Strength

You don't need to know my problems.
Sure, I have them,
But that's my job.
Taking care of you.
You don't need my worries
When you have your own.

Marie emerges from the drain, spares one glance over at Octavio to make sure he hasn't escaped (She just. She just can't deal with him. Not after.), and lets herself into the cabin. Four will be here soon, and Callie will stop by after her audition for Squidmas Chainsaw Massacre 5. And it's legit. Callie was so nervous she muted the TV show Marie was watching and put the phone call on speakerphone so Marie could verify all the details were actually true, and she wasn't hallucinating any of it.

Marie's phone buzzes in her pocket. She pulls it out, expecting to see Callie freaking out whether she got the part or not, but instead it's Marina. I've encrypted things as well as I can, but I think this is something 2 should see.

2.

Agent 2.

There's a link. Marie switches her credentials, locks down anything identifying, and makes sure she's set with the right screen name before she follows it.

It takes her to... a chat room? With... Holy Squit, a chat room with CraigCuttlefish.

With Gramps.

Marie gasps, homesickness and longing and missing slamming her in the chest, because it's Gramps, and he.

He can make everything better.

But he's not fast at typing, so after Marie makes sure it's him, and she tosses out a joke about a dating site just to break the tension, she has to ask: Where are you right now? And then, as an afterthought, Is agent 3 with you? Because she hasn't seen that scamp in ages, either.

She has so much to tell him. She's missed him. And now she can talk to him, and he can come home, and she can cry on his shoulder about Callie and he'll...

He'll type, We're both fine. Just protecting Inkopolis and Marie's fingers slam the delete key on everything she was going to say.

Gramps is in the field, with Three, protecting Inkopolis.

Probably in a lot of danger, sleeping on the ground, ink-splattered and either hungry or eating downright tasteless protein bars and vitamins.

And she wants to gush about Drown and Sync and the triple-date, if you can call it that, they're having tomorrow. She wants to discuss hypnoshades and how Octolings aren't bad, once you get them off. She wants to sob on his shoulder about Callie.

She wants to make him worry about a problem already solved.

So she tells him none of that.

Instead, she asks if he's okay. She promises to have food ready when he gets home (she'll need to make Seaweed Stew every afternoon from now on. Four can feed it to Octavio until Gramps arrives.) And then she gets off.

When she closes her phone, there are tears on her cheeks. She sniffs, hard, and wipes her eyes with the back of her hand.

She's fine. She can manage without him—managed without him, or Callie, for months. She can wait with her news, good and bad, until he's here to hear it in person.

She's Agent 2. But more than that, she's Marie Cuttlefish.

She can do this.