Chapter 9 by Rowenar

What’s better, the embarassing truth or a comforting lie?

The truth hurts

“I’m afraid so,” Sara said softly.

Laurel shrank back, still vainly trying to cover herself with her arms. Sara was glad to be able to do the same without drawing yet more attention, part of her finding the fact that this had somehow become a luxury all the more humiliating.

“What do we do?” said Laurel, eyes wide. She suddenly drew her knees up onto her bed; Sara looked away from the flash of her ass, looking back as she used them to hide her chest.

“I don’t know,” Sara said. “I… just needed someone to know, someone’s help. I don’t know what’s normal like this, or what’s not, or what I’d be expected to- Laurel, I can barely face walking down the street like this, or answering the door. Hell, dinner was a chore.”

“People even wore clothes at home?” Laurel said, panicked.

“When there were others around, sure,” Sara said.

“But…” her voice trailed off. “That’s so much, so many times I should have been in…”

Flustered, Laurel fell silent. She grabbed at the sheets; Sara shifted slightly to let her pull them up, but when Laurel tried to cover herself they just fell off.

This world apparently wouldn’t let anything even take the place of decent clothing.

Sara flushed, well aware of how her sister felt.

“There’s really nothing you can do?” Laurel said. “You’re the big, time-travelling resurrected badass, don’t you know about something that could fix things?”

“There’s nothing,” Sara said. “The… thing that caused this was unique, and it’s gone now. Nothing else could alter reality on this level. I- We’ll just have to help each other.”

It was strange to see Laurel going from comfortable in her own nudity, to perhaps even more self-conscious than Sara.

It might have been her original memories and sensibilities peeking through. It had been known to happen; when the timeline changed, people could still recall an echo of what had been before, even if just hints of it.

Those hints apparently included, when prompted, the embarrassment of being naked.

“How?!” Laurel said.

“I don’t know,” Sara said. She hesitated. “I don’t know, but we’ll think of something.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”