The Luckiest Girl In The World

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]

The lack of private function space was perfectly solved by the empty apartment above the diner. Kathy had spent the afternoon cleaning and setting up for dinner tonight. Her anniversary dinner, if you would.

A year ago today, she'd woken up in Eliot's house, surrounded by tight, worried faces. Her friends, pretty much en masse, had gone through a portal to LA and fought through hordes of exes to bring her home, in hopes that Nanika could bring her back to life. Or maybe just so she'd stop chanting Kathy's name. For whatever reason they'd done it, though, they'd succeeded. Kathy was alive again and had been for a full year.

A dizzying, challenging, terrifying year.

It seemed only right to hold some kind of commemorative dinner for it, somewhere between a celebration (which she still didn't think she'd earned, exactly) and an appreciation dinner. Not just for what they'd done, but for sticking with her this past year, for weathering the ups and downs, for reaching out and checking in, for reconnecting and promising to be better and stronger friends from here forward.

And, well, even if that didn't all come through, it would still be a delicious dinner cooked by Eliot and would give her a chance to just spend some time with the people she loved best, getting caught up with those she hadn't seen in awhile and offering an opportunity for them to get to know one another better, too.

If nothing else, they could all just stuff themselves silly with whatever delicious things the kitchen downstairs had whipped up and the super, extra, very chocolatey desserts Kathy had promised Alluka in her invitation.

[For those invited and up early for SP. No OCD, feel free to just ping in and around.]

Kathy was prepping for Pride over the weekend. Most of the merchandise she was planning for the booth had already been boxed up at the store, but she was folding pamphlets and making bracelets out of embroidery floss and beads that she'd picked up from Hobby Lobby when she'd taken a trip over there to discuss which store was going to hand out the birth control. The bracelets all corresponded with the various Pride flags; it was like an eighth grade craft project up in here.

But it was fun and relaxing and made for nice breaks between constant pamphlet folding while still letting her feel like she was being productive. Win/win.

Kathy had spent her Memorial Day quietly, going into Baltimore to visit a tattoo parlor to get the ink she'd been mulling over for the past few weeks. Seven hashmarks on her left wrist, a circle with names written in Hangul on her right shoulder where there should have been a scar but wasn't. The feel of needles in her skin had been oddly soothing and she'd left the parlor feeling more settled than she'd entered.

Today she was paying for that a bit, with a bit of residual soreness in both arms (okay, maaaaybe she should have spread them out, but the hashmarks had been so little and quickly over). So she'd skipped her shift at Dite's and was hanging out on the couch, rubbing ointment on her new tattoos and watching TV. Something with an actual plot this time rather than mindless reality shows, so she was pretty sure it counted as improvement.

By...some metric anyway.

It was Tuesday. Kathy knew she was supposed to be getting to work sometime this afternoon, doing stock or cleaning or trying to find people to come work for her or any number of countless, pointless projects. She had a routine and routines were important, at least according to what little poking around she'd done on the computer for Helpful tips when you're a basket case. But she couldn't summon the energy to get up off the couch today. Hell, getting out of bed had been a titanic struggle and the only reason she'd managed a shower at all was because she'd sat on the floor of the tub and just let the water run over her for most of it.

It sucked. She'd really thought she was doing better. She'd been okay for a few days there, genuinely happy and smiling and laughing. The kids had been great distractions while they'd been there, but they were gone now, leaving a hole in Kathy's heart and the promise of a future that seemed further away than ever, today. From 'okay' to 'utter distaster' in just twelve hours, only this time she didn't even have the outlet of fighting in Baltimore to try to channel some of this bullshit into. All she had was Hulu and about a million seasons of Hades' Kitchen to get through while she tried very hard not to think about what Saturday had been or her alternate reality daughter with her dead sister's name.

"You're never going to impress him with that mess," she informed the TV from inside her comfy cocoon of blanket. "It looks like you threw up on a plate. Way to just hand the victory to the blue team, ladies, jeez."

[Open, though I'll be off to bed soon.]

By Sunday morning, Kathy was ready to leave Boston. It was colder in Boston than in Baltimore and her attempts to forget herself in bars and clubs had had sub-optimal results. She was going to chalk it up to residual concern over Ezra's warnings about the Coterie, even if the truth was likely far more complicated.

With far more clothing, makeup, and accessories than she'd left with (look, they called it retail therapy for a reason!), Kathy quietly let herself into the apartment. Trading her shoes for her indoor slippers, she realized just how much she'd missed the place; it had only been theirs for a few days, but she'd already gotten into the mindset of thinking of it as home. And if this were home, she had to start acting like it. No more running away. She might not know what she was doing or anything like that, but at least she had somewhere she could feel safe to not know from.

She put her bags in her room, promising herself she'd put everything away later along with the rest of the unpacking she still had to do, and went looking for her roommate. Everything between them was still up in the air, including Kathy's own feelings, but avoiding Raven wasn't going to do much good for either of them.

[For the roomie if she's around, but open to visitors and phone calls!]

Raven and Kathy were officially moved in!

Okay, not everything was done and most of their stuff was still at Eliot's, but they'd gotten a lot of work done painting and assembling furniture and most of what was left could be moved over a bit at a time. Which meant...it was close enough to being fully moved in that a small party was warranted. Especially if you were looking for a way to show you were nice, sane and adjusted a reason to party!

The party proper started at 6pm with plenty of delicious foods to enjoy, but people were more than welcome to come over early and help with the remaining wall painting and furniture assembling there was to do. Help was appreciated, but mostly people were invited to over to eat, relax, and help make this new place feel like a real home.

[If you think you got an invite, you did! Up early for mega SP]