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

It had felt so weird, getting home on Sunday afternoon. Kate hadn't been back in six months, and it hit her hard, how everything was the same as it had always been.

Yeah, actually, she had been back home once after starting at Fandom High, but that didn't count, not really; she realized that now. That time, she'd taken Leto home with her, which meant she'd effectively taken Fandom home with her, too. With him there, Overland Park wasn't the same Overland Park she'd known all her life. With him there, she was looking at everything from a stranger's point of view, trying to imagine how it all seemed to him. And she couldn't even pretend her life was the same as it had always been; one look at him and she remembered all the weirdness.

And she knew it was all real.

There was nothing to do that to her now, nothing concrete to remind her Fandom wasn't just a trick of her mind. She spent all of Sunday feeling unsteady, like she was standing between two worlds, kind of unsure about everything. It was similar to what she felt during Parents' Weekend, thrown off her balance by trying to keep Fandom and her home from crashing together and screwing everything up for her.

But the feeling was fading now. Nearly 16 years spent in her hometown ensured that it was ridiculously easy to slip into that old way of being. Being who she had always been, doing the same things she always did. It was exactly why Monday afternoon found her at the mall, visiting all her favorite stores and just generally hanging out.

She was just heading for the record store and had gone past an elaborate Christmas tree and some benches when she heard a voice call out her name.

She recognized the voice instantly, and spun around before she'd even had time to think about it.

( Cut for meeting the Ghost of Boyfriend Past. ...Or y'know, just running into an ex. )

She got her phone out and sent a mass text to her friends in Fandom.

How's things in Fandom or wherever you are? Kansas is boring.


[ooc: NFB due to distance, but open to texts and calls! If you think you got the message, you got it.

I'm around pretty much all of today, but tomorrow morning I shall flee to spend Christmas internetlessly; I'll be back on Saturday. Happy holidays, everyone!]