Chilly Boulder, Monday Afternoon

[glacial_queen]

The weekend was over and people were back to their old selves, at least if the lovely gifts Momoko had left outside her dorm were any indication. The dorm that a sopping wet Karla had marched to last night in high dudgeon. For reasons. Lots of reasons.

But it was a new day, people were back to normal, graduation was in less than a week, and she'd gotten a special package in the mail from Kaeleer. Banard was apologetic that they likely wouldn't arrive in time for her birthday, but just holding her set Jewels in her hands was enough to make her smile.

There was a cup of coffee in her hand, an ice cream cake with 'Happy Birthday' on it, and a clear view of the street so Karla could wave to anyone who wandered by.

[Open! Was going to be a townie post until I went crazy with the links!]

Comments

[bitten_notshy]

"Karla!" Jack greeted when he wandered by the ice cream place during his afternoon break. "You're in town and I'm not furry! It's fate."

[glacial_queen]

"And neither of us are other people!" To Karla today, that was the most important factor. "Come here to flirt with the birthday girl?"

Yeah, it had been yesterday. Except that birthday had been fired and she had hired today to be her birthday instead.

[bitten_notshy]

Jack had only a vague sense Karla's birthday was around the end of April, but if she'd asked:

"Of course," he said. "And to that end, might I observe you are looking usually lovely and ready to take on the world?"

[glacial_queen]

Pssht, she didn't mind. The important thing was when she'd asked, he'd said 'yes.'

"Why, thank you, darling. That's much better than I was doing yesterday," she told him, "when I was pissy and ready to set fire to the world."

Someone did not like weekends when everyone else turned crazy and she didn't.

[trigons_child]

Raven had to get her butt to Kaeleer to report for training, then go to New Gotham and start getting all her things in order, then back to Kaeleer for more training, then back to New Gotham, then....well, it was a damn good thing she could teleport.

Regardless, she wasn't leaving Fandom before saying good-bye to Karla and giving her her birthday present. So she tracked her down at Chilly Boulder. "Hello, Karla," she said as she came inside. "I hope today is a better day."

[glacial_queen]

"So far so good, but then, I haven't seen anyone who isn't who they should be," Karla said. "Even so, look what I got."

She opened the box she'd gotten from Banard and showed her new jewelry to Raven. "Pretty, huh?"

[trigons_child]

"Those are beautiful!" Raven said, bending to take a closer look at the jewels. "You will wear them well."

[glacial_queen]

"He does beautiful work," Karla said softly. "Can you guess what he's working on now?"

[wwiii]

Warren hadn't had a good day. He'd woken up alone in his hotel room, to his relief, really. Especially once memories of the weekend had come drifting back to him and he spent a good portion of the rest of the morning with his face over the toilet bowl.

The things that went through his Umbridge-reality counterpart's head over the weekend hadn't exactly been pleasant. He was still looking a little extra pale as he wandered through town, keeping an eye out for Karla, since she hadn't been in her room when he'd tapped on her window.

His breath caught when he did find her, and he looked... maybe more than a tiny bit apologetic as he made his way into the shop.

"Should I start with apologies, grovelling, or day-late presents?"

[glacial_queen]

"You look like Hell," Karla said, looking up at him with surprise. She figured that he'd probably be sheepish as all Hell, knowing what had happened between other-him and Tamsin, but she hadn't expected him to look so damn...haggard. "Mother Night, just how angry do you think I'm going to be?"

Sure, she'd been pissy last night, but it wasn't like she hadn't dealt with Fandom whimsy over the years!

[wwiii]

"Would it sound bad if I said this isn't all about being worried about how much I messed up this weekend while I wasn't me?" Warren managed a tired smile. "I mean... I know you know I wasn't exactly in control of what was going on. Though I am sorry our birthday sucked."

He walked over to the table and set a printout down on it. An e-mail he'd sent to Captain Chiba, apologizing profusely for missing their reservation due to unforeseen circumstances, saying that he'd be compensated for the lost business all the same. And a request to reschedule, as soon as possible.

"After you graduate, can we never come back to this damned island again? If people want to see us, they can go right ahead and come to Sidra themselves."

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

"I have your birthday present. Not here. Elsewhere..." Um. Ummm?

"Can we skip the awkward for a hug? Because dude."

[wwiii]

"I will take a hug," Warren decided, "and give you one in return, because it's only fair. I'm too tired to do awkward anyway, I think."

Other-him was... wrong. In ways that he'd rather not think too hard about.

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

Dinah had spent time at the Diner until she felt moderately human, and was now headed back to the Arms. Or to find people to make really, really humble apologies to.

Oh, look.

She sighed, and waved from the street, sunglasses still on.

[glacial_queen]

Karla's own smile was rather abashed. She'd been looking forward to taunting Dinah, but the fistfight she'd provoked didn't leave her a lot to stand on. Hopefully her wave inside suggested no hard feelings?

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

Dinah wandered sheepishly in, and took off her sunglasses. "I'm sorry? For all of it? Really really sorry? If I buy you all the chocolate will we be okay?"

[trigons_child]

Raven got up to greet Dinah with a hug once she came in. "Do not worry," she teased gently. "I think we will all sleep with one another's boyfriends at some point."

Sharing was caring?

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

Dinah hooted, cracked up, and hugged Raven hard, swinging her around, embarrassment and worry nearly forgotten. "You are awesome, you know that?"

[longislandiceme]

Yeah, so, that had been weird. He'd come to the island with the intent of celebrating the end of tax season, hanging out with Warren, and giving Sookie a break in the midst of her finals...

and had ended up spending the weekend transformed into the emoest of Norse gods. What.

In any case, it called for an ice cream sundae twice the size of his head.

Without waiting for an invitation, he plopped the bowl down on Karla's table and pulled a chair over.

"Stupid weekend," he grumbled, around a mouthful of mint-chocolate-chip.

[wwiii]

"Almost as bad as some of the other weekends this place has dragged us through," Warren offered, sympathetically, from where he was sitting.

Hey, Bobby! Warren missed you! Also, he was nursing some recent trauma! Hooray!

"But it looks like we all made it through in one piece. That's something, right?"

[longislandiceme]

"I guess. But we missed your birthday," Bobby whined.

[glacial_queen]

"It was the worst," Karla agreed, shoving a slice of her ice cream birthday cake at him. "Did you know there's a universe where Warren's a crazy psychopath that murders women? Yeah, I got to spend the weekend with him."

And the worst part was? She hadn't noticed a damn thing.

Ugh. Worst Black Widow ever.

[longislandiceme]

"I did, actually, know that," Bobby said, because he was an X-Man, he didn't need Fandom for AU shenanigans.

"I was the Norse god of like- moping or something." Which was exponentially better than the last few times Fandom had played this particular trick, a line of thought that had him reaching up unconsciously to rub at his neck.

[trigons_child]

"Were you affected as well?" Raven said, looking over at Bobby. "I did not see you."

Yes, yes she had.

[longislandiceme]

"Yeah, you kinda did," Bobby shared. "Only I wasn't actually, well. Me."