5th Floor Common Room, Saturday Morning

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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!]

Comments

[spin-kick-mage.livejournal.com]

This place was noisier than Kirkwall, and cleaner, and Carys kept stopping every few feet on her way to the dorms to examine some unknown marvel like a lightpole or a fire hydrant. But eventually, as so many children seemed to on these weekends, she located her mother.

A younger and even more exhausted version of her mother, but her mother all the same.

"Hi mom," she said, and jumped up on a chair to try to help herself to a cheese omelet. She could get it onto the plate by herself, she was sure of it ... and she was almost right.

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It was like they all came with little tracking devices or something!

"Anoth--oh!" Kathy whirled around in time to see the omelette start to fall and then she was there with a paper towel to catch it. "There we go," she said, depositing it on the plate of--

Of an absolutely adorable little girl. Wow.

"Hi there," she said softly. "Good morning. Want some juice with your breakfast, umm...?"

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"We have juice?" That perked Carys right up,though she ignored the implicit question. "Yes. Please."

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"Thank you for using your manners," Kathy said, because that was the kind of thing that you had to reinforce, right? She went to the fridge. "Orange, grape, or apple?" she asked, while trying to figure out the best way to ask who she was and who her father was and why oh god was there multiple children who thought of her as a mom this weekend?

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Carys giggled. "Mommmmmm. You know I like grape the best. It's purple!"

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"Purple is a really good color," Kathy agreed, because what did you say to a tiny munchkin who thought you were really her mom with several years of history and understanding and all that, and you were actually just an awkward teen who didn't even know her name?

Well, the first thing you did was fill up a cup with grape juice and push that over, because there was a thirsty little kid. "Don't just fill up on juice now. Eat your omelette, too."

And apparently the second thing you did was channel your own mom. Fabulous.

"So, uhh, sweetie? Have you seen your dad yet?" Please say he was here and he existed and had done all the hard stuff already and could just give her the answers?

[wee-skycrawlers.livejournal.com]

Since Dipshit and Super Loud were off having having an argument, Tebb went off to find breakfast.

He loitered in the doorway, looking bored. And hungry, but he was a preteen boy, so he was always hungry.

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"Hi," Kathy said, feeling a little closer to human after her fourth cup of coffee and seventh hoddeok. All that caffeine and sugar was definitely helping. "You're not going to be offended if I ask your name, right?"

He didn't look like he was one of hers, but Kathy wasn't taking anything on faith right now.

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Carys gulped half her juice and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand before shaking her head. "Uh-uh. Is he at the clinic? He said I could go help him but sometimes he forgets."

Or 'forgot.' Some things a healer had to do weren't really meant for 6-year-old eyes.

She dragged her plate over and started poking the eggs with her fork. "You look pretty, Mommy."

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"Oh! Thank you!" Kathy smiled at that. Surprise compliments from small children were really great to hear. That was something that she hadn't known. "And so do you. You're adorable."

Whoever she'd had this munchkin with, they'd obviously provided amazing genes. Look at her tiny faaace. It was all Kathy could do not to squeal that.

"Your daddy works at the clinic?" she asked. "The one here in Fandom?"

Did she know anyone...?

"He's a doctor?"

[wee-skycrawlers.livejournal.com]

Tebb shrugged. "I'm Tebb."

Beat.

"I didn't pick it."

[spin-kick-mage.livejournal.com]

Carys squinched up her nose, because that was a complicated question and she hadn't had nearly enough juice to answer it yet, and why was Mom asking so many strange things anyhow?

"In Darktown," she said, once she'd fortified herself with most of the rest of her juice and decided to go along with the questions for now. "He's a healer. Except one time last summer we got stuck in Fandom for a long, long, long time and he worked in this clinic then."

She scrunched up her face as it occurred to her that she couldn't help Daddy in the clinic if she was a world away. Unless --

"Is he in Fandom now too?"

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Kathy winced. Because that was a heck of a name to saddle a kid with. "Is there something else you'd rather be called?" she asked. "And--are you hungry? There's omelettes and juice and a kind of pancake thing?"

They also had milk, but it wasn't blue. Sorry, Tebb. Also, no coffee for you.

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Darktown? What kind of name was Darktown?

"Well..." Kathy answered cautiously, "I haven't seen him yet today..."

Unless Ezra was this girl's father, too, but she was pretty sure there were no universes where Ezra would be working in a clinic.

"Okay, so I'm going to give you a little quiz, all right?" she said, filing away the 'we got stuck in Fandom' thing to ask about later. "Just to make sure you're prepared in case we get separated. And if you get all the answers right, you get a whole hoddeok all for you, okay?"

This seemed like something she would do in the future. Probably?

[wee-skycrawlers.livejournal.com]

"What kind of pancake thing?" Tebb asked, trying not to sound interested while actually being extremely interested.

[spin-kick-mage.livejournal.com]

"A whole one?" Carys's eyes went wide. Sugar wasn't as cheap in a pre-industrial society as it was in Fandom. "I would answer a million billion questions for a whole one!"

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"It's called a hoddeok," Kathy explained. "It's Korean. Picture a pancake stuffed with cinnamon and brown sugar and walnuts. That kind of pancake thing."

And if that didn't tempt Tebb, she was giving up on children and boys forever, because she obviously didn't know the first thing about either.

[wee-skycrawlers.livejournal.com]

"That might not suck."

High praise from Tebb.

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"A whole one just for you," Kathy promised, sliding one out of the pan and putting it on a plate. "You're very smart, I bet you'll get all my questions right, too."

"Okay, so first question. Let's say you're lost and you can't find me or Daddy. But there's a nice police person standing nearby. What do you say?"

She was bribing a small child with sugar in exchange for information and she didn't even feel bad about it.

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Fortunately, Kathy had a thirteen year old sister. She could translate.

"I can make you one, but I'm also going to make you an omelette, too," she decided. "You need more than sugar in the morning."

Woo! Look at her parent!

[wee-skycrawlers.livejournal.com]

"Since when?" Tebb demanded.

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"Since you came into my common room and decided you'd like to try my hoddoek," Kathy declared.

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Carys sat up very straight, trying to look solemn even as her eyes drifted to the cake. "I tell the guard, 'hi, I'm Carys Li, can you take me to Captain Aveline's office?'," she said. "Auntie Aveline would know what to do."

[wee-skycrawlers.livejournal.com]

"You're not the boss of me," he told her.

Even though she had all the food. Genetics weren't really with him in the "smart choices" area.

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"Very good!" Kathy said, pleased that she'd at least gotten the girl's name out of her. She had no idea who this Aveline was, or why she said 'police officer' and Carys thought 'guard,' but hey. Kathy was taking her victories where she could get them. "You've clearly studied very hard, I'm proud of you!"

No daughter of hers was going to feel like she had to jump over impossible hurdles to win her approval.

"Now, let's say that Captain Aveline isn't there, so the guard asks you who your mom and dad are. What do you say to that?"