Magdalena didn't remember actually going back to her mother's apartment; it seemed like she'd blinked, and the scene had changed from grief-hazed hatchery to grief-hazed living room. Mary closed the door behind them softly while Magdalena looked around blankly. She dimly recalled someone, probably her mother, drawing the unnamed, unformed little dragon from her arms, remembered making a vague, half-articulated protect, but after that, the trip down from the topmost level of Zion was a blur. Perhaps blurred by more tears, perhaps by exhaustion. Even now, nothing looked completely clear, as if vision refused to work right, or she just didn't care enough to focus properly. That was probably it.

Her eyes felt swollen and itchy from crying, and her legs hurt from so much standing, kneeling, and then walking. Protesting to all the emotion, the first touch of a bond and then the sudden severing of it, her head was pounding with the worse headache she'd ever experienced. Her hands, hair, and shirt were sticky with the fluids from inside the egg, and somehow she felt utterly exhausted, drained of everything but the wish to curl up somewhere and sleep for the next ten years.

Hands on her shoulders guided her to the bathroom. "Take a shower, Mags," her mother told her gently. "Get clean, and then come talk to me."

Talk? What was there to talk about? Still, even as weary as she was, the thought of hot water pounding on her sore body sounded too good to be possible, and she slowly began shedding clothes as Mary slipped out, shutting the door behind her.

It took longer than she could have imagined to just undress and wait for the water to get hot, and whether it was because she was moving so slowly herself or because of something else, time just seemed to crawl by. Finally, she stepped under the square shower and shut the shower door behind her. Not bothering with soap, too tired to manage much with it anyway, she simply stood under the fountain with her eyes shut, trying to think of nothing, and hoping the water would cleanse away grief and pain along with the remains of the afternoon.

Magdalena found that thinking of nothing was very, very difficult. Scenes of "what if" and "if only" kept rolling through her mind, all of which involved a little mottled chrome and bronze dragon, and most of which showed her healthy and strong. Even the ones where she was weak, somehow the adult dragons had managed to save her. Tears leaked out of sore eyes again, lost in the water everywhere, but when she forced herself to turn away from daydream, memory took its place, and that was worse. Right then, she would have gladly given anything to up her gift of perfectly remembering everything she ever saw or heard. Forgetting the failed bonding and failed hatching was the only thing she wanted, and it was the only thing she couldn't do.

Mary waited outside, Magdalena knew, waiting to "talk". Magdalena didn't want to "talk", so she simply didn't leave the shower. When she got too tired to stand, instead she sat, holding her knees and staring at the floor while water continued to pound on her shoulders. When the hot water ran out, all too soon, she reached over lethargically to turn it off, but didn't move, even though she was soon shivering. The apartments in Zion never seemed to get warm enough, especially not the showers.

If she could just be alone, maybe she could find something else to think about; the supposed sympathy in her mother's eyes would undo her again, and that was the last thing she wanted. Even after the shower, her head still hurt, as if it were raw and ragged somewhere inside. More sobs like the ones before would only make it start throbbing again. Just moving might it start throbbing again. Besides, talking would only make it more real-- as if somehow it could be made "more real" than the images that rolled mercilessly through her mind's eye.

Her mother finally decided to press the issue, knocking loudly on the door. "Mags? Magdalena, are you done yet?"

Magdalena winced and buried her face in her knees, thin, wet strands of hair shutting out only a very little of the light. Oh, just go away... she thought fiercely, making something inside her head burn uncomfortably.

"I'm not going to, Magdalena," came the response to the unspoken words. For a moment, Magdalena thought she had said them, and that was why her head hurt, but she didn't remember doing so, and she always remembered things like that. But... then how did....

"I'm coming in, Magdalena," Mary called from outside, and the door Magdalena had not thought to lock swung open. The shower door did the same, and Magdalena felt a towel thrown over her. "You silly girl," she heard, the voice both exasperated and sad, and her mother drew her to her feet and started gently drying her off, as if she were four again.

"I'm not silly," she pouted-- or tried to pout. It came out stuttered and through teeth clenched by shivering.

"Yes, you are," Mary answered, still toweling fiercely enough to make Magdalena feel like she was being buffed. "You'll catch your death in here, all wet. Come on, I brought you clean clothes."

Before she could even protest, a shirt had been tugged over her head, and trousers held out for her to step into. Still shivering, she did so, and let her mother wrap her in a dry blanket and lead her into the living room, settling her on the couch and sitting beside her. Again, before she could even ask, her mother set one hand on her knee and explained, "Those people in the Vere Matrix aren't the only people with gifts. Many of those people who came in to watch the hatching are sensitive: they heard the silver dragoness calling the candidates. You are sensitive, as well as Saul, though you are both more active in it than most people. That means, you can hear such things, but you can also do them."

"Like talking back to Cel," Magdalena said slowly, curious despite her aching head and empty soul.

"Very like," Mary nodded. "I am, too, though I am very out of practice... I almost never use my gifts." She smiled a little regretfully. "But that's how I heard you. You were, shall we say, thinking at me."

Like I'd been thinking at Cel-- at the hatchlings--

The loss came crashing back down again as the scene, her words, everything scrolled like a film through her mind. A film which she could not turn off or turn away from. Shutting her eyes, Magdalena shivered and tried not to cry, but she felt more tears leaking down her cheeks, anyway. Her mother drew her close and, once again, held her while she cried.