Mitchell's Place At 71 Serendipity, Wednesday Morning

[chosehumanity]

Mitchell didn't spend as much time going back and forth between his UK and Fandom as he used to; the two weeks he'd spent there a little while ago had been an aberration. Now, though, he was considering going back again, if simply to find out exactly why Nina had somehow forgotten about Kemp.

Being trapped in an institution by a man like that seemed like the sort of thing that would stick with you.

Add to that that Carl was nowhere to be found either - though that was more a Jack's-world issue than a Mitchell's-UK issue - he was starting to get worried. Maybe Nina had some kind of degenerative disease? Mitchell had lost too many friends this year already - he didn't want to lose... well, George's girlfriend, and George's sanity if something happened to Nina.

But those were just thoughts.

What he was doing right now was... pretty much what he did any day of the week when he wasn't at the theater: moping behind the television.

[[ mostly for one, but open for visits or phone calls, sure. ]]

Comments

[vanillajello]

Elsewhere, Kate wasn't moping. Nope, Kate was pretty gleeful about the fact that her interview with the Teach Abroad people had gone really well, as far as she could tell, and she wanted to squee about that.

And it seemed like a good time to, you know, actually tell Mitchell about Japan.

Riiing.

[chosehumanity]

"Yeah?"

Mitchell's intro spiel when someone called him could maybe use some work.

[vanillajello]

"That's all you got?" came Kate's response, tinged with amusement. "Wow. Really feeling the love here."

[chosehumanity]

"Kate!" Look, he didn't always check the number recognition on his phone, all right? Mitchell sounded a little more upbeat as he added, "What have you been up to?"

[vanillajello]

"Oh you know, this and that." Failing at job interviews. Getting punched. She was not going to dwell on those. "Sorting out my future."

[chosehumanity]

"Yeah?" Distinctly more cheerful 'yeah', yeah. "Made any plans?"

[vanillajello]

"Uh huh." And she sounded pretty enthusiastic about that. In a poorly contained way. "I was actually just at an interview for something pretty huge. And I think it went well."

[chosehumanity]

"Oh, really?" Mitchell asked, sitting up. "So you might be getting a job - that's fantastic."

[vanillajello]

"I'm pretty sure I got it," Kate shared, because she was. "And it's a teaching job."

And.

[chosehumanity]

Kate? A teacher?

Mitchell was glad she wasn't here to watch him look skeptic. "And what will you be teaching?" he asked.

[vanillajello]

Hey, alternate future Kate had been a teacher. For a while. In Fandom.

... Before getting married to a Frech businessman twice her age but still!

"English!" she replied, a little more of that enthusiasm slipping out. Then, after a pause, "To Japanese people. In Osaka."

[chosehumanity]

"...You're moving to Japan?"

Wait, what?

[vanillajello]

"It's not a hundred percent certain --" Although she sounded as if it was. "-- but yeah!"

With her parents' consent, even. Boggle, Mitchell.

[chosehumanity]

"Well, that'll be... exciting," Mitchell said. He wasn't sure whether he thought this was a good idea or not, but... "Why Japan?"

[vanillajello]

"Because they're hiring and I've always wanted to go!" Duh. "Fandom taking us to a random-ass dystopian Tokyo this summer doesn't count."

[chosehumanity]

"Right," Mitchell said. How did you communicate 'I'm not sure whether to be dubious about this or not' across a phone connection? "How long is this going to be anyway?"

[vanillajello]

"Six months," Kate replied, with an inaudible shrug. "More if it goes well but that's what I'm signing up for to start with."

And even she figured six months would probably be enough, if for nothing else than the fact that by the end of that stretch of time, Bod would be graduating too.

[chosehumanity]

"And you don't need a degree for it or anything?" Mitchell checked. Just to be sure.

[vanillajello]

"Nope," she replied, lightly, though if she sounded like she was wrinkling her nose, that was because she was. "Just a working knowledge of English and a can-do attitude."

[chosehumanity]

"Huh."

Mitchell decided he wasn't going to be protesting this one all that much.

"Sounds like a good deal," he said, grinning.

The narrative is contractually obliged to point out that Mitchell tended to have terrible judgement.

[vanillajello]

Well, that ran in the pseudo-family.

"I know, right?" Kate enthused. "And I just need to get myself there, I mean, they deal with the housing and daily meals. It's pretty fucking awesome, is what it is."

[chosehumanity]

"It's like a free vacation," Mitchell said. "A bit like how it was when I came here, except it's in Japan."

[vanillajello]

"Except it's in Japan," Kate agreed. "And, I mean, I survived Fandom. How hard can Osaka be after that?"

[chosehumanity]

"Probably have less invasions," Mitchell mused, "And more tiny Japanese people..."

Who tended to fit very well in the boot of a-- NEVERMIND.

[vanillajello]

"Oh my God, I will finally get to be tall again!"

She'd had an unfortunate tendency to hang around tall people, lately. (Because yes, that ws totally the problem. And not the fact that most of them seemed to be destined to turn evil or start wars or just randomly die.)

"Tall and strikingly blonde."

[chosehumanity]

Mitchell sat back on the sofa. "Eh," he said, "I think they're all into dyeing and wigs these days."

[vanillajello]

"Oh, who cares?" Kate scoffed. "I'm a natural blonde, and if I want to think they'll be worshipping me in the streets, then I'll think that. I think I've earned it, over the last while."

[chosehumanity]

There was a slight pause. "You didn't turn into a child over the weekend, did you?"

Look, after a comment like that, it deserved asking.

[vanillajello]

"What? Oh God no, I spent the weekend totally normal sized, getting cavities from the boyfriend's utter sweetness," Kate replied, wrinkling her nose again. "Of course, he came over mostly 'cause T punched me in the face last week."

Way to beat around the bush with that tidbit, Kate.

[chosehumanity]

"...What?"

[vanillajello]

Kate rolled her eyes. "She was drunk and angry at Mom's professor, and wanted to take the car," she explained. "I said no and she didn't like that."

[chosehumanity]

"Wait," Mitchell said, holding up a hand until he realised that she couldn't actually see it. "One of your mum's other selves punched you?"

[vanillajello]

"Yes, T did," Kate replied, with a tone that suggested he should have been following better than that. "Although I personally would prefer to focus on the fact that I tackled her to the ground afterwards."

Because that was badass and marginally less terrifying if she thought on it too hard.

[chosehumanity]

"So you got into a fight," Mitchell said, and his voice hung somewhere between incredulous and amused and worried, "With your mother's... teenage end."

[vanillajello]

"Yes." Well, no point in denying it. "And i won. Technically. Even if I did get a bloody nose for my trouble."

[chosehumanity]

"Any more of these little incidents I haven't heard about?" Mitchell wondered.

[vanillajello]

"Not really. But I did throw up on the table at Barnabeez at being confronted with my horrendous past as both a Barnabeez waitress and an internet entrepreneur?"

A beat.

"But that was like a month ago."