alderwitch

Date: January 3rd, 2010 Sunrise 7:18am, Sunset 4:47pm. Clear, high 29, WNW winds at 25 mph (wind chill = 15 degrees F). After walking out of Stesha's apartment, Taylor ducked down into a quiet corner of one sleepy early morning street. She didn't bother with her costume. Instead she took off still in her jeans and winter coat. It was rare that Taylor bothered to fly for any length of time. Teleporting was, after all, faster and usually she was in hurry. The crisp winter wind was brisk and refreshing as she streaked through the sky but it didn't distract Taylor from her troubled thoughts entirely. So she was more than a little relieved when she saw the building that Jack had outlined in their conversation. Changing her trajectory, Taylor landed on the roof in Jack's line of sight. Once she was solid again, Taylor hesitated for a second or two before she hurled herself into Jack's arms. After clinging to him long enough to pull her scattered wits together, Taylor pulled back and announced unhappily, "I don't even know where to begin."

"You'll do fine. After all, its only money which is really just one more commodity. If it'll make you feel better, I can give you a quick mental starter's guide the fast way. I've got one stored up here." Alex tapped her temple helpfully.

"Next month, on the fifteenth of December. We're just having my family for the ceremony itself and mom and I are still arguing about a party afterwards. After all of the drama, I just want something quiet and private. I feel shy and weird around crowds anyways." Taylor shrugged uncomfortabally. She was a rather intensely private person and the idea of exchanging her vows in front of three hundred or so people did make her blood run absolutely cold. "I think Mom's going toinsist on the party but its only fair to yeild on it. I've learned to pick my battles."

Taylor closed the phone, her expression pensive. If they were a normal couple, this would have hopefully been a happy thing but Jack was physiologically incapable of siring a child the human way. She hoped that Jack trusted her enough to believe her fidelity, but she was mentally braced for the freak out to end all freak outs. Even more daunting was if the test(s) were accurate, what then was it? Taylor wasn't really human and Jack was even less so. Taylor squared her shoulders and dredged up a brave smile for Stesha. For once, the reserved mystic hugged her first and suggested with a ghost of humor, "I owe you a movie rain check. I'll have to make it up to you. I'll call and let you know what's going on, I promise."

Taylor shrugged although he couldn't see it through the phone of course and her breath blew out with a sigh. "It's nothing I want to talk about over the phone. Its not an invasion, or anything supernatural. Well, it is supernatural, but not a threat. Well, it's not a threat, I think." There was a soft thump as Taylor rapped the test against the table before it vanished through her fingertips. "I can come to you instead. It'll be a bit faster. I can't teleport at the moment, but I can fly just fine. Let me say goodbye to Stesha and I'll head over."

"Hi, Jack," Taylor said in her best 'everything is totally normal' voice, which probably made her sound even more weird accross the speaker of the phone. Bluffing was not one of the skills she'd ever mastered. Especially not to Jack. Continuing on hurridly she added in, "I know you're probably busy but if you can make time to talk to me, I think it's important. I mean, in person." She made a face and followed Stesha out into the main room of her apartment to poke at the test on the table. It hadn't changed. Taylor frowned, "More than a little important. Like, a lot important."

Taylor dumped the tests into the small trashcan. Clearly the entire box was contaminated. Or something. She let her head hit the door with a soft thump and muttered, hopefully too softly for Stesha to hear, "No. I'm freaking out. That's what I'm doing." Taking a steadying breath, Taylor sighed and opened the door a crack to peer back at Stesha, "Ace is right. The Doctor is... very good at what he does. If anyone can get to the bottom of all of this, It'll be Archeville, even if he does give me the heebie jeebies."

"Oh, God," Taylor said finally and buried her face in her hands. She took a couple of steadying breaths then shook her head, "No, I can call him. I don't want to get into it over the phone anyways. I'll call him while you call Ace." Taylor reached up to squeeze Stesha's hand and gave her a shaky and misty eyed smile. If it was true it would at least explain why she'd been so uncharactaristically emotional at least, "Thanks, Stesha. You're such a good friend. I'm really glad you're here." She pulled her cellphone out of her pocket and flipped it open, pacing away from Stesha and dropping her voice to little more than a whisper as she crossed the room. Unsurprisingly, she got Jack's voice mail. His 'work' kept him more than a little busy, "Jack, it's Taylor. I need to talk to you. I'm visiting Stesha. I'll leave my phone on, I guess." She paused, hesitating before she added, almost sadly, "Love you." Taylor closed the phone with a click and pressed the cool metal to her forehead. It could still be a fluke. That made as much sense as anything at this point. As Stesha began to dial Ace, Taylor headed back into the bathroom with the remainder of the tests, a determined expression on her face.

Taylor made a strangled noise that could have been anything from agreement to 'Oh, dear God, no.' It wasn't the most easy noise to interpret but if Stesha had to venture a guess, though, it was probably closer to the 'Oh, God' end of the spectrum. Taylor turned that sickly white shade again and for a moment, Stesha had grave concern for her carpet but instead Taylor sat down bonelessly in the chair and picked up the test to stare at it again like she could change it with the pure force of will. Finally, she settled on a muttered, "It could still be a curse." She turned it over in her hands a few times, her face studiously blank, "Either way, we have definately strayed beyond the realm of my expertise."

"We hope they do it in a diaper," Taylor said wryly, tossing the largest size of disposables at Jack for after he'd cleaned the wriggly kiddos. "As I imagine that pizza, or even the woodchips, will be much less pleasant for us going out than it was going in." She bent her head over the technology with Dark Star as they strayed into esoterica. Taylor understood dimensional openings, and Derrick knew at least where the planet was. Having the good Doktor there would have made it all go much faster but between the two of them, they managed to pull out the faded powersource and come up with a workable theory for how to at least power the thing up again, which should give them at least a starting location on the planet in question, powered by Dark Star's near limitless stores of energy. That left Jack and Stesha to wrangle the alien trio while their partners worked. Spraying the kids down with water wasn't too difficult. Only bat boy took grave affront with that as he clung muttering to Jack's shoulder once more, complaining in bitter, outraged noises and flapping his wings. He appeared to blame Stesha for his dousing. Bitey was happily gnawing on one of the teething toys and didn't even notice the cleaning where as Clingey just tried to get in the way of the other two's dunking as clearly they were not properly enjoying the bath. Diapers, however, proved a much more daunting task as none of the kidlets approved of having their bits covered. There was outraged squawking and a good deal of fleeing from their caretakers with chants of, "No no no no!" Apparently 'no' was the easiest word for any toddler to pick up, even alien ones.

"We pitched in and got my parents a trip for the holidays so my siblings and I didn't get together for it. The folks got a vacation and we got low key holidays so it was a win-win, really. It was just Jack and I for Christmas which was a nice way to spend it. Decorated the tree and exchanged gifts, then terrorized some muggers as Phantom and Avenger. It was nice," Taylor said, arms folded and her ankles crossed as she leaned against the couch. "What about you?" She asked the last as she finally uncoiled and strolled back over to look at the test. Taylor frowned at it and dug around for the instructions before she frowned again and shook her head slowly. "That can't be right. I think I'm reading this wrong." Taylor scowled at the plus sign on the test and set it back down to fully read the instructions. From the way she was scanning the pamphlet, she was reading the portion in the other languages too. Just in case. Could have been a printing error. Or something. Anything.

Curiously, Taylor lifted it from the box and examined it between her fingertips before she slipped the chain over her neck and settled it against the collar of her shirt. "Its lovely! And enchanted," Taylor beamed at him as she stood up on her tip toes to tug his mask down and kiss him properly. She pulled back but left her hands on the thick leather jacket over his shoulders, "Thank you. Are you going to tell me what it does or shall I start divining?"

Taylor shrugged good naturedly, her equilibrium somewhat restored by a meal and a cup of hot tea. "I really don't expect anything of it, Stesha. The odds are so astronomically against it that its nearly impossible. Certainly impossible without some sort of metaphysical intervenion. I'll just take it and then we can go on with the days plans. I don't see any reason to make a big deal out of it." Taylor took her directions and dutifully headed into the restroom. She was out a few moments later with the capped test in hand and set it on a napkin while they waited on the results. Taylor looked up at Stesha instead of the test, "We could go see a movie."

Taylor's laugh was husky and low and she dutifully covered her eyes with her hands. Of course she could have peeked, but what would the fun in that have been. "I was thinking we might see how well you can strike terror into the hearts of muggers later tonight," Taylor suggested from behind her the hands covering her face.

"Well, I think Ace was talking about some Freedom League affiliate but based in the city. I don't know, he chatted me up about how the focus of the league has changed and the whole demon invasion made him see it. Yadda yadda yadda." Taylor chuckled, somewhat inured to Danger style grandiose plans by her family's long time association. She finished the last of her oatmeal and placed the bowl off to the side as she finished her tea as well, "He's getting better at picking up cues at least. I think you've helped him a lot with that."

"He should talk to Ace. Ace was grumbling about the lack of a certain type of super hero team again. I don't pay much attention to his griping as I can usually tell when its going to be a clever backhanded insult at Jack." Taylor accepted the bowl of oatmeal with a smile of thanks and began to demolish it in short order. "He does need to stop blaming himself for the fact that a lot of his friends are jerks. He takes a lot onto his shoulders, poor guy."

Taylor blinked as Jack began shucking clothing. She sat back on her heels, briefly distracted by the impromptu show before she visually shook herself and rose to her feet to help. "Here, this goes through this loop," Her fingertips trailed over the waistband of the leaher pants, before she began working on the buckles of his jacket. She'd best move her fingertips to safer areas or neither of them were going to see him in his new costume. She handed the leather mask up to him, modified from a snowboarder's face guard and then modled in more black leather. Taylor reached up to flip his high collar up before she stood back. Her smokey gaze flicked up and down him before she declared it, "Stylish but still menacing."

"Is my college trust fund, around 45 thousand give or take. Even if I lose it all, I could easily get a scholarship or two with my grades and test scores. James offered his money bu I'd rather use my own." Alex grinned suddenly, "I did offer to turn his piles of money into bigger piles but he seemed uninterested."

"Better. I think I'll be fine, although flying home instead of telporting. And outmeal sounds great." Taylor finished her cup of tea and set it out tothe side of the table, "How are you and Derrick?"

"I hope not. I've kept it in the Void since I picked it up." Taylor chuckled and sank down next to him on her knees as he pulled away the foil and ribbons. She'd tucked it into a large clothing box and Taylor watched his expression as he opened it, twisting the rings on her fingers nervously. Inside the box was a thick leather jacket with a high collar and some heavy chains that served as some sort of decorative element, looping around the shoulders and across the front. As Jack lifted it up, a smaller folded scrap of leather fell out and Taylor rescued it, holding it up so he could see the half mask for the lower half of his face. "You've been talking about outgrowing the hockey mask for a while now." Taylor said with a shy smile.

"I am more hungry than usual, which is really to say at all." Taylor admitted reluctantly. She was getting that stubborn set to her features, however. The look that Stesha associated with Taylor defending Jack. Apparently it was Taylor's 'I don't like what you're suggesting' expression. Rather than argue further, Taylor shrugged her shoulders and agreed. She personally thought the concept was rediculous but arguing further would have just been mule headed. "Sure. I've got nothing to lose by ruling it out but ten bucks on a test.

Taylor let out a little shriek but as she didn't immedeately ghost through his arms, she'd been expecting a response along those lines. Actually, Jack provoked those responses less and less even when he did forget to clear his throat or stomp his feet. Even surprised, she trusted Jack. But Christmas wasn't the time for those sorts of musings. Instead, Taylor contented herself with wrapping her hands over his shoulders and distracting them both with a deep kiss before she almost regretfully broke it off, "Actually I really do have a real present for you. Here." Before Jack's clever hands could convince her that it could wait until morning, Taylor wriggled out of his hands and tugged a large and somewhat heavy box from behind the tree. It made a rather odd clanking noise as she pulled it out.

Taylor's smile was both sudden and unusually impish but she didn't disagree with his Christmas plans. She did, however, have something a little different in mind. "Briefly. They're enjoying their vacation on the sandy beeches. Mom thinks she may make it a new tradition." The siblings had sent their hard working parents on a two week vacation for the winter. Not only did they deserve it but as Taylor privately confided to Jack, it saved them from their mother's well meant if terrible home cooking. Taylor twisted in his embrace to twine her arms around his shoulders and press playful if distracting kisses along the edges of his lips, "I have an early present for you if you want to open it."

They sat together in a comfortable silence, Alex's cheek tucked into his solid shoulder and her delicate fingertips spread over the back of his broad hand. As the sunlight faded, Alex's fingertips brushed the back of his hand questioningly. Mike? Her thoughts brushed against his wistfully, as she tipped her fine boned profile up to the starlit sky. She turned to him with shining eyes and wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders, Take me dancing? Up there?

"You should be grateful you missed me fussing with the ribbons." Taylor laughed and pivoted in the act of floating another ornament into her hand and smiled at him. Snuggling into his embrace, she changed the course of the ornament with a glance and floated it up into the top branches of the tree. Slipping her arm around his waist, she leaned up to kiss his cheek. "Merry Christmas, honey. All done with work?"