A Room at the Arms Hotel, Sunday Evening

[wwiii]

So, February was fired. Officially. Out of a cannon and into the sun, if Warren had any say in the matter. What had apparently been a few days since Valentine's Day for everyone else had, for Warren and Karla, only been a matter of the worst hour-long Portalocity stopover ever. Warren was forever going to be wary of pit stops in 'historic London,' now, considering he and Karla had spent theirs in the middle of The Blitz.

With zombies.

They were tired, they were filthy with dust and smoke and the guts of the exploded undead, and, so far as they were concerned, it was still the same day as that whole mess in the Orpheum in Wesley's insane reality. There was no way in hell he was going to brave another stopover like that without a good night's sleep first, so he'd gotten a hotel room after the stop in Fandom to drop off Karla. Needless to say, a break for the shower had been made, with Karla and Warren cleaning one another off. And then there had been food while they dried off, Karla in her bathrobe and Warren wearing a towel. A few towels, actually, since he'd covered his wings in them in an attempt to spare too many puddles on the floor.

Now that the both of them felt a fair bit more human, Warren was going to finally look up at Karla and say what had been hanging between them for hours. Or days. It really depended on how you looked at it.

"I owe you an apology. I... owe you one hell of an apology."

[For the lady!]

Comments

[glacial_queen]

"Yeah, you do," Karla said primly, finishing up her bowl of ice cream. "You told me historic Londom would probably involve horse-drawn carriages. And do you have any idea how gross it is to be cleaning off feathers and finding an eyeball in there?"

He probably did, considering her scream had echoed in the bathroom for awhile.

They (okay, Warren, because Karla wasn't touching it again) had flushed it down the toilet, since it wasn't going to fit down the drain without help.

Never. Trusting. Portalocity. Again.

[wwiii]

"Try being the one who had the eyeball in his feathers," Warren countered, making a face down at his own ice cream and then sliding the rest of the bowl Karla's way. If her plan had been to get him to lose his appetite all over again, then mission accomplished. "I don't remember London ever having zombies before. But that's not what I'm talking about."

[glacial_queen]

Karla gave him a small smile while accepting his bowl. That hadn't been her goal, but she wasn't going to turn down the reward anyway. "I didn't really think it was," she said. "Last minute teasing before we got all serious."

She poked at his ice cream for a moment before deciding that she was going to turn it down after all.

"If it helps any, you won't be the only one apologizing during this conversation. Because I'm sorry, too."

[wwiii]

That was... actually good to hear, though Warren wasn't going to say as much. He'd said some pretty terrible things, but he hadn't been the only one, after all. He gave her a tiny quirk of a smile, and then gave his empty lap a pat. If she wanted to take him up on that. Maybe?

"Me first? I am the one who jumped to... to the worst possible conclusion."

[glacial_queen]

He could definitely go first, since he had been the one to start it all. And to accuse her of spying on him for his father. That had hurt.

...Which was why she was going to shake her head at his unspoken invitation. "Not yet," she said softly. "I really think we should talk this through first. Holding each other might make it almost too easy to forgive, you know? We've been fighting a lot lately. I think--I really think we need to talk about things."

[wwiii]

"We have," he agreed, nodding a little as he clasped his hands in his lap. "And... we should. I accused you of something pretty awful back there, and while I can explain it, I can't excuse it. There's no excuse for that. I know better."

She'd learned just how touchy he was about his father being even tangentially involved in his life after the last time she went and contacted Junior behind his back. Which was something worth bearing in mind, even if saying as much probably wouldn't be terribly productive.

"He scares the shit out of me, Karla. Knowing that you contacted him about anything scares me, too. Even if... logically, it probably shouldn't. I'm sure you have a reason for it."

[glacial_queen]

"I did, I swear it," Karla said, reaching out to take his hand. Dammit, maybe she should have sat in his lap; he just sounded so lost and scared, it broke her heart all over again. "And I really was going to tell you about contacting him. You remember when I wanted to talk in your dorm? It was about this. I never, ever intended to keep it from you, or have you find out this way."

[wwiii]

"I believe you," Warren murmured, giving her hand a squeeze. "I believe you... and I trust you. I know you're not going to start writing friendly letters to my father telling him everything I've been up to. But I don't trust him. I don't trust him to get a letter that mentions me for whatever reason and not... not take that as an invitation to find me. Especially not if that letter comes from the most important person to me."

[glacial_queen]

"The letter mentioned you, yes, but it wasn't about you," Karla explained. "I opened by telling him that you were fine because any parent getting a letter from their estranged son's lover is going to assume the worst. If I'd let him continue to think that, he would have had an excuse to come looking for you and I didn't want that."

She glanced down, fiddling with a lock of hair. "I wrote him the letter asking to meet to discuss a potential business deal. One between Glacia and Worthington Labs for medical supplies."

[wwiii]

"Medical supplies?" That seemed like a strange thing for a Blood Healer to be striking up a deal about. Didn't all Blood have access to-- Which meant-- "For the landens?"

It didn't make him feel any better that she'd gone to Junior first and planned to give him a heads-up about it later, but it did, at least slightly, make him feel better about her going to someone like Junior at all.

[glacial_queen]

"Well, there is a war coming up and I feel like the more supplies we have, the better off we'll be, but, yes. For the landens. I'd like to reduce their dependence on Healers and Black Widows. I mean, we won't be able to use modern medical supplies for everything, but the least we could do is make them more self-sufficient."

She peeked up at him from under her lashes. "I wanted a way to prove to you that I was committed to the landens, too."

[wwiii]

Warren nodded a little, looking more thoughtful than afraid or upset, at least for the time being. He was never going to be comfortable with his father's involvement in something so big as this, but it was still huge, and would have been even if Karla had gone to somebody else.

"What exactly did you ask him for...?"

[glacial_queen]

And who, exactly, was she supposed to go to, Warren?

"Right now? Just a meeting to discuss a potential business arrangement," Karla said. "I barely thought he'd agree to that, never mind something else. He doesn't exactly like me, remember."

[wwiii]

"He doesn't," Warren murmured, giving a small nod of his head. "But you're my girlfriend... you're the person I chose. Even if it's through you, even if it's just association, agreeing to do business with you means that he still gets to figure in my life, somehow."

Which might not have been something that Karla took into consideration, but it was chewing at Warren, and he knew that was where his father's thoughts would have headed.

So long as Karla was dealing with his father, Junior was still there, in his life, in some fashion or another.

[glacial_queen]

Karla frowned because, no, she hadn't thought of that.

"He will?" she asked, chewing on her lower lip. "I figured the Labs would just send up shipments of stuff in exchange for money. Like mail order medical supplies."

Safe and automated, so long as payments and shipments arrived on time.

[wwiii]

"They might," Warren replied, nodding a little. "You both haven't nailed down the business conditions yet, I'm assuming. You might be able to set it up like that. He'll push for more."

He couldn't imagine Junior doing anything less. Once Warren was in Glacia, that was it. No looking back. Not unless there was always that contact between his Earth and Kaeleer, always that one last tether. Warren Worthington Jr. would milk that tether for all he possibly could, and he could be infinitely more patient waiting for them to let their guards down about it, because all the time in the world in Glacia was just a drop in the bucket for him in New York.

"And if he does..."

The landens were important than his daddy issues. Warren would be firm on that.

[glacial_queen]

"If he does, I threaten to walk away. This is a deal for goods and services only," Karla said, also sounding firm. "He doesn't have to know that he's the only businessman I can deal with. We'll bluff and if he's as eager to keep some kind of in with you, he won't be willing to call it in case it is true."

[wwiii]

"You... know... he's not the brightest when it comes to family members, but he's a ruthless businessman," Warren murmured. "He's probably already trying to come up with counters to those bluffs. He didn't become a billionaire by giving up easily."

Not by a long shot.

"He cured the incurable. That has to say something about his tenacity." He frowned a little. "I really do wish you'd warned me before you contacted him, you know. Even just so that I could... I don't know... Something. Brace myself, I guess."

[glacial_queen]

"Warren, time passes seven times faster here than it does in his world. I figured he'd take days, maybe even weeks to decide what to do. I didn't want you to spend weeks, maybe even months in a panic just to get an answer that could have made the entire thing moot to begin with."

Perhaps it had been naive of her, but Karla truly had been expecting a negative response.

"I figured telling you when the letter arrived and we had a solid answer to work with would be time enough. You'd have plenty of time to consider what you wanted to do, but without all the time agonizing over what his answer might be. Before there was anything to brace for."

She'd really thought she was helping.

[wwiii]

Warren nodded, quietly trying to absorb her logic. She had kept him in the dark because she didn't want to worry him.

The 'ignorance is bliss' school of thought, he supposed.

"Maybe... in the future, keep me informed anyhow? I mean, where he's concerned. Now that you've given him a proposal, he's going to take it as an olive branch, and I... I need to know what he's up to, Karla. I might agonize over all the possibilities, but I'd rather that than not know at all. Not knowing is worse."

[glacial_queen]

Kept him in the dark all through the part that he wouldn't actually have been able to do anything about. She had very much intended on telling him as soon as there was a concrete answer for him to focus on.

"How is not knowing worse if you don't know there's anything to know about?" she asked, honestly unsure. "Like...if your eyes were closed and I was leading you down a slowly narrowing hallway, I wouldn't tell you about it until we were outside and safe."

She would do it, because she loved him and he'd asked. That didn't mean she understood.

[wwiii]

"A narrowing hallway didn't spend ten years of my life trying to strip me of my wings," Warren replied, softly. "It can't think, it can't do anything. It's just... a hallway. It's not going to make a concentrated effort to follow me, once I'm out of that hallway again."

He groped around a little more, and settled on, finally, "It's like that saying about keeping friends close and enemies closer. I'd rather he not be involved in our lives at all. I really would. But now that he is..." And Warren could have given Karla so many contacts in other pharmaceutical companies, could have at least pulled strings with some of the somewhat rarer mutant-friendly ones that his father had done work with over the years, if only she'd mentioned this plan of hers to him before. That fact frustrated him, rubbed him raw from the inside. And he wasn't going to bring it up. What was done was done. "I need to know what's going on. He locked me away for half of my life. I have to know."

[glacial_queen]

Warren's words made sense, absolutely. But there was something more here, something bigger than just what he was saying. Karla could tell he was holding something back and whatever it was, it was bothering him.

"I hear what you're saying, but I'm a lot more interested in what you aren't saying," she said, pursing her lips at him. "We're trying to talk all this out, but you're still keeping stuff back. I thought we agreed not to do that. I can't tell what's wrong when you're not sharing things with me."

[wwiii]

She was right. They had agreed. He winced a little, and then gave her an apologetic look.

"I'm sorry," he murmured. "I'm getting used to hiding all over again, in Sunnydale. It's not a habit I should be picking up." He took a deep breath, and then he held out his hands to his sides slightly. "It just bothers me, I guess, that you went straight to my dad without talking to me, first. There might have been other options to get the same result if you had. Ones that didn't involve dealing with him at all. But how could you know if you didn't ask me?"

[glacial_queen]

"No," Karla agreed. "You really shouldn't."

They'd worked so hard to break him of that habit, and then he'd chosen to come here, where he could be normal by dint of hiding and pretending all over again. She still had trouble understanding how this was what he'd wanted. But, again, she supported him because she loved him.

"Like what?" she asked. "What options. I don't exist. Not in your world, or this one, or any other Earth. I have no records, no bank accounts, no credit. But I'm supposed to go to some company that I don't know and ask them to please ship thousands of dollars or product to a country they've never heard of and also doesn't exist in their reality, even though the best I can offer them for proof of collateral is a briefcase full of money." She gave him a look. "Or we could trade on you being a Worthington, since that's something they would understand. But I don't see that as getting you away from your father, either."