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Wellspring Arms & Meditation Center, Thursday

He'd spent most of the morning moving around some of the furniture to deal with the left-over holes in the wall (had to get that fixed and soon) before taking a while with the baby.

She was asleep in her crib, now; and Cable was behind the desk with his laptop.

He was trying to beat himself at chess.

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He's distractable. Mostly.

Oh, Ino's mood was foul as she stalked into the shop. Of course she’d have to try and do something productive today, and of course it would turn out that she'd wound up running out of seedling trays in her room--mostly because she was a bit behind on dragging them down to her garden to plant, but whatever--and so, was forced to come here and grab the few that she remembered having left somewhere at the shop from when she'd first started adding plants around.

And of course she couldn't wait until tomorrow. Or go buy more at Turtle & Canary. Of course not. That'd be too easy.

"Cable-san." Flatly, as she started looking for the trays. Where had she left them? More because it'd be rude not to say anything than because she wanted to talk.

Well. That one was-- unexpected.

Cable glanced up over the rim of his laptop, blinking for an instant before offering up a curious-if-vaguely-hopeful, "Ino?"

Ah. Looking for something. Well, that made sense.

It was, she was finding, all but impossible to ignore him even as he just sat there and she stalked around the shop looking for her trays. Her attention was scattered, darting back over to him--wanting to hit him, wanting to hurt him, wanting to cry, wanting to understand... too many wants and she hated that--and then back to her search.

“Not my idea,” she said grumpily. Only it was, but anything else would’ve been deemed a greater failure and so she’d make herself do this. “Need my trays.”

"You're welcome to get your trays, Ino..."

One mildly quizzical eyebrow raised, yes. "Is there something you wanted to talk about?"

...

...

Oh, that? That got a flithy look. "What do you think?"

"I think it was time I asked," Cable replied, mildly. "You don't need excuses to take any plants from or to the shop."

"I'm not taking plants,” she said witheringly, because that was the easier part of his comment to address. “Just the empty seedling trays. And I--”

Don’t know what to say. What to do. Don’t know if I want to listen or not. Don’t want to cry.

“Oh, whatever,” Ino said, not looking at him. “Will it even matter either way?”

"If you felt that way, you would've taken your trays and gone."

It was easy to keep his tone light. Comparative to her, most definitely.

Her hands clenched.

"Will it matter to you," she bit out, terrified of any answer he might possibly have to that.

"Why wouldn't it?" Huh. He placed a hand on top of the laptop, looking, to his credit, a little befuddled.

She was not going to cry. She was not. But that hurt and it was a long struggle--turn tears to rage--to make herself even a little, be strong in fury than weak in... in any way.

How dare he ask that?

"Because you made it obvious that I didn't matter." Ino really really hated today.

Okay. He was pretty sure he could work with that.

The downside of working with teenagers... it'd been too long since X-Force, really. "I never said that." And crossed his arms, pulling the confusion from his features.

Um.

"It's not about what you said!"

Why were so many people so caught up on words?

"I had a mission I had to complete," he replied, tilting his head slightly. "It was too dangerous for you." Decisively, that much.

She really really wanted to argue with that but on one hand—she had been knocked out twice during the rescue bit of it. Though once was ‘friendly-fire’ and the other had knocked out everyone as far as she understood it with mind talents of any sort, so…

Though she had done fine during the fighting bit.

“I never said that I wanted you to take me along,” Ino told him, knuckles white, and knowing that she would’ve wanted to go had she known. “Just that I…”

Dad would’ve told her. No details, but at least that he was going. She could handle that. Had handled that. And, and--she wasn’t going to cry--he was like a second dad, wasn’t he?

Wasn’t he?

"Secrecy was paramount," Cable said, a little vague around the edges, and studied her carefully. "I had to make sure no one knew about the baby."

"Didn't need to tell me about the baby," she said, clinging to her composure. "Just... something like, 'I've got a mission, I'll be gone for a bit.' That doesn't tell anyone anything."

But it would've made her feel like she mattered at least enough for that.

"I know how missions work, Cable-san," that wasn't a wobble in her voice, no it wasn't, she wasn't letting it be, "I do."

"I know, Ino," he said, calmly-- much like his expression. "But that doesn't take away the fact that I had to."

Leaning back, Cable settled his arms on the armrests, studying her. "I came back," he said-- same thing as he'd said to Wade.

Her shoulders drooped, anger rushing out of her to be--temporarily--replaced with... Something else, something she couldn’t name but it made her want to cry, made her head reel a bit.

“You came back,” she said quietly, nearly inaudibly, “but you don’t care.”

"I care," he said, and it wasn't really easily-- some concern suffused to it. "But I had to prioritize on this." And leaned forward a little, again, just to drive the point home. "Sometimes, even 'I have a mission' is cause for alarm among the wrong people."

Like his old X-team.

She ducked her head--I will not cry--and… why did she always wind up caring more than other people? Why did she have to have the, the talent at picking people, caring about people, who didn’t—ever—care about her as much as she about them?

Why did she always have to lose out?

“Yeah,” Ino said, not looking at him. “Whatever.”

It didn’t matter what the excuse was, not now. He didn't care and it'd... she'd thought he had.

At least a bit.

"I did what I had to do," he said, and that one was simple, if not all-- since Providence went to pieces and he saw his own dream crumbling--

But that was a long time ago, now. Cable had a new mission. There was no point to dwelling-- that never did any good. "But I'm here. Think about that."

Which was about all he had to give; as much an excuse as it was for anything, and as always, the rest was up to the other. He owed no further explanations. Not here, anyway...

"And you'll have a place at Wellspring, regardless."

...

...

She stared blankly at the floor at that. What was that supposed to mean? Had he been considering getting rid of her and now wasn't, or what?

"I should go," Ino said abruptly, grabbing her trays from where she'd put them--before I cry--and she just couldn't deal with this right now.

It was moments like this when Cable remembered why ties with X-Force had ended up-- the way they'd ended up.

He opened his mouth to say something, realised he wasn't exactly sure what was to be said, anyway, and closed it. Things would-- well.

"Whatever happens," he said, finally. "Neither of us would be here, otherwise."

And left it at that.

Yeah, whatever...

She--not bolted, it only looked like she did--darted from the shop, hugging the trays tight, and, and...

Not going to cry. Wasn't. Worth. It.

Moddable as needed.

And accessible only with Cable's permission.

Weee late post due to family issues, yay.

When will I get tired of this icon? Film at eleven!

*tackle-hug!*

*flops* I am a bad bad person for wanting to subject Ino to Cable again today ~~and an even worse of one for coming up with a totally IC reason for her to come to the shop~~ *ponders*

SO DARN EVIL!

But of course!

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Wellspring Arms & Meditation Center, Thursday

Talk to Cable

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Meditation Room

Shooting Range

OOC

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