You're my safest place to hide

[Matthew Craft]

[[ Please excuse any typos and/or bad grammar. It's 1am here and I'm gonna pass out now. Kay?thanksbyes. ]]

After their session of brief but intense reunion hugs, Matthew and Laurie — along with old-Laurie, Rahne, and Warren — got teleported back to the base and things had been pretty uneventful since. No fighting, no explosions, no screaming. Just peace and quiet and a luke warm shower. If you were to ask Matthew, that would be his definition of perfection right there.

He’s all clean now (thankfully) and while that was probably the shortest shower in the history of the universe, it’s time to go check up on his possibly-but-most-definitely-traumatized girlfriend. Some woman with a friendly, but old face had appeared after they’d been blinked back from the wild sooty yonder and offered to take Laurie to get cleaned up. Matthew had been more than a little hesitant, but he eventually gave in, allowing the woman to take his girlfriend off to a little room not to far from his borrowed one.

And that’s where he’s heading now, whether she’s ready for him or not. Call him selfish, but he really needs a little bit of comfort, what with all the hub-ub that’s been going on lately. Fortunately it’s not really selfish if she’s in need of the consolation as well. And he’d feel a lot better if he were nearby, considering her (de-powered) father isn’t too far away. And powerless or not, Matty isn’t about to trust him, what with his track record being what it is.

So Matthew’s there, adorned in reasonably clean clothes (it seems in the future that clothes don’t have to be clean, they just have to be clean enough) that actually seem to fit, and he’s knocking smiting the clangy metal door. “Laurie?” He asks, a little bit more desperate sounding than he’d rather. Taking a big deep breath to calm and remind himself that she isn’t really as far away as he seems to think she is, Matthew knocks again, this time much lighter. “You doing alright in there?” It doesn’t really occur to him that maybe she’s taking her time and enjoying the first shower she’s had in days.

[Laurie Collins]

“Laurie? You doing alright in there?”

The door swings open under Matthew’s last knock to reveal Laurie, who is obviously fresh out of the shower herself, her unbrushed hair tangling into wet tendrils around her face. She’s obviously trying for an expression of fond amusement at her boyfriend’s concern, the sort she’d usually wear, but gives it up after a moment and steps forward, rising up on her toes and resting her hands on his upper arms as she kisses him slowly.

“Yeah, um, alright. Shower was good. We, Rahne and I, actually got to shower at this couple’s house I sort of pheromone-d us an invitation to which was actually a lot…” she makes a face and trails off, some internal combination of realizing she’s doing the stress-babble and hearing a mental voice that sounds remarkably like her mother scolding her for the impoliteness of criticizing other people’s homes. Especially when they’ve just, you know, rescued you from wandering aimlessly through a crazy future-wasteland.

She’s quiet for a moment but, as she’d learned once she was in the shower (her first moment since breaking out of the camps that she’d had an opportunity to actually think about what had happened over the past two days) quiet led to thinking/remembering which led nowhere good. It is very good, on the other hand, to have a solid reminder that Matthew isn’t dead, no matter what she’d thought for the past couple of days or what her older self had told her on the drive to the warehouse site, and she tells herself to concentrate on that for now, reaching out to take Matthew’s hand and twine her fingers through his. “So do you, um, know where the kitchen is around here? I think I might turn to cannibalism at some point soon if no other alternatives are presented which, you know, I think people might frown on even in the crazy dystopia version of the future so…yeah.” she finishes lamely, obviously having a little bit of trouble adjusting from the downshift from constant anxiety and adrenaline to…well less anxiety and more exhaustion.

[Matthew Craft]

He’s slightly embarrassed at the notion that maybe his over-eagerness to check on Laurie might have inadvertently broken her door, but any worry Matthew has is quickly washed away by the soft kiss she gives him. His eyebrows go up in surprise, but he puts on a happy and relieved smile, his anxiety finally put to rest now that Laurie is actually in front of him.

“We, Rahne and I, actually got to shower at this couple’s house I sort of pheromone-d us an invitation to which was actually a lot…” She makes a face and Matthew laughs lightly.

“Yes but was it as good as the semi-not-quite-warm showers that you can get here in the comfort of your very own reformatted prison cell?” He asks, making the first joke (albeit a poorly constructed joke) in days.

Laurie falls quiet for a moment, her damp hair falling into her face, making him reach out and poke a few strands back. “So do you, um, know where the kitchen is around here? I think I might turn to cannibalism at some point soon if no other alternatives are presented which, you know, I think people might frown on even in the crazy dystopia version of the future so…yeah.” Matthew feigns terror and pulls his arms away.

“I’m not as tasty as I look, I swear!” He jabs his biceps with his fingers. “I’m all tough and chewy, see?”

Eventually he relaxes and nods. “But yeah, food is good. Well...it’s a good idea, I can’t really say that it’s actually good...unless you like funny whitish stuff you can really recognize. They say it’s very nutritional but that doesn’t stop me from wondering what it is….I find it’s easier to just think it’s potatoes.” Matthew scratches the back of his head and shifts, looking down the hall. “But yeah...I think there’s a cafeteria sort of thing around here somewhere. It’s that way...I think.” He points don’t the corridor and shoots Laurie an uncertain glance before offering his hand and grinning. “Shall we? Our white slop awaits.”

[Laurie Collins]

Laurie smiles up at her boyfriend as he alternates between gently brushing her hair out of her face and the joking muscle flexes and quips. She’s still exhausted and scared and eager to just eat something and then curl up somewhere until they’re home but Matthew’s presence- at least since the ‘will we or won’t we’ drama had ended- has always done wonders for calming her. That along with ‘dead boyfriend’ having been one of her big worries over the past couple days makes the reassurance of his presence all the more effective, enabling her to do a pretty good imitation of normal for the time being.

“But yeah, food is good. Well...it’s a good idea, I can’t really say that it’s actually good...unless you like funny whitish stuff you can really recognize. They say it’s very nutritional but that doesn’t stop me from wondering what it is….I find it’s easier to just think it’s potatoes.”


“Pfft, you’re just spoiled.” She scoffs, taking his hand and setting off the way he’d pointed out. “I’ve seen you cooking all this fancy manicotti and risotto stuff and I know that’s what your mom cooked you at home. I on the other hand was exposed to the Gail Collins boot camp of ‘shut up and eat it’. Partially defrosted, unevenly heated, soggy, blackened, I am a champion of…um…gross-food-eating.” She pauses and lets go of his hand to toss in some flexing biceps of her own in a rather irrelevant attempt to defend these claims before rolling her eyes at herself and taking his hand again, looking up at him with a small smile.

[Matthew Craft]

“Pfft, you’re just spoiled.” Matthew scoffs in return playfully.

“Are not! I just...like tasty stuff…” There’s really no argument there, but that doesn’t stop him from trying.

“I on the other hand was exposed to the Gail Collins boot camp of ‘shut up and eat it’. Partially defrosted, unevenly heated, soggy, blackened, I am a champion of…um…gross-food-eating.” He has to laugh at her little feeble flexes.

“Last I checked, the size of your biceps had nothing to do with the durability of your taste buds.” He claims a win with a fist pump to the air when she rolls her eyes and grabs his hand.

Despite knowing that he’s supposed to be dead by the time he’s thirty-some-odd and that there’s really no certainty of whether or not they’re going to get back to their own time, Matthew can’t help but be happy. Laurie’s absence had been the number one source of his anxiety and stress over the last several days, but now that she was safe and sound, he could let out all the bad thoughts, if only temporarily.

He gives her hand a little squeeze as they stroll down the hall, sometimes offering quick, awkward greetings to people who stare at them. Fortunately they reach the kitchen quickly, so he doesn’t have to worry about having people wonder why he’s suddenly back from the dead, or Laurie back from way out yonder.

“Right, so...food’s here somewhere…” There’s something...orange...in one of the cupboards, and he holds it up for Laurie to see. “It looks reasonably edible. What do you thi—”

“Unca Matt!” He feels the soft bump against his shin before the voice really registers. Looking down at the big blue eyes and mass of freckles, Matthew smiles.

“Hey Jackie! What are you doing here?” He sets the contain with the odd orange food on the counter and crouches down closer to his niece’s level. Jackie takes advantage of her uncle’s reduced height to bounce against him and wrap her arms around his neck. Matthew, still getting used to the whole uncle role, just laughs and hoists her up in his arms.

“Greg’s no fun. He wouldn’t play with me, so I left to find someone else to play with! Do you want to play with me?” He laughs and ruffles her blond hair.

“Well, we’re going to eat first. Did you want to help Laurie and I find some food? We can play with you after, okay?” He knows that he and Laurie were looking for some alone time, but how can anyone say no to such a little adorable thing?

“Hi Laurie! I’m Jackie!” The child waves down from her high vantage point, grinning through a missing tooth. "And the orange stuff yucky. You want the green stuff. It's yummy."

“Jackie is...uh...my niece.” Matthew scratches his head with his free hand and offers an embarrassed smile to Laurie. “Toni has kids in the future.”

[Laurie Collins]

Laurie hops up to perch on one of the counters when they reach the kitchen and swings her legs back and forth rhythmically as she watches Matthew ruffle through the cabinets, having learned long ago that it’s always a much better idea to let him handle the food. Right, getting things off high shelves, music, and food are his end of the relationship. Mine is…mocking bad TV, babbling nervously, and needing rescuing. Great. Before she has time to process how quickly that particular thought process went downhill there’s a blur of movement speeding past her left shoulder that nearly gives her a heart attack before she realizes that it’s both very unlikely that anyone’s going to attack them in the Brotherhood base (she’s ignoring the fact that her father is here somewhere, very studiously ignoring so as not to run back to her room and proceed straight to hiding) and that this particular blur of motion appears to be both about seven years old and more interested in hugging her boyfriend then disemboweling him.

“Unca Matt!”
Wait a second…did she just call him…? The implications of that leave her a blinking, stunned, half-listener to the short conversation that follows wherein the little girl complains that “Greg” won’t play with her and Matthew demonstrates that ‘talking to small children without resorting to a stammering inquiry about how old they are and how they like school’ is also on his end of the relationship. Then the girl is directly addressing her from her perch in Matthew’s arms and Laurie sits up a little straighter and blinks rapidly as if this will be an excellent nerve-clearing technique.

“Hi Laurie! I’m Jackie! And the orange stuff yucky. You want the green stuff. It's yummy."
“Jackie is...uh...my niece. Toni has kids in the future.”

“Um, hello…thank you for the…uh…food-color help.” She stammers, still a little caught up in her being Matthew’s niece, which is brought back to the fore by the uncle himself. “So I gathered. Multiple… kids. How-“ -did that happen without you killing someone first? Or Miss. Craft killing them? Or her giant snake killing them? is what she wants to say but at the last moment she manages to suppress it and goes instead for “…old are you? And your, um, siblings?” before giving Matthew a quick and sheepish grin, pretty sure he knows her well enough to have predicted what she’s almost said and appreciate the save along with her.

[Matthew Craft]

“Um, hello…thank you for the…uh…food-color help.” Matthew tries not to laugh at Laurie’s inability to properly communicate with his young niece, but he can’t wipe the little smile off his face, as hard as he tries.

“You’re welcome!” Jackie chirps, happy that she had both made a new friend and had been some help. Her uncle laughs at her joyous attitude and shoves the orange container back in the cupboard.

“So I gathered. Multiple… kids. How-“ Matthew tries to think of the best way to answer that horribly broad question in front of his niece, but fortunately Laurie covers herself before he has to answer. “…old are you? And your, um, siblings?”

“I’m six!” Jackie holds up the corresponding number of fingers as she states her age proudly. “And three months and four days!”

“Wow, you’ve been counting, huh?” Matthew asks, ruffling her hair gently.

“Yep!” She smiles, clearly very pleased with the attention she’s earned herself. “And Greg’s eighteen and Timmy’s twelve!”

“Oh, uh...yeah. Greg and Timmy are Toni’s other kids. I met them all the other day. They’re pretty cool.” He explains with a bit of an awkward smile before heading for the cupboard that Jackie’s pointing intently to. Following her instructions he pulls out a box of...something...and holds it up to see if Laurie’s interested in the mystery food…thing...

[Laurie Collins]

[[sorry so much of this is non-vocal...such is Laurie heh]]
Laurie keeps swinging her feet back and forth above the floor, looking up at Matthew and Jackie from her perch on the counter and smiling slightly at their banter. She always wonders, whenever it comes up, at her boyfriend’s ability to just fit wherever he is. It’s not that he’s particularly outgoing or overly charismatic, he just seems to have a way of simplifying social interaction in the same way she can make a monosyllabic conversation into a quadratic equation. Opposites attract I guess, she thinks wryly, finger combing her hair a little to try to encourage it to dry faster and watching Matthew ruffle around in the cupboards. It’s not just that though, she realizes, seeing him with Jackie makes this real. This isn’t just some…weird little aberration we can all forget about when we go home. This is Jackie’s, her siblings, our lives. Matthew and my mom really die, Bob really turns into that guy at the camps, everything that happened there actually matters… her heels hit the cabinet with a pronounced thud and she slides down to the floor quickly and tries to shake the thoughts off as none of them are especially appropriate for discussion in front of a six year old.

Matthew’s holding out a jar of…something…and she takes it reflexively, smiling a little tremulously which he could, she supposes, just put down to food apprehension, and digs out a spoon to take a tentative bite of the…something. “Well,” she says after a contemplative moment, “It would probably taste worse if it were orange?”

[Matthew Craft]

Most children Matthew’s ever held had been squirming little masses of limbs that wanted nothing more than a cookie, a glass of milk, some candy, and their mother. But not always in that order. Jackie is different; just sitting there contently making conversation with one stranger and one long lost relative that she never met. Something about her just reeks of misplaced maturity; a profound sense that beneath her chirpy childish exterior lies a deep understanding of the unfortunate world around her. Matthew has to both admire that, and be afraid of it. He didn’t like the idea of a world that made a six-year old grow up years ahead of schedule.

But he also has to marvel at the fact that Toni had the ability to pop out something so freaking adorable! Jackie obviously got her looks from her father: blond hair, blue eyes, tons of freckles. The one thing she had gotten from Toni was her cheery personality...at least when Toni had been cheery.

Distracting himself from the negative thoughts of his sister’s changed demeanor, Matthew hands the jar of white stuff to Laurie and watches curiously as she stabs it with a spoon.

“Well, it would probably taste worse if it were orange?”

“Uh...heh, I guess.” He pulls a spoon from the same drawer where Laurie had found hers, and takes his own blob of white spongy stuff. He looks at strange goop, then to Jackie, uncertain. He only gets a beaming smile through a missing tooth in return. Why does she have to be so cute? Staring back down the spoon, then at Laurie, he take an apprehensive breath. “Okay...on the count of three then?”

[Laurie Collins]

The look Matthew’s giving his ‘niece’ isn’t lost on Laurie and she hunches her shoulders a little against the sad, almost wistful expression, as if she can somehow protect him from it with sympathetic echoes of the twitches that might do a little to reassure her. What happens to Jackie if we make it home and change the past? she thinks and then, for the first time in their brief encounter, takes into account the fairer skin and blonde hair, something about the face, and realizes she sees the family resemblance, that there’s something of Matthew in some of her expressions and mannerisms. But she never gets to know him, and I never see him again after I leave. I’d have three or four years left with him. And it isn’t as if she’s thinking about marrying him or anything, they’re sixteen and he’s her first boyfriend, she hasn’t really been thinking ahead at all (romantically at least, he’s still her best friend, and even if they weren’t dating she can’t imagine them not even talking) a new and novel set of circumstances. Now she’s remembering all that time she’d spent avoiding him, subtracting it from three or four years, and clenching her fingers around the countertop until her knuckles turn white. I’ll stop it, I’ll change it. If my dad can do all those things, riots, hurting my mother, running the Brotherhood, I can do this one thing. I’ll get to do this one thing. It’s only fair.

“Uh...heh, I guess.”

She blinks rapidly as Matthew’s voice snaps her out of her resolve and smiles at his tentative prodding of the goop. “Wimp.” She teases weakly, spooning out her own bit of goop. It’s weird, both of them in their own little worlds, probably worrying away about their different concerns and they can’t actually say anything because there’s this tiny adorable child staring at them and Don’t Traumatize Small Children is encoded firmly into even Laurie’s DNA.

“Okay...on the count of three then?”

Laurie merely arches an eyebrow and pops the spoon into her mouth, chewing briefly and then swallowing with a smug expression. “I do not wait for your count of three. Mighty…taste bud endurance…yesss!” she waves her spoon around a bit manically and smiles crookedly.

[Matthew Craft]

“Wimp.” Jackie’s giggles immediately stop any sort of defensive retort Matthew has lined up, so he settles for glaring playfully at his girlfriend. But then Laurie just shoves the spoon into her mouth without even thinking of waiting for him. Desperate to keep up (for some completely illogical reason), Matthew quickly follows suit and takes in the mouthful of white foam.

Before he swallows, he lets its taste sink in, and promptly regrets the action. To avoid offending his niece by spitting out the food, he gulps the stuff down, half gagging in the process. Once it’s gone, he stares at the remnants that are still stuck to the spoon and sticks out his tongue in disgust.

“Eeewwww...yeeeeuck,” The bitter aftertaste makes him cringe and reach for a glass to fill with water. “What was that?” Matthew ignores Jackie’s laughter as he tries to swish the taste out of his mouth before he examines the jar. “Coconut pudding…” He mumbles, poking at the faded label with his thumb. It’s what’s left of a military ration pack, and the date on the jar indicates that it’s none too young. “Taste bud endurance, sure. But taste buds help you determine when something is just a wee bit past its prime.” He turns the rancid pudding towards Laurie so she can read the seven-year old label clearly.

“Jackie! There you are.” Greg sounds both upset and relieved as he walks towards his uncle and little sister.

“Hi Greg!” Matthew and Jackie both chirp out at the same time, surprising each other enough that they have to stare at one another for a moment.

“Uh...hey, Uncle Matt.” Greg says awkwardly, then quickly turns to give Jackie a firm stare. “You know better than to run off like that! You can’t just go off whenever you want. It’s not safe.” Jackie sticks her bottom lip out in a well-practiced pout. “Nuh uh, that’s not gonna work. No dessert for you tonight, young lady. I’ve told you so many times not to go off on your own.” She scoffs at the punishment and hugs closer to her uncle, hoping that he’ll save her from her evil ogre brother.

But Matthew’s too busy gawking at just how much his nephew sounds like his mother….

“Sorry about this, Uncle Matt.” Greg says, reaching out to relieve him of the little wolf-child. “She just wanders off sometimes when I’m not looking.” Blinking a few times, Matthew snaps back to reality and shakes his head.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s not everyday I get to be an uncle to such a little cutesy.” Matthew smiles and gives Jackie’s head a little pat. “But does she really have to miss out on dessert? I mean — “

“Yes.” The stern look he’s fixed with stops him dead and he can’t help but see his the image of his mother flash before his eyes again. And here we thought that Mom thing wasn’t inheritable.

“Okay then...Have you met my girlfriend, Laurie?” Matthew asks, trying to change the subject.

[Laurie Collins]

Laurie’s giggling behind her hand at Matthew and Jackie’s antics, squeezing her eyes shut and shaking her head against the news the expiration label is trying to tell her (which she supposes is something along the lines of “you will regret this in about half an hour, muahaha.”) and doesn’t even notice Greg’s entrance until he’s right behind her and lecturing in a way someone close to their own age definitely shouldn’t be able to manage. The exchange that follows is its own special brand of weird, this kid acting just like someone’s mom and Matthew completely cowed in the face of it (suppose he’s had training there though she thinks, remembering his mother with a sort of reflexive shudder) and that’s without even mentioning the way Toni’s future children have just sort of…re-formed their family around this little time jump, calling Matthew their uncle and all just working automatically towards some sort of sense here. Then again maybe it’s weird to be so surprised. Not everyone’s family is quite as perfect for Mutant Jerry Springer as mine.

“Okay then...Have you met my girlfriend, Laurie?”

That snaps her out of her musing and she smiles nervously at Greg, giving him a small wave and wondering what he’ll think of his long dead sixteen-year-old uncle having a love life. “Uh, hi, nice to meet you.” She fidgets a little in place but can’t really come up with any small talk to follow it, shooting Matthew one of her ‘alright, so I know I just killed this conversation with a bullet of awkward to the head but…um...you still like me right?’ looks and shrugging slightly. No one mentioned how awkward it was to meet your boyfriend’s niece and nephew from a crazy dystopic future…

[Matthew Craft]

“Uh, hi, nice to meet you.” Greg sends Matthew a strange look, and then gives Laurie a once over.

“Hey.” There’s a small amount of confusion in his voice, but it’s mostly covered up by his sheer disinterest. He turns back to his uncle, adjusting his hold on his little sister as he does. “Jackie’s due back at the LQ and I have a training simulation to run, so I can’t stay to chat. Sorry.” Greg doesn’t sound particularly regretful, but Matthew also notes that he has yet to see his nephew display any sort of emotion beyond agitation.

“No problem. We’ll see you later then?” He asks.

“Sure.” Turning to Laurie, he gives her a curt nod. “It was nice to meet you.” Greg says and then quickly strides by her, heading for the door. Matthew waves at Jackie, who smiles and returns the motion from behind her brother's shoulder.

Once his nephew and niece are gone, Matthew scratches the back of his head and offers up a small, apologetic smile. “Greg’s a little...rough around the edges. Not as user friendly as Jackie or Timmy.” He tries not to think about just how mind-numbingly bizarre that whole situation was — what with the time travel and surprise family members and all — and grasps the jar of spoiled pudding again. “So...still hungry?” Matthew grins and wags the container, jokingly trying to entice his girlfriend to give the pudding a second try.

[Laurie Collins]

[[apologies for length, sometimes it takes a bit to get from point A to point B]]
Laurie squirms uncomfortably under Greg’s once-over, thinking wryly that it’s an unfortunate sort of destiny to be seemingly doomed always to squirm under once-overs while wondering “do they know that I’m a mutant/ who my father is/ what my future self is doing/ etc.” But I haven’t done anything, especially not to this person I don’t even know and he doesn’t, couldn’t, know anything, about me. So even if he knows, or thinks he knows, something that prompts that whole once over thing why should I be the one squirming? That particular burst of half-irritated, half-paranoid thought is so startling that it almost knocks her right off the counter, as if all the strength in her muscles has been subject to an emergency re-routing to help her brain hold on to the idea in response to her shock. Which is probably pretty bad…telling myself not to feel guilty about something I can’t know or control almost giving me an aneurism. It’s safer that way but…

“Jackie’s due back at the LQ and I have a training simulation to run, so I can’t stay to chat. Sorry."

She starts a little at the voice and pulls herself together just in time to smile back at Jackie as she’s carried away by her older brother and then listen with half an ear to Matthew’s brief chatter about rotten desserts and user friendly relatives “Yeah…” she says weakly in response, obviously distracted, because she really has no idea what comes now. In the span of a week she’s found her father, seen her friend almost killed, watched her house blow up, been teleported twenty years into the future, incarcerated in a mutant containment camp run by an old, evil, version of said almost-dead friend, manipulated someone with pheromones intentionally for days on end, met her somewhat shady and very uncommunicative future self, and been given funny looks by her boyfriend’s future nephew.

Thinking of it like that makes her realize two things: one being that even though she’s finally gotten a chance to talk to the one person (in this “time zone” anyway) she’d want to talk to about all this there’s no way she could ever vocalize any of it in what would be a semi-coherent manner, even for her. The second, and infinitely more startling, that even if she could maybe hashing it all out verbally, or mentally, or anything involving words isn’t really what she wants or needs. That’s another one of those thoughts that’s nearly enough to knock her off the counter because if she doesn’t want words then what on earth…?

Matthew’s still shaking that stupid pudding at her and making that ‘well, teasing will probably uncomplicate this pretty quickly right?’ face that she knows logically should look dumb but really…and then she almost laughs aloud at how worked into knots she is, that he has to shake rotten pudding and make faces to startle her out of over-thinking long enough to actually realize anything.

“No, no thank you to rotten pudding, surprisingly enough,” she mutters out jokingly, tugging it away and setting it on the counter next to him so that she can take his hands and pull him the couple steps it takes to close the distance between where he’s standing and where she’s seated on the counter. She opens her mouth to say something, explain what she’s been thinking, ask if this is alright, maybe even share her desire to congratulate whoever designed this kitchen for building the counters high enough that sitting on them she’s only a few inches shorter than her boyfriend for once, but her hands are already running up his arms and she remembers now that she’d decided not to verbalize anyway.

Throughout that silent process, a briefer one in reality than her thoughts have stretched it into, her expression has shifted, a customary tightness around her lips softening away, her eyes narrowing a little, and when she leans forward to kiss him she looks as intent as if she were splitting the atom and as certain as such precision would require. Three years, she thinks, curling her fingers as best she can in his short hair as if she’s looking for the most secure purchase and pressing herself against him without the usual restraint, pheromones too far down the list of Things to Worry About right now for her to cut off anything she thinks might lead to a loss of control.

[Matthew Craft]

“Yeah…” Matthew looks down at her and tilts his head to the side. Her sudden change in demeanor makes him bite back a joke he’s about to make about future families and in-laws. Good thing too; it wasn’t a very good joke.

Laurie’s sudden quietness causes Matthew to realize that maybe meeting Jackie and Greg had been a bit of a shock. It had been a shock for him too, but considering that she had been through so much more than him in the past few days, he can only imagine how she’s trying to process everything. Matthew tries to offer up a reassuring smile as he nudges closer to his girlfriend, the pudding still in hand.

“No, no thank you to rotten pudding, surprisingly enough,” He grins and drops his head slightly as Laurie grasps onto the jar and pulls it from his hand. When her touch returns to his arms, Matthew follows their lead and closes the distance between them. He looks at her, his eyes calm and soft with untroubled happiness. His lips tilt upwards in a gentle smile as she considers saying something, but ultimately decides to remain silent. Perhaps, he notes, that’s a good idea. There really wasn’t much they could say to each other that they didn’t already know, or that their closeness couldn’t explain for them.

Matthew welcomes her when she pulls him into a kiss — the first emotion-twined one in days. Unlike the other kisses they’d had since she had reappeared, this one was not rushed, not a frantic greeting or a pure reflection of their relief. Instead this one, for the moment, let’s Matthew forget everything that has happened recently and just lets him melt into the moment.

He hesitates for a moment as Laurie twines her fingers into his hair and pulls him closer, wondering if this is what she really means to be doing, but a moment later he resigns any coherent thoughts and lets his own arms curl around her.

Matthew holds the kiss and his hands press into her back, hoping to show her just how much he needs her. When they finally break apart, he only goes far enough so that their noses are still touching. His eyes are closed, but he can see her through his fingertips as they trace along her jaw and cheek. For all of his unintelligible thoughts, Matthew does realize that this is first moment in ages that he’s felt perfectly content and tranquil.