Third Floor Common Room, Early Monday Afternoon

[vanillajello]

"But why do you want to make M.O.T.s?"
”Because there’s a triumph."
"But what kind of triumph?" Kate's brother's voice crackled on speakerphone from her cellphone that was on the kitchen counter.
”It was a school thing,” Kate answered, trying not to sound as evasive as she was being. ”We... won something.”
It made her brother snort. ”Since when do

Comments

[wantstocheer]

Claire showed up in the common room and laughed. "I see we had the same idea," she said. "I was thinking that people needed sweet treats too. Need any help?"

[vanillajello]

Kate laughed. "People really do need this stuff now. You could set up the muffin trays if you'd like," she replied, mixing the batter. There was a lot of it.

"Who's that?" her brother piped up on the phone.

"It's Claire, which probably means I won't need you a lot anymore," she answered before turning towards Claire. "That's my brother Marshall."

[wantstocheer]

"Hi, Marshall!" Claire called. "Oooh, muffins. I was gonna do cookies, but muffins are even better," she said, pulling trays out of the cabinets.

[vanillajello]

"Hi Claire!" Marshall called back.

"Okay Moosh, I'm gonna hang up now. I'll call you again later, okay? Thanks for the help, bye," Kate told him and ended the call after he informed her she was going to have to tell him how people liked her - or more to the point, his muffins.

"Muffins are a kind of a thing in my family. Marshall makes Muffins of Triumph when something good happens," Kate told Claire with a little smile. "Seemed appropriate."

[wantstocheer]

"Definitely appropriate," Claire agreed with a grin. "I take it you were one of the non-sleepers, like me?"

[vanillajello]

"Yeah," Kate nodded. "In an extreme way. I got maybe two hours of sleep the first night. The second was a bit better."

[wantstocheer]

"I stopped by Town Hall a few times to check on people, but I mostly got neglected tried to stay out of the way," Claire said.

[vanillajello]

"I was there pretty much the entire time, going around with sandwiches and just generally turning into my mother. If I hadn't, I would've just spent the entire weekend freaking out."

[wantstocheer]

"Freaking out seemed like a good option," Claire admitted. "But I knew I needed to keep it together for Peter since he was worried about Sam. And I had to take care of Dinah's cat."

[vanillajello]

"I could have come back to the dorms if I had had someone to care for here," Kate nodded.

"But it seemed like almost everyone I've met was there, sleeping. If I hadn't gone to Town Hall on Friday, I would've probably been able to keep myself from freaking out, but..."

[wantstocheer]

Claire nodded and finished prepping the muffin pans. "Yeah, that makes sense. It sounds like that other Fandom was a bad place."

[vanillajello]

"It really does. I'm so glad I wasn't involved." A pause, then a frown. "And I feel guilty for saying that."

[wantstocheer]

"I'm glad too," Claire said. "And I think that our friends who were there are probably glad for us."

[vanillajello]

"Yeah, probably," Kate said, putting batter in the pans. She sighed. "Part of me wants to know what it was like over there, and another part... really, really doesn't."

The little she had glimpsed at from Zack's babbling didn't sound too good, after all. Because he had seen her there.

[wantstocheer]

Claire nodded. "Yeah, I... don't even know if there was a me there. Not sure if I want to know."

Because Dinah was very obviously traumatized by what she had seen.

[vanillajello]

"I already know that I was - that there was someone like me there," Kate muttered, looking away.