Sitting in a launderette with an asgardian dressed as Robin Hood, that was also your long lost and much better looking grandfather, was truly a bizarre situation to be left in. They were waiting for the clothes to finish a wash cycle, Kari tapping out a rhythm on the plastic chair below her and trying her best not to keep making eye contact with Fandral. After several minutes had past, he started to clear his throat in a very attention seeking sort of way and she realized she couldn't put off the impending bonding about to transpire.
"You mentioned before you know not of your father?"
"Nope." Kari visibly shrank, head delving as far into her neck and shoulders as possible.
"And your mother?"
"Do we-" she paused, not wanting to dredge up the past but also realizing her mother was his daughter after all. "She died in a car crash when I was six. She used to work as a nurse here in London at one of the hospitals."
"Ah, a healer." Fandral seemed somewhat pleased with himself. "And yourself?"
"I'm a waitress. I take peoples orders and smile big until they leave happy with their meal."
"Ah, a serving wenc- girl." The disappointment in his tone wasn't quite as well concealed as he probably thought it was.
"Is that it?" Kari frowned, annoyed that was all he was going to ask and his blank expression didn't help matters either. "You know, nobody ever came to claim me when my mother died. I had a really shitty time getting pushed through the foster care system and you don't want to know what kind of sick fucks are infesting that. Then low and behold I find out that YOU exist all this time later and all you have to say is "Ah, a serving wench?""
"Where are you going?" He stood, his words pausing her hand on the door handle.
"I'm going to work to tell my boss that some guy that fucked my grandmother is taking me away so I won't be able to cover my shifts." She responded darkly.
"Come back before this," he pointed at the washing-machine, "finishes."
"Whatever." Kari was out the door and unable to slam it due to the fire-safety features, which meant she had to kick a can on the pavement instead.
This was all too much, to many things happening at once. She was happy with her heading-nowhere-fast life and now they were taking it all away and handing her a shiny new one. Well, she didn't need Christmas presents so late in life, they would have been better received when she was a little girl and actually needed them. And what was Fandral's problem? Why was he being so calm and just taking it? He should shout back or something. No, that was just her being stupid as usual, blowing up at a guy that was probably just as shocked as she was to find out about her.
"Kari?"
"Hey boss." She walked into the restaurant office, awkward, apologetic grin and all. "I know I was supposed to come in yesterday and… today but something's kind of sort of come up."
"You look a little worse for wear." He was standing now, his eyes running up and down her creased and messy appearance.
"Yeah I… look the thing is. I have this grandpa guy that just sort of turned up out of the blue from uh, china, and… I have to- I want to go back with him and… he's…"
"Family, I get it." He nodded solemnly, though also calculating ways to alter the waitressess shifts to fill the gap. "When are you leaving exactly?"
"Tonight."
"Well, that's a bit short noticed."
"I know, look, I'm really sorry you can keep my wages for the week to make up for it yeah?"
"Don't be silly."
"No, really I don't need it."
"This grandfather of yours must be rich."
"Uh, sort of." She shrugged, how exactly do you explain asgard and alien palaces without getting a trip to the mental ward?
"We're gonna miss you." He nodded, not sure what else to really say.
"Could you tell the others?"
"Sure."
"I uh…" Kari stood there, looking at her feet then looking at him looking at his feet until she grabbed the end, of all this, like a thread slipping between her fingers and reeled it in.
Her fingers grasped the top of his shirt yanking him forward until he half fell against her - their lips mashed in a surprised kiss. She'd wanted to do that ever since she started working for him but he was her boss and that kind of relationship always got messy. Who knew quitting would be such a fun thing to do.
As they parted, each panting for air, he blinked at her in a hazed confusion before his eyes flickered towards the open door. He needed to remedy that quickly, and lock it for good measure.
As Kari returned to the launderette, a new bag in hand and increasingly untidy hair and clothing, she frowned at Fandral's back with some added disdain. She had actually planned to apologies and try to make it up to him when she got back but that was all ruined now. The blond in question was giggling with a woman about her age, the aura of flirtation around the pair reeking with pheromones and detergent.
"Hey granddad." Kari smirked as the man in question turned surprised to see her.
"Granddad?" The woman of his affections repeated Kari's words and gave a questioning look between the two kin - obviously thinking it was some sort of joke. "You don't look old enough to be her grandfather."
"You are too kind, my lady." Fandral bowed leaving a tender kiss on the back of the woman's hand. "But it is as she calls me."
"What? I-"
"He's older than he looks." Kari came closer to the pair and turned her head to show her profile. "See, I have his nose."
"That's very nice." The woman was increasingly confused, looking between the pair several times until finally stepping away to claim her finished laundry. "Well it was nice to meet you, Fandral."
"And you, my lady." He smiled after the hurriedly retreating woman.
"I don't need aunts and uncles to deal with too right now." Kari rolled her eyes at her laughing grandfather. "Besides, she was about my age! Do you have no boundaries?"
"I promise you, my dear, I had no intentions of courting that woman." He pointed towards the drier, now filled with her clothes. "She was helping me to work this machine in your absence. You took a rather long time." He eyed her critically now, noting the increasing disheveledness of her being and the bag in her hand. "What is this?"
"It's… a solar charger for my iPod." She sighed, he giving her a blank look. "So I can listen to music stored on a machine without having to worry about it running out of magical power stuff."
"You mean electricity." He nodded. "I have been to this world many times before."
"Oh." She was somewhat surprised and worried – he probably had other grandchildren running around earth unknown and along with them removing that feeling of being 'special' to someone for the first time in years. "Well, thanks for sorting out the clothes."
Along came that awkward silence again as they both watched the timer on the drier tick down, both relieved when they could finally remove the items and take them back to the house. Then of course came the ordeal of having to choose which items to take and which to discard. There was definitely no point in taking anything more than the iPod in the electronics department – she couldn't imagine asgard having internet. Some casual clothes, some work clothes – for whatever job she could find around a land of gods – and two or three or ten party outfits. No wait, two party outfits, she needed room for shoes in the increasingly full suitcase.
Working her way through draws and cupboards now, picking up a few random things of use, she came across an old envelope filled with photos long since seen the light of day. Kari scowled, at the yellowing paper, then sighed as she started to thumb through the pictures within. Before she could come to a conclusion about this particular dilemma there was a sudden expression of hissing fury and smashing.
Tossing the envelop onto the bed, Kari took the stairs two at a time as she skidded into the hallway and jumped a selection of obstacles into the kitchen. Fandral was backed up against the wall nursing a bleeding arm as a tabby cat – hairs all along his body and tail puffed up – growled with determination at him.
"It scratched me!" Fandral sounded more impressed than upset as he looked up at her in the doorway.
"Are you alright?"
"Yes I-" He paused realizing she wasn't speaking to him but the cat now purring happily in her worried arms. "You know this beast?"
"He's my husband." Kari started making kissy noises at her big soppy fluff ball. "Or at least the only man that will ever put up with me. This is Griffin, my cat."
"I see." He nodded his approval of the creature.
"Hey, do me a favour, I need to get him into a b. a. s. k. e. t. quickly before he knows what's going on."
"A bas-"
"Shhh, he knows English."
"Just not how to spell?"
"Exactly." Kari nodded as if this was completely plausible and made her way into the living room with a casual head-flick towards a pet carrier on top of a fireplace.
Making sure Griffin was in no way facing the basket - and completely at her whim in under-chin-scratching-bliss – she soothed the purring feline with cooing sounds as Fandral readied the trap. It was one of those swift motion things where Fandral – being a novice to the procedure – fared rather better than expected. Door was opened, Kari turned grabbing the scruff of the cat's neck and before he'd even realized what was happening, Griffin was hissing at the back of the carrier with no escape. Fandral held on tight as the basket flung in every direction at the felines displeasure, claws reaching out of the ventilation holes at random timings until finally things settled down to a low wailing sound of self-pity within.
"Odin's beard!" Fandral exclaimed as he was finally able to place the carrier down on the sofa.
"And that's why I call him Griffin." Kari chuckled as she headed back upstairs. "I'm about ready to go, but, uh, there's something maybe you'd like upstairs."
"Me?"
He followed her up into the bedroom, unsure what she could possibly have that he'd require. She was sitting on the bed when he came in, trying to force her suitcase shut though over stuffed.
"It's just there, on the bed." She nodded towards a yellow package now climbing on top of the suitcase to try a new tactic of shutting.
Following her direction he picked up the object, taking a seat on the bed as he looked through the inner-contents. It was a series of small paintings- no photo's. He didn't recognize the people within them, not at first anyway, until he came upon a picture of a proud looking, curly haired woman standing by a tree. Francesca, he outwardly smiled, mimicking the woman in the photo then continued through the collection.
"Mostly mother, a few of grandma and the ugly looking baby," Kari leaned in closer, having shut her case, and pointed out a wrinkly looking bald infant being held up to the camera, "was me. Bald was not a good look."
"You look charming." He laughed at her cringing expression. "May I keep a few of these?"
"You can keep them all, I never look at them anyway."
"Thank you." He pocketed the stash somewhere inside his tunic and stood to admire her suitcase shutting handiwork. "Can you carry that?"
"Sure I can." She tried to lift the case and almost gave herself a hernia. "Gods, why is it so heavy I have hardly anything in it? Give me a second, I'll meet you outside."
"Do not dawdle, we need to be back at the transport point in less than an hour."
"So no pressure then…" She sighed, reopening the so hard to close case. What more of her life could she cast away?