The Perk- Friday morning

[seriesofbaddecisions]

With a couple days back in town, it was still weird, and weirder in how normal it felt, but in a weird way. Sabine was still getting herself set up, but she was at least trying to revisit some places. Acclimate. All that.

That meant hanging at the Perk this morning with some stupidly sugary drink she couldn't get back home, and reading through a newspaper to see what was going on in the world these days. Probably nothing good.


[Sick day! Open!]

Comments

[stykera]

Hey, sometimes newspapers had stories about adorable animals! Those were about good things going on.

Sabine looked familiar (though not entirely) and Stark thought he'd seen her at the bar the other night so she got at least a friendly nod and a "good morning" from Stark as he walked in and went to the counter to order his own sugary pumpkin spice monstrosity. And a breakfast sandwich because those never tasted as good when you tried to make them yourself.

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"Morning," Sabine said with her own nod back.

Friendliest of friendly, our Sabine.

[stykera]

Extreme friendliness!

"You were a student here, before, weren't you?"

Maybe they'd worked together to blow up to steal borrow Anakin's ship and blow up that weather satellite that one time?

"Did you just come back?"

[seriesofbaddecisions]

Sorry, it'd been a while for her.

"Yeah. Just got back a few days ago," she said.

[stykera]

That was fair. Stark had disappeared for several years once except it hadn't been nearly as long for him. Jeremy Bearimy, baby!

"Welcome back to the island," he said. "Are you settling in all right?"

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"Fine so far," she said, and had to say, "Sorry, I can't place your name."

[stykera]

"That's fine. I'm Stark," he said. "Not Tony, just Stark."

Just to clarify.

"I work at the clinic and sometimes I teach. Recently with Summer."

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"Ah, okay. Sabine," she said, and added, "If you didn't know that already."

[stykera]

"I don't think I remembered," Stark admitted. "But hello again, Sabine. How long were you gone for you?"

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"About a decade. So all of this," she said with a vague wave of her hand, "was a whole other lifetime ago."

[stykera]

"A long time," Stark said, nodding. "That seems like it would be hard, coming back to find nothing much has changed when so much would have changed for you."

He assumed, anyway. 10 years was plenty of time for all sorts of things to change.

You might have a whole pretty actress now instead of a cartoon face, for instance!

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"It's been fine," she said with a shrug. She wasn't likely to admit if it wasn't, since being vulnerable was for other people. "Do you see this sort of thing often?"

[stykera]

"Nell and Gladio and Prompto and Ignis all came back after ten years for them," Stark said.

"So...recently, yes."

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"Nell's back here? Huh. Didn't see that one coming."

She'd talked to Nell all of once, maybe twice, but the fact that this had happened to Sabine, her ex, and her ex's roommate kind of stood out.

[stykera]

"Lana, too, but she was before," Stark said. "I think. Ten years seem to be common, now. It's odd. But everything about this place is."