I'm proud to present the project I've been feverishly working on recently and request your approval, fanchildren! This was a request fic from the lovely Zouboss so send them some love too! I have a ton of request fics in the works as well as a lot of IRL work stuff happening so please be patient, if you requested something I will get to writing it but it'll take a little time I'm afraid. I owe you the last chapter of Desperate Measures and I will get to it, just, yeah been stupid busy.

Notes! As ever, for a Real World fic there are a metric ton of notes to go with this fic. First off, I had to research Alaska. And then Alaskan Natives, specifically the Yupik of Central and Western Alaska. I had to look up Deep Southern dialect style guides, I had to run it past actual southern Americans, and have all my British spellings corrected. I'd like to thank my truly awesome proofers for being brilliant and a huge help in the writing of a story I really had no choice but to set in the far North of the US. So, if the sections where I have anyone speaking with a Southern accent don't see right to you, please remember I ran it past a genuine Southerner who confirmed they 100% talk like that. I was so nervous about writing those sections. There are a couple of minor OCs in this chapter, I needed some lady lovin' ladies.

Content Warning: Implied homophobia, minor OCs, off screen character death, feels.

Marceline Abadeer was seven years old and she knew a secret. It all started the day Uncle Simon took her into Teller with him to buy supplies, riding shotgun in the cab of his old pickup with the radio crackling and the hot sun beating down through crystal clear northern air. That summer was the first she'd spent in Alaska, the first since she'd lost her Mom in a car accident and her father had decided it was easier to pack her off to the only pretence of family she had than have to deal with her himself until school started again. So she was put on a small plane and sent north for hours, until they finally touched down on a tiny airfield where an old man she didn't know met her and explained he was her Uncle Simon, not really an uncle by blood but a friend of her mother's former tutor and sort of her godfather. Marcy had been quite frightened until he opened the door of his pickup and a rumpled white puppy opened his eyes and yipped at her. Then she was too excited to remember to be afraid.

"His name is Schwabl, he's half poodle and half husky. He's a mix, like you, darling. I thought you might have some fun training him this summer, he'll never be able to keep up with the other dogs on the sled but he's still gonna need a steady hand. Think you're up to the challenge?" he asked with a quiver in his snowy beard that she later learnt meant he was smiling.

The day they rode out to The Big Town together Schwabl stayed in the pickup and they made their way to the supply store hand in hand. After three weeks in his company Uncle Simon felt like more of a parent than her father ever had and Marcy was totally at ease around him. The store was like something from an old Wild West movie to her young eyes; all dressed pine and bundles of herbs drying on the exposed roof rafters. But there was a barrel of dried pig ears and she thought she might get one for Schwabs if he was a good boy and learned to stay when she told him to. She wasn't really listening to the conversation Simon was having with Ron James, the man who owned the store, but when they dropped their voices it caught her attention. Grownups whispering meant they were talking about something she wasn't supposed to hear and little Marcy was burning with curiosity.

"Heard you got yourself a couple of them tourists from the city staying out in the cabins." Ron was saying to Simon, who made a noncommittal grunt in reply.

"Saw 'em come through town yesterday, hand in hand as open as you please. Didn't think you'd rent to that type, Petrikov." Ron pressed.

"Their money's still green. So long as nothing's broken when they leave they can come back every year far as I care. Lord knows I could use the regular income. And what two consenting adults do in the privacy of a room they're paying for's no concern of mine, or yours, or any of the gossips in this town. They're hurting nobody, let them be." Simon replied with a quiet sigh and a hand tugging the end of his beard in a rare gesture of annoyance.

"But still, you trust them shameless Ellen DeGeneres types around your niece? What if she catches them, you know?" Ron made a complicated gesture with his hands; it looked to Marceline like he was trying to mash two pairs of finger scissors together. She frowned, not understanding.

"Marcy, darling, did you pick out a present for Schwabs yet?" Simon asked, raising his voice a little and turning to her. Even Marcy knew that that meant the conversation with Ron James was over.

She was quiet on the ride back out to the house but that wasn't unusual. Uncle Simon made a couple of attempts at conversation but he wasn't the most talkative type either so they mostly just listened to the snatches of music between the radio crackle and the occasional whine from Schwabl. That night Marcy lay in bed and wondered what it all meant, what Ellen DeGeneres types were and what the finger scissors had all been about and why Ron James objected to tourists renting one of Uncle Simon's empty cabins. That was what they were for, wasn't it? He had four little log cabins out in a field about a half a mile from the main house, with a nice view of the lake and the town because tourists liked that sort of thing. From what Marcy understood the little money Uncle Simon made each year mostly came from tourists renting his cabins for a few nights at a time.

The problem with the arctic summer was that it never really got properly dark. Marcy's room had blinds that left it gloomy but her body-clock was confused because it still felt like the evening. It might be late at night but she could still see dull twilight reflected on the sloping wooden ceiling behind the curtains. Uncle Simon's snores in the next room announced he had no similar problems sleeping and the mystery of the cabin weighed heavy on her mind as she tossed and turned and eventually sat up with a sigh. It was no good; sleep just wasn't going to happen when there was a real live mystery just a short walk away. It was like Scooby Doo, Marcy decided. And she could be Shaggy and Schwabs would be Scooby and they would go and investigate the secret of the cabin together. Except she was going to bring her teddy bear Hambo along too, just in case it got scary.

Sneaking out of the house was easy enough; Simon could have slept through pretty much anything. And once she was outside it was a straight walk through the dusk down the dirt path to the tourist cabins so it didn't take long for a determined girl and excited puppy to cover half a mile of ground when there was a mystery motivating them. Except as she drew near the cabins Marceline started to feel a little uneasy, wondering for the first time if maybe she might get in trouble for being out of bed and wandering around in the middle of the night. But then she saw lights on up ahead and she forgot to be worried any more. She was Shaggy, she was Nancy Drew. She was going to solve The Mystery of the Tourist Cabin.

Two women sat together on the small porch at the front of the single roomed wooden hut, sharing a blanket and a fragrant cigarette and talking in low voices. There were no other tourists staying so it was an easy thing for Marcy and Swchabl to sneak closer unnoticed. One of the women was tall with dark hair held back in a ponytail and squarish glasses, she had the sort of face that Marcy thought made her look like she was probably very kind and worried a lot about what other people thought. The shorter woman had a sweep of fiery red hair and delicate, pretty features. She spoke with a strange accent and smiled a lot, they both seemed very at ease with each other.

It was Schwabl's fault that they got discovered. He ignored Marcy's whispered command to stay and rushed forward with his tail wagging; she considered bitterly that she'd been too hasty to give him his treat for learning the command that afternoon.

"Aw hey there little fella, where did you come from?" the brown haired woman asked, crouching down to Schwabl and letting him sniff her hands excitedly. Marcy didn't dare come forward too; she was skulking in the shadows at the side of the next cabin trying to decide how to proceed.

"Älskling? There's a little girl watching us over there." the red haired woman said, stubbing her cigarette out hurriedly and frowning down at where she'd somehow noticed Marcy. "Are you lost, sweetheart? It is very late, shouldn't you be in bed?"

"Couldn't sleep." Marceline squeaked, too mortified at being caught snooping to really articulate much of a defense for herself.

"Are you here with your family? Come on out, we're not gonna yell at you. Do you want a glass of juice or something?" the other lady asked, looking up from where Schwabs was flopping around on his back getting his belly rubbed.

And that was how Marcy ended up having a glass of lingonberry juice and talking to the women renting Uncle Simon's guest cabin. She'd almost forgotten why she was there until the dark haired woman whose name she'd discovered was Carly stood to take the empty glasses back inside and dropped a casual kiss onto the redhead's lips. Marcy gasped, surprised, and they looked around at her.

"Ron James said you went through town holding hands." Marcy announced in a rush. "He said Uncle Simon might not want to rent to people like you."

"Ron James sounds like a small minded kind of man. He's upset that your uncle is renting a cabin to us because we are a gay couple." the red haired woman, Maria, explained.

"Some people don't like that we're both women. Instead of having boyfriends we have a relationship with each other, like boyfriends and girlfriends but with two girlfriends instead. You never met a gay couple before?" Carly asked gently. Marcy shook her head.

"I didn't know you were allowed to not have a boyfriend." she muttered. They both laughed and her cheeks burned from embarrassment.

"Oh sweetheart we're not laughing at you. But I didn't know that when I was little either, that's why it was such a big shock for me when I grew up and didn't want to kiss boys. It's just kinda funny to hear you say the same thing I thought when I was your age." she explained with a smile.

Both women held their breaths expectantly while they watched the expressions roll across Marcy's little face. In the half gloom it was hard to make out if her bronzed features were pulled into a frown of disgust or simply thought. But then she nodded like she'd just realized something important.

"Ok. But my Mom kissed boys, she special kissed my Daddy and that's how they got me and then she died in the car crash. I miss her." Marcy informed them with her solid little girl logic. "Uncle Simon got Schwabl for me even though he's never gonna be able to keep up with the other sled dogs. He's a mix, like me. My Mom was a Yupik native and my Daddy is white. His family came from Scotland a hundred years ago and that's in Europe, it's real small and sometimes boys wear skirts there. Uncle Simon said Schwabl is a half husky but I think he's half a wolf."

"Are you sure? He's real curly, looks like he's got a bit of sheep in him." Carly replied with a sidelong smile to her girlfriend.

"He's a wolf, I taught him to howl." Marcy insisted. "So you never ever have to kiss boys?"

"Never ever. But it's really late, you should go get some sleep. Come on, I'll drive you home."

She managed to sneak back in the house without Simon noticing but he still seemed plenty well informed when Marcy announced she was going to go fishing with Carly and Maria over breakfast next morning. He just told her to have fun and do everything the ladies told her and to be very careful around the deep water, and that was that. Marceline Abadeer was seven years old, and she knew the secret that gay women were just like everyone else except that they never ever had to kiss boys and that didn't sound too terrible to her.

…

After that first summer the annual trip north easily became Marceline's favorite. Summers meant dog training with Simon and playing in huge open fields with the local kids, harassed by biblical swarms of mosquitoes and tanned to a rich copper in the almost constant sun just like her mother in old photographs. It meant babysitting Carly and Maria's first, second and eventually third sons when they came by on their yearly vacation. But best of all summers meant a whole two months away from Hunson and the awful burning inferno that southern California became halfway through spring until almost the end of fall.

Every year it got harder to board the light aircraft heading south and leave Alaska behind a whole month or more before she ever got to see the first snowfall. Stepping back through the doors of school and knowing it would be months before she escaped again got more and more depressing right up until finals were over every year and she finally graduated high school. Hunson was absolute in his refusal to allow his daughter to apply to a college out of state so she was duly packed off to the University of San Diego with a beat up second-hand bass guitar and a warning that her father did not expect her to fail a single class ringing in her ears. Then summers became a desperate scramble to work as much as possible and save enough money before the next semester started so that she wouldn't have to go home and beg Hunson for money at least until Spring Break or maybe even after if she was really careful about what she ate. And the letters from Simon still came in every two weeks like clockwork, complete with photos of the year's new pups and how they were growing along with plenty of snaps of grumpy old Schwabl. And then just a few months out of graduation and still desperately searching for a full time career job Marceline came back to her tiny two-room rental to find a letter she hadn't expected in the mailbox. The address was machine-printed instead of being in Simon's usual blocky scribble and she opened it curiously on the trek up the narrow stairwell. Her whole world changed in the time it took to read the few bare lines printed on stark white paper.

As the ground fell away beneath her and the jet engines thundered harder Marceline rested her head back against her seat, closed her eyes and just as they had for the whole of the last week those words sprung unbidden to her mind like they'd been burned into her brain.

It is with deepest sympathy that we are writing to inform you of the unexpected death of your godfather, Simon Petrikov. You are the sole beneficiary named in his final will and testament and as such inherit his entire estate...

He'd begged off Marcy's graduation ceremony because there was nobody to watch the dogs. She'd spent a lot of time afterwards wondering if he'd known he was ill, if he hadn't wanted to upset her by turning up looking so sick and weak or if maybe the length of the journey was just too much for him to manage. And this year Simon had told her he had a surprise for her; she'd been saving to come up and visit when there was snow on the ground and he'd had something planned to celebrate the end of her formal education more personally than a pompous graduation ceremony. It had been five years since Marceline had been back to see Simon, five years of carefully watching every cent and dreaming about flying north and missing the cool air like she'd been trapped in hell.

The stop-over in Seattle was torturous; it was the middle of the night, Marceline was already exhausted from losing a week's sleep to grief and the airport was busier and louder than she'd hoped it would be. She tried to nap on a row of uncomfortable plastic chairs but in the end sat and watched the digital clock in the departures lounge tick slowly through almost five hours until the glow of daylight outside told her it was time to catch the connecting flight to Nome. Marcy boarded the light aircraft in a numb haze, too tired to think about anything but her grief or to even sleep for more than a few minutes. But she must have slept anyway because the last thing she remembered was watching Seattle disappear and then Vancouver slide by beneath her. Perhaps she'd simply blacked out from the combination of loss and exhaustion. Then the popping of her ears woke her as they descended into the tiny Alaskan city of Nome and Marceline looked out of the window with a heavy heart; it wasn't the same gazing down at the corrugated sheet metal shack that served as a small airport and knowing that Simon wasn't inside waiting for her. She'd missed his funeral already since there hadn't been a flight she could afford that would get her there on time and there was no way she was voluntarily speaking to Hunson to ask for a bail out, not now she'd finally graduated. After disembarking and reclaiming her bag she trudged through the tiny airport with her shoulders slumped, only looking up in surprise when someone called her name unexpectedly.

"Hey, Marcy! You need a ride?"

It was Jake Madigan, one of the local boys around her own age that she'd occasionally played with as a child on days they'd ventured as far as The Big Town. His enormous hand were holding out a sign with her name on it; she'd walked right past him and never noticed.

"Hey, Jake. Thanks. I was gonna just hitch it, didn't realise anyone would have come out to get me." she replied a little awkwardly. Still exhausted, feeling gross from sitting on an airplane for hours and self-conscious of her red, swollen eyes she'd been hoping to avoid running into anyone she knew until they got as far as The Big Town. No such luck but at least she wasn't in for hours more of trudging down the roadside trying to thumb a lift. She followed Jake out into the crisp fall chill and pulled her jacket tight around her shoulders as he made his way to the parking lot and showed her to the side door of an ancient sedan.

"I'm sorry about your uncle. I went to the funeral, it was a real nice service." Jake said softly as he keyed the engine to life.

"Uh-huh. Sorry I missed it. Got here as quick as I could." Marcy replied, avoiding his eyes.

It was a relief when they made it out of the parking lot and onto the road since Jake had to keep his attention on driving and couldn't push much conversation. Marcy watched the vivid yellows and reds of the forests and dying grasses flash past them as they accelerated down the highway and stared up at the endless stretch of sky overhead, a uniformly cloudless watercolor blue. She wondered if Simon had been at peace at the end. Rolling through the wide streets of Teller with its ramshackle slatted wooden buildings was bittersweet; there was Ron James' store on the corner and the white wood church house that Simon had insisted they visit every Sunday morning when he'd donned his one and only suit and insisted she put her hair up in a red silk ribbon. And that must be where the townsfolk had gathered to say goodbye three days ago, while she was still crippled by grief and unable to get there any quicker.

"I came by this morning and fed the dogs, they'll need a run soon enough though." Jake warned her quietly as they finally pulled up outside Simon's house about ten miles outside of town. Her house now, Marceline realized. One day soon she'd need to ride over to the law firm in Nome and sign the paperwork but she wasn't ready to face that yet and nobody objected to her staying in the house she legally owned before her name was officially added to the deeds.

She nodded to show she'd heard Jake but she didn't reply; Marceline had already thought of that and she was more than willing to go for a run with the dogs. Jake helped her carry her bag to the porch and nodded towards the house.

"Stocked the fridge for you and filled the gas tank, you should be set for a week or so. The pickup keys are in the kitchen and I left a list of useful numbers by the phone. No cell signal out here. I didn't know how long you were planning on staying?" he added in a tone that didn't really hide how he was fishing for information. Marceline just shrugged, she had no idea yet. "Well if you need anything give me or Finn a holler, we'll be around. Or Ron or Daniel, any of the guys in town. Don't think there's any guests booked for the cabins till next season now so you'll be on your own out here unless you invite folk up. I'll let you get settled, get the dogs out to run before dark. Like I said, let us know if you need something. Probably Finn'll be around to check on you tomorrow or the day after anyways."

"Thanks, Jake. Say hi to Finn. I'll be here tomorrow, I'm not going anywhere. And, uh, thank you for the ride." Marceline replied a little awkwardly.

He tipped his hat to her and climbed back behind the wheel, leaving her to take her bags inside. The rumble of his engine had barely disappeared into the distance before a familiar whine came from the darkened lounge and a pale shaggy shape limped towards her. Marcy dropped to her knees on the worn wood floor, flung her arm around Schwabl's neck and gave in to the tears that had been burning her eyes for hours. Nobody was around to judge her for them anyway so she cried herself dry against her childhood pet's fur while he panted in her ear and nuzzled her anxiously.

…

Despite her exhaustion and the muscle fatigue from jogging through the woods that night, sleep was still eluding Marceline and eventually she rolled out of bed and wandered through to the small kitchen to heat a pot of water and make herself some tea. Simon had insisted she was too young for coffee even when she'd been fifteen; he'd approved of green tea because of its health benefits though. With his old fingerless gloves insulating her hands and Schwabs stretched out against her feet Marceline lowered herself down on the front step of the porch and allowed the comforting sounds of the forest at night to wrap around her like a blanket. The night was full of the whispering of crisp fall leaves stirred by the breeze and the tranquil call of the occasional owl somewhere off in the distance as it ghosted silently through the branches. For a while Marceline just stared at her threadbare socks and tried unsuccessfully not to feel or think at all. She was so tired but she couldn't rest. Her brain was running at a thousand miles an hour and the house was too quiet without Simon's snores, although Schwabl was definitely doing his best to make up for it.

The elderly dog was really getting on now, he was a cool fifteen years old and she thought sadly that this would probably be his last winter. But he'd had a good life and he had his mistress back; she'd stay at least long enough to make sure he went to his final goodnight in comfort and love. Maybe she'd stay longer. Simon had made a good life for himself in the Alaskan wilderness and her parents had grown up there. She was half Yupik, the north was in her blood and there had always been something about the ancient forests and impossibly vast open skies of Alaska that had called to her. And yet despite her connection with the land she still had a lot to learn about it, still had her first arctic winter to get through if she stayed that long. She was as clueless as a child, she thought despondently. Like a lost little orphan with no tribe or clan to teach her how she should move through the landscape.

Maybe it was the soul-deep exhaustion or the general lack of attention to her surroundings but it took Marceline a few minutes of listless staring into space before she noticed that there was a flickering light in the corner of her eye. For a split second she thought the tops of the trees had been set on fire somehow before she realized what she must be witnessing for the very first time in her life.

"I've never seen the Northern Lights before, Schwabs." she breathed, staring entranced at the wavering lines of green and blue radiance dancing off in the distance behind the treetops. "It was always too light on the nights here in the summer. But Mom told me when I was really little that her grandmother told her that the lights were the spirits of the dead dancing in the sky, all the great warriors and healers and medicine women of the tribes dancing and playing in the night to light the way to the heavens for the living. Do you think Simon's up there?"

Schwabl stirred up the dust a little with his tail and looked up at her with his soulful amber eyes like he was listening to her.

"I mean, I know he wasn't Yupik but he lived close to the land, he held nature in sacred respect and he was the gentlest man I ever met. I think if anyone deserves to spend their afterlife dancing in the sky then Uncle Simon does. I bet he's up there dancing with Mom. I wanna meet some other Yupik, find out more about their stories and culture. I just want to feel like I'm part of a wider family, I guess. Like a pack. I wanna find my pack. Does that make sense? I thought a dog might understand."

Schwabs half scrabbled to his feet and nuzzled into her legs; she held her old enamel mug in one hand and let the other find the blissful scratch spot behind the elderly dog's ear. From the expression on his fuzzy face he'd missed her every bit as much as she'd missed him. They sat out on the porch watching the Northern Lights dance for hours more, until the chill night finally made its way through the ancient knit sweater Marceline had draped around her shoulders. By the time she stumbled back into the house and up the staircase to the only bedroom she'd felt really safe in since she was seven years old it felt like she'd finally turned down the volume in her brain. Her thoughts still raced but they were disjointed and a little surreal; as she closed her eyes again and rested her head on her pillow they'd already begun to slide into the beginnings of dreams. Nowhere was as peaceful as the Alaskan wilderness, she thought sleepily. And Simon had spent his whole life there; if he had to pass away then at least it was with the fall breeze weaving through the trees and the companionship of his loyal dogs around him. There were much worse ways to die, really.

…

Morning brought Finn Mertens in his brand new Sheriff Department cruiser. He tipped his hat formally to her before letting a huge grin spread across his face and wrapping her up in a hug. That was just Finn's way though, he'd always been a hands-on sort of guy ever since they'd met as kids. Besides nobody could pull up a salmon like him or was as uniformly adored by every single one of the dogs almost every household kept. Finn was so much a part of the landscape that he'd barely needed to apply to become the Sheriff's deputy, it felt like he'd been born to the job.

"Real sorry about old man Simon, we were fishing buddies. I mean, not like, y'know, Brokeback Mountain kinda fishing buddies. Like, he showed me how to bait a hook when I was just a minnow myself." Finn added hurriedly. That brought a genuine smile to Marceline's face, her first in longer than she could remember.

"He spoke real highly of you too, man. Said you were more Alaskan that the bears in these parts. You know, he was real proud when you went off to cop college, said you were the right man for the job. He wrote and told me so."

Finn's chest puffed out with pride and he might have replied if Schwabl hadn't hobbled up to his side and started sniffling at his hands. But rubbing the old dog's ears was definitely at the top of his priority list and pretty quickly Finn's pants were covered in a layer of wiry white fur.

"Aw who's a good old guy, huh? How's my special guy doing? You jealous you're not gonna be in the Teller Hundred? I bet Marce'll bring you to the finish line though, watch the runners come through." he told Schwabs while the old dog drooled and made happy huffing noises.

"The Teller Hundred?" Marcy prompted curiously.

"Oh, yeah. Sometimes I forget you've only been here through the summers before. Every midwinter they have a two-day hundred mile sled sprint that starts and ends on Main Street in The Big Town. It's just a local race, nothing special. But Simon always brought Schwabs down to see the runners come through, little guy always looked like he wanted to join in. But I guess you'll be gone come midwinter?" Finn replied carefully. Marceline sighed; he was no more subtle than his half brother Jake.

"I dunno. I really don't. I've not got a whole lot waiting for me back in Cali anyway, no real job yet and no significant other. I read to the old folks at the retirement villas sometimes but it's a volunteer thing, I don't get paid for it, but I wait tables when they need me in the local diner. I'd rather be as far away from my father as humanly possible." she sighed.

Finn nodded; everyone in the area knew about Hunson Abadeer and his high school graduation day elopement with her mother. They'd quietly taken themselves off to the courthouse in Nome after graduation to sign the marriage license and then escaped south via his masterplan of joining up with the Navy before her parents could break his eighteen year old legs when they discovered their daughter was secretly married and accidentally pregnant. Hunson Abadeer was the cautionary tale fathers told their sons when they gave them the Talk, his fate was the reason you always used condoms and took precautions. Marceline had been born in the middle of one of the hottest summers on record right down on the Gulf of Mexico, probably about as far from her grandparents as possible without leaving the country completely. She'd never even met them; they'd passed away when she was very small and Hunson had never allowed his wife to visit family in Alaska. She hadn't even been allowed to attend her mother's funeral.

"Well if you're around I'll be racing, might be cool if you wanted to wait and cheer for me at the finishing line. Maybe grab a beer or two afterwards?" Finn asked with a charming smile. Marceline's eyes narrowed a little; the blonde man had a reputation as something of a local Casanova.

"Beers I can do. Anything else is off the table. No offence, man. You're just not my type." Marcy replied, shaking her head. Fending off Finn's artless advances was almost more than she felt equal to and to his credit the man just shrugged, still smiling guilelessly.

"Can't blame a guy for trying. But if beers are something you're down for then Jake and I are cracking open a couple six packs at his place tonight, you're more than welcome to come along. We'll make sure the guys go easy on you since you're a girl and all."

"I'll drink every man of you under the table, Mertens. See you out on Main Street about seven?" she replied with a smile.

"Seven on Main. It's a date."

"Not in a thousand years. But I'll be there. And if you try to make kissy faces at me I will punch you, understand?"

"Threatening assault on a cop, I could arrest you."

"You could try?"

He laughed, hugged her again, petted Schwabl one last time and climbed back behind the wheel of his cruiser. Marcy watched him out of sight before she went around to the kennels to let the huskies out for another run. She was deep in the woods, sprinting all out with ten excited dogs leaping around her when the telephone in the house rang so she had no idea she was expecting company any time soon.