"I'm doin' pretty good," Hawk said. "You sound surprised--did Abi not write y'all that I was around?"

Parker's head snapped up. "WHAT?!" she shouted, practically jumping out of her seat. "No!! She knew?!"

"Yeah, she said she'd tell y'all!"

"That--" Parker growled in annoyance. "She better be glad she's not on the same planet as me right now, or I'd--"

She broke off angrily, though Hawk chuckled. Instead she rounded on Teige, who was hanging back near the doorway, and who had been silent. "Ugh. Anyway, Teige's here too," she informed Hawk, and then to Teige she said, "Say something, would ya??"

Vlad and Yoshi also looked at him, perhaps a bit puzzled by the look of mild terror on his face. He started awkwardly, "I, er..."

"Oh, for god's sake," Parker huffed. "He's been kickin' his own ass ever since you got took, you know. Will you please tell him you ain't mad at him?"

Hawk's brow furrowed as he extracted a drinking glass from one of the cabinets. "Huh?" he said. "Why would I be mad?"

"See? I told you," Parker muttered.

"I..." Teige fumbled for a second, and then muttered, mostly to himself, "Oh, of course you'd--" before trailing off. Instead, he said, "Look, that ent the most important thing right now, mate. We've got to talk about your sister."

Hawk's face fell. "Oh."