Quinday, Guire 14th 067.M42

Things finally seem to have calmed down somewhat after a pretty intense few days. Cordell has officially signed custody papers for Mum and Dad to take care of Mei. He'll be staying with them for another week - for all that he was an absent gak-head of a father, Mei at least recognises him out of everyone in our family. He's settling her in with Mum and Dad, then he'll have to go back on duty. She came out of the infirmary yesterday, and Mum and Dad got to take her home with them. During all of this, Lizzy made her final decision and packed her things to go to the shrine. So they kind of swapped one baby girl for another - but it frees up her and Arlean's old room to be set up for Mei, so there's that at least.

Though Mum says that Mei's terrified of being left alone. She'll sleep when she's held or someone's sitting and reading to her, or doing something quietly in the same room, but if you leave before she falls fully asleep or if she wakes to find herself alone she'll dissolve into hysterics. Not that I blame her, poor little thing. So Mum's considering now if she's even going to go back to work once her emergency leave is finished. They have some money put by, Dad's salary as a Senior Adept is a decent amount for two people who are careful with their money… And with Daisy gone and Mei in their custody, the garnish on Cordell's wages will go straight to them. So with some care they should be able to afford things. And of course, I'll do what I can - buy her clothes or toys as and when I can. It's the least I can do.

I also ended up going to get that drink with Madalene. I have to admit to being a little cautious, given the result of our last drinking session together, but this was nothing like that. Last time we'd gone out with the rest of the team, and she and I managed to outpace everyone else - to my intense dismay the next morning. But this time was… it was nice. We found a little hole-in-the-wall bar toward the wall-end of Fourteenth, stuffed down an alley between a chirurgeon's office and a bail loan office. The place was great, all grox-hide stools and tables made from repurposed munition crates, a handful of regulars and no holo-screen blaring on the wall. I've got the higher pay packet, but Kader was the one who got the drinks. I tried to protest and at least give her some scrip, but she wouldn't take it. Said that she didn't have much else to spend it on.

And we just had a few drinks and talked. She said it had been obvious that something was going on the last few days, she said I wasn't smiling as much as I normally do, but that if I didn't want to talk about it we wouldn't. She just wanted me to know that she'd noticed and was concerned. I'd thought that I wasn't going to tell her, but as we kept talking I just found it kind of coming out. I started off talking about Cordell, she told me about her brothers and it just went from there. She also told me about her dad dying, about having to start work to make sure her Mum could keep her and her brothers fed, about finding solace in the data and the numbers. She says that when everything seemed to be collapsing around her, data was solid. It was true and while the results could be manipulated, if you had the data from the source it was immutable. I… I kind of get that. I've never been through anything as hard as what she has, but what she said made sense to me. When things have gotten hard for me, my work has always been something I can take comfort in.

After we finished with the drinks, we walked back to the Magrail station together. We both had to get back to Central, but she swapped to another train, while I had to head out to walk. I walked her to her platform and waited with her until she boarded her next train. She hugged me before she left. Her head barely came up to my shoulder and she smelt of amasec and something sweet that I couldn't quite put my finger on. It was… hard… to let her go, I have to admit. I stood there for a long while after her train had pulled away before I finally made my way out to head home.

But that's a worry in and of itself. I'm the Scribe-Adept for our row. She's my underling, my direct report. It would be one thing if we were on different rows, or different floors but we're not. I should be careful. We can be friends, but perhaps I need to distance myself a bit more to avoid any impropriety.

Thought for the Day: The easy path is fraught with temptation; Downfall waits for those lacking the will to seek the proper way.