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

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!]

This week had been far too intense. Kate could tell by how long it took her to put the pieces of all of it together after waking up. Bryce had attacked her brother. Her aunt and uncle and cousin were moving away. Her mom was going away for three months.

It was a lot of new information.

But at least she and Bod were back in their own bed, and had already been the previous night. No Bryce meant no more barricades. Even Marshall had been sleeping in his room again, even if it still had Bryce's handiwork all over it. You couldn't really say things were back to normal.

With a sigh, Kate picked up her head off Bod's chest, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. Lots to do today, but she didn't feel particularly awake.

( Wake up. )

[ooc: NFB, NFI; OOC-okay! Preplayed with the transplendent nimeni, lifted with tweakage from USoT S03E12.]

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.]

Last night, Kate had brought Bod to Kansas with her again. Considering the way things had gone the last time (both the last time he'd been here, and the last time she'd been here), it may have been considered a bold move, but Kate was convinced that if she came back this time alone, things would have been much worse.

And it wasn't like they'd be spending much time with her family, anyway. Kate was going to be leaving for her comic book store thing soon, and Bod was getting to do whatever the hell he wanted while that was going on.

There had been some mentions of a tornado watch, but those didn't bother Kate as she sat by the kitchen island, eating cereal, wearing a sheet over her princess costume. No point in dressing in regular clothes when she'd be leaving soon. And she and Bod were alone in the kitchen: Kate didn't even know where the rest of her family was, and she didn't particularly care. Although, she was pretty sure she'd seen her brother's faghag/girlfriend hanging around. Still. And that was weird.

But whatever. She adjusted her helmet and turned a little more towards Bod. "So, what do you think you're gonna do while I'm out earning money?"

( And so the very, very, very long day begins. )

[ooc: NFB, NFI, OOC-okay! Part one of two, preplayed with the fantabulous there_was_life, taken and modified from United States of Tara S02E06 'Torando!'. I love this episode.]

So, this was actually happening. Kate had brought Leto home with her.

Sure, her family could have picked them up at the airport, but Kate had insisted on a cab instead. It was kind of expensive, but at least it gave her some more time to prep Leto on What Not To Talk About. As if she hadn't kind of been lecturing him through the whole flight over.

The only downside to this arrangement was that thanks to some stuff that had come up during the cab ride, the cab driver now probably thought Kate and Leto were pretty nice and coherent for obvious drug users.

And now they were out of the cab and standing on the sidewalk in front of Kate's home. "So, this is my neighborhood," Kate told Leto, gesturing around at the identical houses and cute frontyards. "Pretty unspectacular."

( Leto Atreides from Arrakis meets the Gregsons from Kansas. )



( And then late Saturday morning... )

[OOC: NFI & NFB due to distance, OOC welcome. Preplayed with the wonderful future_sandworm and the equally wonderful thegregsons aka joan_notjane. Both bits posted now because of my (un)availability, about which there’ll be a separate post in just a moment.]