Comfort in crying

>How? How did she lose her? She turned around for like 5 minutes and she was gone.
> At least loan thought it was 5 minutes, maybe it was 30. She wasn’t very good at keeping track of time.
> But this she couldn’t be blamed for getting lost, Gabi’s the one who dragged her out to the mall again. When she’s told her time and again, that she does do large public spaces.
> ‘But noooo’ she talked her into going because the mall had the only arcade in the state that had the Cabinet for Doom Death Parade.
> Stupid DDP with its buckets of blood and fun kill count system. Aw who was she kidding, no one could stay mad at that game.
> She tried asking this one blonde girl in the store about if she knew where her friend went to, and she just pointed in a direction, which Loan, of course, followed without a question.
> Goes to show you can’t trust anyone in rainbow socks.
> This place was too big, it was too noisy, and had way too many people in it. To the point, she ducked out of the crowds to one of the woman’s restroom. She was happy to be out of the sea of people outside then again not to fond of the smell of the public laboratory.
> Jumping into the nearest stall to catch her breath, left alone with her thoughts.
> At least until she started hearing the faint sound of someone crying.
> Great, she was alone in the one haunted bathroom in the whole mall. How can one girl be so lucky?
She was being sarcastic of course, but luckily, she was already sitting on a toilet.
> Despite her fight or flight mentality, mostly flight, her curiosity overshadowed her fear as she ventured out of the blue stall and followed the whimpering.
> Maybe it’s a friendly ghost, or maybe it’s a phantom that’ll possess her body. Despite that last thought she walked all the way to the last stall door and quietly opened it. Preparing for the worst.
> But there was no ghost, just a scared little girl crying in the corner.

> Loan instinctively slowly tried to back out of the stall, she could go find the nearest security guard and have someone more mentally stable to take care of a crying child.
> “H-hello?” Damn it.
> Loan begrudgingly stepped back into the stall. And awkwardly waved at the child.
> “Hi-Hello there, uh, how are you doing?” The girl just stared at loan’s lack of social skills. At least she wasn’t crying now.
> Loan slumped down next to the little girl in pigtails. She looked around Leia’s age, hopefully, nicer.
> “Uh, so… w-why are you crying?” The little sniffed wiping the fresh tears from her eyes. Pulling out her phone.
> “I lost my mommy, and I wanted to call her but I forgot to charge my phone and-and I-I can't remember her number, but I didn’t wanna bother anyone so-so I just walked in here and hoped she’d find me.”
> “Wow… that’s kinda dumb.”
> “W-what?” The girl didn’t know how to respond to that.
> “'I-I mean, well, th-there's dozens of bathrooms in this place, and, um, only so many mall cops, and s-so your mom could think that you we-were already kidnapped when you called the police, and then while they're looking for you...uh, s-some creep might sneak in here, to s-s-sniff the seats or something, and then he'd find you here, a-a-alone... and he would just snatch you, and then, and then you'd never see your mom again...' Loan rambled on until she heard the familiar sound of a crying child sitting next to her.
> Waaahh!” The girl balled as Loan tried to calm her down.
> She can fix it, she's a fully grown adult. Well, at least, physically she is.

> But... But what if she couldn't?
> What if someone would come in and see her standing over the crying child, and they'd think she did something to her?
> But what she would be sued, and then be trialed as an adult, and then go to jail?
> They don’t have wifi in prison!
> The little girl stopped crying as she noticed that the fully grown woman next to her curled into a ball and crying almost as much she was a second ago. She wiped the tears from her eyes and crawled over to the distressed woman to pat her head.
> “Are you,okay lady?”
> “I wanna go hooooome.”
> The little girl had never seen an adult this scared before, it actually made her feel less afraid.
> “Hey, its-its gonna be okay lady.” Getting comforted by a child, this is a whole new kind of low for her. Then again, she was concerned about her that she forgot all about what Loan had said. Maybe she could run with this.
> "I don't know, the mall is so... bi-bi-big..."
> “Well um…” The girl thought for a moment looking at her phone again but just huffed and put it back in her pocket. “They go those big maps in the halls; it’ll tell exactly where we are.” Good, she was using her head.
> The girl stood up with her and she helped Loan onto her feet, Loan faked it a bit to let her think she was.
> “Don’t you worry, I’m gonna help you find your mommy too.”
> “Uh okay.” If that were the case, she’d probably want to stay in the bathroom. “So, what’s your name?” Might as well get know the name of her hero.
> “Its Titter.” She smiled as she held Loans hand and led her out of the restroom. All the while wondered who in the world would name their kid Titter? That’s not even a name! Well then again neither is Loan.

> She noticed that the moment they stepped outside the restroom - Titter stopped. Loan stared at the sea of strangers, walking by them, reminding her of quite a literal sea that surrounded them and then shifted her gaze downwards at the once brave girl, now petrified in place, her legs shaking, trying to put up a good front.
> Loan slightly squeezed Titter's palm, and the meek girl looked up at her.
> “It's going to be okay, I’ll hold on tight.” Loan didn’t stutter for a second as she spoke. As she spoke. Titter furiously blinked, sniffed and took a breath, which filled her up with both fresh air and faint confidence at first, but it only grew as she stomped her feet and lead her new adult friend towards the closest mall map they could find, each step giving her new powers to go on.
> It took like 20 minutes, but they eventually found it.
> In no time they were both sitting in the lost and found, enjoying some juice boxes provided by the mall cops. They were meant for kids, but Loan went through a lot and could really use some juice.
> “Titter!”
> “Mommy!” Titter leaped from her seat and ran into her mother's arms. Loan just looked away from the cute scene, no need to get involved.
> “What in the world happened to you? I looked everywhere.”
> "Apparently not in the bathrooms" Loan quietly mumbled to herself.
> “I got lost, and I didn’t know what to do, but this nice lady helped me.” Titter explained with excitement and pointed at Loan,
> “Oh-h N-no, I was just going to the can an-UGH!” Loan got a face full of unwanted physical attention as the woman gave Loan a strong hug.
> “Thank you! Thank you so much!” Thankfully she finally let her go and Loan could breathe again. “I have to know, what's your name dear?”
> “Its Loan, Loan Loud.” She said hoping this woman wasn’t going to google her name later. But did noticed a slight change in her mood when she said her last name.
> “Did you say Loud?”

> The change in woman's attitude echoed through her mind, and a bell of caution rang inside of it.
> What did she have to do with her family?
> One of her aunt's old nemesis?
> A vengeful woman gruesomely rejected by her unfaithful father?
> A police officer that was trying to find the trace of her family and suspend everyone for the rest of their lives?
> Was the little girl she bonded with for a short amount of time really a harbinger of doom, which was destined to put the cuffs on her hands after all?
> Her mind ventured further, and she was already planning her first phone call, and how she'd tell Liena to burn down her computer hard drives and delete everything from the house's browsing history, but her stream of thought was interrupted by woman's soft remark, not deprived of a hint of playfulness in it:
"Well, it doesn't really matter that much, I can't thank you enough, Loan."
> She smiled as she shook her hand and then took her daughters hand was about to walk before turning back. “Oh and tell your uncle, Giggles says Hi.”
> Who the hell was Giggles? Was she's Dad's rejected affair after all? What does it mean? Loan didn't had anything else left to do but to nod.
> Gabi walked into the past the woman and walked up to counter.
> “Hey there, here to pick up my friend, she’s about 5,9, big blond hair, kind of a schiz-WOAH!” Gabi nearly fell to the floor as Loan leaped into her arms and wrapped her arms around her friends’ neck in a vice-like grip.
> Gab just pat her friends mess of hair as Loan cried into her friend's shirt that she just bought.
> "So girl, how was the game?"
> “NEVER LEAVE ME AGAIN!”