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» too many people living in a secret world while they play mothers and fathers

Who: Kate and Remy
What: In which Remy mother hens and fixes a leak. He's a well-rounded man.
Where: Tosh's apartment
When: Mid-morning on Veerdi
Warnings: Nope.

Hopefully nobody in this apartment has been trying to sleep (or stay asleep) for the last twenty minutes or so because Kate's nowhere near being done with blow drying the sheetrock walls of the kitchen in order to ward off mold. In any usual case, she probably wouldn't be on her knees on the tiled floor pointing the dryer at the corner between the sink and the fridge, but with Baedal being Baedal, that mold probably won't stay normal mold for long. It would probably grow a couple of pairs of legs, a few rows of teeth, and an ability to speak and tell the entire city your personal business. And steal your wallet when you weren't looking.

Kate doesn't want to take the chance. Who would?

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Not Remy, that's for sure - though his habit of hanging around Casa de Ladies is more out of a desire to make sure they're okay and that Kate doesn't feel isolated than any obsessive anti-mold paranoia. For the past several minutes, he's been half underneath the kitchen sink, tweaking and fixing, because you can never be too careful with old pipes, and just because something has been precariously working again for a few days doesn't mean too much.

Serenaded by the dulcet tones of a hair drier, he misses every other beep of his CiD. He is aware, because he saw her shoes, that it's Kate that's keeping him company in the kitchen, but they haven't spoken yet. Setting aside his wrench, Remy gropes for his communication device to see what he's been missing, still under the sink.

Kate appreciates the silent company and Remy's presence even if she doesn't actually feel isolated from the boys. Leaving them to their own motherly devices was her choice and she has a lot of catching up to do with Dawn and Claire anyway. Maybe she misses their constant trolling--well, mostly Tommy's constant trolling and Billy's sighing--but she's doing fine for herself, by herself. There's a lot of living and settling in to keep her busy for the next couple of weeks.

The dryer's loud whirring finally stops as Kate slips a hand to the wall, testing for dryness. It's not the Sahara back there, but it passes her no mold growth approval. Setting the device aside, she straightens up to sit on the floor properly, watching Remy poke at his CiD with mild curiosity.

Edited 2011-09-02 09:43 (UTC)

"How's the health hazard coming?" It's somewhat absent, as he's reading still, but it's an Important Inquiry. If they can't get everything dry via bathroom appliances and leaving the windows open, somebody'll have to rent an industrial fan, and that's a headache.

Without making any show of it, Remy listens for anyone else in the house - he's fairly certain they're alone, and though he wasn't planning on springing anything on Kate today, the more he tallies up his notes here, he more he thinks he's going to have to. What on earth is even going on, here.

"It's the best it's going to get right now. All we need to do is give the rest time," Kate replies, pulling her legs up to her chest and giving her knees a squeeze as a form of a mini-stretch. "If not, tell my father I loved him when the mold takes me."

Clearly a joke if her snickering is any indication. Passing messages, no matter how sweet and touching they might be, between here and her Earth is impossible and Kate's pretty sure of that. Oh well. "Are the pipes safe for dishwashing yet?"

Whatever's on his CiD must be extra important--she's guessing texts from Wanda--so Kate doesn't really expect a quick reply.

"Yeah, they should-" he stops, mid-thought, and then deftly slides out from under the sink so that his face is not, you know, directly under the pipe. Fully visible once more, he coughs, and then: "Yes, they are perfectly fine."

Great show of faith there, buddy.

Kate doesn't believe him. He needs to get out from under there so she can have a series of important sink tests for perfect accuracy.

In the meantime, she thinks she should feed him and herself. Kate gets to her feet and moves towards the fridge, poking her head in once the door is opened. Hopefully, there are some leftovers or sandwich fixings in there that she can easily heat up because while Remy might be good at plumbing, Kate's not sure he's good with firefighting and fixing smoke damage.

"Hungry?"

He is out, and thus away from the damage zone if something else breaks, but it really will be okay. A professional certainly would have had it done sooner, but then they'd have had to cough up the change.

"Always," he says, laughing. He stands up and stretches, having spent so much time shoved under the counter. (For the record, he is a perfectly decent cook, if you like southern food.) "How's the place comin' along besides the waterworks?"

"It's fine. I won't be here much longer so Tosh and Dawn can breathe a sigh of relief." With plans to room with Claire and split the rent to something more manageable, Kate's gone onto worrying where to get the normal stuff like a bed and chairs to sit on. Sure, they could just wrangle up a couple of sleeping bags and camp it out, but that's a temporary solution. She's not the materialistic type, but even Kate wants an actual mattress to lie on.

The fridge contains magic in the form of leftover stew, some sliced ham, and something that looks like old pizza. They have pizza here? That's something new. Also, there are eggs and bread for toast. All of these get laid out on the counter in a line for Remy to pick through while Kate plays it safe and makes a ham sandwich.

"How are Tommy and Billy doing? With Wanda?" Concern is evident in her voice because she knows how much those two needed their mother, even if they didn't know they had another mother until recently.

"I don't think nobody'd be relieved to lose you, fille," he says, and goes to raid the leftovers. He is not cruel enough to eat ALL of the pizza... even if it looks a little old and terrifying anyway. (It's still good.)

He makes a thoughtful noise. "I think they're okay. With Tommy it's hard to tell, but Billy's happy." Remy probably doesn't need to point out that he's well aware of Tommy's trust issues. "I'm tryin' to give 'em space, I know it's weird."

Weird that he's technically known their mother longer than they have, weird that he remembers getting to know them and they don't...

"I was joking, Remy. Tosh said I could stay here as long as I wanted to and I believe her," she laughs as she slaps on the top slice of bread. "Besides, who else other than me will eat Dawn's junk food creations?"

No one, that's who. Only Kate's steel stomach can handle Baedal's substitute Skittle and M&M brownie pizza. Well, most of the time.

Kate nibbles on an extra slice of ham as she considers Remy's answer. "Tommy's probably happy. Knowing him, I think he would have found a way out if he didn't feel comfortable." She's not going to tell Remy what went on in the arrival room; if Wanda wants to tell him, so be it, but it's not Kate's story to tell. "I've been giving them space too. They need their privacy."

"Dawn, hopefully," he laughs, but doesn't contest it. He has brief memories of allowing a few students to test out Budweiser vs Corona beer floats, and... next.

"I suspect Tommy is mostly skeptical of me, actually. Billy probably too, but he's more polite, no? I'm getting the 'unsure of potential step-dad' vibe, which is..." he trails off, and then shrugs. It's still weird.

"But you know what us givin' em their privacy means, right?" He gestures, like, HOORAY! "We're left with the investigation work."

She shrugs back. "Wouldn't you feel the same way if you just found the mom you never knew you had and here's this guy you've probably fanboyed over all your life and he's dating her? If it gets really bad, you could talk to Billy."

Not Tommy. Talking to Tommy about feelings will never ever end well.

"We're?" If Kate's looking at Remy as if she's lost and confused, then well, she is.

"I think it's the most normal weird in the whole thing, though, so it'll be okay." Even baseline humans with divorced parents end up getting touchy about boyfriends and step-parents. (He can think that without panicking a little, so he must be getting better, right?)

"Yep." He grins, in a way that suggests there's very little that's actually funny about any of this. "Want to know a top secret X-Men fact?"

"What?"

Remy needs to stop smiling like that. He's actually quite terrifying when he does that.

"Is this something I'll regret asking about in five seconds? Because I want to steel myself for this."

"Mystique - as in, Global mutant terrorist Mystique - her birth name is Raven Darkholme," Remy says, and it's telling about the community of mutants at large that he says birth name and not real name. Her real name is Mystique, all right.

It gets worse, but, well. One at a time.

The name Mystique is familiar. The name Raven is familiar too. Not so much on the Darkholme part, but Kate is sharp and thinks quickly on her feet. She can see where Remy is heading, but assuming gets people hurt or worse, killed.

She's already assumed the Raven here in Baedal was just Raven, possibly a mutant and friend of Beast and Professor X. Enough of that.

"Continue," Kate drawls. As if she thought he wasn't going to on his own.

"Our buddy you talked to on the scavenger hunt? Looks like the Brotherhood, dead on." He holds up his CiD. "He even just pinged me asking if I'm Gambit. Problem is-" like, you know, the Brotherhood having a presence here isn't a problem enough- "That list don't match up to me. Mystique never worked with Magneto, they led the unit at different times. So we got a million different timelines, for one. Two, somebody popped up asking him specifically about the compass he was looking for. So there's somebody besides me and this guy who're familiar with the Brotherhood." A beat. "Not to mention Charles Xavier and Mystique are apparently related in some universe out there, but, whatever, I guess."

And just like that, everything falls into place. The reason why Raven knew Charles and Beast. Why she kept trying to imply that Kate and her didn't know the same people. But at the same time, nothing fits exactly. It's like somebody's trying to slam a piece of the jigsaw puzzle in the wrong spot until it fits.

Kate brings her index finger and thumb to the bridge of her nose and rubs the small area. Timelines, timestreams, time itself. It's enough to give anybody a headache and now dealing with them all smashing into each other in this place just upgrades it to migraine status.

"Raven always seemed suspicious to me when we spoke," Kate mutters from underneath her hand. Maybe suspicious is the wrong word, but for now, it works especially now that she knows that Raven equals Mystique. "John seemed normal enough. The search list slipped by me. Professor X... well, that's pretty obvious what's wrong with him. Who's the other guy?"

"Not everybody knows the Brotherhood like we do," he says dryly. Remy was never a member like Wanda was, no, but the Marauders were closely involved enough times to give him some insight - even more than the average X-Man. Those were some sterling, high profile monickers there, though. Enough to catch any old schooler's eye with ease. It makes him suspect that whomever John is, he's early on in the timeline.

"'John' is a pretty common name, though I only ever knew of one member who went by it, sorta. Could be a cover, there were dozens of members for a while, we never ID'd all of 'em. What'd he look like, sound like?"

As for 'the other guy', he shrugs. "Not sure yet."

Vision being here would be fantastic. He could pull up any Avengers records in seconds instead of Kate having to depend on her own memory on who's who and what they've done in the past. She only has eighteen years of history on her own self; there's not much more she can hold on a bunch of other people running around trying to destroy things.

"Brown hair, brown eyes, kinda cranky? Not Eli cranky, but old man, my bones hurt kinda cranky. He said he writes and he smokes a lot too. Said he was from Indiana, but that part... something about the way he said it made it sound like a lie. Also, he seemed pretty anxious, but he had just gotten here so that was probably it. At least I thought so at the time."

Why anybody would lie and say they're from Indiana of all places is beyond Kate, but stranger things have and will continue to happen.

"He's maybe my age, or a few years older, tops. Not as old as you." A quick glance over to Remy and a small smile. "No offense."

"Did you see him light a cigarette? What did he use?" Lighter, matches, his own brainwaves? "Did he sound like he was from Indiana? Did he have any verbal ticks you could pick out, did he mimic other speech patterns in conversation while he was quoting anyone?"

It's a lot of questions, but he asks them calmly. "Man, there's not just a few years in between me an' you, fille, no matter what my maturity level says. No offense taken." He seems to find that funny.

"No. He was already smoking when I got there. And I have no idea what people from Indiana sound like, Remy." Kate turns around to lean her back against the counter, sandwich long forgotten. The line of questioning isn't too bad considering all the possibilities of what they're dealing with here, but trying to remember every tidbit of the one meeting she's had with this guy is proving to be difficult.

"He curses a lot?" Then, a light bulb. "Oh, he kept asking about the newspapers and the militia. Really wanted to know how free the press was."

"Mm." He leans back against the counter, considering. His best guess is still not really adding up, but then again, he just met an English Charles Xavier, whose sister is Raven Darkholme, so it's clear the playing field is not the one he's intimately familiar with.

"He sounds old school, whoever he is," he says, and his CiD beeps so he pulls it out, checking the text message. "Apparently wherever he's from, he knew me at least a little... oh, great." He makes a face, seeing the note about the Brotherhood and the Marauders. "Well I'm gonna meet him and figure this out. Can you wrangle your boys and - damn. Did you talk to Clarice yet?"

Door number three!

"Who?" Kate's spoken to many people but a Clarice is not one of them. "Don't tell me this is another supervillian, but one from another timeline because then you'll tell me Kang is back and I'm going to need more than just a sandwich to deal with that."

God help them if Kang shows up here. Also God help Kate who's trying to sneak a peek at Remy's device.

"She's a good guy from- uh." He tries to pull a reference on who's timeline she'd recognize. "Nate Grey, Dark Beast, the Apocalypse timeline. Goes by Blink, you can't miss her. She hates my ass but she'll probably be okay with you all. And excuse you, Miss Nosey." He laughs at her trying to look at his CiD, which he goes ahead and shows her - nothing but him asking to meet their mystery Brotherhood member and a note to Wanda that says 'Gonna be back in a bit, more stupid crap'. Gambit is an adult.

Kate nods, recognizing Nate Grey by way of her knowing Rachel Summers. The rest will become familiar later on with a little information digging, but right now, Kate makes a mental note to find Blink and chat her up.

A nod to the messages on the screen and Kate pleads, "Be careful." It's an automatic response when Kate says that, knowing Remy can fully take care of himself. But he's become something like a distant parental figure in her time away from home, something the entire team never knew they needed. It's nice, comforting, and so much better than having Tony Stark hovering around thinking he knows what's best for them.

They need a dang flow chart.

"I'll be on it, don't you worry none. The whole lot of 'em hasn't been able to off me yet, some dude ain't gonna pull nothin' off." He raises his hand to fistbump Kate, because he is SO HIP, okay. "Go ahead and keep talkin' to Raven if you want, just don't say nothin' about her in our world. She could just be a scared kid from back when they were still runnin' mutant camps. Who knows how anything works in her world. But stay sharp. I'll call you when I wrap it up with this guy."

Flashcards and videos too.

Remy's attempt to BE DOWN WIT DA KIDZ gets an amused eyebrow from Kate, but what the hell, she bumps him one anyway. No one's around to make fun of him and Kate's not the type to do that either. "Or I'll call you if anything goes on before then. Thanks for the heads up."

"I didn't mean to dump this all on you quite so quick, but shit happens. Hopefully it'll all be fine and everybody can play nice. Wishful thinking, no?" He flashes her a smile. "I trust you to keep your head on straight, you're good at it. Catch you soon, fille."

"It's better that I know now before I mess up and say something wrong to one of them." Or somebody who doesn't need to know what she does in the dark of night under an assumed name. Dragging a hand through her hair, Kate turns back to her sandwich and nod.

"See ya later, Rem."

He makes a face at her at 'Rem', but it's good natured. "Orevwa, Kate." Gambit takes one last bent-down look at the sink before he nabs his jacket and heads out, first to talk to Wanda and then to figure out this mess. Never a dull moment, man.

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