Room 312 [Sunday Morning]

[wantstocheer]

Yesterday had been a long day. In so many ways. After the shuttle ride to the school and the welcome picnic, Claire had been pleased to discover that her boxes had arrived and she had spent the evening unpacking and setting up her room

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[cutsthestrings]

It was so strange to live in a place where so many people cohabited. Their apartment building had never been particularly full and even then, people ignored them almost as though they weren't there: 'kids' or 'the hired help' depending on whether they were just heading to work or if they were doing something Grandmother had asked them to do.

Here? There were open rooms, open doors--

Like a lab rat submitted to new stimuli, Fiona peered through the doorway at the girl on the bed.

[wantstocheer]

Claire managed to smile when she noticed the girl. "Hello," she said. "Would you like to come in?"

[cutsthestrings]

She looked a little startled at the address but nodded and slipped in the door, leaving it as it had been.

"Hello," she offered curiously, "I don't think we met."

[wantstocheer]

"I don't think so," Claire said. "I just got here yesterday. I'm Claire."

[cutsthestrings]

"So did I," she admitted with a twitch of her lips, looking around the other girl's room. She'd never seen anyone else's bedroom before, other than Eliot's of course, so it was of interest. It would give her some barometer of normal, or so she thought.

...not nearly enough books, though.

"Fiona," she offered after just a little too long staring.

[wantstocheer]

"Would you like to sit down?" Claire asked, nodding at her desk chair. "Where are you from?"

[cutsthestrings]

She looked at the chair, almost as if it might bite her, before giving a slightly tight smile and shaking her head. Appreciated, but she was still a little too well wound for it yet.

"Thank you," she said, since she wouldn't be impolite.

"And I'm from California. What about you?"

Pretty, blond, friendly... how was this going to work? Them talking?"

[wantstocheer]

Claire swung her legs around so they were dangling off the side of her bed and she was actually sitting up instead of lounging.

"I was born and raised in Texas, but my family is in California now," she said. "Costa Verde. What part of California are you from?"

[cutsthestrings]

"Up north," she said, "near the Napa Valley. Most of our traffic were rich couples on wine-tasting tours."

[wantstocheer]

"Never been up that way," Claire admitted. "What do you think of Fandom so far?"

[cutsthestrings]

She shrugged and kept looking, finally at Claire. When she met her eyes, she gave a faint smile.

"It's... different. What about you?"

[wantstocheer]

Claire smiled back. "Different is a good word. Interesting also works."

[cutsthestrings]

"I used to say things were interesting when I didn't like them but I didn't want to be rude to my Great-grandmother," she admitted with half a smirk.

"Different, though, I can't see that being anything but good."

[wantstocheer]

"Different is definitely not bad," she agreed. "Though I don't think interesting is necessarily bad either."

[cutsthestrings]

"No. There's plenty of interesting things too. What have you heard?"

Yes, she was sort of stratigizing even now.

[wantstocheer]

"Let's see: gremlins are bad, squirrels report everything to the radio, there is life on other planets, time travel is not unusual and boys like to take their shirts off."