Good Excuses

Participants:

adel_icon.gif robyn_icon.gif

Scene Title Good Excuses
Synopsis …are what they're going to need in the future. For now, a mother and daughter needing to talk is good enough of one.
Date March 8, 2011

The Bunker: Robyn Office


Robyn Quinn had wasted no time making her way back to her office following Colette's return. The scowl on her face that she'd worn as she walked away from the gathered group of women spoke volumes on it's on. By the time Adel reaches the door to her office - even behind her as she had been - it's already closed.

Amazingly, not slammed. No matter how much Robyn had wanted to.

By the time the door to her office opens again, she's already across the room, standing where a chest of drawer sits against a wall, an odd assortment of things upon it - a turntable, already spinning, a set of crystal tumblers and a decanter full of a golden brown liquid, presently being poured into one of the glasses, and a oil lamp.

In fact, the entire aesthetic of the office is decidedly… retro, the fact that the overhead light is off framing it that much more so. On Robyn's desk sits not just a computer, with the usual flat screen monitor and keyboard and mouse, but also a typewriter, paper already spooled into it. Two lamps, one electric and one oil, decorate either side of her desk, depending on the situation.

The walls are black and white, wallpaper put over otherwise bare walls and marked with a pattern of constantly changing and crisscrossing lines. At the back of the room, a mattress and boxsprings - smaller than the one in her room - with a framed picture hanging above it in a familiar style, of a nondescript figure standing alone in what looks like a concert hall.

She doesn't turn from the decaters, instead choosing to finish pouring her glass.

"This looks kind of like your office in the future— just nicer." Adel has to comment as she peeks inside the room without having even knocked. She half had been afraid if it had taken her too long to answer, she'd have just ran away. Part of her still wanted to. She knew she needed to be all neutral, but how can she be neutral with her mom? This is as close to neutral as she can get.

Small talk about how her office had looked in the future.

"The whole, color scheme and the weird things. The things I didn't know much about." Old things, most likely. Vintage, retro. "You got one of those record players in here too?" She's looking around, expecting one to be tucked away somewhere.

Really, Robyn shouldn't be surprised. Even if she isn't the same woman that helped raised Adel, she is the same woman that helped raised Adel. It makes sense that her tastes would remain about the same, give or take. Nicer almost makes her smile. Also, she had an office in the future? It's so funny, this many years later, to still be learning about that time.

The answer to Adel's question is wordless. She's not surprised the the younger woman followed her back to her office. She was kind of expecting it. She finishes the pour into her glass, shuffling a bit down the cabinet. Lifting up a the arm of her turntable, she draws it a slight bit closer, before letting it drop down on to a record, and a pop and hiss familiar to both of them sounds out.

Immediately followed by a familiar drum beat and guitar - Live Forever by Oasis.

"Door closed?" Robyn looks back over her shoulder at Adel, lowering a cover on the turntable before she turns back. It's an implicit invitation to come in, eye focused on her Adel, taking a sip of her whiskey before it's set down on the corner of her desk.

As the music starts, Adel turns away to close the door, using the moment to take in a deep breath and try to tell herself she's doing nothing wrong. It's not as if she ran over and hugged the woman like she had with Colette. She's not calling her mom, even if she wants to…

It's like that time before the dreams revealed who she was all over again. Just a member of the band. Or a… something. Once again she had to pretend that she wasn't standing in front of one of the most important people in her life.

And she'd not been that good at it the first time.

"How you settling in? Is everyone being… niceish?" The. Not too nice. Not too mean. Ish.

Robyn's expression thins. "No one talks to me." She holds up a finger. "What happened with Colette is the standard." A second finger. "Everyone acts like I'm going to throw them in a hole when they see me." Three fingers. "I'm not certain anything I say is believed." Four fingers. "All I see in people's eyes is fear and worry." Her hand curls back into a fist, her hand falling to her side.

And then she lets out a breath, as though she been holding it this entire time. With the music playing behind her, she closes her eye.

"Going to stand there all day, or do I get a hug?"

Yep.

For the first moment, Adel hesitates. Visibly. She's sure that Hana could watch if she wanted to, could see everything. There's probably little cameras in the wall! That computer could be her eyes! It's against orders to hug, but…

But.

"Don't tell on me," she says before that small distance between them is closed quickly and her arms wrap around her. Hugging Agent Mom is definitely not neutral. But… Maybe they can take this brief moment off the record.

When Adel hugs her, Robyn wraps her arms around the other woman in returns, smiling as wide as she'll allow herself to. She squeezes the other woman tight, letting out a sigh. "Not paranoid, but. Everything's off." Except the turntable, obviously. It's increasingly apparent that whatever she had been doing before Colette returns likely involved that typewriter.

We only get this once," she cautions, burying her face against the slightly taller woman's shoulder. "But I couldn't- not." Not hug her daughter. Not talk to her like she's someone special. "Has to be professional after this." It has to be.

"I'm glad you're okay," is said more quietly, the hug tightening for a moment.

Just the once. Adel decides to close her eyes and take that just once for all it's worth. Cause it will all be over soon. "I missed you," she states quietly. Trying to figure out how to express it better than that, but deciding that is enough. It says most everything she wanted to. That she missed her. In many ways it also says that she's still important, still her one of her moms. Still her.

Even if they will soon have to be professional about it.

"What should I call you after this? Agent Quinn? Ms. Robyn? In my head I've been calling you 'Agent Mom', but I don't think that will fly." In fact she thinks that would be a plane they'd both need to bail out of.

"Whatever everyone else is using." The same advice she gave February Lancaster, because it's what makes the most sense at the moment. "Definitely not… that." She can't help but laugh a little at that. It's cute. It'd be even cuter if they weren't in this situation. "I think Agent Quinn. Not sure."

She takes a deep breath, not yet ready to relinquish from the hug. "Was surprised when I heard. That you ended up here. Been treating you well?" Both the job and the people. Other questions float to mind, but she leaves them be for now. One thing at a time.

"Agent Quinn sounds good. I mean, I had to call all you guys by your names before— it shouldn't be too hard." Adel shrugs, showing that this undercover daughter business isn't that difficult. Even when it was. "I met up with Colette when I joined the militia during the war. She used to teach me. In the future. Old her. She was my Professor X. Helped me learn how to use my ability, all that. Made me learn science and everything." Cause all that stuff somehow seemed important. "JJ taught me how to fight a bit…" the way she says that sounds sad. Had something happened to JJ?

"But I needed to learn more. Relearn how to walk and everything." Stand on her own two feet. "And relearn how to fly. They let me get paratrooper training so I could jump out of planes! It sucked at first, having to be strapped to someone, but I managed to get through that part." That had been the hardest part, the tandem jumps to make sure she understood how to open deploy and how to maneuver. Once she jumped out on her own it had been pretty fun.

Old Colette is something that Robyn has a hard time visualising, for a number of reasons. Honestly, she's surprised any of them lived as old as their kids seem to indicate. "Sounds like her. Made me learn light physics, and more." She takes a deep breath. "I'm glad she's here for you." When none of the rest of them can be - she's spoken to only one of Adel other moms, and only recently. Who knows how she herself has fared - though she'd probably wanted to.

Reflexively, Robyn purses her lips.

She catches the sad tone at the mention of JJ. It takes her a moment to drudge through the minefield of her memory, to pull up what she needs to know. "I remember him," she says quietly. Assumptions are made - there was a war, after all, and she chooses not to press further. "He did good, clearly."

"Paratrooper. Lord." She shakes her head. This is both surprising and not. "Love a thrill as much as your- dad." She hitches a bit on the last word, before clearing her throat. "Why? All the relearning?" A deep frown crosses her face as she remembers. "Your ability?"

“Yeah. I’d never actually learned how to fight until I manifested, so most my skills were kinda… anti-gravity, floating, getting tossed around like a wrecking ball,” Adel knows that her ability hadn’t been used often when she came to New York, had— had Robyn even known what she had done?

“It was my sphere of influence. This … six foot sphere I could create around myself. It wasn’t really a forcefield, though. I could just keep anything out that I didn’t want in, could control certain things inside like gravity and inertia. I could make it move by expelling air out one side and letting air in the other, so it didn’t move very fast unless someone else pushed me. But I had to study so much physics to figure out how to make it do the things I wanted. Ms Cole — that’s future Colette — she thought I could literally control physics within that tiny sphere, but I’d never learned how to do most of it. And I never figured out how to actually turn gravity back on.”

She knows she’s rambling, but she’s not crying at least, so it shows progress in coping with her lack of ability. “So I had to relearn how to fight again. Since I couldn’t use my usual tactics of blasted into the middle of a fight like a super hamster ball and tossing grenades out.”

Yeah, she might have done that. A few times. To take down robots, specifically.

Everything is kind of briefly lost in the mention of Ms. Cole, and as Robyn hears that she has to stifle a laugh. Close as they are, Adel can probably hear it in the back of her throat. Still, there is something more serious at hand. "I'm sorry," is an honest remark, rather than a statement of pity, Robyn's voice low and solemn when she speaks those words. "She's smart." Colette, that is. A beat, and Robyn's expression flattens a bit. "Does she know? About us?" Not that it's going to matter soon.

Drawing in a deep breath, Robyn squeezes tighter for a moment, seemingly unwilling to release Adel until the other woman is read - a mutual parting this time, of sorts. "I have an idea how that feels." She closes her eye, lips quirking side to side. "I never got mine back. Raith never trained me to rely on it, but… it helped." Being able to turn invisible, or distract guards, or any other number of tricks - in secret, it was absolutely no surprise to Robyn Quinn that Colette had been able to do what she did on November 8th, with what their power could do.

Could have done,

"You're doing great." Without it. It's an honest assessment, based on what Robyn has read in Adel's file, heard anecdotally, and read up on since her arrival in the bunker. The phrase sphere of influence strikes a distant cord in her mind, but that's it - whatever she might have known at one point is lost to time and fading memory.

“She doesn’t let me call her Ms here, but she was like old when I knew her.” Adel responds with a small laugh, seeing when she’d lost the conversation briefly. Ms. Cole would sound funny to someone who didn’t know the old Colette. Even now she finds it funny, knowing Colette as a young person. A younger person than even her. But she still respects her so much and follows her orders— even if now she’s going to be the one who might be giving her orders.

When one of her mom compliments her performance, she can’t help but smile, any hint of sadness gone. “I’m glad. We’re doing a lot of good here. Or at least helping a lot.” She isn’t sure what else she might be able to add to that, because, well, Agent Mom is still an Agent. Even if this is the one time they can probably get away with talking off the record. She probably still shouldn’t mention that one of her motives is hoping she one day helps catch Pete Varlane.

“She knows I’m Elaine and Sable’s daughter, but I didn’t go into too much detail on things. So no, I don’t think she knows you’re Mom number 3.” Agent Mom at the moment. But she means it in the nicest possible way. Still that happiness isn’t without some sadness. Cause… “You seem to be doing well without it too.” But then she glances toward the alcohol. “Well mostly.”

Yes, Agent Mom, your kinda daughter is giving you a sudden ‘really, mom’ look. She had been drinking from the flask in the middle of the afternoon, after all.

"Mostly." The response is dry, bereft of amusement at the look Adel gives her. Lips quirk side to side, no comment is made on the subject of the alcohol - after all, she's not drunk. And who wouldn't want a drink after what just happened out in the hall with Colette? If Adel were the sort, Robyn imagines even she might partake. "Already know what I've been up to." She suspects, at least

And then a small chuckle. "Mom 3." She'd forgotten about that particular appellation.

And with that comment, she falls silent for a moment. She doesn't anything to follow that up. She could talk about some things. About going to see Jolene. About how the Varlane name lives on in the most unexpected way. About how Richard Ray is actually pretty awesome. About her plans to finally get a tattoo. About the sentient mass of chaos that is Eve Mas. About… about seeing Adel's mother for the first time in six years.

But she doesn't.

She wants to savour the moment as long as she can.

“Just the official stuff. There’s a lot that’s not included in files,” Adel responds with a grin, even though she’s talking about herself, too. Like her eclectic family isn’t included in hers, but Robyn knew about it anyway. She had gone back to the identity that had been forged for her when they showed up. Adel Lane. Raised by two moms. Father a sperm donor that was unidentified. Dropped out of college to pursue a music career, turned militia during the war. Truth and lies, all at once. She knows that the Major could have made it better, possibly had for all she knew.

As the silence settles, she too goes quiet, tilting her head to the side as she looks at the woman who had helped inform her growth. Along with almost all the other women in her life.

“I wrote a song,” she finally adds after a while. “It’s probably not any good, but I wrote it. Maybe you could fix it for me sometime. I’m not as good with words as you are.” It had been a song that they’d talked about once, a long time ago. She couldn’t draw, so a comic had been out of the question, but she’d written a song. Bass and main guitar, drums, even a keyboard. The lyrics had been the hardest. “I called it a ‘Hole in the World’.”

Wrote a song. That's right, for Magnes. That memory comes back to her with a fade in, rather than a rush. She had forgotten about that - or the promise. Not about Magnes, though. She gives a small smile. "I bet it's wonderful," she says quietly. "I wish I could hear it." A deep breath. "Haven't played in a few years. Written in longer." Because with music entering the conversation, she assumes it would get asked eventually.

There's a moment's pause. "Did you ever meet Colette's sister? In- this time." That small smile widens a bit - she and Nicole had a more combative relationship these days, but she had no doubt they were friends. "Changed her name, if Colette never told you. When she had Pippa. Her daughter." Robyn takes a deep breath. "She's Nicole Varlane now. You should talk to her." Not a Varlane in the same way, but regardless. Perhaps a new extension of the family.

“It’s not very good,” Adel adds with a shake of her head, wanting to downplay it. She’d probably whip out her phone, turn it on and email it, but— she wants to keep this conversation between them, so! That would make the point moot. “I’ll make sure you hear it some time, or at least read the lyrics and the sheet music. I’m way more confident with the instruments than the singing.” She never felt good with words. Words were difficult.

But in a way that probably made them more raw.

The mention of Colette’s sister, and the last name makes her straightens up. “I— kinda did. In Alaska, when…” when Magnes dies. When Howard… She doesn’t even know what happened to him, but…

She took the Varlane name. To honor him. That she had not expected. “I should— “ She tries to keep the smile in place, but it’s obvious there’s moisture in her eyes. “I’ll be down in the New York Safe Zone for a quick leave soon, for a few days. To see mom. I can probably drop in.” Say hi. Hug her randomly for reasons she may not understand.

"She's SESA, but… you can trust her. I do, with my life." Robyn gives a small nod to punctuate that. "You can tell her the truth. She knows it already, from Ingrid, just… not the details I think, beyond… us." Which is already more than she's comfortable with, but it was unavoidable given the situation - and it means if there's ever a problem, she has someone to talk to about that particular topic. "She's prickly on the surface, but." Well no, Nicole can be prickly either way, but she always helps and cares. "Tell her I said that, and I'll be sure to put something awful in my next report."

Not really, but.

Robyn takes a deep breath. "I'm sure it's good. Sing it if I could." But she can't, and that leaves a bit of a hollow feeling in her heart. She tries not to show it. She had entirely forgotten about that whole… project idea. The frown on her face grows, and she huffs out a long breath.

Her mom. Elaine. Robyn goes a bit still, just enough to be noticable. She dithers on if she should tell Adel or not - that she's seen her mom recently. Twice, even. Ultimately, she decides it best not to. Adel can find out from her mother herself.

"Know I love you. Right?" This is said in a low, barely audible voice, against hugging the other woman tight.

At the confession of love, Adel closes her eyes and leans into the hug again. Hugs were never something she’d had in short supply back home. Where she had more moms than most people would believe possible. And a brother and a sister. Who weren’t really related to her anymore than most her moms. “Maybe one day, when this job is over— and hey, they don’t have to know who wrote it!” There’s always that.

Adel never minded leaving her name off of things. After all, she barely used her real name as it was. She even used the male spelling for her name, cause she liked it better. (And because Sable had liked it better too.)

“We don’t hate SESA— I respect ‘em. We just are afraid we won’t be able to do our jobs anymore and all that. I’m sure most of you are great people. I bet Kincaid would have joined SESA if…” she trails off. “Anyway— which part am I not supposed to mention, that she’s prickly or that you trust her with her life?” It’s said as a joke, to get away from the potentially sad subject of— well…

Missing future kids.

"She knows I think she's prickly. I always remind her." So, by implication, the rest. "You don't hate SESA, but think about how visiting someone will look. Do it, but be careful. I will set it up if I need to." Because that's a can of worms waiting to happen, and she'd hate to catch Nicole in that net. "Don't perform anymore," is tacked on to the the end of that, lips quirking side to side for a moment. "I'd do it though. For this."

The mention of Kincaid draws Robyn away from the other things on her mind. If this hadn't already been a conversation she'd been dreading this would've nailed it home. "I miss him. Kincaid." She draws in a long breath. '"He was a great friend to me, at Studio K. Wish I knew where him or his mom were now. I owe him a lot." And she still needs to give him her seven years belated approval for the stunt he and Russo pulled, something she had forgotten about until the memory had just now been dredged up. "Would've been with his dad, at SESA. Hell, with all of us. From Studio K."

They'd joked about a reunion before, but it never felt right without him. Without Kristen.

Sniffling again, Robyn falls silent. It makes the next thought on her mind that much harder. Trembling a bit, she leans back from Adel, trying to catch her eyes with hers. "Adel. I need you to un-understand something." Her voice hitches a bit, as the song in the background continues to play.

This time, she lets out a long breath, shaking her head. "This is going to be hard," she says, quietly. "I don't know when this'll be over. If other people look to this liaisonship later… it'll raise questions." She swallows, eye flicking off to the side. "For both our sakes… for now, I-I can't be your mother." Robyn stops, looking back into Adel's eyes, hands raising to her sort-of daughter's cheeks.

"I love you, Adel Darrow-Diego. I may not be your mother, exactly, but you'll always be special to me. That bond will always be there. For now though, once you leave this office?" A pair of tears rolls down from Robyn's visible eye. "I can't be your mother, or even your friend. It kills me, but." It has to be this way. At least for now. "Someday, again. Soon, maybe. For now…"

“I know,” Adel responds simply, nodding. She had known from the minute that the Major had announced who would be the liaison and how they would be expected— no— required to act. She had avoided this conversation half because she wasn’t sure if she could do it, if she could act like she wasn’t the woman’s daughter, as if she wasn’t the woman’s friend. She had considered pretending she was mad about the breakup with her mom, but even that didn’t end up working.

“This whole thing is a load of botswarf,” aka, bullshit of the robot variety. “But we’d decided to keep our official status as time travellers under wraps anyway— the ‘you’re my mom’ thing can be kept the same way.” Under wraps. Not for anyone who doesn’t need to know. “Eventually one of us will end up quitting anyway, so once that happens!” They can be… whatever it is they want to be. Mom and daughter, friend and ex-band member— whichever.

“I can go visit Nicole under the presumption that I’m dropping something off from her sister if anyone asks.” It’s not like anyone knows she’s a Varlane. “I guess Cole’s lucky she dodged that bullet. It would suck if she had to pretend to be a stranger to her own sister.” But surely they wouldn’t have done that even if they were intending to trap them in a situation where their alliances would get crossed.

No one knows what Adel and Robyn really were to each other in the government, and Rue… well… she’s not sure ex-girlfriends had been mentioned in the paperwork either.

“Before we’re stuck pretending we barely know each other— do you want to sit down and tell each other everything we will probably forget to mention later— when we’re stuck acting like we don’t really like each other?”

"It is," Robyn echoes, using context clues to figure out exactly what Adel means, but like she used to do with other slang. "I was naive when I agreed to this." Hana had made that clear to her. "But I'm here now, and I will do my job as necessary." She let's that sit for a moment, taking a long breath as she releases Adel's face. "If I had my way, we'd have all day." To talk, if they could.

"Nicole wanted it," she notes, the barest hint of a smile on her face. "Could've been worse. She's a taskmaster." Said with love, of course. "Nicole was the one who gave me my marching orders, when I hung my smuggler's hat. When I went to fight." When she'd finally joined the near front lines. "She's tough. Relentless." A good candidate for this position, had it not been for Colette.

She studies Adel for a moment, as the vinyl pops and clicks, silence falling between tracks before it moves into "Acquiesce". "If we take too long, if someone notices…" Her eyes slide to the door. "Read me the riot act. Be loud. I'll stare back, unmoved. Be ruthless. I will." The same advice she gave Rue, and it'll allow them to mask any tears she may have as well. "Just this once," she reiterates as she moves to her chair at her desk, pausing to motion at another near the door. A hand to wipe at her cheek, and she takes a seat.

There was- probably a lot they could talk about. They haven't seen much of each other in years, after all. Robyn settles on the one thing she's been avoiding mentioning, though. Better to get it out of the way.

"I saw your mother," she says quietly, eye looking off to the side. "I… am not sure how it went," she admits.

“Not too much of a riot act. We’re supposed to be neutral to you, not totally mean,” Adel responds with a small grin, even as she leans into the hug and tries to take it for what she can since as soon as it breaks she steps back a few steps so that she can look as if they’re al a more reasonable distance. Not even colleagues. Not friends. Just someone who happens to be there to report on them. If they were too antagonistic it would shed just as much suspicion as if they were too friendly.

Or that’s how she understood it. Treat her how she would any SESA agent who just happened to be in charge of reporting on them. That was how she had to be. “I’ll act like I’m telling you about my paratrooper training, or something. It’s relevant. I’m sure that SESA will be going into all our paperwork and making sure we did the proper steps to be allowed to do the things we do. Like jump out of planes.”

That had been a lot harder than she would have thought, after all.

“And I can’t imagine it would have went too badly— mom’s pretty understanding. Even when people really hurt her.” Understanding would be different than forgiving, though. Cause she’s not sure her mom will reach forgiving with the situation anytime soon. “I was planning to talk to her about a thing me and Luce are looking to do. On our free time.” Not with Wolfhound. Not sanctioned. But also not using any of Wolfhound’s resources.

Even then, part of her looks as if she’s hoping her mom asks what.

"Could have fooled me," Robyn notes in a flat tone. Neutral may be the prescribed course of action, but it does not feel like the actual course taken… though the SESA agent hadn't yet discerned if that was simply because her feelings had been hurt and she didn't want to - and couldn't - admit it. She hadn't expected anyone to be happy to see her, but the reception has overall been cooler than anticipated.

"Don't hold it against them, though," is a spoken aloud follow up to her mental processes, thankfully fitting in well enough with her previous comment. "So, riot act would at least be consistent. But…" She offers a smile, pulling her glass she had left sitting on the edge of the table towards her. "Do what feels right." Common advice, in all times apparently. The thought of telling her about paratrooper training - perhaps Robyn should conduct interviews, with Hana and the home office's position. Try to get a better read on anyone, make sure any training is on the up and up. Recorded, so that all parties can see how things are being handled.

She would have to include the suggestion in her March reports.

"Still impressive." Jumping out planes, with or without an ability. "It must be…" She strains, almost saying fun. Instead, she settles on something more neutral. "Interesting." Fingers drum on her desk as she listens to Adel's insight on Elaine; noticeably her eye flicks off to the side. She gingerly takes ahold of her glass of whiskey, and takes a long sip before setting it back down.

"I…" She closes her eye. "Don't know how to be. Around her. Elaine." She honestly thinks this is one of the last things Adel wants to hear about - as well as a potentially emotionally charged topic. But, this is their one moment. "She- got me to slip back into my old accent." A sad smile crosses her face. "No one does that." A deep breath. "Something to figure out."

The note of them doing something raises Robyn's visible eyebrow. "I have to ask what. Even off the record. All my roles," Mother, Friend, and Observer, "require it."

The impressive makes her grin, like a kid who just got a gold star. Adel had been seriously hoping she’d ask, though, because, well— it’s something she’d half been about to bring up a few minutes ago before the whole ‘i can’t be your mom for a while’ bomb dropped. “Lucille, she’s Kincaid’s aunt, right? Well, we were thinking we’d try to find out what happened to him. Him and Walter and JJ and— well everyone who’s gone missing during the war. We lost track of so many…”

Not Calvin though, weirdly.

But almost all the other guys seemed to have… disappeared. “I was thinking we could try to find out what happened to them, if they’re just— living somewhere else and wanted to get out of this whole thing. Which I can understand. The war, after everything we’d been through, had probably been pretty hard on everyone…”

She won’t say what it did to her, whether it’d been hard on her. “But that’s the plan. See if we can get people to help us. Delia, Russo, the others— anyone who might want to help. Even if it’s just ‘hi, how you been, send us Christmas Cards next time.’”

Which is the optimistic result. The pessimistic one is they might find out where they’re buried.

Robyn's head tilts slightly to the side as she regards Adel with curiosity. "I saw Walter last at the Arcology." She'll never forget it, of course. "And Kincaid…" She takes a deep breath, looking off to the side as she tries to remember. "Before Studio K. I work with Russo." Again. "I can see if he knows where he got off to." Assuming Adel hasn't already.

She picks up her glass, taking a shorter sip of it - measured, paced. She's no longer looking like she intends to get drunk like she might have, pouring a full Old Fashioned glass full when Adel had come in. "To be honest, I only ever met a few of you. That I can remember." The last part is added sheepishly. "I never had the chance to meet all of you." By her account, she thinks she can remember meeting seven of the children who came back from the future. Probably more, and her memory fails her.

It's nothing against them.

"I hope you find them," is an honest assurance, a shallow nod of Robyn's head to Adel. "I know it's… hard for us to interact, but I will help however a I can. We can still communicate…" She pauses, looking over at the record player as it continues to play. "Analog. Discrete. Rare." A look back to Adel. "At least with this, it won't look like I'm helping you at all."

“I know. I was planning to go to him, see if he knew the last place that he was or something— We’ll figure it out!” Adel knew they had resources to find evil people who need to be punished and possibly could have turned those to find good people who needed to be found— but she also didn’t want to use Wolfhound if she didn’t have to. If it came to it, though, she would go to the Major and see what she could do.

But until then, her and Lucille would do what they could on their own, with what resources they could piece together, outside Wolfhound. Old Ferry contacts, family members— they had a lot to work with.

“I should teach you the Lighthouse Language. I taught the kids— i mean they had started to make it all on their own in this time, I just filled in some of the blanks.” Her and Cash, really, but she remembered walking in on them using the signs for simple words and she’d been so excited. Part of her world recreating itself in this one. “We could talk using that sometimes. Like this— “ she makes a gesture with her hands, somewhat discrete. “That means ‘I love you’.” She keeps making them, holding them in place for a moment, but the movement matters as much as the actual end form. All of it matters. “And this means ‘mom’ and this means ‘be careful’.”

Robyn watches Adel with curiosity. "Lighthouse language?" She sounds intrigued, noticeably so - this was something she'd never heard about, back living with the LIghthouse Kids or after. She'd think i a new development, but Adel knows it. Then again… time is a funny thing to comprehend, and after a moment, Robyn runs at her temples.

Still, she smiles. "I would like that," she says quietly. A subtle way to talk to Adel, as well as any of the other Lighthouse Kids she may encounter. She tries to mimic the first gesture, the "I love you" one. She gets it mostly right, but like any language it's clear she will need practice. Probably lots of it.

A wide smile forms on her face, and she nods. "Will make this whole… endeavor much easier to bear."

“No, it’s more like this,” Adel reaches out and fixes the positioning of her hand for the finished part. “Starts like this— ends like this,” she explains, using her fingers to show her how to hold them, glad to be able to touch like that at least. “There— like that.” She lets the positions stay in place for a time, to help her get used to how it feels, before she nods. “I can even teach you under the guise of learning hand signs. We do use them occasionally in operations.”

Hand Signs, not specifically the Lighthouse language, though. Though Noa and Berlin might understand it, considering their backgrounds. Berlin had been among the Lighthouse Kids for a long time, while they were learning it, and Noa— well— But Adel doesn’t think either of them will rat her out.

Especially not Noa, considering.

“But I should probably go. Before someone gets curious why we’re in here so long.” But while she says it, she shows the ‘I love you’ sign once again. Because she means it. She always will. Even if she can’t outright say it. “But please, call on me when you have questions or concerns about anything we’re doing.”

Not just for the questions and concerns, but to have an excuse to spend time together. Since they will need excuses. And good ones.


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