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

It was a morning in early January in Kansas, and Kate was awake but hadn't accomplished much past rolling onto her back to look at the ceiling of her parents' bedroom. (Or, as it had been for a couple of months, hers and Bod's.) Awake enough to have thoughts whirring in her head but not enough to actually bother getting out of bed. She'd get to that. She had work, later, and all. But she was thinking right now.

They had about a month to go before her parents would be coming back. The news from Boston seemed to be positive, most of the time. It was hard, too, of course it was, but her mom seemed to think she was making some sort of progress and while Kate was naturally wary of getting too optimistic, it was still pretty nice to hear.

But that wasn't really what she was thinking about. Her thoughts were more centred around what would happen once her parents got back. You know, with their general living situation. Even with how annoying paying the bills was, she'd kind of gotten used to just having the house for the three of them.

Hmm.

[ooc: NFB, naturally, but open for calls/texts, and that guy that lives here.]

Man, was it ever fun to be one of the attendants on a flight where members of your family were among the passengers. Especially when it was your dad who was totally having super major flight anxiety and ranting to your brother a little too loudly and battling with his seatbelt.

Kate had to stride down to isle to where Marshall and Max were sitting. "Sir, calm down," she told her dad, in her best polite flight attendant voice, silently thankful she didn't need to watch over them on their connecting flight to New York for the film festival. Max looked a sweaty mess. "You're making the other passengers shit themselves."

( Mon-- Monty! Monty! Monty. Monty. Monty. Monty. Monty. )

She pressed the call button and hoped Luke would save her from the boy monster for at least a moment.

[ooc: NFB, taken with major tweakage from USoT S03E08 'Chicken 'n' Corn'. Mainly for that guy she's calling, though other texts/calls are welcome too.]

Kate had slept at the airport.

Correction: Kate had tried to sleep at the airport. It hadn't worked out all that well, so while staying there had allowed her a little more time alone with herself, the lack of proper sleep was still putting a dent to any mental clarity she could've been feeling. She'd come all the way down from her manic high of panic and pseudo-revelations, though. Now she just wanted to go home. Maybe sleep in an actual bed. Figure all this shit out.

"Ohayou gozaimasu, Katie," her dad said, as he picked up her call. "How's Japan?"

Ugh.

( Goddamn, that was a fast trip! )

First, there was someone else she needed to talk to. She grabbed her phone off the nightstand, and picked Bod's number.

[ooc: NFB, taken again from USoT S03E04. Primarily for the boy getting the call, but open for other texts/calls of the 'how's Japan?' variety as well.]

Having left Nathan back in his room, Kate had meant for this to be yet another normal, boring evening, just like she'd meant tomorrow to be just another normal, boring day at work. But, of course, then the call from Jack had come through, and suddenly she had an invitation to go to London tomorrow.

At first, she hesitated with her phone for a moment, both wondering whether she should check in with Mitchell and see where in the multiverse he was, and fully knowing she needed to let Bod know she was going because the last thing he needed this week was her just disappearing. Both of those could wait, though. She put her phone down on her desk and got a bag out of her closet.

Sure, she wasn't leaving until tomorrow, but this was something that called for some thought: just what did you pack when you'd been called to come help solve a murder?

[ooc: Open door, open post!]

This was starting to be a weekend routine, going to Kansas and meeting up with Zach. It was something that got Kate through the week in Fandom, at least. Whatever happened. This week hadn't even been that bad, but she was still glad to see him when he came to pick her up from the airport.

By now, they were at the Gregson house. They were the only two people there, but in her bedroom all the same. It was the first time she'd let him into her home, after making sure everyone else was gone and would be for a while. She wasn't hiding him from them – since by now they all knew she was dating someone called Zach though they hadn't met him – but... all in good time.

( Stuffed animals, earrings, and the Joffrey Ballet. Plus a phonecall, and a sibling discussion about happiness. All this just with the price of a click on this cut! )

[ooc: NFB, NFI, OOC-okay! Mostly taken with tweakage from USoT S02E10, with a chunk preplayed with the stellar icecoldfrost.]

Kate's mood was a seriously fickle thing. Generally speaking, she was probably doing better than she had last week; she was largely doing fine when she was with people (provided none of those people were Bod), mind comfortably occupied, but relapses into severe gloom were still far too easy when she was alone. Like right now.

It had started when she'd been cleaning up her half of the room since even Bobby had bothered to do it yesterday, and she had come across a certain notebook that had just brought all the stupid hurt back. Having shoved the notebook away again, she'd seen all her Princess Valhalla crap and one thing had led to another, and now she was sitting on her bed in full costume (with a matching pink scarf around her neck), with the laptop in her lap. She hadn't bothered with squirrelproofing the room, not this time. Doing this right now had been a snap decision, and she didn't have any rum at hand. And she couldn't quite bring herself to care anymore, about whether word got out or not. She didn't see any consequences worse than the ones she'd already suffered through.

Still, having made her presence known online, she declined all requests from the guys she knew for sure would skeeve her out, meaning anyone she'd already done things for. She didn't think she could even stomach seeing their faces, to be honest. But then, then there was someone whose nick was just a normal name, not a scifi reference she didn't get or a desperately suggestive piece of utter failure. So, she clicked on 'Accept', and watched her newest acquaintance show up on her screen. He looked to be in his late twenties, with shortish brown hair and a nice face. And she actually remembered meeting this guy: it was easy to remember him, seeing as he was the only conventionally attractive guy she'd seen her entire time at the comic book store. Not that she'd paid his looks all that much mind back then. She'd been in love, but that was over now, so she was letting herself pay more attention to the fact that this guy was actually kind of cute.

( Once more with feeling: I'm your Princess Valhalla Hawkwind, and your wish is my ultimate command; Or, Meet Zach. )

[ooc: Door is closed, but the post is open, and the girl is a lot less moody than text outside the cut may suggest! If you want to try and catch her in costume, this is most likely your last chance. This is also completely broadcastable since she doesn't give a damn anymore. Taken and twisted into a funky mashup from both USoT S02E08 'Explosive Diorama' and S02E09 'The Family Portrait'.]

It was Kate's birthday.

Not that that was much evident from anything, except maybe the slightly stilted happy birthday phonecall she'd gotten from her dad earlier, and the far more animated one from Lynda a little later. But it was still her birthday. Seventeen. Hmmh.

She was grabbing a portal to KC in the evening to join Lynda in the Crossroads district's First Friday art thing. And afterwards she was going to take another portal back, and tomorrow morning Lynda was going to fly over to be her weekend guest.

But for now? She was lazing about in a skimpy top and shorts (it was her birthday, she thought she was allowed) with some candy and a random bad movie on her laptop. And wearing her Princess Valhalla boots for no real reason, other than having just checked the insane number of hits on her video.

So far it was an okay birthday.

[ooc: Half-open door, completely open post! Handwavey knowledge of birthday completely fine.

A some bits of AFKness coming up, first as I go to class, and then way later when I go see Scott Pilgrim, but other than that I'm around!]

Normal weekends were weird. Kate knew that was a thought that didn't make much sense at first glance. She didn't care. It was still true.

Not that the Gregsons usually spent their weekend debating paint colors, or packing stuff up and moving it around the house to paint rooms. But they were just... They were all acting normal. Like a normal family. Joking and laughing as they did stuff. It wasn't the first or the only time Kate had felt that by any means, because they were generally a happier family than people (Kate herself included) gave them credit for, but still. Weird.

So Kate was taking a break, by closing the doors to her room and flopping down on her bed, and not really thinking about anything at all. Thinking would only lead to either thoughts of what Mitchell had told her yesterday, or wondering just how long this no mental illness thing would last.

And that was not what taking a break was all about.

[ooc: NFB due to distance, but open for calls and text messages and all that stuff.]

Kate was packing for spring break. The Bahamas, seriously? How awesome was that?

She so needed the vacation.

( She had been waiting for a call from her brother, so her phone was already close at hand when it started ringing. )

Kate stood frozen for a good while after the call ended. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe George was just prone to spazzing. Mitchell was a grown-up, as he was so fond of reminding her. He could take care of himself. Maybe she should just forget about it.

But she couldn't stop thinking about it. And the more she thought about it...

( Okay, Kate was now officially Worried. )

She was already gathering her stuff as she ended the call. Boots, bag, jacket.

It was entirely possible she'd be at the causeway in less than ten minutes.

[ooc: NFI (as she's running out), and let's say the topic of the calls is NFB. Preplayed with the smashing chose_humanity and the amazing bitten_notshy. Fabulous coding by chose_humanity. Follows this.]

"...Maybe yeah, but I’m not sure yet. I don't know if they have stuff here that I wanna be here for, but I'll get back to you as soon as I know, okay? ...What? Um, no, we haven't talked about that, I don't think Christmas is a- ...Okay, maybe. We'll see. You wouldn't mind? ... Okay. I might ask him. ... Yeah. Tell Dad I said hi. Okay, love you too, bye."

And that was Kate's Thanksgiving phonecall to her Mom over and done with. Sure, Thanksgiving was actually on Thursday, but she'd tried calling then and that... hadn't worked out. After two unanswered calls to her mother's cellphone, she'd called her brother instead, and confirmed her suspicions: it had been Alice-time. It hadn’t been much better on Friday, either, but today things were back to as normal as the Gregsons could manage, and Kate actually really enjoyed talking to her mother on the phone. Despite all the crazy, she missed her family.

Still, what was Kate thankful for? Not being in Overland Park.

After the call she flopped down on her bed. This weekend wasn’t as busy as the two before it, and she was completely fine with that. If she was going to be involved in any kind of action today, that action was going to have to come find her first, because she was just going to lay here and be lazy.

[ooc: Open door, open post.]