fandomhigh | The Library; Monday [ 10/20 ]

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The Library; Monday [ 10/20 ]

Cal realized that he could only convince himself that he wasn't really nervous for so long. All his efforts came crashing down when he managed to spill his coffee all over the desk and, in the scramble to clean it up, hit his head soundly from underneath, and then fell backwards only to smack his head against the wall as well.

And then, when he sat down, the chair fell out from underneath him.

Actually, once he finally did manage to sit down, button up his jacket in hopes to cover most of the coffee stain, and then cleaned up the desk, he told himself that maybe it wasn't nervousness after all at all! Fandom Weirdness! That had to be it! It was just Fandom giving him a bad, bad...really bad morning...

He let out a little groan, knowing he couldn't just hide under the desk, and waited for the oppression of his fate to just weigh him down completely and crush him.

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"And it's huge," Cal muttered. "This doesn't even include whatever behind Special Collections."

And then, almost like an afterthought, he gave her a tired smile and added, "Hi, Claire."

"Did I walk in when you were in the middle of something?" she asked, scrunching her brow just slightly. He seemed sort of out of it.

Cal shook his head a little. "It's not even noon," he said, "and it's just been a really, really long day, that's all."

"That sucks," Claire said succinctly. "And we have the joy of parents' weekend this week, so you can't even say four days and then we rest."

To that, Cal could only give Claire a faint grin. "After the past two days I've had," he mused, "I'm actually looking forward to parents' weekend."

Not that he was a mama's boy, or anything (if anything, Tessie still considered Cal her daughter), but it would just be...really nice to see her right now. Especially now.

Claire gave that a moment of contemplation. "It'll depend who comes for me," she said. "My mom's kind of weird about flying, so probably one of my brothers? And that's, like, opposite experiences." She frowned a little. "But not too bad, I guess."

"Meanwhile," Cal said, "my dad's dead, my brother's a deadbeat, and my yia yia refuses to leave her bed, which leaves, blissfully, only my mother, unless there's a sudden ace in the hole and my aunt shows up, but, most likely, it'll work that she takes care of Desdemona while Mom's here."

"Yeah, my dad's dead too," Claire shared, with some sympathy. "We don't really have a lot of other family, or at least not people we see."

"Who's Desdemona?"

"My yia yia," Cal said, with a nod. "Grandmother. She didn't much leave her little room in the attic after my grandfather died."

"That's sad," Claire said, almost without thinking. She'd never really known her grandparents, but the idea of an old lady in the attic ...

It hung there in the air for a moment, until she shook her head, trying to clear it away. "So I was kind of here for something that has to do with the whole parents' weekend thing, actually."

There was a faint, grateful sort of smile for the fleeting moment of sympathy, and it grew, just a bit, once Claire continued on with something else that saved Cal the trouble of giving his usual line about how they're Greek; they love a good depressing tragedy. "Yeah?" he asked. "Like what?"

Claire matched his smile. She was grateful for anyone who didn't make her have al kinds of dead dad angst.

"Like if it's my brother David he's going to ask me about college, and I so wouldn't care except I don't need him nagging me all weekend, so I was kind of hoping to at least sign up for the SATs before he got here," she explained. "And the library seemed like it might know how to do that, if anyone did."

"Well," Cal said, "I'm not entirely sure," although he did know it wouldn't hurt to start thinking of that sort of thing for himself, "but I'm sure there's....something here for that..."

The library had no clue either. Great. Weirdest high school ever.

"... we don't have a guidance counselor, or anything, do we?" And wow Claire was just going to take a moment to wince at herself for having turned into the kind of person who would ask that.

"Well, there's Dr. Jones," Cal offered. "He's the librarian; he might know, but I'm never sure when he's in his office. You could schedule an appointment with him?"

"I'll call him," Claire agreed, a little grumpily. "And probably I can sign up online or something now."

That made Cal's eyes shift with rueful suspicion toward the computer on the desk, and his lip curled in an unkind expression toward it. "Probably," he agreed, sounding much more like he was simply wishing Claire good luck.

Claire caught the look. "Computers aren't that bad," she said. "All the freaks hang out online."

Cal couldn't help grunting slightly at her word choice. Clearly not, since he hated the damn thing. "Maybe," he said, "if I worked my way through building up to the technology the way I would back in the seventies, I'd be able to get it, but right now it just confuses me. That's all my brother's area of expertise, not mine."

"I can get that," Claire admitted, a little reluctantly. "It's not like I'm rushing to catch up with 2008."

Cal's attention shifted back to Claire a little more, although dully. It was always comforting to have another partner in time displacement. "When are you from?" he asked, wondering if they'd discussed it before and he'd just forgotten.

"2001," Claire said. She forgot who she'd talked to about this stuff. "Nothing that far off for this place."

"Yeah," Cal waved a teasingly dismissive hand at her and snorted slightly. "Seven years, not like you have that much catching up to do."

"Yeah, sorry my time travel isn't impressive enough," Claire joked. "I swear, our cell phones were way bigger."

"In my day," Cal said, because he couldn't refuse, "we didn't even have cell phones!"

The Library; Monday [ 10/20 ]

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