The Apartment Above Luke's, Saturday

[spin_kick_snap]

After a big day outside - playgrounds! puppies! snow! - Katherine had come back to the place where she'd woken up and had promptly fallen asleep, all tuckered out by her adventures. Now she was awake again and hungry. The only cereal in the house was a sugar cereal, which she wasn't supposed to have and she wasn't allowed to use the stove without adult supervision.

But there didn't seem to be an adult in the whole house! Just her. That was funny. Who had a house with nobody in it?

She took a shower in the pretty bathroom and got dressed, figuring maybe she could find somewhere to eat. And another funny thing - she found a twenty dollar bill tucked away in the exact place she hid money back home: hidden in a pencil box in the top drawer of the desk. She painstakingly wrote out an IOU and put it there, and then sat down to plan her day.

First, breakfast. Then...puppies again, maybe?

[Open! Dante's thread chronologically last]

Comments

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy shook her head. "Nossir," she said. "I didn't break anything, either. I've been very careful, since there aren't any grownups around to keep an eye on me."

Her stomach grumbled, reminding her that no adults meant no breakfast either.

[vdistinctive]

"No grown-ups at all?" Eliot asked, being sure to look concerned but not overly so -- he didn't want her thinking she was in trouble, but she wouldn't buy it if he was a grown up who wasn't worried about an unsupervised child in one of his buildings. "But there's all sorts of things only grown ups are supposed to do."

Like make sure kids get fed. However this worked out, he'd be making sure she got a kimchi omelette. Preferably they'd have breakfast together, but he'd be just fine leaving it for her at the door and going away, if she didn't feel safe.

[spin_kick_snap]

Katherine nodded. "You're the first grownup I've seen," she said, stomach grumbling louder. "I was gonna go see if I could get breakfast somewhere."

There were shops! She had seen them. Which meant that there was someone around who knew how to work a stove.

[vdistinctive]

"Well now. I can definitely do breakfast, if you want," Eliot said. "We can go on down to the diner, and set you up with anything you want. Or if you'd rather stay up here, I can bring something up for you."

He wasn't going to jump straight to "let me come in and cook in here". He'd spent far too much of his life as the Bad Man to want any small child to trust him that much after just meeting him.

[spin_kick_snap]

Katherine thought about it. Eating downstairs meant that she didn't have to do the dishes, right? She hated doing the dishes.

Besides, it was lonely up here all by herself. She wasn't used to having nobody around.

"Downstairs?" she asked, like she needed to make sure it was still okay. "If it wouldn't be too much trouble."

[vdistinctive]

"Now why would I offer if it was going to be too much trouble?" Eliot asked, and offered her his hand. "C'mon. We got some nice kimchi I'm guessin' you're going to love."

[spin_kick_snap]

Katherine looked up at him, a smile getting surprised out of her. "Kimchi?" she asked. "You have kimchi?"

She wasn't sure if anyone here on the island knew about it. She hadn't run into any other Korean kids here and there wasn't any in the fridge.

(Because Kathy had finished the last of hers on Thursday, but this tiny version didn't know that.)

[vdistinctive]

"Sure do," Eliot said. "I might be white, but my daughter's as Korean as they come. I think she'd probably disown me if I didn't have at least some on hand. You know, for emergencies."

[spin_kick_snap]

"She is?" Katherine's eyes were wide. "Did you adopt her from Korea?"

[vdistinctive]

"She grew up in LA, actually," Eliot said. "But we met here on the island."

[spin_kick_snap]

"That's where I live!" Katherine said, smiling a tiny bit more. "In Koreatown! With my mommy and daddy and my baby sister."

[vdistinctive]

"Oh yeah?" Eliot asked. "Is it nice there?"

[spin_kick_snap]

Katherine seesawed her hand. "There are lotsa gangs and sometimes Mommy and Daddy talk about moving, but our building is very nice. Sometimes it's rough being the only kids, though, cause we always gotta be quiet and not disturb the peace."

[vdistinctive]

"Nah, see, I think kids should be allowed to be loud, sometimes," Eliot said, shaking his head. "And your neighbors should just deal with it."

He was such a good role model.

[spin_kick_snap]

"But children should be seen and not heard," Katherine pointed out.

[vdistinctive]

"Oh yeah?" Eliot asked. "And why's that?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"Ummm..." Katherine was stymied. It was just the thing that had always been said. "Because..."

[vdistinctive]

Eliot waited patiently, eyebrows raised, and held the door to the diner open for her.

[spin_kick_snap]

Katherine wandered in, heading towards the counter and pulling herself up onto stools nearly as tall as she was.

"Umm...because grownups are tired a lot?" she finally suggested. "And they always have headaches. So we should be quiet so they can get some rest."

[vdistinctive]

"I can see where that might be true sometimes," Eliot said. "But if they always have a headache, that sounds like more of a problem for a doctor to fix than a kid."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I'm gonna be a doctor!" Katherine said, bouncing to that new topic in the way of small children. "And I'm gonna save hundreds of people."

[vdistinctive]

Oh honey.

"Yeah?" Eliot said, years of experience masking allowing him to sound casually interested even while inside he wanted to just gather her up in a big hug and never let go. "I bet you'll be a really good one, too."

[spin_kick_snap]

Katherine nodded. "Once my little sister fell down cause she's not good at walking yet and I helped her up and kissed her knee and put anti- ante- antipepstic goo on it and gave her a band-aid."

So, clearly, she was about five steps away from neurosurgery already.

[vdistinctive]

"Wow." Eliot nodded, actually impressed. Most kids wouldn't think of antiseptics, after all. "All by yourself?"

[spin_kick_snap]

Katherine nodded, smiling with shy pride. "I'm her big sister, so it's my job to take care of her," she said. "And keep her safe. Be a role-model."