Galactica Point, Monday Morning

[bitch_prince]

It had taken them a while, but at last they'd made it to Fandom. Arthur had sent Merlin off to arrange a hotel room, because he had some important manly brooding planning to do, and then he'd taken a walk

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[thatsamilkshake]

It was such a good thing that Arthur was used to Francine. JUST SAYING. Even though she only barely qualified as a girl shorter than him. "Arthur!"

[bitch_prince]

"Francine!"

This was going to be a thing, wasn't it? Including the awkward reception of hugs.

[thatsamilkshake]

It was, though Francine's reply, after a moment of silence and with no apparent intention of letting go, was less awkward than nonsensical. "Dinah."

Well, nonsensical if you were absolutely deaf to the tone.

[bitch_prince]

That tone didn't bode well.

"...Francine...?"

Behold: a conversation held entirely in names and intonation.

[thatsamilkshake]

"Oh, Arthur..."

Names and intonation and blubbering?

[bitch_prince]

The blubbering finally gave it away. "...Something happened to Dinah," Arthur said, sounding a little shell-shocked. "Is she dead?"

[thatsamilkshake]

Francine pulled back a little, wiping a hand across her face. "She's... gone." She wasn't ready to say that other word, even if every sign and goodbye and and Bad Feeling About This pointed to them both being true.

"I thought it was just a bad dream, but then her number wouldn't work, and--" And she should shut up before it dissolved into hyperventilation. "She's on the board by the school." Like the board they used to keep in that other Fandom, the one that other Francine had been shocked to find missing when she showed up last year.

[bitch_prince]

"Oh," Arthur said uselessly. "I'm... sorry."

Dinah was gone. Dinah was gone. Somehow, that seemed like something that shouldn't have been permitted -- he had lost many in battle, but she'd just been a girl. "I-- there is a board?"

[thatsamilkshake]

"By the gates." Francine nodded shakily. "For checking in that you made it here safe or that somebody else...didn't. The clerk at the hotel told me about it."

[bitch_prince]

Arthur nodded. Well, 'nodded'. It was more of a jerk. "I'll need to... add Yurika and Romeo," he muttered.

[thatsamilkshake]

"Oh, no." Francine kind of wished she could play dumb enough to assume he meant the checking-in list and not the other one. "I'm s..." Francine shook her head and grimaced. "Never mind. I'm not gonna say that. I can't; it feels like what you say when it's somebody's grandma that you never met, not our friends."