Fandom Harbor, late Thursday night

[mparkerceo]

Parker had already called Drake, and was now contemplating calling Isabel to see if she could get Wyatt to orb her to the island for the next couple days. Why not? Being here was an impulse, but a good one. Maybe she'd call Zero and see about getting her a portal in for a day too

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[centercatherine]

Footsteps along the pier, softened by the fog. Low heels, slowing as they approached the Daydream. And a feminine figure stopped at the end of the dock, hugging herself.

"Permission to come aboard?"

[mparkerceo]

Parker froze.

Maureen froze. She swallowed hard. You don't hear a voice outside your dreams for the first time in a decade, and take it in stride.

She closed her eyes, then opened them again, squinting through the fog and shadows.

"Depends. Whose colors do you sail under?"

[centercatherine]

Catherine smiled, trembling a little. It'd been so long, her little girl had grown up completely, and God, she was a stranger. A stranger wearing a face so similar to hers, but with a voice all her own.

"Whatever colors you're flying, sweetheart. You know that."

[mparkerceo]

"Mom?"

Parker was moving toward the gangplank, hanging onto the edge of the boat with tight fingers. "I dreamed..." She took a breath. "I hoped."

She could admit that, now. It had been a tiny hope. Not even articulated to herself, so as not to be disappointed.

"Permission granted," she said, in a voice that cracked midway through.

[centercatherine]

Catherine was already walking down the gangplank, as soon as Maureen had mentioned the dream. And it only took three more steps to be standing in front of her daughter, cradling her face in her palms.

"Look at you," she whispered. "Oh, Maureen. I never imagined you'd be this..."

[mparkerceo]

"Hard?" Parker tried to make a joke of it, but couldn't, standing there, shaking. "Shiny? Cold? Well-heeled?"

[centercatherine]

"Distinct." Catherine laughed, twisting a strand of Maureen's hair around her finger. "Individual. I thought-- I thought by now, you'd be your father's daughter, or you'd be mine. And you're neither. You're yourself."

And it was a relief, to know that, having seen what Maureen had gone through the last few years. To see it in the flesh.

[mparkerceo]

Which was a mirror of what her father had said a few weeks ago; that she was partly her mother's, and partly his. Maybe that was always the difference between her mother and father-- he saw loyalties and fealties, and her mom saw individuals.

"I missed you," she whispered, arms going up and around her mom, and a smile breaking out on her face. "And I have so much to tell you."

Grief and missing her again would be for later.

[centercatherine]

Catherine's sight blurred, and she hugged her daughter, laughing very softly through her tears.

"Tell me all of it. Don't leave anything out." She took a breath. "Starting with Jarod."

[mparkerceo]

"Starting with Fandom," Parker objected, pulling her mother aboard the catamaran, not willing to let her get more than a step away. "It all started almost five years ago, when Daddy sent me here for school...."

They were still awake by dawn, alternating their talking with laughing and crying, and sometimes both at once.