Room 229, Thursday Morning

[arsenicmauls]

Gert woke up early and did not want to get out of bed.

Strictly speaking, she really should, because she'd put dye in her hair last night and should really be getting up to wash it out soon. But she was comfortable and Old Lace was half sprawled over her and it was nice, even if the dye smell detracted from the niceness of it somewhat.

Anyway, one of the many upsides to being an orphan at boarding school was that no one was going to drag her out of bed anytime soon. Well, unless the smell was really getting on Maddie's nerves. But she didn't think it would come to that.

[[door shut, post open!]]

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[solarhippie]

If Karolina was entirely honest, she'd been avoiding this. Seeing Gert. It was just... weird. And painful, and she'd come on the island so soon after everything that she'd just felt like she'd needed the time.

But, she'd been in Fandom for a while now. It was time.

So, here she was, knocking on the door. "Gert?"

[arsenicmauls]

"Yeah?" Gert half-yawned. It wasn't super-intelligible, so she added, "Come in," a little more loudly.

Maybe she would have sounded a little more enthusiastic if she wasn't too sleepy to make out whose voice that was...

[solarhippie]

Karolina opened the door and leaned in. Yeah, she could've actually stepped into the room, but... Sometimes she was still awkward and dorky and yes, that was really Gert right there. This was weird.

The best course of action was a dorky little wave.

"Hi?"

[arsenicmauls]

That was enough to have Gert sitting up quickly. (Not the dorky wave. The face of the person doing the waving.)

"Kar," she said dumbly. "Hey. You're back."

Yeah, Karolina was aware of that.

"...What's up?"

[solarhippie]

Karolina... really really didn't know what to say to that. That was a first.

"Um." That was an excellent start. Also, she was still standing awkwardly in the doorway. "Well, I came back."

... They were both aware of that.

[arsenicmauls]

"You can come in," Gert said hastily. She even got up, feeling awkward in purple striped pajamas and a shower cap, and shifted a bit uncomfortably for a moment before going for a hug. "Welcome back."

Shhhhhh. This was a rare thing for her.

[solarhippie]

It saved Karolina the trouble of going for that hug herself.

It was a little bit clingy from her side. Because reasons.

[arsenicmauls]

When Gert broke off, she cleared her throat and had a bit of a blush to her cheeks. She wasn't normally... huggy.

"So," she mumbled, "how was space?"

[solarhippie]

Karolina saw her blush and raised her wiping her own eyes with the back of her hand. Yeah. Reasons.

"It was... Well, it could've been better. We had to make a pretty swift exit."

[arsenicmauls]

"I'm guessing it wasn't because you racked up damage charges at your honeymoon hotel," Gert ventured dryly, returning to her bed and patting the space beside her for Karolina to sit. "What happened?"

[solarhippie]

"Well, I don't know how much Victor's told you..."

Apart from her having gone to space and almost gotten married, obviously.

"But I don't think any of the grown-ups wanted peace. I mean, I went to Majesdane with Xavin to try and achieve peace with our marriage. But there were insults at the wedding, and now I don't know if anyone else even survived."

[arsenicmauls]

Actually, some of that information had come from Liara!

But Victor had been the one to mention the marriage part, and the one to tell Gert that Karolina would definitely come back. So he got props too.

"Wow, adults starting shit they can't handle for absolutely no reason," Gert noted. "Just like old times." Which was to say that she wasn't exactly shocked. "Are you okay?"

[solarhippie]

"I'm getting there." But, slowly. She finally took a seat next to Gert. "Being here helps. But, that's not really everything that happened. I mean, there was stuff after we came back to Earth, too..."

[arsenicmauls]

'Where I'm from, you die right after Karolina and her new ... girlfriend thing get back from outer space,' Victor had said. Gert had been a little tipsy at the time, but she remembered.

"I think I know where this is going," she said, nudging Old Lace to the side so she could shift into a more comfortable position. For some reason, she felt a twinge of irritation; rationally, she knew that she wanted to be told about the developments in her friends' universes that concerned her, but hearing them recount not once but twice a story that ended in her death was a little... disheartening. Gert clamped down on the bulk of the irritation, but she still muttered, "Is the climax of this story me meeting an untimely end?"

[solarhippie]

Karolina's face fell. Not because she'd been looking forward to telling this story – she had not, and hadn't had even entirely made up her mind about whether she wanted to tell it – but because Gert already knowing... Well, it meant Gert already knew. And no one should have to know something like that.

"Victor told you." There was no other explanation, of course. "Gert, I'm so sorry."

[arsenicmauls]

"Isn't that my line?" Gert wondered, and yeah, the bitterness in her voice was pretty poorly concealed at this point. "She was your friend. Sorry she died."

She looked down at her dozing deinonychus, mostly to avoid making eye contact, but that just made her feel worse. "I guess Old Lace went with her, huh?"

[solarhippie]

Karolina had been apologizing for how Gert had to hear about this in the first place. But she didn't feel like explaining that would make any difference.

She chewed on her lip. "Actually... No. She, uh, she saved Old Lace. Transferred the telepathic bond to Chase."