fandomtownies | Town Hall, Saturday

Entry tags:

Town Hall, Saturday

"I can't believe I'm actually here, and I don't have any lab equipment," Emily said. She was wearing some of Jesse's clothes, and honestly, it was a little weird to see her out of the uniform. Or in something that casual.

Like she's wearing clothes from another world.

"I'd love to run some tests on you once we manage to get you back out of here, about the influence of a multiversal-- Island of Power like this on you, especially after exposure to, well..." Emily continued, grinning at her. "I mean, if you're okay with it, of course."

"Let's just add it to the long list of things you want to test me for," Jesse said wryly, but she realized she'd inexplicably found herself smiling.

Emily's enthousiasm was a special kind. Rare. She'd missed it.

[[ open ]]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

And Summer ser up her brb sign on her office door to head down to the town hall for both business and a distraction, because who didn't love multitasking?

"Hi, Jesse! Nina! Jesse's friend!" She bounced into town hall with way more enthusiasm that someone who had not too long ago almost had a bawling breakdown in her office, but it was okay, because Nina said she'd ordered sandwiches and Summer had swung by J,GoB to add pastries to the mix, she'd get those stupid divorce papers, shove them right up Hemorrhage's very fine ass, and then get to making glittery flags for Jesse and her guest, it was perfect.

"Summer, hey!" Jesse said. She didn't so much perk up - she was as perky as she ever was, at this point - but she did throw a grin Summer's way from where she was standing, near her office, Emily beside her.

(The grin was perfectly timed with the wave of the Alternate Universe Divorce Papers her assistant executed behind her.)

"Glad you could make it."

There was a pile of sandwiches on the reception desk. A literal pile.

Jesse waved at the excitable-looking woman with the short hair next to her, and added, "Meet my h-- science friend, Emily Pope. She decided to come surprise me."

That cover story was smooth in its simplicity, really. Emily, who perpetually looked like she wanted to be holding a pad and paper, shot a happy smile in Summer's direction. "Hi! I'm the science friend, and you're the-- bar friend, so I hear."

Oooooh, Jesse, that abruptly uttered h- was going to drive Summer crazy, especially since she was definitely looking for other things to hyperfixate on at the moment, but, thankfully, there was enough going on right now to not make it a pressing issue. From sending a relieved look of incredible gratitude over Jesse's shoulder ot her assistant, to grinning at Jesse's grin and getting a good look at this science friend, to also maybe sort of boggling at all the sandwiches and half-wondering if they were going to make it through all of those or Jesse was just sort of planning ahead for leftovers, because that definitely seemed like it could've been a thing, too.

"I brought pastries, too!" she offered, holding up the bag and setting it down next to the sandwiches, which seemed to dwarf the bag. "And I'll definitely take bar friend, that's legit. It's nice to meet you, Emily. And to see that at least someone gets a good surprise with these kinds of weekends..."

"Well, I hope I'm a good surprise, at least," Emily said, shooting Jesse a fond, amused look. "I've probably been driving Jesse crazy with all of my questions. It's just incredibly exciting to find myself in a multiversal hub, just like that!"

It was killing her that she couldn't be making notes right this minute.

"You know I don't mind answering your questions," Jesse said, smiling the faintest little smile. "Especially since it's usually the other way around."

Ohmygod, adorable, and Summer may have been shooting Nina a look of I so know what you were talking about now when Jesse and Emily were doing their whole amused looks and teeny tiny smile bit just then.

"Well, I don't mean to interrupt all the Q&A over here," she said, despite pulling up a chair and having a seat and clearly not intending on going anywhere for a good hot minute.

"Oh, no, I don't want to be rude," Emily said quickly. "Please! Tell me all about yourself! Jesse made you sound like you really know all the ins and outs of this place."

Jesse looked a little embarrassed, there.

"Oh, well, I mean," said Summer, with a modest, dismissive wave of her hand and a smirk that still wasn't going anywhere, "I've been here on and off for a while now, and I like to keep my ear to the ground a little, plus I was sort of used to the whole multidimensional thing before I even showed up here, which helps, and I don't think anyone can ever completely understand this place entirely," RIP, Barry, "but I like to think I've got an okay grasp on it. What sort of questions have you been asking?"

"Oh, I almost don't know where to begin asking!" Emily bubbled. "Like is there any known mechanism that could result in all of these appearances and disappearances? Would you describe the way this island manifests its special events as magical or potentially technological in nature? Jesse mentioned it's 2020 here, while we're from 2019, and I was wondering about whether there's any kind of correlation between the local time period and the home time period of anyone who is present in it. I can't begin to hypothesize before I have more data, but everything I'm hearing is fascinating!"

"Emily, it's okay if you breathe," Jesse said gently.

"I think," Summer answered with a grin, "the answer to most of that is actually sometimes 'all of the above' and 'depends on the week,' which probably isn't very satisfying but definitely fits more often than not. I know Jesse and I were talking the other day about this sort of cracked lip gloss theory," TOTALLY a scientific name for it, "that I think really comes close, like all these little cracks of dimensions sort of forming and crystalizing and repairing or whatever..."

"Summer," Jesse said, making sure to put the emphasis on the name, "came up with this intriguing theory about the multiverse being... basically a purse full of make-up. And everything jostles and leaves cracks."

"And things slip through the cracks from time to time and affect whatever is in the lipgloss?" Emily guessed. "Maybe it's caused by quantum entanglement on the multiversal scale..."

"And," Summer added brightly, still ridiculously proud of this one, "just like lipgloss cracking in your purse, it can be a real bitch to clean up afterwards!"

Or you just had to get an entirely new purse, which...did not always work as well as you hoped, because apparently those purses you got rid of could show up suddenly in your closet again on a rando Parents Weekend! Fun!

"Oh, I get it, that's very funny," Emily said encouragingly.

She was interrupted midway by the loud snort Jesse had to bury against her arm. "...Sorry."

Emily tossed her a surprised, if delighted, look.

Okay, seriously, you two! But Summer was kind of loving it, because, yeah, nothing quite helped you ignore any sort of issues in your own love life quite like projecting one onto other people!

"But yeaaaah," she ventured, tampering down her own smirk, "I definitely subscribe to the idea that there's no way you can have a convergence of so many wildly different...and sometimes exceptionally similar dimensions in one place without things going a little crazy every one in a while..."

Behind them, Jesse's assistant bustled over and held out the papers for Summer to take.

"That's a reasonable assumption," Emily mused, grinning. She looked at Jesse. "It might explain why it's apparently so easy to trip from the building we were in to this place," she said. "They are two locations with an unusual amount of, well. We'll call it 'multiversal activity'?"

Jesse nodded. "It's the best working hypothesis I've heard so far," she said. "Maybe they even make each other worse?"

"MVA, for short," Summer snorted a little to herself, digging out a pastry from the bag. Look, a sandwich made a better lunch, sure, but she could use the sugar comfort right now. "I actually don't know a whole lot about where you guys come from, Jesse's usually pretty cagey about it, but that sounds about right, from what I do know.

"Soooooo," she ventured after that, "this building you were in before, is that where you two met?"

Whaaaat? Multiversal theories were great and all, but there were far more interesting things to delve into here for Summer.

Jesse and Emily had had a long talk about what was, and wasn't, information they should share with the island. And yeah, Jesse had some mixed feelings about the fact she was now actively buying into the idea that classifying things was sometimes better for everyone, but, well...

Either way, it gave Emily the confidence to smile and say, "Yes. I was conducting research there when this hostile force decided to attack the building. Jesse was quite effective in shutting it down. Extremely effective, actually. It was impressive."

For the most part, but she wasn't adding that.

Edited 2020-09-27 11:05 (UTC)

Summer nodded along with that, because that was good. That was a damn good meet-cute in her book, this flag was getting SO much glitter.

"And how long," she wondered, "between that and Jesse ending up here?"

"A couple of days," Jesse said.

Look, she'd walked into that building a wandering solitary paranoiac and then Emily had basically just adopted her on the spot.

Summer's brows shot up a little at that.

"Wow, okay," she said. "So kind of a whirlwind."

In both the effectively handling hostile forces straight into small town weird-island mayor and the romance elements.

Thought the woman currently, fervently trying to ignore the guy she married within a week of meeting him...

"That definitely puts a few things about when you first got here into perspective."

"It's... been kind of a crazy rollercoaster ride," Jesse said, laughing self-consciously. "At this point I figure the best thing I can do is just roll with it, right?"

Sometimes I wonder if you knew about the island when you brought me to the Oldest House, she thought quietly. Did you plan for me to find it?

Emily beamed at her. "I'd say you've done more than roll with it," she said.

Okay, Emily, stoooop. Summer could not even with this cuteness

(False. SO false. She was loving this so much she might have to send Nina a friggin' gift basket or something for really planting this seed in her brain when it was so, sl fertile).

"Good to know we got you for more than just a couple days, Jes," she said, grinning, "although I almost feel bad keeping you this long. It's nice that you still got to drop in, though, Emily."

And as much as she needed the break, Summer was thinking she probably shouldn't eat up too much of their time back together, either.

"It was unexpected," Emily said brightly. (To say the least.) "But it's been good catching up."

And strategizing.

"Don't leave on my account," she added. "The more the merrier! I should actually go get one of those sandwiches..."

"Grab me something too?" Jesse asked her, as Emily walked to the desk to pick up a sandwich or two.

"Oh," Summer waved a dismissive hand, "I shouldn't stay too long, I'm supposed to be keeping office hours today in case any of my students' parents," and fake dads!, "want to come talk about my class."

And, she added to herself, with a rueful glance at the documents Nina had gotten her, wade her way through some super fun looking paperwork!

"But the break has been nice. And I'm really glad I got to meet you, Emily."

Sometime after Summer had visited, Barry swung by Town Hall to review the current network set up at the building and take stock of what would be needed to create the non-exploding computer systems that would work for Jesse. Once that was done he headed to the office to say hello.

“Hey Ms. Mayor,” he said waving hello and nodding to the stranger in the room. “No unusual science weirdness today. Just following up on our discussion from Wednesday.”

Emily perked up immediately. "But you have registered previous science weirdness?" she said. "Are there notes?"

"Hi Barry, this is Emily Pope, my science friend," Jesse said dryly. "Emily, this is Barry, my other science friend."

“Emily,” Barry said nodding in greeting, Nice too meet you. And if you’re looking for a fuck ton of analysis of the shit that goes down here, I’ve got a prize for you.”

He nodded at Jesse, “she’s has a bunch of it if you can stand wading through faxes.”

"I work with faxes every day, Barry," Emily said, without blinking an eye. "There are--"

She glanced at Jesse's face and saw the inherent be careful there.

"--strange phenomena where we come from," she said smoothly. "They don't always work well with modern technology."

“Yeah I’ve seen some of that fucking phenomena when my phone blew up,” he said nodding in Jesse’s direction. “You’re world sounds pretty fucking weird.”

"Moreso in some places than others," Emily said. "Much like this place. I really would love seeing some of that data..."

Barry shrugged. “I can certainly show you my set up at my warehouse but if you blow things up like Jesse does that could leave a very big crater on this island,” he replied. “I’m in the planning process of setting up something in the office that she could use without it exploding everything. Otherwise I can fax over a hog level analysis. Jesse already has some of the shit that has happened recently.”

Jesse smiled, half to herself. "I'll make sure you get my copies," she promised. "Barry here does good work."

She threw Barry an amused look. "He doesn't like the workarounds we've come up with for the technology situation."

Edited 2020-09-27 06:24 (UTC)

"I can understand they might seem unorthodox," Emily allowed. "But there's a surprising amount of, well, 'juice' we could squeeze out of Betamax, rotary phones and faxes. We tried Pentiums, as well, but they, well. Exploded."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Town Hall, Saturday

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject