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

It had taken several hours of driving to get to the State Fair from KCMO. But that just meant this date time had included a road trip! And since it was Kate's 22nd birthday, she was cool with a road trip.

And, apparently, visiting a cheesy state fair with a motel night to follow.

Sometimes she liked simple pleasures.

Like pointin at signs advertising attractions around the fairgrounds. "Oh my God! Toto, we really are in Kansas right now."

[ooc: This fair ended two weeks ago IRL but see if we care. NFB, for the boy, though can be open for texts or calls I s'pose.]

Ah, blissful days off. Perfect for doing pointless things! Okay, maybe not so pointless, they had some minor things to shop for. But mostly, Kate had gotten her mother's car and dragged Bod off to her old favorite mall just for the hell of it. Just to see if it was still the same and you could still get decent ice cream from the food court.

She stopped near the entrance after coming in, and looked around. It was your basic Midwestern mall. A little on the small side, and maybe it had seen better days. "Jesus, I haven't been here in years." A little over three years, to be exact. "And it's exactly the same! You'd think they'd have renovated a little."

She actually sounded a little gleeful.

[ooc: NFB. For the boooy about to meet someone from the past, oh em gee.]

Marshall was at school, Bod had been sent on errands, and Kate had the day off. She was using it productively – no, really! – by looking at ads for apartments for rent in the general Kansas City area. And kind of daydreaming about the swankier ones while she circled some of the cheaper places to show to Bod, later.

Also, she was eating candy. But mostly that apartment hunt thing!

[ooc: NFB, and mostly for one but open for texts/calls, I guess.]

It was Christmas Day, fucking finally. It even felt like it: there had been some pretty impressive snowfall earlier in the week, so it was a seriously white Christmas, and Kate had really done her best to get the house looking Christmassy (and less creepily than when Grandma Sandy had been around some months before). The living room looked postcard perfect, with the tree in the corner and other decorations all around.

There'd been some Skypeing with Boston, earlier, and even the parentals had been pretty impressed with how things looked, when Kate had insisted on carrying her laptop around for a webcam tour. They were alone again now, though. Moosh was in the kitchen, putting finishing touches on what he had deemed gift-giving snacks, while Kate, in her adorable/ridiculous bear dress, was sitting cross-legged on the living room floor, a camera in her hands. Because a lot of these things just called for being immortalized as pixels.

She looked pretty happy. And sort of bouncy, even though she was sitting down.

"Sorry if I'm all hyper or whatever. I kinda always eat too much sugar over the holidays."

[ooc: NFB. For thems that are here!]

Yesterday, Charmaine and Neil had gotten married in a tiny municipal wedding ceremony that had somehow been better for everyone than Charmaine's previous attempt at a marriage. And early today, the newly wedded couple, along with their infant daughter, had taken off for Houston to go househunting. And Kate was already feeling weird that it was really just her and Marshall and Bod around, now.

So it was a good thing this was the day she'd invited people to come visit. Some booze had been acquired, and Marshall had busied himself in the kitchen making snacks, and they were all set. It was going to be weird since Kate had invited a bunch of people who'd never been to Kansas before, but she was hoping it would be a fun kind of weird.

[Minor OCD coming up! And like I said in the invite, come one and all!]

It was the first day of the rest of their lives.

Okay, so maybe that a little overly dramatic, but Kate was pretty much feeling like that. It was still morning, but Tara and Max had more or less packed all their stuff in the truck already. Max was just fetching the last few of the bags now.

They were all gathered in the front yard: Charmaine with Wheels in her arms, Neil, Bod, Kate, and Marshall. And Tara, of course, fussing with some of her bags before the goodbyes.

Kate looked like she was going to cry, but then she'd been looking like that all morning.

( And so Tara is sent on her way. )

All things, including emotional turmoil, calmed down eventually. By the afternoon, tears had dried, Charmaine and Neil had taken Wheels to the park, and Marshall had gone for a walk. Only Kate and Bod remained.

Standing in her parents' kitchen – her kitchen now? – Kate glanced around, sighed, and wondered when she should start moving her crap over from next door.

[ooc: NFB. Once more, preplayed with the utterly fabulous nimeni, and taken and tweaked from the very end of USoT S03E12, also known as the series finale, woe. NO MORE CANON. Open for that guy, and calls and texts!]

It was a rough day.

( What else is new? )

[ooc: NFB, NFI, OOC-okay! Warning for, yes, you guessed it, assorted dark themes. Taken with less tweakage than the parts before from USoT S03E10.]

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.]

Today, at least in the multiversal timezone Fandom was in, was Valentine's Day. And not only that, it had also been ten months to the day since a boy from England and a girl from Kansas had woken up together and decided they really rather wanted to go back to being boyfriend and girlfriend. Their first attempt at that had only lasted six months and change, so ten months was kind of a huge deal. So they were celebrating.

In Kansas.

Hey, at least it was in Topeka and not KCMO! Kate had never been, and it was actually turning out to be pretty okay. Or maybe that was the company. They had the hot tub suite booked for later at Senate Luxury Suites, but right now they were still at Gage Park, in the Reinisch Rose Garden. It was fall in Kansas, as evidenced by the leather jacket Kate had on over her dress, but since the garden over six thousand bushes of more than four hundred varieties of roses, some of them were still in bloom, and it was pretty enough for her.

She was all smiles, carrying her bag in one hand and holding one of Bod's with the other as they strolled along. "This pretty gorgeous for Kansas, don't you think?"

[ooc: NFB, and just for the bf, and massive massive SP.]

This week was turning out much less eventful than the previous one, and Kate was glad about that. The highpoint of her week so far had been asking a random passenger called Evan get her a Burger Knight candy dispenser from Tulsa because she was collecting them. She'd exchanged the plane's last tiny bottle of alcohol for it. Seriously, that was the most mention-worthy thing from the last few days.

Well, except for the realization that while she hadn't been paying attention, her brother had actually changed boyfriends. Apparently he was with that Noah kid from their film class team now.

Oh yeah, and Charmaine had properly given up on calling her baby Cassandra by now, since the weetiny person only responded to Wheels. And occasionaly Chinese cursewords. Thanks, Neil.

But those were small things. Insignificant. So Kate was just having a lazy day off, playing games on her phone and idly considering the possibility of a trip back to Fandom again. Or maybe she'd just stay here and do absolutely nothing. That was a fine choice too. Mm, time off.

[ooc: NFB, but open for calls, texts, visits, whatever! Parts sort-of lifted from USoT S03E06 'The Road to Hell Is Paved with Breast Intentions']