ic Where The Love Light Leads (IC)

[Electra]

December 15, North Bay

The sun was just setting on another short Freedom City winter day when Erin pulled up in the driveway of the Hunter Mansion in her salt-streaked and dusty blue pickup truck. She swung out of the cab and tossed her knapsack over her shoulder, then shut the door and jogged the rest of the way up the drive. Most days she'd detour to the garage and code her own way into the house, but today she went straight up the front steps and tapped on the door. She hadn't seen much of Trevor and Travis lately, everyone had been busy with other things since Thanksgiving. Between work and patrol, Erin never had too much time for socializing anyway.

[Gizmo]

It took a few moments for the door to open and reveal Trevor standing with an expression of muted surprise, which in his case consisted of his eyebrows lifting just barely over the edges of the oval lenses of his sunglasses. "Erin?" he asked as though unsure of himself before quickly stepping out of the way and beckoning her inside out of the cold. "Wasn't expecting to see you again until the new year," he admitted cautiously, carefully broaching a subject which had previously been understood but rarely commented upon. "Not your favourite time of year."

[Electra]

She shrugged, looking uncomfortable herself for a moment. "Yeah, I guess so. But I haven't seen you in awhile, and Christmas means I'll be pretty busy with work. I granted vacation leave to some of the security staff, so I'll be working double and triple shifts until New Year." She brushed a light kiss over his cheek, then pulled off her hat to let the auburn hair she was trying to grow long again crackle around her face with static electricity. "Has Christmas break started at your school yet?"

[Gizmo]

Letting it go at that but still paying careful attention as he picked his actions and words, Trevor look Erin's coat and hat and walked them over to the tastefully hidden closet in the foyer, hanging them up. It wasn't as if this was an inconceivable breach in the norm for her, but traditional time of family togetherness tended to weigh heavily on the dimensional refugee and late December was easily the worst. She's certainly become more at peace with her traumatic past in the time he'd known her, on the other hand, so this could easily just be the next small step in that arduous journey. "In practice," he confirmed. "Exams were all early this semester, had projects instead in some classes." Other students still had a few days of testing left after the weekend, but many of his engineering courses had been more practical than theoretical.

[Electra]

"Projects, huh? That's lucky, I imagine your only difficulty with engineering projects was not making them suspiciously good," Erin guessed as she walked through the house and into the big downstairs kitchen. Moving with the ease of long practice, she dug into the cupboard and pulled out the tin of hot cocoa mix, then peeked into the fridge. "You never have any milk. All the money in the world and you can't go out and buy groceries." She filled a cup of water instead and put it in the microwave. "Where's your grandpa today?"

[Gizmo]

"Not too taxing," Trevor confirmed, following after Erin into the kitchen, walking cautiously. He had the unsettling feeling of circling around an easily spooked wild animal, a sensation he felt immediately guilty for having. He wanted to believe that Erin was genuinely recovering from the painful associations she had with the holiday season but it was a big step without much warning and he was no great fan of sudden surprises. "Milk just expires so quickly. Hard to stay on top of it." He certainly knew he wasn't likely to check on the relative freshness of any dairy in the house with any regularity, given all the other demands on his free time. "Here. Taking a nap."

[Electra]

"You could get canned milk, or powdered milk," she pointed out, opening the packet and pouring the cocoa into an empty cup. "Even soy milk, I think that keeps longer, or at least it tastes the same amount of nasty for longer." If Erin had something more weighty on her mind than preparing the perfect cup of cocoa, she wasn't showing it as she carefully added hot water bit by bit, stirring to avoid any powdery lumps. "You guys doing anything special for the holiday this year?" she asked as she took the first sip.

[Gizmo]

Trevor's lips thinned in a perturbed expression as he leaned against the wall opposite Erin. "None of those sound like attractive options," he assessed flatly, one hand rubbing against the morning's worth of stubble along his jawline. "Not much planned. Brief phone call with my parents. Stay in, provided no emergencies arise." The Hunters were not given to grand displays and Travis had long since left behind his propensity for holding large parties as he aged. "Few events to make appearances at leading up to New Year's."

[Electra]

"Oh, it's not so bad," Erin countered, half-smiling as she leaned back against the old formica countertop. "It's not like I suggested you buy instant coffee! And it never hurts to be prepared, right? You never know when something unexpected could come along and upend all your plans. And then, well... you still might be screwed, but at least you'll have milk on hand." She shrugged. "I guess I'm preaching to the choir, you've got contingency plans available for every possible circumstance. I imagine an army could drop into the middle of Freedom City tomorrow and you'd have a strategy all mapped out."

[Gizmo]

"Need to find three dozen basketballs and an abandoned creamery, but would probably be fine," Trevor deadpanned, stepping over to the counter as Erin finished preparing her hot chocolate to set his own preferred beverage brewing. It was pretty obvious that she was fishing for a topic to distract from her unusual seasonal behaviour. Chiding him about the contents of the fridge and appealing to his ego where it came to preparedness were fairly weak efforts, however, and he wasn't having any of it. "Thinking about swinging by this year?"

[Electra]

Erin frowned thoughtfully into her cup before answering. "I'll be working for most of it, like I said," she finally replied. "Steve Murdock and I are taking shifts, figuring if any attack is going to come down, it'll probably be on Christmas when people are out celebrating. After that who knows? Maybe I'll come by for some eggnog and carols." Her lips quirked. "I'll bring the eggnog."

While he made the coffee, she scooted out of the way and dropped into one of the kitchen chairs to watch him work. "Let's go downstairs," she suggested suddenly. "I've got a couple hours, maybe we could do some work on the flying saucer."

[Gizmo]

"Not entirely clear what eggnog is..." Trevor muttered absently under his breath, brow furrowing slightly in unbidden thought. "Would be good to see you before the new year, though, yes." He offered Erin a smile as subtle as her own, keeping his tone as even as ever, with as little implied pressure or expectation as he could manage given his lack of dispassionate objectivity.

He was again surprised by her abrupt suggestion; she seemed to be jumping from one thing to the next with little warning that evening. "If you'd like. ...work or 'work'?"

[Electra]

Erin set her cup aside and quirked one brow. "I hate to foreclose upon my options so early in the day," she told him archly. "But we can start with working on the engine. It seemed like we were really close to getting it up and flying again. Be fun to be able to take it out for a test run and see how it handles. And at least I'm dressed for work this time." She waved a hand to indicate the sturdy HAX uniform she was still wearing from work. That was a little unusual, generally she'd stop home to feed the cat and change before coming for a visit, but this seemed an unusual visit.

[Gizmo]

Trevor raised one hand defensively as he used the other to lift his mug to his lips. "Just checking." Erin was usually a little better at picking out his deadpan attempts at humour, but to be fair it had actually been a fairly reasonable question in the first place given their track record. If she'd had been restless enough to head straight over after work rather than changing, he suspected she just really wanted something to keep her occupied and distracted for a while. With no immediate threats to the city's safety, working on restoring a vintage alien spacecraft was the next best thing. "Let me finish this first," he promised, taking another sip. "How was your day?"

[Electra]

She rolled her shoulders in a shrug and picked up her cocoa again, wrapping her fingers around it as though warming them. "Mostly the same old same old. College kids are starting to get off school for the holidays, so there are some new interns running around being dumb. Had to go toe to toe with some jackass physics grad student who didn't think a girl younger than him with no education should be telling him what to do." She burnished her nails on her shirt and examined them, looking grimly satisfied. "He knows better now. A semester doing his work in the tiny little office off the boiler room should teach him a valuable lesson about support staff."

Putting the cocoa down again, she swung to her feet and walked over to the kitchen door, leaning on the frame with folded arms. "You should be proud of my restraint, though, I didn't feed him his badge or anything."

[Gizmo]

Pausing in the middle of a sip to snort softly, Trevor successfully avoided an undignified accident at the mental image Erin had called up. "A paragon of professionalism," he agreed, thumping on his chest once with his free fist and coughing behind the hand holding his mug before attempting to drink any more of his coffee. He suspected employees who had a problem deferring to younger women didn't last very long at Mara Hallomen's company, but it was good to hear that the chief of security wasn't having any difficulty holding her own. "Not dealing with grad student teaching assistants, at least. Difficult to rebuke when they're grading your work."

[Electra]

"That's true," she conceded with a tilt of her head. "It must be frustrating to deal with people like that who think they're so smart, and not even be able to show them your best work." She nodded in the direction of the downstairs and all its treasures. "Though you're not exactly powerless. If any of them are particularly obnoxious, your family could always endow a department chair on the stipulation that the guy hits the road. Money does talk." She sipped her cocoa innocently. "Another valuable lesson to teach."

[Gizmo]

"Heh. Try to stay visible without drawing too much attention to the family," Trevor reminded her despite a muted smirk as he contemplated her suggestion. There was a fine line between being so reclusive people got curious and being so ostentatious as to invite the same. Fortunately, Freedom City had enough old money scandals and new money meteoric rises to keep the average gossipmonger busy for a lifetime but there was no use throwing his financial weight around for petty revenge. "...would also be wrong," he added belatedly, the corner of his mouth twitching further upward.

[Electra]

Erin shrugged at that and set her cup down again. "You could think of it as a public service to all the other students he's probably terrorizing. You're really just standing up for the defenseless little people." Obviously restless, she began to cruise the room, opening drawers, peeking into cupboards. "There is no food here. No food. How do you live when you never eat?" She found a ketchup packet in a drawer and examined it critically. "I bet this was made before I was born. But I'm not throwing it out, it's the only edible thing here. We should go out for dinner, take your grandpa."

[Gizmo]

That actually caused Trevor to pause with his emptied mug halfway to the sink. Back turned to Erin, he allowed himself a furrowed brow. As much as the Hunters' lax grocery shopping had become a running joke, she knew perfectly well that there were other kitchens in the expansive mansion, some of them larger and in heavier use than this one, stocked mainly with beverages given its proximity to the foyer. It was a feeble reason to suggest going out to eat, given how much more difficult it was for his grandfather and right after suggesting working on the saucer instead. "In your work uniform?" he questioned aloud, pointing out another oddity in the abrupt change of plans. Obviously Erin was going out of her way to be more sociable for this year's holiday season, but it wasn't like her to be so flighty.

[Electra]

Erin looked down at herself and seemed almost surprised to see the uniform still on. She shrugged, frowning. "It's just a uniform," she replied. "I don't mean we have to go to any five star place you usually go, just somewhere for some food. People can do things like that, just go out and be normal sometimes. But if you don't want to, whatever. I don't even have to eat everyday." She took her nearly-untouched cocoa and dumped it down the sink, then set the mug next to his with a solid thunk. Up close to him, she definitely seemed more tense than usual, nearly twitchy, as though she were either spoiling for a fight or contemplating a hasty escape.

[Gizmo]

It was testament either to hardened nerves or a stoic disposition that Trevor didn't so much as flinch at the slammed mug, or perhaps knowing that Erin could have easily shattered the ceramic if she'd been truly furious. Wasting the beverage she'd just taken time to carefully prepare worried him more. He was silent for several beats, meeting her eyes and waiting to see if she said anything else. Finally he began, "...can't read your mind. Whatever's bothering you, I need you to tell me." In the past, he knew she'd preferred to sort her feelings out on her own but this year she was practically waving a flag in his face, demanding his attention. He was ready to give it but he also knew he'd only make things worse by guessing.

[Electra]

The look she gave him when she met his eyes was hot with anger, not the restrained anger layered with grief that she'd been shouldering for years, but the sort of look she got during a battle when the control was slipping away and she was ready to make someone pay. It didn't seem to be directed at him, maybe it wasn't even directed at anyone, but it was suddenly there, and dangerous as an unsheathed blade. "Why should anything be wrong?" she demanded, the same edge right there in her voice. "I'm here, aren't I? I'm going to work and paying my bills and living my life, so how could anything be wrong? The world is immeasurably screwed up and people are suffering and dying everywhere from crime and war and neglect, and this is supposed to be the best possible world in an infinite universe of hellholes, but if we can just ignore all that, then hey, we can all be happy and normal!"

Spinning away, she drew back a fist and punched it into the wall as hard as she could. The aged wood splintered with a deafening crack, splinters of wood and plaster shrapnel flying across the room. The wall provided no effective resistance to her superhuman strength, leaving her arm buried to the elbow at the end of her textbook follow-through. There was silence for a moment as Erin stood absolutely still, looking down at her arm. "I should go," she finally said.

[Gizmo]

Trevor didn't react to the sudden movement, but he did wince a little at the damage to the wall. In a quiet voice, he replied, "Only if you want to." He didn't move toward her, careful to give her as much space as she wanted and to let her make any first move. "Big house. Lots of walls. Can always be fixed." It actually wouldn't even be the first time entire wings of the mansion would have needed rebuilding, although that seemed like trivia better left for another day. "Whatever you need."

[Electra]

Erin withdrew her arm, moving with considerably more care now than when she'd put it in the wall. She stared at Trevor for a minute, her face oddly blank. She could've been woolgathering, or staring at television, or sleeping with her eyes open. Finally she said, "No, I'm done with walls. Punching walls isn't going to help a damn thing, is it? Here, I brought you your Christmas present. I'll see you in January." She reached into her pocket, leaving a smear of plaster dust on her blue uniform, and pulled out a small square envelope. She placed it on the counter between them as though she didn't dare put it into his hand herself, then turned and walked out, leaving her winter clothes behind. It was easy to tell what the envelope contained, a gift card for Starbase Coffee, an outlet of which was located conveniently on-campus.