Sometimes, Normal Things Happen

[illirica]

For a while, Pepper just cried. Cait didn't do anything about that. She knew the power of a good cry, after all.

In terms of raw occult energy, that sort of emotional breakdown could be used to power a number of things. In terms of components, the tears of a fragmented god could probably be used for at least a dozen spells.

In terms of friendship, it was best not to mention any of that, and just hold Pepper for as long as she needed it, and let her have her cry. Death was a weird thing. Cait would have liked to have said that she'd made her peace with it - she was part of a surface team, after all. Any of them could die at any moment, and given the things they ran into on a regular basis, making it to the point of dying of old age was statistically unlikely. Of course, if she'd really been comfortable with the idea, maybe she wouldn't have been so interested in the idea of figuring out resurrections.

Maybe that was just the challenge, though. Something that wasn't supposed to be done. Something that maybe shouldn't be done. Cait was bad at being told no. She tended to take it as an invitation to prove someone wrong.

Or maybe it was that she got a little bit of where Pepper was coming from. She'd found her people, and she didn't want to let them go. She might not be able to do anything about that, and probably couldn't, but the feeling was still there. So she understood at least a little bit of all of this, enough to stay where she was and hold Pepper tight and say nothing at all, because nothing was the right thing to say, at least until Pepper got it out.

"Little better?" she inquired, softly, once it seemed to have wound down. "Here." Her hand slipped into one of her pockets, retrieving a handkerchief and handing it over. Being Cait, of course it was black, but she'd found that hid eyeliner smudges better anyway. It shouldn't have been able to fit in her pocket, given the constraints of women's fashion and the traditional chapstick and a quarter sized pockets that came with them, but Cait had figured out a pocket-dimension spell by the time she was fifteen.

"It'll be okay, Pepper. Maybe it won't be the way you thought it would be or hoped it would be - it'll be different, but it'll be okay. You'll find your way."

 

[Pepper Krasniqi]

When Pepper finally stopped crying, she leaned away from Caits neck and sniffled a bit. She took the proffered handkerchief and dried her face off. It was black and silky to the touch, which made Pepper smile a little. That was so like Cait to have something like this on her person, or in whatever dimension she kept things in.

“A lot better. Thank you for letting me cry like that. And, you’re right. I will figure this out, even if it’s different from how I always imagined it.” She wiped her eyes again, gasping in a little breath as she tried to get herself back under control. Because Cait was right, no matter what, she’d figure this out. It wasn’t in her to give up. She was raised by one of the most stubborn women to ever stubborn. She wouldn’t rest until she figured out how to live like this.

“Thank you for listening to me. For reassuring me. I’ve been so stressed about this since I fully understood what the test results meant. I didn’t know, like. I didn’t want to stress Cody out, and I’m supposed to see Dr. Holt soon, but I just. It’s not the same as talking to someone who you trust to just be there for you. I know we don’t know each other very well yet, but you have the vibe of being someone who I can count on.”

 

[illirica]

"I get it," Cait said. She felt like maybe Pepper was a little more worried about stressing Cody out than she should have been, but there was also the complication that once things got weird enough, Cody had to flip the switch from Understanding Boyfriend to Location Manager, and then that got weird. Not that this whole situation didn't need a location manager keeping an eye on it, but in personal terms, Pepper probably sometimes just needed someone to talk to without having to worry about whether this was all going to get put in a file somewhere.

Fortunately for her, Cait was excellent at ignoring regulations when it suited her, so Pepper didn't have to worry about that part at all. If Pepper did end up spilling over and opening a hole to her Dark Dimension and causing an apocalypse... well, Cait would be right there with her. Probably saying how cool it was.

Because it would be extremely cool.

But it seemed like today wasn't the day for an apocalypse, which was okay too. You couldn't have apocalypses every day, otherwise you'd stop appreciating them when they happened.

"And I don't mind. Really. I think sometimes it's just good to have someone to talk to. I'm happy to meet for coffee any time. Who knows, maybe next time I'll be a hot mess about something." It was entirely possible, after all, though Cait at least had her team to dump her messes on. She thought that was maybe an issue with a lot of researchers - they got all tangled up in whatever they were studying and forgot to be human, and then they broke out of the energy drink fueled haze one day and wondered why their personal lives were all screwed up. And sure, it was possible for researchers to go make friends and have relationships... it's just that they tended to be ridiculously bad about it.

Like, how long had Pepper and Cody been failing to date, for example?

 

[Pepper Krasniqi]

In all honesty, she could have told Cody instead. She could have chosen to have this meltdown in front of him. He would have held her and told her that it was okay. He would have given her reassurance that no matter what he would always love her. But for some reason, she knew Cait was the one to have this conversation with. Some part of her recognized that in Cait, there was something she needed to hear. She knew that the woman would say the right thing to let her find some release from the emotional flood she’d been holding onto for the last few days.

Pepper smiled and folded the handkerchief up, setting it on the table neatly. Everything had lined up, and a smile came back to her face, even as she caught the eye of the cashier watching them with concern. She smiled at them and nodded her head before looking back at Cait. “I’d like that, I think.”

She didn’t have to go through this alone. No matter what, she had people around her that cared about her, a support system that would see her through to the end. That was the point of having friends, wasn’t it? They picked you back up when you fell down. They helped you see the bright side. That kind of interpersonal relationship was something Pepper had never struggled with but had never had much success with either. She smiled as she realized that maybe, just maybe, that luck was turning around.