strangetrip | [EP/GP] Check-In: I Assure You We Are Open

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[EP/GP] Check-In: I Assure You We Are Open

The damp, cool, chilly morning clouded with fog seemed to fit the mood about the Madonna Inn. Nobody had been quite right since the undead invasion. Definitely not Vax'ildan. But for him, it was less about their sense of day-to-day calm and safety shattered, less about undead specifically. It was a lot more to do with losing Scanlan and Pike, and the new memorials installed in the Temple.

He wondered about it, not for the first time, even as he readied for the fresh arrivals that might be coming today - or not, because they didn't always. What decided who came and went? Was there any sense in how many and when or why? Not so far as he could tell, but he'd never been the brains.

Gathering up the great heap of cloth and rope in his arms, the lean figure summoned the wings of his armor, the black of his silhouette merging with the other dark and shifting shapes skulking about in the first light of dawn. With a crouch and a lunge from the roof, he spread his wings wide and circled through the air right up to the face of the main building, unfurling the massive banner he'd sewn of spare bedsheets and painted with dark dye to tie it up taut:

WELCOME NEWCOMERS
YES, THIS MEANS YOU
NO REALLY WE'RE SURE

Life kept going on around you, no matter how confused or scared or fucked-up you were. And the best thing, the kindest thing, the sanest thing he could think to do in all this was to start up the coffee machine, stack some decorated pumpkin-shaped cookies on a platter in the lobby, and prop open the doors for whoever would join them in being confused and scared and fucked-up today.

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Another check-in day, another set of new faces. Usually Kitty greeted it with a sort of muted enthusiasm for the possibilities, but with Maya gone, and the inn taking people away from her almost as fast as she could make friends, she was on the quiet end of the spectrum today. She'd tend bar and let other people do the greetings.

At least that was the plan.

She couldn't help looking up whenever someone entered the cafe and this new arrival was no exception. To the looking up. To everything else...

Exception alert. Exception alert.

The glass she'd been polishing slipped from nerveless fingers and hit the mats--must've been just right not to shatter and crash, but Kitty wasn't paying attention. Her heart pounded so hard it was choking her.

"...Lara?"

And there she was. Kitty Pryde, every bit as beautiful as Lara remembered. Lara hadn't realized until that moment that she'd been afraid, somewhere in her mind, that she'd returned to the Inn after Kitty had left it.

She wanted to go kiss Kitty, but she didn't know how long it had been for the other woman. She didn't know if Wyatt was still around, if he and Kitty had gone on together. But she couldn't help a few steps in her direction and an I'm-so-happy-to-see-you smile. "Hello, Kitty. It's me."

Her brain ran in frantic circles through the questions--is it really you? do you know me? do you still care about me? how long has it been? is there anyone else? where have you been?--most of them answered by the four simple words of greeting, but some part of her still needed to ask them.

Which was fine, because she couldn't make sounds, anyway.

While her brain was still trying to make sense of it and her emotions were still milling, Kitty tossed the clean, dry rag on the counter, walked straight through it, and if there'd been room, she probably would've run. She didn't stop until they were face to face, so close a deep breath would close the distance.

"L." She smiled then, finally, and lifted a hand to tuck the forever-straying lock of hair behind Lara's ear. "Wow. Hi."

"K." Lara closed her eyes at the light touch of Kitty's fingers, and one of her hands stole around Kitty's waist to keep her close. Not that she seemed likely to run away, or that would hold her at all if she was, but... Lara had said good-bye to this dream on the stone table. To suddenly get it anyway was almost as dizzying as just having Kitty there.

There were a lot of ways it could be a bad idea, but Lara leaned the almost no distance to press her lips to Kitty's anyway. It was a more chaste kiss than she really wanted, but it was a kiss. There had been too many months of missing her, wondering what was happening, not talking about her to anyone because she'd just about managed to make people forget about that particular aspect of Lara Croft being insane. Even if Kitty wasn't there anymore, one kiss couldn't be terrible.

The hand that somehow hadn't made it back to Kitty's side where it belonged closed around Lara's ponytail and squeezed tight, like she could somehow keep this dream from ending if she just...didn't let go. She didn't pull or tug, just held it and when Lara's lips met hers, she decided best not to breathe, just in case.

A few seconds past, a few more, and her lips parted, free arm slipped around Lara, and the whole tidy, tentative thing suddenly got real. Swallowing got hard, because of the lump in her throat. Breathing got hard, because she was hugging Lara so tight neither of them could catch a breath, and seeing got hard because there were tears blurring her vision.

This was... not a dream. Lara was here.

Lara clutched Kitty as tightly as she was being clutched, feeling the tears come on almost as inescapably as when she’d thought Jonah was gone. Almost, because she wasn’t fighting these, they were happy. Kitty’s hand around her ponytail was so Kitty that Lara didn’t want to move her head lest she lose it. “Oh, God, I missed you so much.”

"Me, too. So much," Kitty managed before she kissed her again, this time without fear she was a dream that might break. Her hand still gripped Lara's hair, but that was more of a choice now, and she was able let go with the other hand long enough to brush away Lara's tears without actually trying to stop them. "I didn't think I'd ever see you again."

"I tried to come back, over and over, but something always got in the way." That 'something' being moral choice, mostly, and Kitty wouldn't hold it against her. Especially since she'd ended up successful despite herself. Wildly so, with Kitty warm and real in her arms, kissing her again. "I want to tell you all of those stories, and hear all of yours, and never let go again."

"I heard someone of them." Kitty finally let go of Lara's hair, but only to pull the jade pendant out from beneath the neck of her shirt. "It arrived this Easter with some of your journals and a bone arrowhead." That she hadn't taken it off since, that she'd listened to the journals repeatedly, that she studied the arrowhead and everything she could learn about it here, it seemed obvious, but she'd tell her later. "I like that never letting go part."

Lara smiled and shifted just enough to lightly touch the pendant. Putting it in the box with her recordings had been a whim. She'd gotten into the habit of addressing her journals to Kitty, mostly because she couldn't talk about the Inn or Kitty with anyone else. Not even Jonah. The necklace and the arrowhead had felt like a message in a bottle.

She'd never imagined that it would work. "I'm glad, it's not negotiable. You would have heard some of Siberia, then, I think?" Not Mexico, not yet.

"Yes. Siberia." Kitty already didn't care about the journals again, because Lara was standing here in front of her and keepsakes were for absent friends, not present ones. Except the pendant. She hooked her fingers around the cord and went to lift it--"I know this was a gift from your dad. Do you want it back?"

Then she leaned past her own hands to kiss Lara again because she could. "And also while I'm thinking about it, do you need food or anything? Because otherwise, let's get out of here."

"No, you keep it. I left it for you." Without imagining it would actually get to Kitty, but... it had, and it was unspeakably warming that Kitty had almost certainly (knowing her) worn it constantly since she'd received it. As long as she had Kitty, now, she'd still have the necklace.

Lara thought her father would have approved of the sentiment.

For a few seconds all of Lara's attention was taken up again by kissing Kitty, but eventually she came up with, "No, I'm fine for now. Let's get out of here." Here had an audience, and they probably wanted privacy.

Although she didn't say anything about it, Kitty did press a kiss to the pendant before she tucked it back into the neck of her shirt. She'd been doing that so long now, it was a reflex, and when she realized what she'd done, she sneaked a guilty glance at Lara and then just laughed.

She reached out to take Lara's hand and asked, "Your new room, or mine? Darryl or someone finally let me move."

Lara just grinned; every little thing that said yes, Kitty missed her was a little pleasure - more so since neither of them had to miss any more. "I'm in Traveler's Suite this time," she said. "I think that's one that'll have a ghost. So, yours? Until I've got an idea of what sort of spectral bunkmate I've got anyway."

"Yeah, Traveler's has a ghost," Kitty agreed, as much for something to say as anything. Seeing Lara grin was such a joy that it made it a little hard to think and even breath.

She tugged on her friend's...girlfriend's... on Lara's hand and started walking. "I'm in Just Heaven now. It's pretty nice, and the neighbors are awesome."

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[EP/GP] Check-In: I Assure You We Are Open

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