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Early Early Sunday, The Perk

Jack really shouldn't have expected a last-minute Portalocity ticket to be both affordable and at a halfway normal time. So here he was in Fandom just as the sun came up.

He sent a text and settled in at a table for what might be a long wait. At least he had a textbook and an endless supply of coffee to keep him company.

[OOC: Open coffee shop. Up early just because.]

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Adrienne, as the smartest of the Frosts, knew a lot about the powers of observation. Since her powers didn't work on Emma--she got an annoying blankness rather than any concrete information--she'd had to rely on her other senses to give her an idea about what Little Sister had been up to.

So, after happening upon Emma at the coffee shop yesterday, was it any question that Adrienne would be back again today? She'd seen the way the casual comfort Emma had displayed in the shop, from her order to the way she had the correct amount out to her familiarity with the layout. This was one of Emma's haunts.

Which meant she'd almost certainly be back. And even if she wasn't, there were plenty of people here who would know her. How nice.

[Heading to bed now, but SP is love!]

Jack glanced up from his reading with a quick smile -- a kind of expression of common humanity, more than one of genuine interest in the stranger.

If he had any idea who she was, that would have been different.

"Good morning."

Peter had told Ender he'd be at the Perk if he changed his mind. Chances were that this visit had been completely unproductive, but at least he could stick by it until he got his ticket out of here.

He ordered a coffee and took a seat at a table not too far from Jack, sipped it, and pulled out a small desk (though most people would probably take it for an oddly-shaped iPad) and got to looking over one of the Martel essays that had just gone up.

Eventually, though, he got bored of that. He put the desk away, and gave Jack - the closest human being - a nod. "Good morning," he said. "Guest or a local?" Connections, yes.

"Bit of both," Jack answered. "Graduate, here to see a friend who wasn't supposed to have other guests."

His eyes flickered idly over Peter. There was some vague recognition, though nothing he could place. "Which are you?"

"Guest," he said, ruthlessly employing his PR smile. His iteration of the Wiggin charm had its own little niggling points. "My sister and I are here to see my brother, take a look at the quality of the professors, see who his classmates are."

That smile was entirely too mock-enthusiastic for as early in the morning as it was, and something about it made the teasing sense of recognition click into place a bit. Not that he was anything like certain.

"Oh?" he asked. "What do you think of it so far? It has its -- limitations, but it's a good school in its own way."

Adrienne glanced up and returned the smile, more out of habit than inclination, her eyes skimming over him, assessing him for interest and usefulness. His bearing suggested good breeding, his clothing suggested taste and money. Emma liked all three--at least when she wasn't slumming. Hmmmm.

So, the question was, was he a student here, or someone's visiting family?

"Good morning," she returned, smiling again. This smile held real interest in it. "Fortifying yourself for a day with dealing with your family or for a day of grilling someone's teachers?"

"Neither of the above," Jack answered. "I graduated in the spring, and I thought I'd surprise a friend of mine who doesn't have much other family. Which are you?"

She looked a shade old to be a student, but that didn't necessarily mean anything.

"It's interesting," Peter admitted, "Though I'm not sure just how much of it can be applied to our world. Not that I think my brother's going to be running into any trouble that way."

He tilted his head up. "Peter Wiggin," he offered.

It was much later into the morning, so late that Peter had almost gotten up to leave, when a distant-looking sixteen-year-old pushed open the door to the coffee shop.

He ignored the barrista, and chose to head for the twenty-something sitting at the table. "Peter."

"Ender," Peter said, looking up.

He'd almost hoped that Ender would turn him down; it hurt his pride enough to do this in the first place. "Have you reconsidered my offer?"

"Jack Priest," Jack said, straightening a bit with interest. "I've heard your name -- I know your sister and brother."

He'd heard a bit more than that; he knew Peter was an important man, and one Valentine never sounded entirely fond of. Interesting to meet him in person.

Anyone else, Ender might have said something sardonic about the mafiaesque connotations of that statement. But it wasn't, and so Ender just looked at him. "Not here," he said, nodding his head at the door.

Peter had no such qualms. "Real cloak and dagger, Ender," he muttered. "Lead on."

The both of them slipped out the door in no time at all, and where they went to talk was no one's business at all.

Of course he did.

Peter tried very hard not to let his slight - less kneejerk than it used to be - irritation at that show through. "So pretty recently of the school," he noted. "Sorry, my sister doesn't talk much about her time here."

"I graduated in May," Jack confirmed, and tilted his head. He supposed it might be annoying to be known mostly by reputation. "Perhaps it doesn't seem overly memorable to her? The class missed her, anyhow."

Jack missed her.

"She left rather suddenly," he added. "Back to work, I took it."

"Back to work," Peter agreed. "The first colony ships are leaving in two years. She's an important part of the efforts we're putting in to further the project."

In a PR-capacity. "So you were... what, school friends? Acquaintances?"

"Family," Adrienne said. "Checking up on my dear younger sister. She can get up to such mischief sometimes."

Of course, said younger sister was being entirely ungrateful that Adrienne had taken the time and effort out to do so. Adrienne would be hurt if she--okay, no she wouldn't, even if she hadn't already been planning how to use this information in her own best interest.

"But that's ever so kind of you to surprise a friend." She reached out to shake his hand. "How utterly charmed," she said in her crisp, almost-British accent.

"Something like that." It had been ... complicated, a friendship with a slight unspoken romantic edge. Not that Jack had made any special efforts to simplify things; he'd figured time would take care of it one way or the other, and then time was up.

It hardly mattered, anyhow.

"Nothing," he added, with a tiny glint of a smile, "half as interesting as what she's up to at home, it sounds like. You mean colonies on other planets?"

"I hear siblings are like that," Jack said, shaking the hand gracefully. Funny, he'd only heard an accent like that on Emma; he'd have to tell her he'd found someone else with the same speech patterns. "It's nice to meet you. Jack Priest."

"Yes, as ours are now available. My brother won a very costly war to make sure that happened." Peter really didn't care about such things as 'keeping his brother's cover'. "She's been looking forward to it."

... and to getting away from him.

"What about you?" Jack asked, filing 'Ender won a war' away as something that might be useful to know later. "Are you looking forward to ... progress marching onward, or however one would put it?"

"It's not really my area," he said, lightly. "I'm more of a 'feet on the Earth' kind of guy."

Adrienne stroked the inside of his wrist; not to flirt (well, much) but to brush her finger along the band of the watch that Jack was wearing. Images cascaded into her mind and many, many of them included that soft-edged blankness that meant someone was there she couldn't see.

Emma. Darling Emma was all over this boys mind, like a child leaving sticky fingerprints on every available surface. In fact, she'd be willing to bet every last penny of her inheritance that Emma was the poor, neglected student Jack was here to see.

Of course, vying for the memories of Emma in both number and intensity were images of a darkly handsome man, older than any of them. The memories were intimate and emotional--some kind of bond there, yes. Oh, how delicious. Emma couldn't keep a hold on this one either. Poor little sister.

Amazing. She almost would have decided luck was with her this weekend, if belief in luck wasn't the mark of a lesser person.

"I think I'd want to go if I had the chance," Jack said thoughtfully. "Not that I'm likely to be in your situation, of course."

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Early Early Sunday, The Perk

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