Annie snuggled closer under the covers, and Carl felt a kiss on his shoulder in the same spot where he was moderately certain he'd have a bite mark for the next couple days. "Mmm, I needed that," she murmured.

It was a miracle that they hadn't woken the kids up—or at least, that's what he would have thought had they not already had fifteen years of experience in being very, very, very quiet when times called for it. But that was obviously not something that could be left to chance or opinion; he'd done extensive testing with a sound level meter just after they moved in, playing constant tones at set volumes and pitches in order to—

"Carl," Annie said, punctuating his name with another kiss, "I'm exhausted now, but we do need to talk about it."

"Hm?" Carl began drawing random patterns with his fingers on his wife's back.

"I know, Carl," she said, placing both hands on his chest. "I know about everything. Were you ever going to tell me? Or were you gonna like…have this other life?"

Carl drew in a breath. He'd somehow imagined that maybe they'd be able to skip having this exact talk for now—though that was obviously unrealistic, he supposed, given the circumstances when Mina had likely told her everything—and maybe have it in a week or two instead, when he'd had enough time to adequately construct his reasoning for—

"I'm not mad, I just want to understand," Annie said in a pleading half-whisper. "I thought we promised to share everything?"

The words twisted like a really pointy thing in the center of his chest, and he squeezed her a bit. "I'm…sorry," he said, not really sure what else he could say right now.

"Were you going to tell me?" she asked, pulling away a little.

"Of course I was," Carl said determinedly. "I… Well, you seemed really stressed yourself lately, so I was gonna see if you were feeling better when your sister left, and then…"

"Really?"

"I promise. I was absolutely gonna tell you in the next week or two."

She sighed and laid her head against him, reaching up with a hand to pull her hair back. "Why—How did you even get into all that? I mean, I couldn't believe it was you doing all that. And how did you even have time for it all?" Her voice rose in pitch and volume as she spoke. "And some of it was so… So awful!" She shivered.

Carl hugged her more tightly, and she shuddered.

"So fucking awful," she murmured.

"Some of it was," he agreed, recalling again the abuser. "Hard to believe people like that could ever exist."

Annie nodded against him. "So how did you get wrapped up in it? How long has this been going on?"

"Well…" Carl considered it, balancing those thoughts against how upset his wife seemed, despite her claims that she wasn't, though in the end obviously he had to tell the truth since he would never, ever lie to Annie. "I guess it was a little while after I started at Fire? I started logging in just to go fishing at lunch—"

"Carl, what are you talking about? Logging in? You're saying it like it's the same as logging into a fucking computer!"

"You mean… Going to another world?"

"Obviously I mean going to another world!"

It was definitely a surprise to Carl to hear that same phrase Vol had used now, but his main focus at this moment was in helping his wife make sense of things, ideally in a way that let her stop worrying and being stressed as quickly as possible since she had plenty of other things to worry and be stressed about. Everything else could wait until later.

"Alright," he said in a calming voice, decidedly not making any attempt to physically sooth the rapidly-breathing and tensed Annie, who absolutely hated such things when she got worked up and felt that they infantilized her. "So last year's when it started, and I used to just go to fish during lunch for like fifteen or twenty minutes because I was too busy to be able to even think about fishing normally."

Annie took a deep breath and held it for a couple seconds before exhaling. She leaned her head against his chest again. "Sorry, I didn't mean to get upset. I've been trying not to freak out all afternoon so I wouldn't scare the kids, but every time I think about… And all the… The terrible things that happened to Mina…"

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"She deserved better," Carl said. "I did my best once I found out, but—"

"I know you did," Annie said. She kissed a short trail from his chest to his shoulder. "I know you did, Carl. And I love you so much for it. You're a hero, Carl. My hero. You saved her."

Carl sighed and shook his head. "Nah, I couldn't do that much. I was just there when she needed someone to support her. I was hoping she'd get in touch with you, since I knew you'd be way better at this kinda thing, but I didn't expect…"

While Carl had spent the past two weeks with Mina and had even begun to think of her as sort of mostly being one of his daughters, translating that back to real life and having it become reality had been a little bit of a weird hurdle that had taken some time to get over. She was absolutely a great, sweet, bright kid, and he'd been thinking for a while that he'd have been proud if she really was his daughter, but abstract thoughts on the matter were different than making it actually happen, and he hadn't had any sort of a plan together for this possibility.

"You're really okay with it?" Annie asked.

"Of course," Carl said immediately. "She's a great kid. The girls already like her too. Having her here, where she can be safe and happy, is… It's awesome, Annie." He smiled down at her, even though he knew she couldn't see him clearly in the dark. "You really are the best."

"I just wanted to give her a chance to be great," Annie whispered.

"With us looking after her, I'm sure she will be."

Annie let out a somewhat contented-sounding sigh. "I hope so."

They lay together in silence for a few seconds.

"So…" Annie said before trailing off into a yawn. "You'd just…go there…and fish? How do you even get there from your office?"

"I've got a headband in my office."

"A headband."

"Yeah. It's hooked up to—Well, there's this local machine farm there, and I connect to it using a thin client, which means I have crazy low latency compared to—"

"So you're using this machine farm at the office to go to another world."

"More or less."

"And it's a technical kind of thing. Not a magic kind of thing."

"Nah, definitely not magic. Real boring stuff once you get over the learning curve about synchronization, and load balancing, and all that—"

"Okay, alright, and you…made this?"

"What? No way, it's all Fire tech. You know I'm just in IT; I don't do software or hardware development."

"It's a company thing?"

"Oh, right, I guess I never mentioned it. Yeah, they give out the hardware for everyone who works there to mess around with. Kind of an extra perk of working there."

"I…see… Okay. Okay. But it's only at the office. It's not like you're gonna be trying to break through any walls, or do magic, or anything like that now that you're home, right? Nothing's going to follow you back here, is it?"

"No, of course not. I've really got a handle on it, I promise."

"I know, I know, I'm just worried, Carl. You can see why I'd be worried, can't you?"

"Sure, sure, I get it. Look, it's not a big deal to me. If you're that worried, I'll stop. I can find other stuff to do."

"No, no, definitely not! That's not what I meant, okay? I don't want you to give anything up ever again."

"Okay, sorry, I'm just trying to be helpful."

"I know. I'm sorry. I'm not… I'm not trying to seem like I'm attacking you or anything, okay? I'm just trying to understand." Annie nuzzled her face against his chest. "It's been twenty years. I trust you."

Carl ran his thumb along the back of her ear. "You know I'd pick you and the girls if you asked."

"I'm not gonna ask, and I don't want you to have to choose," she half-whispered, sounding upset. "I want you to be careful."

"I'm always careful. You know I'm triple-checking everything."

"I know," she said, chuckling a little. "But still," she continued, her tone growing more sober again, "I wanna make sure you don't get in over your head."

"Annie, you know the second anything risky starts happening, I'm gonna shut the whole thing down, or my name's not Carl—"

"Don't."

"—Low-Risk Weathers."

Annie groaned, but she was unable to resist a single chuckle as she slapped his chest. "I thought we were done with that."

"I was actually going by Carl Maximus Weathers the past couple weeks with Mina."

Annie snorted, and the exhalation quickly turned into snickers. "Much better."

Carl chuckled along quietly. "It was a kinda in the moment thing."

She yawned again. "Tell me some stories about your adventures in another world sometime when I'm not falling asleep. I wanna know all about it. And how it works and everything."

Carl yawned in reply. "Alright. I'm working from home tomorrow, so we can talk more when you get home?"

Annie pushed herself up and gave him a quick kiss on the lips. "I love you, Carl."

"I love you, Annie."

"'Night."

"'Night."

She pulled away and moved to her pillow, and Carl moved the other way a bit, rolling onto his back and closing his eyes.

All things considered—which wasn't a lot of things because he was pretty tired at the moment—that talk had gone great. Sure, there were going to be other ones, he knew, but he felt like he was… Like he was feeling a little less… Less stressed about…