Atermoiements

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Kallie waited until Cait was done before sighing and bringing back the grin.[font color=purple] “You’re a good friend, Cait Corby. You really are. I won’t tell her that you’re the one who told me.”[/font color]

She leaned forward on her hands, and then gradually dropped one hand to the table, where she tapped her perfectly manicured black nails. She thought for a second, her eyes closed, before she opened them wide and fixed them on Cait, her gaze narrowing.[font color=purple] “You don’t have to tell me anything. You can just tell me if I’m right, okay?”[/font color]

Kallie wasn’t a researcher for nothing. She could put together context clues and accidental slip-ups like it was no one’s business. She leaned back in her chair, breaking eye contact and keeping her hand on the table to tap rhythmically as she laid out the pieces.[font color=purple] “I’m sure there’s some part of this that I’ll have wrong. I’d call Pepper in to demand answers, but she’s currently busy with Ira. Now then, judging by the fact that she’s been in her dimension a lot more than usual the last few weeks, I imagine it must have something to do with that. You’ve already told me she has a “little friend” inside her, and she’s shown no signs of parasitic activity, so it’s unlikely that. But you’re involved in some way, and I know what you Niners deal with.”[/font color]

She withdrew her nails and looked at them for a moment before continuing, her gaze still not returning to Cait’s. She eyed the rounded tips of her nails as she continued.[font color=purple] “Due to your involvement, I can be led to only two conclusions. The first is that I’ve completely misread everything, and it has something to do with her involvement with Ira instead, or my girl has either a god or an Eldritch being inside her head. God forbid it’s an Eldritch god. Unless… no, no, those are the only two options.”[/font color]

A third option had come to her, however, and it was that not only did it have to deal with her dimension, but it also dealt with Ira. She remembered Ira’s files, and how she claimed to be a goddess in her waking world. But there was no way that that had any overlap. It was statistically unlikely. So she looked up from her nails to look Cait directly in the eye, a spark of fire behind them, and asked,[font color=purple] “Well? Am I right, Caitlyn?”[/font color]

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[div style="border-top: 4px #33ccff solid; border-bottom: 4px #33ccff solid; border-left: 4px #000000 solid; border-right: 4px #000000 solid;"][div style="border-right: 4px #33ccff solid; border-left: 4px #33ccff solid; border-bottom: 4px #000000 solid; border-top: 4px #000000 solid;padding:8px; background-color:white;color:black;font-family:'courier new';"][font color="33ccff"]"Well. Ain't that a theory."[/font] Cait had been on the receiving end of that particular phrase more than once, and at least in the room for it far more times than that. It was a good phrase. It didn't really confirm anything and it didn't really deny anything and it didn't really mean anything. Sometimes the best meanings were meaningless. Her eyebrow might have twitched a little bit at those are the only two options in a Mr. Spock-ish sort of way, because there were always more than two options. Limiting your options just meant limiting yourself, yeah? If the sky was the limit, it could be the limit from the outside.

[font color="33ccff"]"And great try. Good synopsis. But Pepper's my friend, so, y'know. Officially I'm just here to check up on the godbait situation. It says so on the paperwork. Unofficially I'm here because, I don't know, they don't want me turning L-9 into a two-dimensional Escher space this week or something. Which is rude, I would never. I mean, this place, heck yeah, it's boring, but not L-9! We already have a two-dimensional Escher space. You have to be original, Dr. Reed. I could rearrange your office for you if you like?"[/font]

This was, of course, silly - but Cait was a little silly and she got away with things. It was easy to be silly, and then people forgot that you weren't just silly. Haha, she's funny rather than oh she's serious. You could be both! Not, like, right now, because Cait wasn't allowed to rearrange L-14, which was absolutely not any fun at all.

Maybe Pepper would let Cait rearrange her office. Pepper would probably let her. And... then Cait would get in trouble about that, so bother. She was just going to have to leave space alone for the time being.

[font color="33ccff"]"You should talk to her about it. Not just because I'm weird and unhelpful and likely to invert your bookshelf. But because if you care about her, you should talk to her about the important things. So that she knows she can talk to you about them. And so she knows that you care."[/font] She'd tapered off a little at the end there, less whimsical and more thoughtful. It wasn't as easy to hide behind, but... well, she wouldn't be a good friend if she didn't say something.
 
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Kallie had heard that phrase enough times from Strings to fill multiple incident reports. It was enough to make her sigh and lean back on the table.[font color=purple] “I will be talking to her about it, Cait. I just want as many pieces put together as possible so I know who to talk to for this. My daughter didn’t have a being in her head before, so why does she now? I need to know who to talk to about this. I don’t want to come at Pepper without knowing all the facts. That way I know how to help her.”[/font color]

She had almost said “who to blame for this” but had just managed to reign that in. Cait didn’t need to know that Kallie was going to be on the warpath after this to figure out how this had happened and she wasn’t made aware of it. She had not only been Pepper’s primary researcher until the girl had turned 18, she was also her mother. It didn’t help that if this had happened sometime in the last few years, it meant Kallie hadn’t noticed it. And that was really where this need to know came from. The need to know if she had fucked up.

[font color=purple] “Pepper won’t be available for me to talk to until tonight. She’s got a full schedule. I know because I asked her to lunch and she told me she couldn’t make it. I wouldn’t be trying to get this information out of you unless I thought it would help me to help her. So, please. Just tell me. Does she have an Eldritch thing or a god in her head? I promise that I will be talking to her about it. I just want to know what I'm getting into.”[/font color]

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[div style="border-top: 4px #33ccff solid; border-bottom: 4px #33ccff solid; border-left: 4px #000000 solid; border-right: 4px #000000 solid;"][div style="border-right: 4px #33ccff solid; border-left: 4px #33ccff solid; border-bottom: 4px #000000 solid; border-top: 4px #000000 solid;padding:8px; background-color:white;color:black;font-family:'courier new';"]Oooh, they were fishing. Dr. Reed knew a lot less than she was trying to let on. She was also worried. And she also seemed like she really, really did care about Pepper.

And yeah, Cait was a little jealous about that, but Pepper didn't need that right now. Pepper had a lot going on, and Pepper needed as much support as she could get, and was going to need... probably more support before this all got sorted out.

And Dr. Reed...

Cait sighed, and shifted in her seat, a little uncomfortable, and didn't answer any of the questions, because she had one of her own - one that came first, before there were going to be any more questions or any more answers. She sat forward again, meeting Dr. Reed's eyes with the sort of intensity she usually reserved for occultism, the sort of intensity that was going to figure out the answer no matter what she had to do to get it, because the answer meant everything.

[font color="33ccff"]"Do you love her?"[/font]
 
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Kallie leaned into the table, her expression turning desperate as she looked into Cait’s eyes. Her hand moved toward Cait, maybe in a subconscious attempt to make the girl understand her. She searched Cait’s eyes for a moment before saying,[font color=purple] “If that girl asked me to walk into oncoming traffic, I would. If I had to throw myself off a bridge in order to save her, I would. If it ever came down to me dying, or her dying, I’d pick me every time. I love Pepper like she was my own daughter, not like she’s adopted. I’ve never loved another human being more than I love her.”[/font color]

Maybe that was a bit excessive, but Kallie meant every word of it. She also needed to convince Cait that she was serious about this, and the only way she knew how to do that was with words. She pulled back into a sitting position, tucking one of her messy curls behind her ear.[font color=purple] “So please, Cait, please tell me what is wrong with my daughter.”[/font color]

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[div style="border-top: 4px #33ccff solid; border-bottom: 4px #33ccff solid; border-left: 4px #000000 solid; border-right: 4px #000000 solid;"][div style="border-right: 4px #33ccff solid; border-left: 4px #33ccff solid; border-bottom: 4px #000000 solid; border-top: 4px #000000 solid;padding:8px; background-color:white;color:black;font-family:'courier new';"]Okay.

So that stung more than Cait had expected it to. That was okay. Sometimes stuff hurt. She told herself it was just an old scar, and that scars were there to remind you of what you'd survived, and all that therapy stuff. And yeah. Okay. So it helped. Mostly it just helped because the important part was that this was about Pepper and it was important to be happy for your friends.

Crisis averted, yeah?

Cait took a deep breath, nodded, and let it out. [font color="33ccff"]"Okay."[/font] Okay. Build the support system. It was like getting all the runes in place on the circle so that if something blew up, there was enough in place to catch the explosion before it got too bad. That was probably a terrible metaphor. People weren't runes. Or magic circles. Or explosions.

Well, sometimes they were. But that was... off topic. Okay. Right. Pepper.

[font color="33ccff"]"There is nothing wrong with Pepper."[/font]

This statement was the absolute truth, stated with the absolute conviction of someone who'd been on the receiving end of what is WRONG with you? far too many times to count. There was nothing wrong with Pepper. That was important - was important to remember. Was important for everyone to remember.

Cait moved her hand a little. [font color="33ccff"]"Buuuut..... well, you do have a few misconceptions."[/font] You didn't just give people answers, though. Not for free. Dr. Reed had given her love, though, and that was worth something. Cait held up two fingers, then lowered them again. Two. Two things were wrong. She didn't say that. And she wasn't going to say that. [font color="33ccff"]"There are some things I can't tell you."[/font] Not because of friendship, but because this one was also classified up to its eyeballs, which there might have been more of than people were expecting.

[font color="33ccff"]"So... if I were you, I'd be thinking really hard about that first piece you wanted to put together."[/font] Dr. Reed had talked about wanting to put the pieces together, and then she'd gone and said a thing, and... well, here they were having an interesting conversation. About that thing. Which Cait wasn't telling her, because you didn't give people answers, but sometimes you pointed them in a certain direction and watched to see if they could find the answers themselves.
 

Kallie sighed a little in relief as Cait told her there was nothing wrong with Pepper. She tried to conceal how deeply relieved that made her, but she could feel the tension that had started building in her shoulders ease at the words. She leaned back in her chair as she listened to Cait cryptically inform her that she had misconceptions. She briefly held up two fingers, and Kallie caught on quickly as to what was happening.

She closed her eyes and leaned forward on her hands. Which pieces did she have wrong? She considered again the third option she had come to. It was unlikely. Incredibly unlikely. But if it was real, what Ira claimed about herself, then they already had one god in custody from another dimension. Adding a second wouldn’t be a stretch. It was hard to consider it, though, given it was Pepper. Kallie had known Pepper since she was five, had adopted her when she was twelve, had lived with her since then. It felt horrible to know that she had completely missed a change in Pepper–

Unless she hadn’t. Unless there had never been a change because Pepper had come to them with the god inside her already. She opened her eyes again and looked at Cait. “It wasn’t recent. She’s always had whatever this thing is inside of her. Before she ever got here.”

One at a time, not both at once. The most important thing to Kallie right then was the fact that Pepper had something inside her, not the how or the where or the why. Just the what. “And it’s definitely a god of some kind.”

 
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Cait raised her eyebrows in innocent amazement, or at least a facsimile of the expression. It didn't have to be believable, because no one believed Cait half the time any way.

"Unholy cow, Dr. Reed. You really should talk to someone about these zany theories of yours."

Not Cait, of course, because Cait definitely could not confirm or deny any of these things, and also was not a psychologist so it wasn't like she could do anything on that end. Nope, Cait was just a visitor, just dropping in to say hello and a few other things that definitely weren't going to have far-reaching or ongoing consequences.

Hopefully Dr. Reed would actually talk to Pepper about all of this rather than talking around her. Cait hated it when people talked around her, and assumed the feeling was shared by anyone who'd ever been in the room when people were having conversations about them but not with them. And Pepper was probably too nice to say anything about it or accidentally-on-purpose do something to draw attention, too.

"That's not going to be a problem, is it?" That was a very specific sort of sentence, and it somehow seemed to translate itself to if you decide there is a problem, you will have a problem, and your problem will be me. Gail was better at nailing the tone, but Cait had never been to law school. For all she knew, there was a class on it.

On the other hand, Cait was really good at being a problem.
 

She wasn’t going to confirm or deny it, but Kallie felt confident in that deduction. That was what mattered right then. She could ask Pepper about the rest, ask her why she didn’t immediately tell Kallie, and then comfort her from whatever was going on. She didn’t need to know everything, she decided. She just needed to know enough. “I think I’ll be doing exactly that, Cait.”

She leaned back in her chair and sighed, deeply. Her eyes closed for a moment as she realized how emotionally drained the conversation had made her. First Strings, which had been fine, then Alvis which had been– no, she wasn’t going to think of that. She still felt raw from the tears earlier. She would have to address all of that soon. Maybe tomorrow. The sooner the better, really.

“No problems at all, Cait. Nothing about it could possibly be a problem. At least, not in that sense.” She flashed the girl a tired grin and leaned forward in her chair. “You know, you’re definitely one of Strings’ students. No mistaking that… you should come by for dinner sometime. Pepper would like that. Just don’t try to emotionally unravel me again and you’re welcome at our home anytime.”

Kallie stood, dusting off invisible debris from her clothes before collecting her lab coat and shrugging into it. She gestured to the door with her hand and said, “Shall we? I have some people to go talk to before I speak with Pepper.”

 
"Oh, good. Because I promised Pepper that if there were any problems, there would be anomalous bees. And I'd really rather not have to requisition them, because then there would be paperwork, and people saying silly things like you can't fill someone's teapot with anomalous bees, Cait - so then I'd have to prove them wrong. And then it would be a whole thing, and then there would be more paperwork. But, you know. I'd do a lot of things for my friends. Even paperwork, yeah?"

This wasn't actually a threat, oddly enough. It was just Cait being... well, Cait - and if people found Cait threatening, that was on them, not on her. This was entirely familiar ground for her.

What was much less familiar was being invited to dinner sometime. From someone at L-9, sure, but this wasn't L-9 and the people here were supposed to be reasonably sane. They dealt with boring things and didn't tend to ask questions like okay but is the problem in that sentence the sanity part or the reason part? - or if they did, they asked it from a safe distance, or at least a safe distance from Cait.

She stepped out into the hallway, making space for Dr. Reed, and because she really was one of Strings' students, she added, as a parting shot: "And Dr. Holt!"

Because Dr. Reed definitely ought to talk to him and find out what happened there.
 
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