Hector Ghosh
Sometime in the beginning of March the prepaid phone Hector tends to ignore because anyone who wants to get ahold of him can speak to him through Fog or send a gaffling to fetch him or risk the wrath of Lola Hawkes to knock on the front door rang not with a text message but with a phone call.
It was his mother.
She wasn't calling to chat exactly but it had taken her a while to get around to what she wanted to talk to him about. They had not lived apart until the cub finders took him back to Arizona and then for years she and Dr. Ghosh had thought their only son dead. No long-distance relationship existed then. They were starting from scratch now and if Lola gets the idea that no one in the family has any idea how to go about this she isn't misinformed.
Despite the fact that his parents are strong people and his middle sister has been blessed with a sort of immunity none of them have any idea how to go about the task of reintroducing Hector to their lives. How often they ought to call and how much they ought to ask about the life he's building with an orphaned young woman.
He was finishing up work on the crib he'd started building nearly two months ago when his mother called. All the sawing and measuring and swearing was over. Now he was just fitting everything together. Making sure it would hold up when their firstborn was a toddler and standing up in it shouting for attention.
Tamsin was a suitable substitute for a toddler when it came time to test the furniture but that's a story for another time.
After he ended the call he sought out his mate. She hasn't been slowed by the advancement of her pregnancy but Hector is getting better at tracking her now.
"So, uh," he'd said. "My sister's going to be in town the week of the full moon. Not Helen. The other one."
---
Her timing was awful but it's rare that Hector gets to work through the gibbous moon fluctuating from one side to the other without suffering from some external stressor or another. By now he expects this even if he's not used to it. The chances of their baby coming during a heavy moon are high. So is his Rage.
Hector started smoking weed again recently. To say that he's stoned all the time now is both an understatement and an exaggeration. If it weren't for the pot he'd never get anything done but he can't spend his whole life stoned.
Cassandra flew into Denver on Wednesday morning. Her conference was scheduled to run from Friday morning until Monday afternoon and then she was going back to New York. Between Wednesday and Friday she expected to spend a day with her brother. Of course she did. She hadn't seen him since he was seventeen.
He has just hung up from speaking to his oldest sister on the phone for the first time in five years. He is outside on the porch with the morning sun on his face. He is not as upset or anxious as he was before seeing his parents again but this isn't exactly pleasant either. She's maybe five minutes out and was calling to confirm the directions to get to Lola's place.
"Fuuuuuck," he sings before putting the phone back in his pocket.
Lola Hawkes
Some strong-spirited adventure in the month of February seemed to have shaken the cobwebs of restlessness out of Lola for some time. Over the past few weeks she's been content to stick around home and the property. She still put on her jeans and boots and, if the weather was snowy and cold the wool cape would go on as well. She would patrol, she would take her bow and arrow and go hunting (she was getting better, her aim was improving by the week).
Around the house, she has taken up time with making a more concentrated (but less manic) effort at getting ready for when the baby came (now they were counting the weeks with sincerity, Jesus H. Christ). She'd finished cleaning up and prepping the nursery as far as cleanliness, floors, ceiling, and walls were concerned. Decorations were popping up here and there, eclectic odds and ends pulled from storage and markets alike. Clothes were finding their way into a second-hand dresser that she'd sanded and painted. Cloth diapers were piling up gradually as well.
All of that, and they still couldn't call themselves anywhere close to 'ready'.
When Hector's mother called, Lola had been gone hunting. Hector found her making her way back, cape pushed open and two dead rabbits plus a snake strung up on her shoulder. She took the news with surprise, of course, but then a deep breath and braced resolve. Okay, let's do this.
-------------
Come Wednesday morning, Hector was standing out on the porch with his phone to his ear. Lola hadn't come out of the house quite yet-- she didn't adjust to daylight savings time very quickly at all, having not much need for keeping track of a clock anyways. By the time he'd finished his call, Lola had just stepped out onto the porch with two mugs of coffee in her hands.
She wore a cream-colored dress whose hem came close to the floor, with a heavy brown wool cardigan on overtop. Her hair was looped back in a loose braid, sleep only barely cleared from her eyes. After passing one of the two mugs over to Hector, she wrapped her now-free arm over the top of her stomach, braced her other elbow in her fingers, and sipped from her own steaming cup.
For a solid sixty seconds she was content to stand and look out from the porch-- take in her land, her land, their land and the sight of the sun on it. Lupine in this one specific trait, Lola was a creature bound to her territory. Overseeing it from the porch before she got going was a morning ritual.
When that time had finally come to pass, during which she would have been happily subject to whatever affection he may have laid on her, she finally asked:
"How shocked do you think she'll be, seeing that you live in the wilderness now?"
Hector Ghosh
And as soon as he's done exhaling his uncertainty and his discomfort the reason for this morning's visit arrives.
Hector hasn't seen any point concealing the fact that it's the pregnancy and his parents' having seen the way they dress and heard about the way they live that has prompted Cassandra to make an effort. That she is the scout for their family. She has the easiest time traveling with her station at the hospital secured but not necessary to its continued functioning. Narendra and Rina are not sneaky. Rina can try to swear up and down that her sister is just visiting because she's in the area anyway and it's been so long since she's seen him but Hector has a better idea of what it means to be Uktena now than he did as a teenager.
He's still learning. Still learning but now taking advantage of the steepness of the climb to pursue the Beloved Horror and the cooling of the need to get Cold Crescent operational again to help his mate prepare the Homestead for the baby. They don't have much time.
It still feels sometimes as though he has only just come back from Winnipeg. The Galliard is stronger and less raw than he was when he first came back and yet he has a perception of the passage of time that treats a year as being not so much at all. When he can remember stories of battles and acts of bravery that happened in another millennium it isn't much of a stretch to imagine that he can look back at June and think That wasn't long ago at all.
Then Lola comes up beside him and hands him a mug of coffee. He slips his arm around her shoulders and brings her in against his side. He presses his lips to her hair and he inhales her scent and he is grateful for the time. Not even remotely ready for how their lives are about to change but he will be. It isn't even a matter of not having a choice like he didn't have a choice about his life changing five years ago either. Hector wants to be a father.
Lola's question makes him laugh into her hair. He kisses her again and turns his head to rest his cheek against her hair.
"Probably as shocked as Helen was when I turned into a killing machine in her living room."
Lola Hawkes
The answer provided was met with a low chuckle, dry sounding for Lola's sense of humor was rarely anything but. While Hector kissed and breathed her hair, Lola leaned into his side and watched the road. The conditions hadn't been very dry-- if they had been, like before the fires, then they would have been able to see a dust cloud on the gravel path that led to the dirt ruts that went up a hill to reach the Homestead. With the recent rains and warm weather, the dirt and gravel were all settled enough that they would simply need to wait to see the vehicle itself rambling up over the first of two hills to reach the house.
"So, she's going to yell and cuss."
Specifically referencing when Helen had yelled What the FUCK! at him after demonstrating in the flesh what had truly become of her little brother. He may wince at the memory, but Lola didn't feel the same emotional sting for the Lost Kin's distress. She had survived, recovered, and (in Lola's opinion) become better for it.
The quiet would stretch, comfortable and clear as the morning around them, and Lola didn't break it until the first glimpse of a car (or SUV, or whatever else the woman may have rented) had come up over the hill. She watched it for long enough to feel Hector stiffen and react to the sight, then de-tangled herself from under his arm to step back toward the door.
"I'll go get her a mug. Give you two a minute to hug it out. Then I'll bring a chair out and we can talk."
That was the plan of attack, and as far as she was concerned it was already in action. She left her own cup on the table between the two porch chairs, and found her way inside.
Hector Ghosh
Hector doesn't actually tighten his arm around Lola to keep her out here with him but she can sure as hell read the thought's wake in his eyes. A Fostern to the Nation and an alpha of a respected pack and he is more terrified of his family than he is of monsters that would just as soon floss with his intestines as they would wipe out everything he holds dear.
Everything changed when he disappeared. To his family he had been abducted or dead. He thought about them as often as they thought about him but at least he could go on the Internet to see what they've been up to. Even after having dinner at his parents' house Hector hasn't officially resurfaced.
But he lets her go. He stands out on the porch alone to receive his oldest sister and when Lola comes back with a third mug of coffee she can see that Hector has gone down the driveway. The rental car is a silver Toyota with Wyoming plates and the woman who drove it here is wearing high heels that give her the appearance of one who is only a couple of inches shorter than her brother. Her long brown hair is unrestrained and her eye makeup is subtle. All three of the Ghosh kids turned out to be attractive adults.
From the porch Lola can see their reunion is already off to a rocky start. Hector has his back to the house and Cassandra is facing him. She has the same intelligence in her eyes that their father does but hers has a sharpness to it that his lacks. She's standing with her arms crossed over her ribs and a set to her jaw that suggests she's holding herself back from speaking.
And Lola can tell from looking at her that she's human. That being around Hector if not intolerable for her it's still uncomfortable. His Rage laps at her.
Her eyes briefly leave her brother's face with the movement of Lola returning to the porch but she doesn't approach just yet. Neither tears nor warmth shine in them. The siblings don't look as if they spent much time hugging while Lola was gone.
"Oh, Hector..."
Mournful tone as the idea of her once-missing brother not only being alive but expecting a child becomes reality and hits her.
Lola Hawkes
When Lola came back out onto the front porch, she initially remained within the shadows-- not necessarily skulking, because that's not what predators do on their own turf. Rather, she was observing first, gauging what was occurring out in the driveway where the Toyota was parked a short ways behind the blue Subaru that she and Hector used. There were no tears, there wasn't shouting or crying or anything like that going on. Tension, sure, but Lola couldn't be surprised by that.
So, she stepped out onto the front step, out from under the shade and shelter the awning over the front porch protected. She had already gotten a quick sip of her own mug while lingering near the face of the house, but didn't bring it along with her.
When Cassandra looked over to see her, Lola was standing with her feet apart, partly because this was the stance of someone confident upon their own land, and because this helped distribute the extra weight she was carrying on her hips and back both. Again, an arm rested overtop her stomach. The sleeves of her cardigan were down still. The Kinfolk was first perceived to be scoping the scene out-- Cass's first impression may be that Lola's watching both of them like a hawk.
But, soon enough, Lola's chin lifted and so did the coffee mug in greeting. No smile crawled over her face, though-- those often didn't come unless coaxed or inspired. She didn't often smile just to be polite.
While she had stayed back while meeting Helen and the Parents Ghosh both, Lola didn't do the same this time around. She came down the steps to greet the two at the car. At least the energy that she cast off this morning wasn't hostile or antagonistic. She wasn't smiling outright, but she seemed good natured enough when she reached the two.
"Hi, welcome. It's good meeting you. I'm Lola Hawkes."
Always with the surname, like she doesn't realize it doesn't have the same impact with humans as it does with the local werewolves.
Hector Ghosh
In the tradition of his auspice Hector had told stories about his sister prior to her arrival like that would help his mate understand the situation better.
She is eight years older than he is. Though his parents could have easily afforded babysitters when he was growing up Hector mostly remembers Cassandra taking care of him. By the time he was old enough to stay home alone after school she was going off to her first semester at Stanford. When she came home from college she would bring friends with her but it became obvious fairly fast that Cassandra was throwing herself into the Hindu religion and Indian culture from the ones she brought home.
This pleased their father. It caused a bit of a rift between sisters.
Her husband Vijay Misra is an internist whose parents are also from West Bengal. He first met the family the summer before Hector went into seventh grade. They were married a year later and pregnant the year after that. Hector hasn't seen his nephew since the Misra family flew out to San Jose for Diwali the winter before he disappeared.
She's like Dad, if Dad were a self-righteous brown woman, is how Hector concluded last night's preparatory introduction to his sister.
As Lola's face gives off no light neither does Cassandra's. The older human woman does not stare at her brother's girlfriend as she approaches but it's clear she is struggling to process the sight of him full-grown concurrent with the sight of her approaching her third trimester.
And then Lola speaks for the first time.
Cassandra laughs a startled voiceless laugh that shows straight white teeth and looks up at her brother. The last time she saw him he was shorter than their father. His hair was shaggy but short. He still looked like a child.
"I--" Cassandra pulls herself together. Holds out her manicured right hand to shake with Lola. "Hi. I'm Cassandra. It's..." Torn between being polite and telling the truth, she concludes the handshake and clasps her hands so she's holding them in front of her thighs. "Wow. How are you?"
If Lola picks up on a strange inflection in the question it isn't her imagination. It's her obvious pregnancy and the isolated nature of their current setting.
"Really?" Hector asks. Cassandra raises her eyebrows at him. "What's next? 'How far along are you?'"
"Do you know how far along she is?"
"No, and I don't know how that's any of your fucking business, either."
Lola can see tension climbing up Hector's spine. Unlike the argument she witnessed in his parents' kitchen though there is nothing in between him and his sister besides time and the gaps carved into it.
"Hector," Cassandra says with a laugh, "you're going to have to excuse me if I ask questions. You have no idea what it's been like the last five years, okay?"
"I saw Mom. I think I can imagine."
"I'm sure you can," she says with a frown. "You always did have an active imagination."
Hector plants his hands on his hips and stares at her. Cassandra refuses to look intimidated in front of someone whose diapers she used to change. But she doesn't have much say in the matter. He could kill her without even shifting forms and she has no idea what is lurking underneath his skin and clothes.
"This is difficult for everyone," she goes on. "I'm here to help with the reconnection process, not go over your life with a fine-toothed comb." She looks to Lola with a cast to her gaze that borders on apologetic. "Let me take you out to lunch." Back to Hector: "Do you have any..."
She sweeps her eyes over his outfit and frowns again. He's wearing beat-to-hell jeans and a t-shirt and more jewelry than Cassandra can wrap her head around. He didn't have his ear pierced when he was a teenager. Their father would have blown a fuse. He's skinny as a rail and his hair is so long he can tie it back and his eyes have a ferocity to them that she doesn't know what to do with. All she knows is he was abducted and now he doesn't want Mom and Dad to call the FBI to tell them they've found him. Lord knows what the people who took him did to him.
This isn't her brother. She can't ask him if he has any nice clothes and tell him he looks homeless but Hector can just about hear it in the silence where she stops up her own voice.
Hector laughs a sardonic laugh and scrubs his face with one hand.
"Jesus," he says and gestures to Lola with the hand when it's done. "You wanna interrogate my wife--" He must have been practicing that word for the past week for how fluid he says it. It has as much weight standing here arguing with a human as mate would have in front of a Philodox. "--go right ahead. Have fun with that."
He's out of there.
Lola Hawkes
From the description and stories that Hector had provided, Lola found that Cassandra looked pretty much as she had expected-- clean, neat, well-dressed with her heeled shoes on the dirt and grass that made up the driveway. He'd said she was like a female version of their father, and for all of the worry he'd put in her about meeting him, she had initially worried over the encounter-- just as she had done last time.
But, in Lola's opinion, things went very well back out in California. She liked Hector's dad, respected him even (for a human, that was a hell of an accomplishment). So, she was prepared to make a solid effort at giving Cassandra the benefit of the doubt.
When Lola shook Cassandra's hand, the eldest Ghosh sibling would find her palm clean, but rough and padded in the way that hands are when you do manual labor, with specific callouses in place for handling and frequently firing a bow and arrow (older ones, more well formed, for gun triggers). Her grasp was firm and assertive, strength ever-present because Lola never knew to try and hide it. She didn't squeeze hands or crush knuckles, though, and when Lola's hand fell away it came back to cradle the mug she'd brought along with her.
Though she didn't miss the tone and trepadation in Cassandra's voice when she asked how she was (and Lola's expression was a bit flat [but wasn't it usually?]) in reaction to it, she apparently didn't see harm in it and parted her lips to answer-- but, this is where Hector jumped in.
Much as with the last few reunions, Lola simply pressed her lips together and let the back-and-forth occur without interrupting. She kept more careful an eye on Hector than on Cassandra, feeling for his Rage and watching for stress fissures in his composure. Rather than letting himself hang around long enough to blow up, he presented Cassandra with the challenge of 'interrogating his wife' (Lola's eyebrows had raised just the slightest bit at the word, but would concede that it was more appropriate than her choice to use 'girlfriend' like last time) before whipping around and taking himself elsewhere on the property.
Lola watched him go, and when she looked back to Cassandra she didn't appear embarrassed or apologetic for Hector's conduct, as many significant others would after their partner left them in such a wake. She simply passed the mug of coffee to Cassandra and gestured toward the front porch.
"We're not very social. I'm sure you can imagine." Enough time for an awkward, flat pause. Enough time for Cassandra to see that Hector's Lola struggled in social settings, but bludgeoned her way through anyways.
"Come and sit and give him time to come back around. We can figure lunch out after that-- no hurry, after all. I'm better with these questions than he is, anyways." And, if Cassandra were agreeable to the idea, Lola would have them back up on the porch to sit in the two chairs that she and Hector often occupied instead.
Hector Ghosh
Must be no point arguing that Hector was very social when he was a kid. That he was always running from some activity to the next and neglecting his schoolwork in order to hang out with his friends. It would be easier if she could divorce herself from the image she still has of Hector as a child but Cassandra has only been back in his company for a few minutes. It's going to take her some time.
That time doesn't come to pass during the course of the awkward flat pause. Cassandra wears an expression neutral not for not knowing how to behave in social settings but because anything she could say would be unsolicited and possibly offensive.
"Alright," Cassandra says to the matter of sitting and waiting for Hector.
By the time they reach the point where they start moving Hector has already stalked up the steps leading to the front porch and slammed his way through the door. They cannot hear him once he has gone inside. No answering slam of the back door to suggest he's gone outside to beat the shit out of something.
Cassandra waits until Lola has chosen which seat she wants before taking up its opposite.
"I heard a bit about your situation from our father," she says once they're settled. "He told me that Hector told him you hadn't gone in for a prenatal visit yet. Is this your first child?"
She sure as hell doesn't ask if it's Hector's first child. Part of her doesn't want to know what her brother's done the last five years.
Lola Hawkes
Let it be known-- Lola's mother was a Theurge of the Spirit Speaker variety. She was renowned for her presence, Evelyn Hawkes. She pulled attention and the eye when she entered a room even though she seldom said a word or made a noise outside of the quiet latch of a door behind her when she did. She was perhaps 5'4" at most, built slight and slim like Maria had been (Lola had taken after her father much more strongly than her sister did).
Knows the Whispering Ones was true to her deed name. In the final decade of her life, where she held steady the rank of Adren, she spent many months in the Umbra communicating with the spirits of the land all throughout this half of the country. Javier Tirado had done much of the child rearing in the home. She mostly maintained relations, tended sick spirits and nodes, arranged for guardians for the Caern and Bawn. But in times when Denver and Forgotten Questions came under fire, the spirits she could draw to her command made her a force to contend with.
With all of that, she of course still knew simple healing gifts. Lola and Maria did not need to visit a human doctor at any point outside of "incidents" (much like Lola's last year).
Sitting on the porch in the chair that was furthest from the front door, as this was the chair she always sat in, Lola had taken her mug of coffee back up in her hands and sipped it. She wasn't stupid, she knew that caffeine was scowled upon by most medical professionals and that she was sitting across from a doctor.
She knew Cassandra was talking to her like a doctor to a patient right now. She knew the woman was in a very new, strange, and uncomfortable (bucklingly stressful) situation. She had a feeling she wouldn't know what to make of Lola for how different their lives and worlds altogether were, and that it would be an easy fall-back to relate to her as a patient first. Lola would be uncomfortable if she didn't feel it very important to assert calm confidence and control over her turf and all that happened on it.
Lola, you see, is a Head Bitch In Charge here.
Still, it's almost apparent that it's still a conscious show in how she leans back in her chair, legs crossed at the knee and dense braid flipped over to rest on her shoulder. She rested the bottom of the mug lightly, casually, on top of her stomach and had her head turned to regard Cassandra while they spoke.
"It is, yeah. And no, I haven't gone to a doctor. It's a-..." She frowned, but only gently-- a small tell-tale crease between dark eyebrows. "Lifestyle decision."
Clearly, that's how the books phrase it for her.
Hector Ghosh
"What about a midwife?" she asks. She knows the answer apparently. She doesn't give Lola a chance to answer before she tacks on another question: "Who's going to be with you when you deliver the baby?"
Lola Hawkes
To this, Lola shifted a little bit in her chair. She moved not so that she was sitting straighter or more defensively. Rather, she settled back further, even slid down just a touch on the pretense of stretching and curving her back just a little more for comfort's sake. It's a further declaration of established comfort and ownership of territory, though, because she's already very aware that Cassandra will not much care for the answer she was about to get.
"No midwife."
Sip.
"It will be Hector and I."
Lola knows that Cassandra will react strongly. She was a teenage daughter, she's been under the light with her parents before. Apparently, she's not in any mood to be yelled at, though, because she continues on before giving the older woman the chance to react.
"I already know how dangerous and scary and selfish and stupid that is. And the statistics. But I'm going to tell you right up front that you're just going to be wasting your breath and energy trying to sell us on anything else. This is gonna be that much easier if you can just let that one go at the door."
Hector Ghosh
"You have no idea how dangerous or scary it's going to be," Cassandra says.
Yeah. She's not letting that one go at the door.
Though she does react to the younger woman's statement that she's not going to have anyone but a 22-year-old man with visible anger management and self-control problems there to help her it's a subtle sort of reaction. A change in the light in her eyes and a slight straightening of her spine.
"And frankly, neither does he. Even if nothing goes wrong, giving birth for the first time is the hardest thing you're ever going to have to do, and he's not going to be much help if he's..."
Cassandra glances towards the door to make sure her brother isn't about to come barreling through it. When she looks back there's muted concern in her eyes but she knows better than to push her luck with someone who doesn't trust her.
"Our mother's available to fly out when it's closer to your due date. Originally she offered to help with getting the house ready and to..." Funny in hindsight: "... drive. But I strongly urge you to consider inviting her out. You can think you don't need support all you want now, but it's going to be too late to change your mind when--"
Loud footsteps in the great room. Hector's about four seconds from joining them on the porch.
Lola Hawkes
Cassandra wasn't going to just let the topic drop. Lola had expected as much, she didn't expect her advice to be heeded. She knew Hector wouldn't just let something that he felt strongly about lay down, and she had a feeling the same applied to Helen. It was only reasonable to expect the same from the third sibling as well.
She shows enough respect and restraint not to interrupt. She was even making the effort not to shake her head at Cassandra while she was speaking, or to look very skeptical. But all the same, even while making no sour faces or negative gestures, Lola still gave off the demeanor of somebody who knew something more, or had some kind of a trick or an element that they weren't speaking of. For Lola, that element was, of course, spiritual energy and healing gourds. She wasn't worried for complications for they would be supplied with healing magics.
Lola's eyes hopped from Cassandra's face to the door when she heard Hector thumping around inside. He was probably overhearing what Cassandra was saying and chose this moment to come out and argue that nobody should be here this June (or July? May? They weren't too sure). Before he would have the chane to throw open the storm door and introduce himself to the discussion, though, Lola set Cassandra with a steady and unwavering look.
"I promise you it will be fine. The baby is well, so are Hector and I."
Pause.
"Besides, I've lived through worse than child birth. Nearly lost a leg and kept it-- this'll be nothing in contrast."
And with that said she turned eyes out to the horizon and waited to hear how Hector would be joining them.
Hector Ghosh
When Hector comes out on the porch Cassandra is pinching the bridge of her nose and silently urging herself to bite her tongue.
He went inside and changed with only a look from his sister. It's a look he'd caught more than once growing up and it's a look that hadn't lost power even with more than a decade passed between when Cassandra went to college and when Cassandra last saw her brother. A comb has gone through Hector's hair and he's secured it so that discerning just how long his mane is is difficult.
He's wearing a pair of wing-tip shoes he bought for when he has to play shows and not look like a homeless throwback to the 1990s grunge era of music and a pair of dark-wash jeans that he got at a thrift store for three dollars. He's changed his t-shirt into one that doesn't have holes in it and thrown his blazer on overtop of it.
It's a marked improvement. He even looks like he's calmed down a bit. Like if everyone thinks he's going to lose his shit then he's just that much more determined to prove he's not a wild animal. Look how chill he is even though he definitely overheard most of that conversation without even trying.
"Yeah," he says in a deadpan. Both of them can hear the at-arm's-length echo of terror he'd felt that day because they know him. Sarcasm doesn't suit him well because of the obviousness of it. Hector is too honest a person for sarcasm. "Sis, it was totally fine, when she almost lost her leg. People almost lose legs all the time. That's how normal people find out they're gonna have a baby, right? Almost losing a leg?"
That's about the moment Cassandra decides she's not bringing up this or anything else about their personal lives again. She stands and finds the rental car's keys in her pocket.
"Are you ready?" she asks.
"Yep."
Cassandra nods.
Hector starts to chew his thumbnail.
Lola Hawkes
When Hector came out onto the porch, he'd find Lola feigning relaxed in her chair and Cassandra pinching the bridge of her nose, looking as though she was learning what kind of exasperation this Lola Hawkes woman could cause a person. The Kinfolk took another, deeper drink of the rapidly cooling coffee and turned her eyes upon Hector when he appeared.
The clothes he'd pulled together are regarded, as well as the combed and controlled state he'd bound his hair back into. More than appreciating how he cleaned up, Lola found a grain of humor in the fact that he'd stormed off specifically to comply with his sister's unspoken request that he become presentable enough that she could take him and his wife out for lunch.
Any humor that might have been there was squashed by Hector's deadpan and flat comment to add on to her attempts to reassure Cassandra. As far as Lola was concerned, there ought to be relief in the fact that a body strong and healthy enough to survive a killing blow is housing the baby. Of course, she had no stable concept of what actually was reassuring to most people, so it was unsurprising that her choice of words just ground Hector's frayed sense of calm and stressed his sister out.
All the same, it's one hell of a scowl that she fixes on Hector for his remark. Soon after she set her coffee mug on the table between her and Cassandra's chair and parted her knees to lean forward and tighten the laces on her shoes. That accomplished, she rose to her feet.
"Well, since we're all so ready, I'll just put these mugs away and be right out. I'm sure whatever restaurant we find is going to be happy we all showed up after five minutes."
Well, sourpuss, that's a nice note to excuse yourself on.
Hector Ghosh
And Hector looks right back at her. Not scowling or frowning but she can still read a note of exhausted pleading in his eyes. Too much wrapped up in it to narrow it down to a single thought or emotion. He has felt helpless ever since that phone call and it hasn't gotten any better knowing that their unborn child's safety is in constant jeopardy between his Rage and her overconfidence.
If it weren't for that vision he had in Arizona he would be even more of a mess than he already is. Faith in their future working out just fine for knowing that if they can get through this they can get through anything else that happens keeps him from spiraling into Harano. Never mind that that's only one possible future. That it's the one his heart wants the most.
His subconscious gives him a future drenched in the blood from cut-out hearts and rape and ritual sacrifice. The future he fears will come to pass if anything ever happens to Lola.
He needs her to be stronger than he is. To be able to interact with humans better than he can. It's a lot to ask out of anyone let alone a kinswoman who only recently began to accept that the portent of her First Change was inaccurate but it's taken him longer to come to terms with what it means to be Garou than it will take Lola to come to terms with what it means to be Kinfolk.
Her comment makes Hector laugh a miserable high-pitched laugh and rub at his forehead. He steps out of the way to give her space to walk. Though he waits until the screen door closes behind Lola his voice is deep and he tends to be loud and she can vaguely hear what he says to his sister when they're alone.
"If I didn't love her so much I probably wouldn't have as many gray hairs as I do."
Cassandra's voice is softer and higher. Lola cannot hear what she says in response.
Lola Hawkes
The words at Lola's back serve as a reminder-- a punctuation on the end of the pleading sentence that was the way Hector had looked back at her. She had shot him a look of warning, of caution, and he'd answered back with a plea. He was tired, he was scared, and his sister's being here shouldn't be that difficult but it is because it serves as a reminder not only of the fact that their baby will be there soon and they could never be ready for that, but as a reminder also of the rift he's still trying to figure out how to mend with his family.
He needed her to be stronger, and in situations like this that called for a steadier hand and more level head and temper. So, while inside, Lola took time to steel herself for doing exactly that.
She's inside for perhaps three minutes, give or take a fistful of seconds. It was long enough for her to rinse coffee mugs in the sink and exchange the chunky brown cardigan she was wearing for a sleeker black option instead. Her hair was combed free of its braid and pulled into a neat ponytail at the top of her head instead. These touches and changes were small, though, not a full swap of clothing like Hector had performed, but at least she appeared less settled in to the home and more prepared to leave.
Or, well, her attire and straight-backed stance suggested that she was ready to go. The grain of reluctance about leaving her property might never be completely shaken. Given the choice, she would always choose to stay near to home and keep its safety in check.
She doesn't launch into urging them to leave when she rejoins the brother and sister out on the front porch, though. She'd sooner gauge the tone and conversation that grew in her wake before even trying to rejoin the discussion at hand.
[[ Scene Faded Here -- Discontinued ]]
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