Rosario cracked a small smile at that. "It's better this way," she assured Lyra. "I mean, they probably definitely all suck, but at least nobody's gonna beam me back to the mothership." It was sucyh a weird conversation to be having, but as they left the campus behind them, Rosario found she felt— a little bit lighter than she had when she'd stalked out of the lab. Maybe the weirdness was the reason. It was hard to remember just how pissed she was with Archer when she found herself unexpectedly backed into arguing that no, really, he was a hundred percent not an alien.
That thought recalled to her something else: the words Lyra had hissed in her ear as she'd latched onto Rosario's arm outside the lab. I have so much to tell you. Rosario had been so ready to burst, she'd barely even heard it at the time. "Hey, I just realised I completely steamrolled your news before with my shit. What were you gonna tell me?"