Stark Industries, Monday

[endsthegame]

For once, Ender wasn't coming in to work alone - Val had insisted on accompanying him. As they made the quick trip down from the dorms, they talked, mostly about inconsequentially intellectual things. There was little she was willing to share about the future, and there was little he really wanted to ask: there were more important things to share.

It was strange to have her around. He still wasn't sure how he felt about it. But it was, by and large, less fraught than it had been last year. Val was intelligent and a good conversationalist, and they didn't stop sparring when they got to the shop.

Instead, they'd pulled up some of the recent data from Shakespeare. Valentine's knowledge of the colony was minute at best - it simply wasn't so important anymore in her time.

He could still sense she was keeping things from him, but her enthusiasm about analysis was genuine.

"Oh, and tell Jane I'm grateful for the data," Val whispered in his ear at one point. "But I guess she just heard, didn't she?"

"You should appreciate me more often," Jane replied.

[[ jane bits NFB; otherwise open! ]]

Chilly Boulder, Monday Afternoon

[dollpocalypse]

Having children was -- surprisingly frustrating, but not in the way Topher would have thought it would be. It turned out that all three of his were pretty smart, which wasn't a shock, and were therefore less annoying than most kids, but (and it was stupid that this stung, but it did), particularly when it came to Genevieve and Maria, they were also more than a little bit jaded about his parenting skills.

And it bugged him. Because he hadn't even gotten a chance to try parenting yet, and here were these kids who already thought he was crap at it. It wasn't fair.

So he'd wrung his hands a little and tried to figure out a way to possibly win over Gen, at least. Ice cream, he thought, might be a good start.

[[open! with probable flashes of SP on my end, though.]]

The Perk, Monday Morning

[vanillajello]

Dorian had still been sleeping when Kate had slipped out of the hotel room. See, she had a quest, and that quest was to acquire all the best breakfast foods from around town for him for a Monday morning feast, because as much as she didn't want to think about it, this was probably going to be their last day together.

But there was still plenty of it left. And somewhere between JGoB (mmm, donuts) and the Perk, she'd been surprised to run into Christian this early, but that had been cleared up with a shrug and an "I was hungry". Of course he was hungry. All her children seemed to have inherited her bottomless stomach for sweets. He'd unsurprisingly tagged along with her to the Perk, and she couldn't say she minded. Wasn't every day you got to sit at a table by the window at your favorite coffee place, taking phone photos of your teenaged son as he stuffed his face with muffins.

Well, not if you were Kate, at least. Maybe this quest was going to take a little longer than anticipated.

[Ooopen, for all your Kate/egotastic demigod spawn/general Perk needs!]

Dite's Decadent Delights, Monday Afternoon

[glacial_queen]

Today, the door to 'Dite's had a giant sign over it:

NOT A CANDY SHOP!

Beneath that was a second, slightly smaller sign:

No one under sixteen allowed in without parent or guardian.

Even with those measures in place, Karla was being extra stringent about making sure that the inventory was all in its appropriate places. The main room was filled with novelty items, yes, but all of the more explicit material was either tucked away in the back room or upstairs in the clothing area and the video corner. If any kidlet found their way into 'Dite's today, the worse they'd find is racks of paperbacks with racy covers and the occasional breast- or genital-shaped coffee mug or lollipop.

The Park, Monday Evening

[lockestheway]

Portals elsewhere might break, send you to the wrong planet, or leave you hanging; this one was forever faithful to its own schedule.

Sadly, for those denizens of the island who might have grown attached to their children, that meant it was time to say goodbye. The portal popped up blazing purple in the center of the park, calling to those it had taken here just a few days ago.

Time to go, time to go home, children.

[[ for your AU kidlet goodbyes! Sniff. ]]

JGOB, Monday Late Afternoon

[stykera]

It was almost time for the children to go again, or so they had informed Stark.

Being Stark's, they also informed him that travel via portal made them very hungry and they would probably need something to eat before they left. Preferably something cupcake-shaped. And cupcake-flavored. And Stark, being Stark, was hardly going to refuse them such a reasonable request.

This was why Stark and his glowy son and blue daughter found themselves sitting at a table in JGOB with an assortment of cupcakes in front of them.

[Open, of course. And they'll totally share.]

The Perk [Monday afternoon]

[weldedtomyspine]

Jaime needed coffee.

And space.

Not really to think about things. He had no idea what he'd even think about. Or, more accurately, he wasn't sure what thinking would accomplish. On the one hand, seeing kids that could potentially have been his as relatively well-adjusted teenagers had been kind of cool. On the other hand, they really just served as reminders that he was... unsettled ("unhappy" wasn't something he was going to admit quite yet). They seemed to come from a happy family, one where he and Momoko, somehow, worked out.

A family that he was never going to get to see, except through these brief glimpses.

So: coffee. And some breathing space. To just... wallow think.

Cafe Fina, Monday evening

[lordofthecats.livejournal.com]

Lion-o took a few minutes to chat with the Fina staff before grabbing a table for himself and Momoko. "I feel bad that I haven't visited this place more often," he said. "But the cheese grater told me about this awesome new dessert. How would you like to start out by sampling some banana caramel cream? Or how about green tea cheesecake?"

[[Lion-o is here for Momoko, but Cafe Fina is open for anyone else who wants to drool over desserts on Pinterest.]]