How do you start a peace?

[Bobby Drake]

(( OOC: Some time after Bobby’s conversations with Jade and Primer. Open to anyone.))

Bobby is pretty sure that being cooped up in this base is going to drive him crazy before very long, supposing that it hasn’t done so already.

It’s not so much that the base is so much smaller than the Institute was… after all, it’s not nearly as crowded, either. It’s that the whole world feels smaller, more constrained, more oppressive. He can’t go outside, for fear of being spotted once too often by spy satellites. He can’t hide in his room, because he’s sharing barracks-style bunks with all the other guys. He can’t lose himself in a Danger Room hologram, because the base doesn’t have any power to spare for that kind of luxury.

Or any other kind of luxury, he grouses privately – or at least, he hopes, privately – as he scratches his itchy scalp through too-stiff hair. Even cold showers were necessarily kept short in this little military camp of Warren’s, and shampoo and conditioner were apparently a forgotten remnant of the “good old days.”

For a while, he’d dealt with it by staying in ice-form all the time… but that meant staying awake all night, which completely defeated his purpose. Not to mention that he’d just have to make up the missed meals and sleep periods afterwards, which he’d already nearly killed himself by doing once.

So he’s been trying to occupy himself by making plans. Traveling two decades back in time is out of his league, and he has no interest in joining Warren the Elder in making plans for fighting himself and those damned Camps. So he’s been spending a lot of time working with the Brotherhood’s computer networks and historical archives, trying to figure out how to keep this future from happening once they get back.

Which has led him to this conference room, which has the advantage of a lot of whiteboards and some working markers. Gotta love the 21st century tech, he thinks wryly, but the truth is sometimes it’s best to see the big picture up on the wall. The right-hand third of the whiteboard he’s labeled “RESULTS.” Underneath, in different colors, he’s listed: “MRA”, “Camps”, “Shooting War”, and “Colonel Drake.”

(He’s erased and replaced that last one at least seven times… on the one hand, it feels selfish to keep such a personal issue on the list like that; on the other hand, it’s the issue he keeps coming back to.)

The rest of the whiteboard is labeled “EVENTS,” and he’s been writing things down there without thinking too critically about them for a while now. Brainstorming. (It occurs to him in passing that “Brainstorm” would be a great codename for Jade.) He takes a step back now to look over what he’s got.

“Washington Massacre” he circles, and connects with arrows to “MRA”, “Camps”, “Shooting War.” To the left of it he adds “Mentalist?” with another arrow. Underneath that he writes “Emma? Nikki? Other?”

“Pyro’s death” he connects with “Colonel Drake”. He draws an arrow between “Warren joins BH” and “Shooting War”, then frowns and erases it… Warren hadn’t started it, he’d just gone along with it after Josh died. So he adds “Josh’s death” and connects it to “Warren joins BH.” After a moment he writes “Nathan” underneath “Josh’s death.”

A moment later he pales slightly and adds “Nathan?” to the list of mentalists.

"Great. Very pretty," he grumbles. "Doesn’t tell me a damned thing, though."

[Laurie Collins]

Laurie's never been the Institute's biggest science enthusiast which has something to do about an aversion to explosions and bloody dissections and something again to do with Staten as a lab partner since he'd been a big fan of flicking bloody things at her when she wasn't looking and then math had gotten involved...so while she'd thought for awhile that being a mutant should give her some sort of innate interest in at least her own dysfunctional DNA it really hasn't. But she is a great enthusiast for dubiously factual and probably useless trivia, one nugget of which "If you're cold you'll also be hungry" has her hoping the reverse will be true as heating seems to have gone by the wayside along with...sanity... in the future.

So she's on her way to the kitchen to find something to eat when Bob's muttering from a nearby room distracts her, making her pause a couple steps beyond the doorway. After everything her future self's told her, and the way she told it, he's not exactly on her list of people to seek out, but it's not really as clear cut as that. How fair is it, after all, to blame someone for what they might do in the future? Isn't that a variant of what she's been trying to avoid with her pheromones? Oh...screw it... she finally thinks, even for me over-thinking everything has to get old eventually right? Right. she decides, backtracking and heading through the doorway, pausing again to blink at the diagrams covering the whiteboard.

"Uh...hey John Nash." she says after a moment, giving him a tentative smile and cocking her head slightly at the elaborate white board presentation.

[Bobby Drake]

> " Uh...hey John Nash. "

Bobby looks up from the whiteboard, in the middle of which he has just scrawled “SHIELD” with no connection to anything, and returns her smile awkwardly. "Um… hey."

He stares at the ground for a couple of seconds, not quite sure what more to say. He’s pretty sure she’s been avoiding him since she and her – um, her future self – made it back to the base… and, judging from the way all the future-folks have been giving him the hairy eyeball, he’s pretty sure why that is. It hardly seems fair, really, but he supposes he can’t blame anyone… he’s been looking at himself pretty sideways since he found out, after all.

"Who’s John Nash? "

[Laurie Collins]

"Who’s John Nash? "

Laurie blushes a little at the blank response to her quip and sort of shuffles awkwardly for a second as she tries to scramble together an explanation. “Um you know that movie? A Beautiful Mind? He’s the guy they based it on, he was this brilliant mathematician but he was schizophrenic and in the movie he would just draw diagrams of random things all over every available surface which is, um, how you knew he was crazy. Aside from the imaginary friends, and, um, you know, thinking he was a code breaker for the government and other, um, crazy things…” she finishes, having lost her steam somewhere around the middle of that ramble and trailing off now in a sort of slowly awkward fade before realizing how that sounds and widening her eyes, “Not that I’m calling you crazy! Just, um, diagram-y. Not in a crazy way. At all. Sorry.” She’s been waving her hands around a little wildly throughout that explanation and she drops them now and makes a face. “I forgot to ask my…uh… older self how she quit doing that. So, um, what are the diagrams of, actually?” she asks, taking a couple steps forward and squinting at the names and lines.

[Bobby Drake]

Bobby can't decide whether to be amused or insulted by Laurie's explanation, and settles for being pleased that somebody's talking to him who is neither spying on him nor thinking up ways to make his life miserable.

> " I forgot to ask my…uh… older self how she quit doing that. So, um, what are the diagrams of, actually?"


He steps to one side to let her see more clearly, and shrugs. "I don't know, really. Just trying to figure out how things get this way, figure out what we could have done differently. Or "can have done differently", I guess is what I mean. "Can did differently?" I don't know, English isn't designed to talk about... you know. Time-travel. " He ducks his head, then shakes it incredulously. "Hell, I can't even say it without wanting to apologize. ‘Time travel.’ I swear, it’s like living in a comic-book!"

Looking at the whiteboard with someone else in the room feels different... more serious, somehow. "I don't know, " he repeats, still vaguely embarrassed. " I guess it's pretty goofy. But it's all I could think of to do, you know? I mean, if we make it back, somehow, we should know what to do... shouldn't we? I figure saving the world beats memorizing horse-races and making a million bucks at the track, right? "

'Saving the world', he decides, goes up there with 'time-travel' on the list of phrases that make him want to apologize. "It's funny... I always thought, if it came down to a shooting war for all the marbles, that I'd be one of the good guys. " Which is a bit more honest than he'd intended to be, and he follows up hastily with a change of subject. "So, how are you and, um, your older self getting along? "

[Laurie Collins]

Once the first moment of intense awkwardness is over and Bob detours into problem-solving-mode instead of taking offense at…whatever it is she just said… Laurie finds herself having a much easier time relaxing and actually looking at the diagrams he’s been making, shuffling forward a few more steps and raising her index finger to trace their order in the air unconsciously as he explains them. “Yeah I saw something about all this…After Rahne and I got out I, uh, pretty much headed for a library. Saw the articles on the Washington stuff. I was sort of distracted though so… wait Nikk? Really? I know he was from the Brotherhood originally but…” she trails off as she notices the Colonel Drake bit and the arrow drawn to “Pyro’s Death” and bites her lip.

" I guess it's pretty goofy. But it's all I could think of to do, you know? I mean, if we make it back, somehow, we should know what to do... shouldn't we? I figure saving the world beats memorizing horse-races and making a million bucks at the track, right? "

However embarrassed Bobby is Laurie seems, as always, to be taking that sort of pronouncement at face value and she’s about to nod matter-of-factly before she seems to change her mind and cocks her head to the side, looking a little surprised. “You know, I guess I assumed Rahne and I would make it back and there would already be a…some big master plan. But no one’s even sure we’ll get back are they? Much less what we’ll do when we get there.” I should probably be panicking right now, she thinks in a sort of far-off way, and really, she sort of is, at least she’s feeling distinct fear and worry, but it’s not overwhelming her. Like my pheromones I guess. I controlled them once because I just had to and after that it got a little easier. It’s not an altogether comfortable thought, not panicking is certainly appealing but if she’s accepting that the teachers and X-men aren’t going to have all the answers right now then that leaves…what? Coming up with some of them herself when she’d barely gotten herself and Rahne through two days? I think I miss panic...

Luckily Bob’s speaking up again, distracting her: “It's funny... I always thought, if it came down to a shooting war for all the marbles, that I'd be one of the good guys." Which reminds her of what she’d snapped at his future-self and she has to stop herself from actually wincing in embarrassment at the memory of her little rant. He follows that up with "So, how are you and, um, your older self getting along? " which isn’t really any better but it’s certainly distracting and she frowns, shrugging, and actually looking irritated. “Not well, really. She won’t tell me what she’s been doing since she was, uh, me. Just sort of dodges it and avoids me.” She stops for a moment, unsure of whether to go on, but if anyone will understand potentially shady future selves it’s Bob, and maybe he’d even like knowing he isn’t the only one nervous about how he’s going to turn out down the road. “Back at the camps your…um… well I met Colonel Drake and I sort of…snapped at him…which in retrospect was probably a bad plan, but he said some things about how he shouldn’t have to justify himself to me ‘of all people’ and that I shouldn’t judge what he’d done until I found out what I was doing in the future which sounds…ominous…” she finishes, shrugging a little. “So there hasn’t been much, um, bonding, no.”

[Bobby Drake]

> " You know, I guess I assumed Rahne and I would make it back and there would already be a…some big master plan. But no one’s even sure we’ll get back are they? Much less what we’ll do when we get there "

"Yeah, pretty much. Your idea about Illyana back there is the best plan I’ve heard so far, really, and even that’s a long shot… even leaving aside the lack of long-distance phone service in this bogus excuse for a future, so we can’t even get in touch with her." He shrugs. "I mean, assuming that’s even true. We’ve only got Warren Sr’s word for it, and, well, he ain’t what he used to be, you know? Maybe he figures he can use the recruits."

Not that Bobby really believes that… he mostly trusts Warren, even in his current incarnation. Then again, he’d also trusted Sean and John, which goes to show how much his judgment is worth on such matters. “Trust but verify” is rapidly becoming his motto.

> " Not well, really.[..] Back at the camps [..] Colonel Drake [..] said some things about how [..] I shouldn’t judge what he’d done until I found out what I was doing in the future which sounds…ominous… "

Bobby nods thoughtfully at that, and looks Laurie over carefully. In a weird sort of way, it’s nice to have company in the whole game of “I’m going to do what?!?,” even if it’s only company of the misery-loved sort. "Yeah, it does, doesn’t it." He forces himself to smile, and adds "I wouldn’t read too much into it, though. I mean, look at the source… he was probably just trying to shake your confidence."

Although when Bobby thinks about it, he realizes just how much damage someone with Laurie’s powers could do, given twenty years to practice. Heck, Primer had set off a riot in Times Square without half-trying, and...

…and…

Ugh.

He remembers Sean’s words exactly: “whoever that psychic was he wasn’t one of mine”. Bobby’d believed him. But even if he wasn’t lying, that doesn’t mean it couldn’t have been him.

Before he has a chance to talk himself out of it, he writes “Primer” down on the list of possible causes of the Washington Massacre, then looks up and Laurie apologetically "Sorry. Just trying to think of all the possibilities. You asked about Nikki, before... it's just that he has the ability, you know?"

It also occurs to Bobby that it could have been Laurie, herself. Not intentionally, he’s pretty sure, but… it could have been her powers running amok. That might be what his future-self had meant. But that thought, he keeps tightly under his nonexistent hat… because if it was her, Warren’s team has just allowed a pretty dangerous mutant to enter their supposedly secure base.

Twice.

"Do you, um… do you want me to ask her?"

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

Josh walks down the hallway, lost in thought. Without thinking, he maneuvers around boxes and crates stacked in his way. Either Warren was becoming a packrat in his old age, or the Brotherhood was in fairly good shape when it came to supplies.

Probably the former, he thinks wryly. It was funny - Warren wasn't exactly a waster, but back in 2007 he wasn't that concerned with money and that sort of thing. Their financial situation had become somewhat tighter after Warren had been disinherited, but it wasn't dismal. Here, the Brotherhood hung onto every scrap they could put their hands on. It was a strange contrast.

At the present, he was looking for Bobby. After he'd gotten something (not that appetizing) to eat from the galley, he'd caught Bobby's sense coming from this area. Bobby was one of the few around the base that he was genuinely comfortable talking to at the moment. Most of the Brotherhood that had joined up since his 'death' took his allegiance to the X-Men as only a few steps from treason. Warren was alright - in fact, the two of them had been spending more time together and 'catching up' to some extent - but there was a gap between them. He was 19 and Warren was 41. He missed the real Warren terribly.

Upon entering the conference room, he spots Bobby - and Laurie, too. He makes his way over and sits on the conference table.

"Finally, someone who doesn't see the word 'X-Men' to be a disgusting swear word." Josh stares at the wipeoff board. It reminded him of the kind of clustering activity you did before preparing to write an essay.

The words 'Josh's death' stick out. He sighs. There really was no way to stop hearing about it - Warren was the leader of the Brotherhood, and his future self's death was what had catalyzed Warren to switch sides. "I can't quite get used to seeing it there." He doesn't say what it is he's talking about, but it's pretty obvious.

> "Sorry. Just trying to think of all the possibilities. You asked about Nikki, before... it's just that he has the ability, you know?"

"If you want to think about all the possibilities, you're missing a couple names." He extends a hand and one of the markers lifts upwards into position. Under the 'Mentalist?' heading, it writes:

Josh
Jake
Danny

"Granted, I have nowhere near the power to take over Washington DC. But my upper limits haven't even been located yet, and Cerebro II is in our basement." He keeps his voice light. The possibility was definitely there, especially with mutants with mind control running around. "I'm pretty sure my upper limit is higher than Jake's, but he also has more practice than me. And I don't really understand Danny at all." That last one is an understatement.

[Bobby Drake]

> " If you want to think about all the possibilities, you're missing a couple names. "

Bobby jumps a little at Josh’s sudden arrival, and flinches as he writes his own name down on the whiteboard.

> " Granted, I have nowhere near the power to take over Washington DC. But my upper limits haven't even been located yet, and Cerebro II is in our basement. I'm pretty sure my upper limit is higher than Jake's, but he also has more practice than me. And I don't really understand Danny at all."

"Yeah, who does? As for you and Jake… well, I’d been trying not to think about that, I guess. But you’re right, of course. Especially since whoever our mystery guest was, she – or he – didn’t actually take over DC. Just tried to. Maybe not even that… maybe they wanted exactly what happened to happen."

He shakes his head slowly, then looks up at Josh. "Have you ever considered it? I mean, you know... using Cerebro that way. Like, making everybody vote against the MRA, or making Warren’s dad act like less of a jerk, that sort of thing?"

[Laurie Collins]

"I mean, assuming that’s even true. We’ve only got Warren Sr’s word for it, and, well, he ain’t what he used to be, you know? Maybe he figures he can use the recruits."

Laurie actually blanches a little at that and turns back to the board quickly to hide it. That was what reminded me of him when I looked at Colonel Drake, that puzzling-out, specimens-on-a-board look, but the difference was it was never about people… Bobby doesn’t seem very serious about it but it’s a reminder that, easy as it is to forget that her friend and the SHIELD agent are the same person, it’s still true.

She nods dubiously along with his reassurances about her future-self but doesn’t look convinced, even less so when he suddenly pauses and writes her father’s name down under the list of mentalists.

"Sorry. Just trying to think of all the possibilities. You asked about Nikki, before... it's just that he has the ability, you know?"
She opens her mouth to reply but closes it again quickly as Josh’s voice cuts in from behind her:
"If you want to think about all the possibilities, you're missing a couple names."

She has time to smile at Josh and give him a small wave before the marker’s flying up and scrawling the list of names. She bites her lip as she watches them form, looks back at Josh as he explains his reasoning, darts a glance at Bob and then at her father’s name, and steps forward to catch the marker as Josh releases his hold on it. She stands there silently through Bob’s rejoinder then quietly moves around him to write her name next to Primer’s. As soon as it’s written she takes a couple quick steps back, looking as nervous as if she’s just confessed. A lot has changed over the past year but it’s easier than you’d think to drop right back to being just a danger, just wanting a cure. “If they wanted…all this to happen…maybe it wasn’t even a mutant behind it. Maybe it was someone like that Stryker person I’ve heard about.” She suggests quickly, then shrugs and shakes her head, “Or not, I don’t know, I wasn’t around for any of that…”

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

> "Have you ever considered it? I mean, you know... using Cerebro that way. Like, making everybody vote against the MRA, or making Warren’s dad act like less of a jerk, that sort of thing?"

Josh nods, right away. "Yeah. Before I had access to Cerebro, it was more of an academic question - I didn't have the ability to do so even if I wanted to. But now - well, not now..." he looks around at their surroundings with an arch look on his face, "...but when we're back, if I wanted to, I could walk down to Cerebro and do whatever I wanted. In theory." He shrugs slightly.

"I don't think I could, though. Making everyone vote against the MRA just seems so... wrong, not even taking into account whether I'd have the mental power to do so. And if I messed around in Warren's dad's mind to make him less of a douchebag, I'd think of that every single time I looked at Warren."

Josh frowns. "And if I did that, I might even find some way to justify messing with Warren, or you, or Ororo." He fiddles with the chipped surface of the conference table. "It's a slippery slope. Professor Xavier - and Ororo - have kept me working on ethics stuff since I got here. Telekinesis is pretty unambiguous, but telepathy... sometimes it's a pain in the ass. It doesn't bother me that my true talents lie in throwing stuff around rather than poking around in people's brains."

He glances at Laurie. "I imagine this kind of thing is even worse for you. At least my telepathy is mostly voluntary. I'd hate to wipe out someone's frontal lobe every time someone pissed me off." Josh winces. "Um. Sorry... that came out bad."

“> If they wanted…all this to happen…maybe it wasn’t even a mutant behind it. Maybe it was someone like that Stryker person I’ve heard about.”

Josh nods. "That's what I was thinking. I mean, I don't seriously think that I caused the Washington DC disaster. Warren pretty much has free access to most areas of my mind, and it's sort of the kind of thing he'd remember seeing, right? Even if I was manipulated somehow by, say, Emma Frost." Josh presses his lips together in distaste at the thought. "I'm glad you're doing this, Bobby. To be honest, after I'd heard about her marauding on the west coast, I figured it had to be her. But maybe it's someone else."

[Bobby Drake]

Bobby notices Laurie’s fear-blanched expression, but doesn’t ask about it... whatever it is she’s thinking, he suspects he doesn’t want to know. And when she writes her own name on his rapidly growing list of mentalists, he doesn’t ask about that either. After all, he’d been thinking the same thing himself.

> " If they wanted…all this to happen…maybe it wasn’t even a mutant behind it. Maybe it was someone like that Stryker person I’ve heard about. Or not, I don’t know, I wasn’t around for any of that… "

"Yeah… good point. Could’ve been a covert military operation, someone putting drugs in the water supply or something like that."

He writes down “Military: drugs” on the board; by this time the list is so long he has to write very small to squeeze it in. Then he sighs and puts down the marker. Who am I kidding? This isn’t some kind of class puzzle where all the pieces are available… we just don’t know enough to seriously work this out. He’s about to mutter something dejected-sounding along those lines when Josh continues.

> " I don't seriously think that I caused the Washington DC disaster. Warren pretty much has free access to most areas of my mind, and it's sort of the kind of thing he'd remember seeing, right?"

Bobby grins suddenly as he thinks that over. "Hey, that’s right! And he didn’t… which means we can cross you off the list! " The smile disappears as quickly as it came, though, before he can even pick the marker back up. "Unless you messed with his head, that is. I mean, past-you… um, I mean, future-past-you… made him forget about it. Except… if you did that, there’d be some kind of indication, wouldn’t there? Could you test for it now? " Looking at Laurie, he adds "The same with you, right? If it was you, future-you would know, and she’s here. You think she’d mind Josh taking a peek in her head to confirm?"

[Matthew Craft]

[[ Yay Timmy time! He's the middle Joni kid! Wooo! ]]

Timmy likes to draw. He doesn’t really know where the creativeness came from, considering that his parents were both science-based folks, but that doesn’t really stop him. Mind you, the lack of common drawing tools kind of does.

Paper’s rationed, as are writing utensils, but Timmy’s found ways to get around that little problem. He’s not supposed to go in there, but there are lots of rules that lots of people don’t follow here. The dry erase markers don’t provide any sort of permanence to his drawings, but it’s still an effective outlet.

But as he rounds the corner, checking over his should a few times first, he notes that the door is already open and the lights are on. Usually he’d have to liquify and squeeze between the gap under the door.

"Unless you messed with his head, that is. I mean, past-you… um, I mean, future-past-you… made him forget about it. Except… if you did that, there’d be some kind of indication, wouldn’t there? Could you test for it now?"

He peeks around the door frame and eyes the people inside. He knows there are people here that are from a different point in time — like his mom, dad, and uncle — but that doesn’t stop him from going into defensive mode upon seeing Drake’s face. After all, the guy is only the biggest, evilest guy ever. At least...that’s what his mom’s told him, and she should know. She used to be his friend.

But his initial ‘I’m gonna tear you to shreds’ (inherited from his werewolf father) reaction quickly hits a brick wall when he recognizes the other people in the room. Josh, who Timmy recognizes from some of his mom and dad’s old photos, looks littler than he thought, and the blonde is...vaguely familiar but not quite. And they’re not fretting over Drake standing there like he belongs, so his little sense of logic concludes that these folk are ‘past-ies’. His hands, that he’s realized had flown up in front of his face and converted themselves to jagged little blades (just an instinctive reaction to seeing mutant enemy numero uno, really), drop back to his side and revert to actual hands as he steps into the room.

“Wassup?” He asks, still a little hesitant, but much more relaxed now. “What’re ya doin’?” Timmy tries not to stare at Drake, so he looks up at the board, examining all their scrawled brainstorming. “Hey cool! Can I help? And by help, I really mean ‘wait for you guys to free up the board so I can doodle’, but if you folks aren’t done, that’s cool. I’ll wait. It’d be neat to see what Drake was like before he went all uber Nazi type.” He grins and looks between all the ‘past-ies’ as he points his thumb at Bobby. “I’m Timmy, and I'm awesome.”

[Bobby Drake]

(( OOC: Toni, confirming – timmy is ~12? ))

> " Wassup? What’re ya doin’? Hey cool! Can I help? And by help, I really mean ‘wait for you guys to free up the board so I can doodle’, but if you folks aren’t done, that’s cool. I’ll wait. It’d be neat to see what Drake was like before he went all uber Nazi type. I’m Timmy, and I'm awesome."

Bobby doesn’t actually notice the grin that spreads across his face as the metallic boy gives his little speech, but he’s aware of feeling suddenly more cheerful and enthusiastic than he has since the Brotherhood attacked him in that parking lot, what feels like years ago. Heh… I guess it was years ago, at that.

"Hi, Timmy the Awesome… nice to meet you. I’m Bobby the Average; this here is Josh the Exceptional and Laurie the " he pauses for a moment, comparing his previous impressions of Laurie with what he’s seen since her return to the Camp, and continues with "…Endlessly Surprising."

He’s not really sure who this boy is, but the resemblance to one of his old teammates is compelling. "Your name wouldn’t happen to be Timmy Rasputin, would it?" And do I even want to know who your mom turns out to be?

[Laurie Collins]

Laurie's doing a sort of awkward mental/physical shuffle to try and find a non-offensive way to convey to Bob that her future self really isn't a big Team Drake fan and would probably answer any request from him somewhat unpleasantly when a small (well, age-wise, physically the kid actually has a couple inches on her which is beyond depressing) child bursts in and starts ranting about doodling and Nazis and how awesome he is. Laurie makes an indistinct noise of bemusement and sort of backs up a little nervously. Kids are definitely not her thing, they're very...well this one isn't small and he doesn't have the weird grubby-hands thing most kids have because he's covered in iron but he's still...child-like and it's weird and what do you say to children anyway? When she was twelve she'd liked biographies of famous poets but seventh grade had taught her that this was definitely not universal amongst most pre-adolescents.

"Hi, Timmy the Awesome… nice to meet you. I’m Bobby the Average; this here is Josh the Exceptional and Laurie the…Endlessly Surprising."

Bobby seems to have no such qualms about the understanding and talking to of children. She gives him a couple rapid blinks of surprise at the moniker she gets assigned before exclaiming, "Oh! Timmy? You're one of Miss. Craft's um...the future her anyway...you're the...middle one? Um, I met your sister earlier." she explains, nodding quickly and giving him a small wave.

[[Jackie's coming in on a thread chronologically earlier than this and will be mentioning her brothers, hence Laurie's knowledge]]