Prompto had been a bit distracted trying to decipher exactly what he was seeing on his viewer screen--was it a bush? His finger on the lens? Look, they couldn't all be perfect--when he heard that question and looked up. Blinked. His mouth seemed to hang open just slightly as his brain tried to switch gears in a way that he was pretty sure people could hear.

"Hey," he said, slowly, "Nina..."

Despite the attempts to distract himself with photography, Prompto had been doing a lot of thinking since the other day, and he'd gone through a rather jerk-neck roller coaster ride of emotions and came out in the end still not sure how he felt. But he did know he couldn't really stay mad at her, no matter how much she deserved it, and he was actually mostly just feeling bad about just how mad he actually was. And, in that moment, finally faced with Nina after all that time worrying about her, fearing the worst, trying to convince himself that everything was fine...

He stood up, he opened his arms, and he pulled her into the sort of hug that even she would probably struggle to get out of.

"Don't you ever, ever, ever," he said, glad that she couldn't see all the hurt and anger and relief on his face right now because of the hug, "do that again."

Hope you weren't looking forward to getting any sips of that drink in anytime soon, Nina, because Prompto was definitely clinging.

Though there was a small sound--a breath of a laugh? A grunt of indignation? Even Prompto didn't know--at her bringing up Foomy now.

"Just disappear like that!" he told her. "We didn't know where you were, even what you were doing, when you'd be back! You weren't responding to any of our texts or our calls...We didn't know if you were safe, if you were hurt, if you were d--" Look, he'd seen futures where Nina wound up dead due to stupid crap like this, he was allowed to get a little choked up over it, especially since he'd studiously been trying to deny that possibility all week, and now some of his anger over it was starting to creep back in again "--dead, nothing! You can't do that, Nina! What the hell were thinking???"

She wasn't thinking, and that was the problem, she was just thinking about herself, and didn't even care who was left to deal with the grim possibilities.

"Last time?" asked Prompto, because last time was so long ago, he didn't even really remember it. His brow furrowed, though, as he tried to remember, but it had been a very, very, very long year, and they had all been through a lot, so he shook his head. "Well, that was different. It's different now, and I do care, and you know that. You didn't tell us anything, Nina! Nothing! Except that you were going, and you were probably five miles out the door before then, too! You didn't respond to any of our messages, you didn't check it, all we could do was sit there and pretend not to be worried sick, and then you just come back and act like it's no big deal! If me or Vette had done something like that, we'd never hear the end of it! I was just about ready to start trying to go after you, and that would have been fun, considering we didn't even know where you were!"

"...Good," said Prompto, after a while, because he was honestly a little surprised that there wasn't more objections and shouting from Nina. Maybe she just didn't want to cause a scene in public? He knew she probably wanted to argue with him about it, about how she was just doing what she thought was best or whatever, and he'd sort of been preparing for it, but then it didn't happen and now he was worried that something was really wrong if she wasn't even going to fight with him about it...

"You should be," he added, "but it's okay. Just don't ever do that again, okay? At least, you know, let us know where you're going, or give us an idea of how long you'll be, or, you know, answer your godsdamn texts, Nina, I've been worried sick pretty much all week!"

And there was one more slight pause before he pulled back, so he could look at her face, frowning, looking for any signs of anything he should be worried about. "But you're okay, right? Everything went okay?"

He knew he was fussing, but he just couldn't help it.

How could she have possibly thought they wouldn't be worried? Prompto was gawking at Nina a little, shaking his head, wondering how, with everything they'd been through...

But then she had to throw in that last part, and the gawking went from confused to just plain baffled.

"Nina," he said, "what? Why would you mail your phone back to the island??"

There was some basis of sense there, sure, but, if you asked Prompto, the reason for doing that were far outweighed by the reasons for not doing that.

"And what if something would have happened?" he asked. "How would you have gotten a hold of any of us? Just set it with a deconstruct mod for if you ever get caught, and how's someone from your world even going to know what to do with a phone even if they did get their hands on it?"

After all, he had no reason to believe this secret mission of hers would have taken place anywhere else. Considering she didn't even tell them where she was going!

"Hey!" said Prompto, defensively, getting a little more riled up from her getting riled up at him, who didn't even do anything except feed a little jelly daemon some peanut butter and care! "Don't start getting mad at me for not knowing all of your secret plans! Or, what, are you mad at me for actually caring? Only thing you can be mad about me about is Foomy, and even then, you could have totally prevented that whole thing if you'd have just taken two seconds to think, 'oh, hey, maybe...just maybe...I should let Prompto and Vette know that I'm even still alive!"

The Foomy stuff, they could get too later. Especially since Foomy was obviously fine, and he had warned her, but it wasn't exactly the important part right now.

"But it's not like that anymore, Nina!" he called out, exasperated. "You're a part of a team now, and you don't just leave your team in the lurch like that! How can you just stand there and act like you honestly believe me and Vette don't care, like we wouldn't be the first ones to drop everything to come and help you out if you needed it? Is that what you really think of us, huh?"

"All I'm hearing right now are excuses, Nina!" Prompto countered. "What if this, what if that. Well, what if we could have done something, huh? Like we wouldn't think of something, like we couldn't find some way to help. You don't even give us a chance! You just waltz off like no one cares about you, when you know full well we do, and we're just supposed to....accept it. I know this is all new to you, Nina, but that's not how a team works!"

"That's not true, though!" Prompto objected. "My parents are spies, you know, and they're a team, they work together all the time, and have been since long before I was even in the picture. And you're not bothering us by letting us know you're safe, Nina, gods! You're doing us a favor that way, because otherwise, all we can do is wonder and worry and think all the worst thing while trying to pretend we're not bothered, we're not upset, even to each other. It's not even that hard! Just put yourself in our shoes for, like, two seconds. How would you feel if I went off with Noctis and the others, or Vette went off on a mission in space, and all we told you was that we were going and then you didn't hear back from us for weeks? Wouldn't you be worried, too? Wouldn't you feel, like, a million times better if you'd have just had some little kernel of knowledge that we were okay and that things were going well? We didn't have any of that! And, in those scenarios, you'd even know where we were, who we were with! It'd be like if I said 'okay, Nina, I've gotta go!' and disappeared and that was it."

"But I'm not even asking for constant!" Little Miss A-Million-Text-Messages. "All I'm asking for is something! You didn't even tell us where you were! And I'm sorry if you feel it's not fair for me to be this upset with you, but that's how I feel and I can't help that! I get where you're coming from, I really do, but come on! You can't just do that and expect us...expect me...to just be okay with it!"

"Even once a week would be nice," Prompto said, after a moment, after taking a deep breath himself and looking like he was about to object to something, but then he thought better of it and stopped himself. "And let us at least know where you're going...."

He looked like he might have wanted to say more there, but...he didn't. He stopped. He wanted to go on, but he knew it would just lead them around in circles, and that wouldn't do them any good. He already knew she'd object to him saying that then, at least, they could know where to start looking.