Oh ho ho. What have we here? ANOTHER BORING CHAPTER. Don't worry, this one's much shorter than the last. :[

Dancing to Nepal,

Kelsey/Ken

CHAPTER 7: PAST REVISITED

"You might take a seat."

The professor sat himself heavily across from his quarry. His unexpected quarry. "I might."

Laura smiled. "You can order something if you wish."

"I'll be fine. Let's cut to the chase."

"Oh, business-like as usual. That's a useful trait. In business anyway. Or in matter-of-fact situations." She folded her hands and leaned her elbows on the table, peering over her fingers with bored eyes. "Cut to the chase, indeed."

Layton shifted himself, trying to find a comfortable position in the outdoor metal chair. "You do realize this is somewhat off-putting, or perhaps it's more correct to say alarming, upsetting—"

"Disconcerting?"

"Yes, quite—it is all those, to see someone who had disappeared 10 years prior. Someone I haven't seen in 10 years manifests right before my eyes. It's like…dark magic. Or a sick joke. A trick."

Laura finished her glass of milk, then wiped her mouth with a small napkin. "It is no trick, I assure you. The past 10 years are no trick. No lie. Although, they could have been, had I been able to convince myself of that. It's a right shame I couldn't. But really, did you think I'd died or something?"

"Laurie, please, is this really necessary?"

The girl shot him a glacial look, icy enough to freeze any previous trains of thought and prevent them from speeding onward. "Laurie? Really? Ten years go by and you have the audacity to call me Laurie? Did you really have the right to do so back then?"

"I—"

"No excuses, no apologies. Just don't call me that again. No one calls me that anymore, and no one ever will." Instantly, her anger waned, curt tone subsiding, as if she'd been speaking in the same monotone voice the entire time. "And to answer your question, yes. It is definitely necessary. Before I answer why I led you here—yes, I knew you were getting to that—you need to know some things."

Layton sighed. "I guess there's no escaping. I will say I'm sorry, not for calling you what I feel the need to call you, but for trying to take the least painful route and ignore your…your…grievances, I suppose. I'm sure you have something to say, for the way you were treated. And you have every right to." He rested an elbow on the table's glass top, rubbing his forehead slowly with his thumb and index finger. "It's just….I'll be honest. It hurts."

The girl raised her gaze back to the professor. "What hurts?"

"All this, everything. Feelings, thoughts, events, a plethora of things that I had locked away. Things I thought had disappeared for good. And now, ten years of struggling rushes back to the forefront within a second's time. Physically, it'd be like 10 litres of water being forced through a pinhole, in an instant."

Laura nodded approvingly. "Good analogy. Here's another one: it's more like being lied to, screwed over, told by your own reflection that it didn't happen, and then being called Laurie. Oh, wait. That's reality, not an analogy." She chuckled to herself, despite the apparent fact that her company did not enjoy it as much as she did.

"You know, you weren't the only one affected." He gave her a stern look through his fingers, still rubbing his head.

"Perhaps not, I'll give you some credit. But, I was the only one ruined. Perhaps you should enjoy some tea. You might need it for our little chat. This might take a while, do you have the time? Or do you have rocks to analyze? And by rocks, I mean rocks. Not those dunderheads at the university." She smiled, almost craftily, like a cat.

The professor flagged down a waitress and solemnly placed an order for Earl Gray, silently hoping that Luke was fine on his own for a bit.