Goodnight big moon
Sweet dreams, baby
If I could have one wish tonight
It would be that you'll always keep
Keep the starlight in your eyes

- Michelle Branch

Fall Semester, Week 4 - Week 5

Previously:

"Someone who says he's your brother is here to see you."

"Please inform my brother that speeding tickets are handled in city court and that I'm a criminal prosecutor."

"I could tell him you're in a meeting."

"Or you could just tell me yourself," a voice supplied helpfully behind her.

"Marvie?" Gloss asked.

"Hi," Marvel grinned, greeting him with a cheerful wave. "Long time, no see."

Week 4

"FYI," Marvel tells Marissa in a wry, pesky tone, "Name's Marvel, and I don't just say I'm his brother. I am his brother. Can't you see the resemblance?" He pans his face closer to Gloss.

Someone has got to tell him this isn't cute, anymore, Gloss thinks.

"But I'll forgive anything for a pretty face," Marvel smiles cheekily.

Marissa does not speak, but her body language is clear. There is a succinct moment where she folds her arms, still keeping Marvel behind her as if to protect Gloss from him, and then she delivers him an emboldened look, daring him to continue this circus act.

Tension thickens and then Marissa says softly, "Yeah, Mr. Weller, I can tell him you're in a meeting."

Marvel's jaw drops slightly at the sharpness in her tone. "Hey, I'm still here!"

Gloss violently yanks Marvel behind him, metaphorically sweeping him under the rug with a shove towards his desk. He edges himself towards Marissa and the office door, "There are a couple reports at the station. Grab em, and make sure to tell Officer 64791 that he owes me a phone call for the stunt he pulled with his intern last week."

He has faith Marissa will translate that into something more diligent and politically correct, as he is indisposed with the twenty-year-old lech in his office.

Marissa fumbles with a gel pen from the buttoned-up pocket of her mint cardigan, hastily writing the numbers onto palm of her hand. "No problem," she says, underlining the badge number with a heavy press of the point to her skin.

"Don't forget to make the paralegals copies." He looks back at the door and says urgently, "I gotta deal with this. Touch base when you get back."

He hopes that is apologetic enough. He's not quite good at this yet.

The audible sigh he gives Marvel is deliberate and unamused as he drags the door behind him to allow for some privacy, but Marvel smiles anyway, "You could look happy to see me. I brought you breakfast!"

Gloss accepts the gourmet breakfast sandwich from the corner health market, unwrapping the saran slung around it, and sighing at the $8.42 price sticker, "You really should make better use of your money."

"I thought Cashmere was the economist."

Gloss pretends he doesn't hear that and forces Marvel into the seat diagonal his disk with a heavy, firm hand, then plops on top of his desk, and looks down on the kid. "You weren't exactly who I was expecting."

But Marvel is 100% better than the alternative.

"I don't really have time for this today," he adds.

"Not even for your little brother?"

"Unless you want to prepare closing arguments for me, and no, before you ask, that was not an offer."

A wounded look flickers across Marvel's face for only a second, before it reshapes into one of diplomacy. "I have a proposition," he starts. It's clear he's rehearsed this scene many times, likely playing with varying scenarios in his mind to figure out which will work - always the consummate professional.

Gloss hates the pitiable expression affixed to Marvel's face, "If Cato put you up to this, you can assure him that I have nothing to say until he owns up to what he said and stops being a self-serving snake with no regard for others."

Cashmere once commented that it's as if every family interaction is straight off Maury's Greatest Hits.

"Actually, I came to talk about mom, but I'll make sure to keep all of that in mind for my next therapy appointment, G."

"You're spending too much time with Cato."

Gloss leans his arms forward on the desk, slouching, and with a morbid curiosity as he asks, "You spent $75 on a train ticket just to talk about mom? What for?"

"84, counting the sandwich, and by the way, normal families are usually happy to spend time together."

"Is this monologue going to take a pitch stop at its point?"

Marvel reaches into his bag and removes a black, leather-bound notebook. "Mom left DC and crossed over the bridge to your neck of the woods, and she got her thirty day chip!"

"And how do you know that?"

"You're smart. Figure it out."

Yeah, definitely spending too much time with Cato.

"So, I'm thinking, we should round up and go see her. It's the right thing to do."

And Gloss' face all but says 'no' on it's own, "Mom doesn't exactly have a great record. Putting pressure on her might make things worse, not better. Chances are she ain't gonna make it, anyways. I don't wanna waste my time. I'll never get it back."

"She's not a showhorse, Gloss. We aren't taking bets, and if we were, you wouldn't be my first choice either," Marvel says, coldly.

Here's the thing, Jack was no picnic when throwing a tantrum, pushing him into walls, brandishing his own form of "discipline," but the circumstances were always considerably worse in increments of silence. A tell-tale sign of foreseen decimation was a firm silence holding them hostage before he'd quietly, and callously announce his every worst intention.

The cold hostility is visible in Marvel's every intention, every gesture, and it unsettles him.

"Oh, Jack, nice to see you. When did they let you outta prison?" Gloss asks, breezily.

"That was a cheap shot, you dick," Marvel grumbles, his irises suddenly wide.

"Call it like I see it."

It's a sore spot, but at least the kid has enough humanity to be offended by the comparison. Lots of people he deals with day to day aren't. They take austere pride in their arrogance and disregard for others.

"I was just thinking the other day that when I have a bad day that I have my brothers, a sister, my friends, Al-Anon. Mom, she doesn't have anyone. How fucking sad is that - to be all alone?"

"Ever think that that's her fault?" Gloss asks, derisively.

Marvel gives him a pointed look. "The only commitment I need from you is a ten minute commute and two hours for lunch."

"You bringing her to us, then?" Gloss asks, the conversation taking a dull turn already. He needs a vacation, a drink, to get laid, to not work exclusively with chatty paralegals and three college kids.

"She's here, down at um, uh, what's the name of the women's shelter here? I got it written down somewhere."

"How'd she even get here?" Gloss asks himself, and really, it's two parts 'is she okay?' and one part 'how will this affect my reputation?', settling on "How long?"

Marvel makes a mental tally, counting on his fingers. "Two weeks, maybe three."

Gloss takes another bite of Marvel's sandwich, scruffs the kid's hair, "How'd she even get in? They prioritize residents of the county. You mean to tell me she's been out here long enough to become a resident of Albermarle and she never even called us?"

"Come on, G," Marvel chides, "Mom is a professional shelter hopper. She has a half dozen social workers in every corner of DC in her back pocket."

"You remember when Cash and I were in high school, and we told you secrets don't make friends? This is one of those times, Marv." He jumps off the desk, "I will go see mom, but only once she earns her two month chip, and you gotta stop playing these games."

Marvel's smile is precious, "Deal," he says, with every pearly white, and a firm grasp of Gloss' left hand. Sometimes, the kid is a little endearing, and he can't lie - the possibility mom is better, well... he's waited a long time.

"And Marv?"

"'Mm, G?"

"This is not OkCupid. Don't ever sexually harass any of the interns again or I will have your ass banned."

Marvel cracks a smile, "Got it."

Week Five:

Forest Hills Park is the closest park to campus, dressed in rolling slopes and lofty green hills. In the summer, families bring their children to enamor themselves in the misty splash pads that normally make the park a hot commodity. September is considerably less busy.

Cato's life hasn't necessarily been the Disney-happily-ever-after Clove had pictured it to be… maybe not even the Comedy Central special she'd toyed with tongue-in-cheek.

He's all the cliches of a broken home she can count: quick to anger, hasty, poor relationships with his family, basically anything that would land him on an episode Nightline. The more she watches him the more she gets a sense that he's more show than sincere.

What's the real Cato like? Is he kind, is he fierce, is he someone else?

Still, she can't debate his taste. First Java-Java and now Forest Hills? He's got a sense for the great outdoors and it's a point they share in common, you know, aside from sharing the same therapist.

How does she compete with the kid with not-actually-his-daddy issues? She's in therapy for boundary issues and he's gotta be in the hole for a laundry list of items. It's like going to therapy for a hang nail and the next guy's missing a limb. Perspective can be ugly.

"I'll guess I'm up first," she says, laying into the pillow. This is the time of year, Clove thinks to herself, to unwind and bask in the ever-waning sun.

Cato is slightly whimsical, "There is a three month gap between spring and fall for a reason."

Clove turns, lazily prying her sunglasses, "Yeap, so UVA can raise tuition during the intermission, up my interest rate, and justify it by saying my education isn't compulsory. Easy to say when they live in 14-bedroom mansions out in the country."

"At least we both have a full head of hair," Cato says. As Cato ruffles through his bag, he inches himself against a white oak, and rests.

Clutching dialogue prompts into his left hand, he scans the sheet for inspiration. For this week, ages seven and eight, the questions are practical - tell me about your best friend, did you ever play an instrument, what hobbies do you enjoy?

"Did'ya ever play team sports?" he settles on.

Clove tries to hide her mischievous smile as she answers but it breaks free. "When Lovingston decided to stop pretending it was still 1823 and immerse itself into the new millennium, there was a dodgeball league. By the time I was in fifth grade, though, the old farts disbanded it. Nothing cool ever stays in Lovingston."

His chicken scratch scrawl draws her attention to the timeline he's created in the last few sessions, beginning with her sister's birthday in 1990, and then singular markers for each year of her life.

It's still early in the life stage interviews, so most of his data for her is dry. At age two, he's annotated 'multiple hospital stays due to chronic ear infections,' by age four, his timeline reads 'left military base/moved to Lovingston, VA, and last week's visit revealed her first visit to the university, age six.

"Mmm," he hums, looking for another talking point. "How about this one… tell me about your childhood vacations."

"I think my family can actually compete with the dysfunction on this one.'

"You don't want it to," Cato chortles, "but let's hear it."

"Get this, so we drove down to Raleigh one year and on the way there my dad and I kept fighting. It got so bad that he pulled over on the side of the road and basically gave me the ultimatum to 'shut up or get out.' My mom had a thing or two to say about that. By the time we got to the next rest stop Annie was crying hysterically, so this lady at the restaurant calls the cops and tells them she thinks we've been kidnapped and that we looked like kids on America's Most Wanted."

"No," Cato says, eyes wider.

"Absolutely. So Highway Patrol gets there and we're eating breakfast. I'm in my puffy coat and Ann is bundled up scarves and right as I'm about get my dad reamed by this guy, he notices my father's tacky Marines bumper sticker and strikes up a conversation on his days as a lead armor recon."

Clove grimaces, "Annie runs off to the restroom while I was angrily stabbing at my bacon and eggs . Mom had my Game Boy in the pocket of her peacoat and was on her third or fourth cup of coffee. And we're all waiting for dad to up and adopt this guy because apparently he's made a new best friend at the rest stop and it's been ten minutes and they're still gabbing, so I take some of my allowance to the register so I can play one of those claw games when I see Annie sitting in the front seat of some old lady's car holding a bag of candy from the vending machine."

"What did the woman want?"

"So here's where it gets interesting. I try to wave to Annie and see what she's doing in the lady's car, because we weren't allowed to have candy and if she got to sneak some I wanted to, too. And Annie just freezes up and refuses to look at me, so I dart back to my parent's table and complain in this haughty tone, 'Why does Annie get gummy bears from the old lady but I don't?'"

Clove looks wry, "Highway patrol guy looks just about to say something like 'candy isn't good for you kids,' when dad does a scan of the restaurant and realizes the bathroom and claw game on opposite sides, then he figures out that Annie's not anywhere to be found. Mom pipes up, 'Clove, where is your sister?' and I crinkle my nose and whine, 'I already told ya! She's with the old lady with the gummy bears.' and that's right around when my dad's eyes bug out before he sees Annie about to cry as smoke billows from the back of the old lady's exhaust. The old lady, he finds, is next door at the convenience store and comes out with two bags of candy and a coloring book and by the time our friend at highway patrol has caught up, he's got old lady on one side and has back up holding dad back on the other and the old lady is cawing to let her go, and mom has Annie against her chest, and all I could wonder is what life would have been like, being raised by the person who took you away."

"You'd be locked in a basement with steel walls and a bucket," Cato says instantaneously.

"And they spend the afternoon filling out paperwork before they take us to the next big city, Hillsborough, to get my sister checked and the doc starts all these questions. All these things and when we get home, Annie says her brain is broken and that's why she's scared all the time. They diagnosed her with GAD, and then she sees even more docs and things change. So, yeah, we don't do family vacations. No Disneyland for us - not with Annie's massive separation anxiety."

Clove doesn't know what to expect, just that he's… "you're not taking notes."

Cato is taken off-guard. "You just told me your sister was almost kidnapped. I was expecting more along the lines of misplace stuffed animals." He picks up his pen, "but where should I pen this in on the Clove Holloway timeline of spilled milk and mosquito bites?"

"Third grade," she replies, point-blank.

It's difficult not to feel irrational, like the overly angsty lead in a John Green novel. He's right. She didn't have much of a heavy-handed childhood, but there are the facets of normalcy she lost out on – travel, extended family (she has two cousins, an uncle, and really, really dead grandparents), recognition of achievement (as if achievement is an expectation).

"How's it going at Fab's?"

Nice save, she thinks.

"Well, Mr. Flickerman has decided to install an improved security system, when what he should have done is hired a professional. Oh, and he also made sure human resources took me aside to make sure that I'm 'okay,' before asking me to reread the company's policy on robberies and attempted robberies, which is, and I quote, 'In the situation of an armed robbery, do exactly what robber demands as quickly as possible. Compliance improves employee safety.'"

"Can't fault them for not wanting people to die, but it's still a pretty fucked up hand to pull."

"Mr. Flickerman willfully ignored the part where Willie T. Robber explicitly mentioned wanting to know where he was. Ty says he used to work there back when he was waiting tables."

"Finnick was reamed by the department for letting me tag along. They give him a grand ol' speech on liability."

"Anyone's a liability to that bleeding heart."

"I never figured you two grew closer after 315. His heart's three sizes too big and you're like the piranha that devours men whole."

Clove gnashes on her straw, "He was president when I was coordinating social committee, and-"

You promised not to tell, her subconscious reigns. You keep their secret, he keeps yours.

Placidly, she reframes, "he's pretty good at putting things into perspective."

It's not a lie. It's not what she was going to say, but it's not a lie. "Yeah," Cato agrees, "Finnick's the stars and sun. If redheads are your type."

Clove fires back her rebuttal carelessly, beaming slightly, "He's more like a walking, talking Smokey the Bear."

"Smokey the Bear walks and talks," Cato says, while Clove imitates Finnick… or Smokey the Bear. He can't tell, because she's very involved as she teases, "'Oh, Clove, only you can prevent forest fires.' 'Oh, Clove, only you can prevent the AIDS epidemic.' 'Oh, Clove, only you can prevent high blood pressure.'"

Children run past, one jumping onto a purple springrider, while a-bored-out-of-her-mind teenage girl plays ring leader for a game of Mother, May I.

"Now that we've gotten my kooky adventure out of the way, I do say it's back to the immensely thrilling saga of Cato Elroy, a boy hopeless, awkward, and desperate for love."

"Lucky you intern down at probation," he says slowly, thoughtfully, "because something tells me you'd be a mess with victims."

What Clove has realized about Cato in the last few weeks is that he's essentially harmless, but has a particular knack for playing dirty. He's the type - the sorta person she loathes - to examine your weaknesses and expose them while maintaining an air of distance, so while his comment is off-key at worst, it's one he likely knows will unsettle her.

Cato isn't necessarily wrong. Clove doesn't have a particular mindset for victims, for their needs, to be frank. "It's like you said, I'm up in probation. We're official bad-guy babysitters. Vics' are the prosecutor's problem, not mine. This is stalling - hop to it."

He groans, "So, here's how we should do this. I tell you all about this Thursday and then we all get shit-faced at my place Friday. Bring Volpe, Kat too, and let's just forget that we ever had to take a class this fucked up."

"Sounds messy."

"Parties usually are."

"No, what happened to you," Clove says, carefully.

Cato grins weakly, "Way more than messy."

For all intents and purposes of storytelling portion of section of this wack-a-doo assignment, she's glad he's not nearly as dull as she imagined, but Clove can't for a minute pretend she's happy that he feels the need to get really, really wasted to handle what's coming next. It's unnerving.

Parties aren't really her thing.

At least not for the last few years, but Gale did make her promise this would be the best year of her life...

AN: You know there's fic in another fandom that I've loved for the last three or four years and I follow the author on tumblr. About six months back, I asked her if she ever planned on updating and she said works on it all the time, and yet, there have been no updates. I was thinking about asking her last night, before realizing how hypocritical that is, whoops...