The Perk, Monday morning

[glacial_queen]

After getting Hannibal's message about having a new child show up on the island, Karla had wasted no time chartering a portal to get to Fandom. Portalocity, however, had managed to waste plenty of her time, accidentally sending her through a portal with both a half-day layover and the wrong destination. While the dimension of blue had a very lovely

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[puppy_fair]

Zack wasn't a parent, and didn't have a small child today. What he wanted was to have something to help him wake up after a relatively sleepless night.

When Zack Fair not only didn't notice an old friend when walking right by her, but also failed to hit on the barista when he placed his order, you knew he was tired.

"And extra, extra sugar," he mumbled. Mostly. It was kind of interrupted by a yawn. "Lots, please."

Because he was pretty sure they couldn't just scoop extra caffeine into the coffee. Heck, he wasn't even sure if it would do anything for him in the first place.

[glacial_queen]

Karla would never, ever put conditions on when she got to see Zack again. In fact, the only reason it took her as long as it did to respond was because she needed a moment to blink and make sure that she was actually seeing him and not some random doppelganger.

"Zack?" she asked, half-rising from her seat. "Zack Fair?"

[puppy_fair]

Zack blinked. His coffee wasn't even ready yet, but he'd forgotten about it entirely by the time he'd turned around and recognized the owner of the voice saying his name.

It would be there later, right?

"... Karla?"

He stared kind of blankly for a few seconds while his brain caught up with his mouth, and then he blinked and broke into a little laugh.

"Karla!"

A FRIENDLY FACE. HI.

[glacial_queen]

Hopefully he was awake enough to catch her because Karla was launching herself at him for a giant, squeezy hug, dammit.

"Zack, oh my goodness, I've missed you!"

[puppy_fair]

Hey, regardless of the situation, Zack was SOLDIER. He could catch pretty much anything if it had launched itself at him with no warning, and hugs were no exception.

He did stumble back a bit and clunk sword-first against the counter when Karla made contact, which was new, but he was still healing after the whole... five years being dissected under an evil mansion... thing, so he could probably be forgiven a step back to compensate.

"It's been, what, basically forever?" He grinned and gave her a squeezy hug in turn. "Oh man, it's good to see a familiar face around here, hi!"

[glacial_queen]

"At least one forever," Karla declared, noting the step back but not making an issue of it yet. Lots of things could change over the years. "Possibly as many as three, or so it feels. It's good to see you, too, darling. Are you living back here again?"

[puppy_fair]

"Yeah," Zack replied, giving her another squish for good measure before setting her back down and straightening up again. "Ino and I both came back a couple of months ago. We've been living in that apartment upstairs from the theater."

It had been...

Well.

Things were Complicated.

[glacial_queen]

"Ino's back, too?" Karla asked, brightening further. "I'll have to see if I can't bug her before I head home tonight. It's been too, too long for the both of you."

She took a step back, giving Zack a long, sharp once-over that catalogued all the signs that he was Not Exactly Doing Great.

"Oh darling," she sighed. "Looks like it's been too long indeed. Come sit with me for awhile?"

[puppy_fair]

Zack's first reaction was... to shrug his shoulders a little, as if that was somehow going to convey that it wasn't so bad as it could be, really, and she didn't have to worry.

His second reaction was to nod, and smile - always with the smiling, no matter what - and look back toward where she'd been sitting.

"Yeah... actually, that sounds great. We've got catching up to do, right? What have you been up to?"

Reaction number three was to deflect. Always deflect.

[glacial_queen]

Oh, Zack. Even if Karla had been dear friends with the boyos from the Room of Emo Deflection, she was a mother now. You've never seen deflection until you talked to a toddler about having clean up her room. Or a teen about what they were thinking?!

"Oh, you know," she said, leading him back to the table. "Being Queen of Glacia, mother of four, serving in the First Circle of the Dark Court. And you, darling? What have you been up to? I didn't think you planned to come back to the island after you left."

[puppy_fair]

"I didn't," Zack admitted a little awkwardly. "But we can get to that in a minute. You can't mention something like having children and not tell me about them!"

Karla, you handed him such an easy out on that one. Kids were a way bigger deal than years of painful captivity and then cheating fate from there.

[glacial_queen]

Oh but she could! She'd totally used the children as conversational bait because she was the worst. And also a Black Widow. Which many people considered to be 'the worst.'

"I'll tell you what," she said, so sweetly butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, "we'll go back and forth and answer a question for a question, huh? Then we can catch up at the same time! Besides, it'll take me at least a little while to get out all the baby pictures!"

That's right Zack. There were baby pictures on the line here.

[puppy_fair]

... Cheater.

"Oh. Um. Okay." Zack fidgeted a little. And then glanced back toward the counter. "I forgot my coffee. Do you mind if I...?"

Spoiler: He was planning on grabbing it and talking himself out of making a break for the door.

[glacial_queen]

If you weren't cheating, you weren't trying.

"Oh don't worry about it, darling," Karla said, going to lay a hand on Zack's arm. "I've got it." And his coffee came zooming over, Craft ensuring that not a precious drop was spilled. "Here you go! Now we have all the time for chatting!"

[puppy_fair]

Zack... had forgotten that Karla could do that. He blinked, and then gave her a sheepish little smile that hopefully detracted slightly from the way his arm tensed just the slightest bit under her hand.

... Which, when you had that much muscle, was probably hard to miss anyway.

"Yeah, I guess we do." He reached his other arm up to scratch at the back of his head. "Okay. So... what do you want to know, then?"

[glacial_queen]

Karla was just full of ways to thwart people surprises.

"Well, let's start with after graduation," she suggested, removing her hand. "I went home and started a civil war. You?"