sweet to a girl they'd never met before.

He was even a little proud of Rebecca, who seemed like she'd had a rare, productive talk with her sister last night and was being way less annoying than he would've expected about everything.

He was proud of Mina most of all though, for how brave she'd been to make the choice she had, to decide to stop living in games to escape everything and instead work to improve herself, even if that meant she had to lean on and depend on other people.

It was the same sort of choice that he'd had to make once, and he knew how hard it was.