"Wow," mom said, her eyes widening. They were at the table, the nightly meal laid before them. Her parents and her siblings gaped at her, and she could barely suppress a satisfied smile.

"I can see your eyes," Luan said with something like wonder. "I can remember the last time I saw your eyes."

"You look..." Luna started, then stopped. She was going to say better, but she didn't want to imply that there was anything wrong with the way her sister looked before. "Great."

"Thank you," Lucy said. "Leni did it."

"Me," Leni said and raised her hand.

"You certainly did a good job," dad said, stabbing a piece of meat with his fork and lifting it to his mouth. "I can barely recognize her."

"How do you feel?" mom asked.

"Great," Lucy said, and allowed a grin. "It's nice...but not too girly. Leni's a miracle worker."

"That's wonderful."

They ate in relative silence after that, Lucy preferring to think that they were all letting themselves grow accustomed to her new look. As she ate, she stole furtive glances at Leni, her heart swelling with love. She thought again of kissing her on the mouth, but something about that distressed her. She was afraid of ruining their relationship, true, but there was something else, something new. She sat down her fork and thought, really thought, about it. The thought of kissing Leni, beautiful and exciting the night before, seemed...not enough? Yes. But also...vulgar?

Yes. Vulgar. Insufficient. She gazed at her sister. Her love for Leni was...different. It was special, pure, somehow beyond mere displays of affection. It was a spiritual love, and she imagined that this is what Jesus (if he were real) must feel for his children. She was not in love with her sister's body, but with her soul, and her heart. She realized that now, and it nearly bowled her over.

With trembling fingers, she picked her fork back up and started to eat again, wondering vaguely what you did when you were spiritually in love with someone. Marriage, right? Marriage meant that you loved someone so much that you wanted to spend the rest of your life with them. Married couples kissed and had sex. Lucy did not want to kiss and/or have sex with her sister. She may have thought she did, but she was wrong. Kissing and sex were a way of becoming one with somebody. It was a way of trying to absorb the other person into your very being.

She wanted to be one with Leni. She wanted their spirits to intertwine, she wanted to lose herself in her sister's beautiful, good-natured heart.

Despair filled her. How did you do that? Melding your body to another body was easy, but how could you meld two souls? She didn't know, and that made her shoulders heavy. She finished her dinner, asked to be excused, and went upstairs, where she sat alone on her bed. Soon, Lynn came in and dropped onto her own bed. "I really like your hair," she said.

"Thanks," Lucy said, faraway.

"I mean it." Lynn rolled onto her side and propped herself up on her elbow. "I don't get all girly, but...it looks nice."

"I think so too."

"Are you going to keep it?"

Lucy opened her mouth, then closed it again. Her immediate reaction was to say yes, and while she did plan to keep it, she suddenly considered the possibility of letting Leni do something else with it; Leni was a miracle worker, after all, and if she could make Lucy look better one way, she could do it another.

"Yeah," she finally said, "but I might see if she can do it another way. Try new styles."

"That's cool," Lynn said, lying on her back. "Never hurts to change things up."

"Yeah," Lucy said. She thought she might change other things about herself. Change was good, right?

That night, she tossed and turned, trying to sleep but finding sleep difficult to capture. She thought of Leni, her boundless optimism even as her brain was slowly eaten away, her kind, generous nature. She reminded Lucy a lot of Lincoln. Lincoln had a kind heart and would go out of his way for you. Leni was similar. She was a beautiful creature.

How could she be so goddamn happy when she was dying? How could she have such a sunny disposition when in a few short years she would be a raving madwoman locked away in a nursing home?

Lucy's thoughts turned back to what her sister had said at the mall.

How can it not bother you? Lucy asked.

Because it makes every day I don't have to be in a nursing home that much better. It's, like, a gift or something.

To Leni, even in the face of drawing doom, every day was a gift.

And here was little Lucy Loud, cutting her wrists because she was sad. Awww.

She felt like shit.

What would Leni do?

Not feel sorry for herself.

Lucy took a deep breath. Leni would be happy and optimistic. Lucy would do the same. Tomorrow she could spend more time with her big sister. Tomorrow she could be in the presence of an angel.

Lucy drifted peacefully to sleep.