I'm not a hardship. I'm awesome.

It had been a few days since Kate had been back home. It had been about a week where she'd been, mostly hanging out with Bod, waiting for the call that she knew would come. Her dad rallying the troops. Marshall was staying with their Grandma Sandy, and Kate was sure he was expecting the same.

The call had come today, so... Here Kate was, walking into the Gregson house again, bag over her shoulder and wearing a yellow sweater with the face of a polar bear on the front of it. She'd bought it while she'd been away. If you liked reading into things, there could have been symbolism there. Or maybe she just liked bright colors and bear motifs.

( Art and other things. )

[ooc: NFB, preplayed with the incomparable nimeni, to be continued in the comments! Lifted and tweaked from USoT S03E11 'Crunchy Ice'. Warning for Bryce being a creeper at everyone. Seriously, I lack proper labels for this.]

Over in Kate's universe, two days had passed since the trials of St. Louis. It pretty much felt like one seriously long day for Kate, though, since it had been a blur of flights and errands and then some more flights since she'd had to cover for someone else. She was getting free time now, though, and there was even supposed to be some kind of a dinner tonight at her parents' house, so she'd finally called Luke and told him to catch a portal to the KC international airport and meet her there after her shift so they could be on their way back to Overland Park. And lo, it had happened.

She'd been pretty surprised, to say the least, to find Eddie Izzard her mother's Psych professor hanging out at their house when she and Luke had arrived. But, they were working on a paper on DID together, and the guy seemed okay – dry, sarcastic, and English were not a bad combo in Kate's book – so she supposed it could've been worse. And at least now no one could nag at her for bringing a dude to what had apparently been envisioned as a women-only thing.

While Professor Hattaras was in the kitchen heating up stew prepared the night before, they'd sat in the Gregsons' backyard for a while, surrounded by twinkly lights in the cooling fall evening, with appetizers and wine because Mitchell apparently wasn't the only who'd stopped enforcing the American drinking age. It had been idle conversation for the most part, with a few half-joking allusions from Charmaine that her sister was having an affair with the professor and Tara vehemently protesting that she shouldn't say stuff like that in front of her daughter and her friend. Just your average Mooshless and Maxless Sunday evening on Oak Avenue, really.

It was too cold in the backyard by now, though, and since the good professor had announced that the stew was ready, they'd relocated into the kitchen (following Tara's lead, since she'd excused herself to go inside a few minutes earlier) and crammed themselves around the table. Well, everyone except for Wheels, who was dozing peacefully in her carry cot on the counter to the side, and Tara who was still going around the table, putting stew into everyone's bowls and making sure no one needed more bread before she'd settle down.

( It's a dinner at the Gregson house. Of course it turns into a disaster. )

[ooc: NFB, based on USoT S03E09 'Bryce Will Play', preplayed with the magnificent trickydemigod, and to be continued in the comments. Warning for allusions to past child abuse, and Bryce generally being a creeper.]