fandomhighdorms | 5th Floor Common Room, Saturday Morning

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5th Floor Common Room, Saturday Morning

Kathy was a zombie this morning.

No, really. After staying out far too late in Baltimore last night, she'd come home with the sun well on its way to being up and flopped down on her bed to catch a few blissful hours of sleep. But apparently something had taken her 'few' at face value and decided that a few was all she needed before being woken up by a phone call informing her that she had a kid.

With Ezra.

Oh god.

A weekend of childcare was not something she could deal as sleep deprived as she was, so after a trip downstairs to make sure she hadn't just dreamed that whole conversation, she'd come back up here to try to make herself functional. Which meant coffee. So much coffee. Ridiculous amounts of coffee to be consumed as quickly as possible. And then also food, because she was starving and there were kids and they'd probably be starving and at least Fandom had had the decency to stock the fridge before inflicting small people on the island?

With a second pot of coffee brewing (she hadn't been kidding about needing her caffeine, okay?), Kathy set to work making a decent amount of breakfast for anyone who'd be interested. Omelettes with various kinds of filling, bacon, and toast would make for a decent breakfast for kids, right? And some hoddeok for dessert because she needed some delicious comfort food that reminded her of home right now.

Home, where she didn't have children.

[Open to kids and students!]

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Carys decided she would far rather help Daddy in the kitchen than continue to sit on the couch with Mommy, even with the excitement of the magic television to hold her interest.

"Mommy made the haddeok for me!" she reported eagerly. "It was so nummy and delicious! I never had a whole one for myself! But I would've shared with you! Where were you? At the clinic? Was somebody reaaally sick? Or were you hidin' from the Templars?"

Anders smiled back at that tiny smile from Kathy, though not without a faint tug at his heart.

"I was with a friend," he said,perhaps a bit vaguely. "Everyone's healthy, and there aren't any templars here. I was safe. Is that -- something I do a lot at home?"

He had to know.

Carys nodded. "Yeahyeahyeah. We gotta be smart and quiet, that's what you said. 'Specially after I had the accident." Her voice dropped to a whisper when she said that. "That's why we got the back door to Auntie Marian's right from the clinic and everything. Cause even if the Templars come and the Air-shock and even grumpy old Seneschal Bran, she won't let anyone take us away."

Kathy looked up from the couch, looking to Anders to see if any of those names made sense to him.

Anders knew what a seneschal was, but that was as much as he got from it. He shook his head at Kathy.

"Mages always have to be smart and quiet, and have good friends, like Aunt Marian." Who he was no doubt going to owe many, many drinks. "It helps us stay safe. Now, I know this is a very, very silly question, but what's the name of the place where we live?"

He'd ask about the accident later, but he thought he knew what she meant without asking. Stupid mage blood.

Carys rolled her eyes at him. "Is this another test like Mommy's?" she asked. Parents were silly today! "We live in Kirkwall! And we have a house in Lowtown and sometimes we stay in Hightown, and the clinic is in Darktown, and sometimes Mommy takes me to the alienage, but then you get grumpy and she calls you a...short-sighted bigot!"

She looked very pleased at herself for remembering that part.

"You figured us out," Anders told Carys. "It was a test, and you gave the best answer. I wish I had another haddoek to give you. Now, just give me minute to talk to Mommy..."

He went to sit next to Kathy on the couch, and, in a rapid whisper, said: "Kirkwall's a city-state in the north, I've never been but their Circle's supposed to be awful. No wonder we hide. Alienages are neighborhoods for elves."

He wasn't touching that 'bigot' bit with a 10-foot pole. It wasn't bigotry in his mind to know humans got robbed and worse in alienages, but he didn't expect Kathy to understand that.

"And I'm a little sad we brought her into a world where she can't live freely."

Edited 2015-04-12 02:45 (UTC)

Yeah, Kathy was still giving him a side-eye for that. She wouldn't be calling you a bigot without good reason, Anders.

"Your aversion to cities really that bad?" Kathy asked. "I mean, I know LA's not the nicest place on the planet, but at least we wouldn't have to hide."

Ahahaha. Haha. Ha.

"Is she talking about the kind of accident I think she is?" she asked. "I mean, unless this Kirkwall has a really strict toilet training regimen that I don't know about..."

"I'd go to L.A. a hundred times before I raised a child like that," Anders told her. "Maybe there's something else going on, or maybe we got stuck, or ..."

He shrugged. The future was unknowable.

"And she probably is," he said. "I hope we're wrong, though. She's quite young for powers." He glanced over at Kathy. "She seems to have gotten a few things from you, too."

Like, the way she was idly raising her foot over her head while watching TV. That wasn't an Anders skill.

Considering this was a future where they ended up together, with a baby there was clearly a lot going on that had very little to do with this reality.

"The stuck thing could be it," Kathy said, nodding. "She mentioned we were stuck on the island for a summer or something when she was younger. You worked at the clinic here. I mean, you're having trouble getting home, aren't you? And Cassandra, too?"

Maybe Thedas was just really weird about who got to come and go.

Kathy turned to see what Carys was doing and bit back a smile. That was very much her daughter there, yes. "Like her completely adorable face, right? That's all me, clearly."

It was all that sugar. Carys needed to work it off and she wasn't allowed to run in the house!

"You going to the clinic today, Daddy? Can I come with you? I can help! I'm gonna be a healer just like you when I grow up!"

"It's a tricky place to get to and from," Anders admitted. "And sorry in advance for ... whatever I did to get us stuck there as parents. But you wanted an exciting life, right?"

And then all his attention was on the incredible flexible Carys. "I'm not exactly a healer right now," he told her. "Not for a job, anyhow. But I'm working in a shop tomorrow. You can visit me there if you want."

Depending on how that one went over, it might give him an opening to explain exactly how far from home she was.

Edited 2015-04-12 12:16 (UTC)

Kathy smiled and took his hand. "It's okay. I seem to have forgiven you," she said. "And we sound like we're surrounded by people who care for us."

Community was important to Kathy.

"Why not, Daddy?" Carys asked, wobbling a little as she turned to look at him. But, like her mom, she didn't fall. "You're a super-good healer! That's why nobody tells the Templars where we are! Cause even in Darktown, they a'spect you!"

"Well, funny story," Anders said, swallowing hard. (And also slightly astonished by the idea someday he could be so respected as an apostate healer that a whole city would protect him. Maker, but that would be incredible.) It had been easier somehow to explain this to Leo. "You know how we met while we were still in school, don't you?"

"When you were little little little!" Carys chanted.

Simmer down there, sweetheart.

"Not that little," Anders protested with a laugh. (His 30-year-old self might disagree.) "Anyhow, this might sound a little funny, but this is then. Your mother is 17 and I'm 16. So we get to meet you early."

And thirty-year-old Kathy would just laugh and laugh and possibly cry.

Carys looked up at him with wide-eyed wonder. "So you're kids?" she asked. "...Does that mean I still gotta listen?"

Important potential loop-hole here!

"It depends," Anders said, trying to work out what his own mother would have said and getting stuck on how this kind of thing wouldn't happen to her. "Do you think your mom and dad would want you to listen to us?"

"Not if you told me to do something bad or dangerous?" Carys said hopefully. "Like how I don't always have to listen to Auntie Isabela or Auntie Merrill or even Auntie Marian sometimes."

But she always had to listen to Aunt Aveline and Bodahn. And usually Uncle Varric. And Mommy and Daddy argued about her listening to Uncle Fenris.

"Well, that's true," Kathy said. "And if we ask you to do something dangerous or bad, then you can ask us why we want you to do that and explain why you think it's unsafe. But otherwise, I think that it's good for you to listen, so we can take care of you until it's time for you to go back home."

Anders, meanwhile, was filing away the names for later reference. Maybe he'd be able to casually bring them up with Cassandra sometime ...

No, that was a terrible idea. He smiled instead.

"Kath- you're mother's right," he said, nodding vigorously. (It was strange to call Kathy anybody's mother.) "All we really want is for you to stay safe while you're here. But we don't know everything quite yet. We might tell you to do something silly."

Don't worry, Anders, it was weird to hear her get called that, too.

"Like what kinda things?" Carys asked, delighted by the idea of her parents telling her to do silly things. "Like stand on my head or sing a song?"

"Like stand on your head and sing a song," Anders said seriously. "But of course that'd be too silly for you."

"No sir no sir!" Carys said, hastily doing a headstand. "I can do it! I can do it, Daddy, see?"

And then she started singing one of her favorite songs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWGO9CwouN0), the one about a butterfly.

Kathy was going to go out on a limb and guess she'd been the one to teach Carys that song, yes.

Anders laughed and applauded and, in an aside to Kathy, added, "I have no idea what she's singing, but if we run short on money we could be traveling minstrels."

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