fandomhigh | BWI Airport Portalocity Lounge, Saturday Morning

Celia had had a trying morning, thus far.

She'd boarded a train in New York at the crack of dawn with a large trunk that she was pretending to struggle to carry. Hector had given her a cursory pat on the top of her hat and a tug to one stray curl, accompanied by a stern look that Celia knew meant Don't make me regret this. She'd fallen asleep on the train, and the conductor had awoken her...here. She'd not expected Maryland to be quite so much...brighter, or louder or confusing -- and in fact, Celia had been to Baltimore before, once, and she was very sure that this was unsettlingly different. She'd stumbled off the train, been ushered through a security checkpoint filled with people dressed strangely and giving her even stranger looks and now she was...here.

If not for the glittering sign bearing the name 'Fandom High,' she'd think she was in the wrong place.

Celia slumped gratefully into a chair, dropping her trunk on the floor beside her, and let out a sigh. Then she immediately straightened up. It wouldn't do to have her new classmates think her a lazy slob at first meeting.

[YAY NEWBIE SHUTTLE.]

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They were. It was the fall collection for runaways.

//I'm Eleanor,// she thought back, quickly. //The Little Sisters sent me here. Am I ... am I made from you?//

It was an odd question, but she didn't know how else to phrase it. She'd been able to speak telepathically with the Little Sisters because they were formed from her, and with Father because of their bond; was he the prototype that all the Littles and Bigs had started from?

It couldn't be the other way around, or she wouldn't feel so blind. She could swoop in and see through the Little Sisters' eyes. With him, it was only the voice.

It was only then that his last question registered.

//A bit,// she admitted. //I should have expected Reykjavik would be chilly.//

//Made from? Er, I don't think...//

How did you even answer a question like that? Especially when you were as gene-muddled and used to being surrounded by clones as Jono was? He furrowed his brow in thought, and then started shrugging out of his jacket, grabbing a few things from the pockets and stuffing them into his trouser pockets, instead.

//Here, put this on. It'll help with the cold. And you're actually in Baltimore right now, luv. Looks like you missed Iceland by a bit, if that's where you were aiming.//

She had meant to object -- she didn't need his charity any more than she did Elsa's -- but what he said struck her so absolutely that all other thoughts fled hastily from her mind.

"Baltimore?" she said. "Baltimore, in the Colonies?"

She considered for a moment before shaking her head vigorously. "Impossible," she said. "We were on a ship to Reykjavik, from Ammassalik, Greenland. It couldn't have gotten that far lost."

//Well, I don't see any ships,// Jono noted, glancing around. //So perhaps it's less that the ship's gotten lost, and more that you have.//

If she wasn't going to object, then, he was going to drape his jacket over her shoulders.

Take that.

Eleanor pulled the jacket around herself, reflexively.

"Then you really don't know me," she said, unable to keep from sounding sad at that. She had thought ... perhaps she had been sent here to find someone else like her. To someone's protection.

What a ridiculous fantasy.

//That's generally how it goes, luv,// Jono murmured, sending an apologetic pulse along with his voice as he spoke. //Even the people you do recognize around here, you don't necessarily know. It's complicated.//

He furrowed his brow for a moment, and then crossed his arms over his chest.

//Doesn't mean you're alone, though.//

She nodded, but mechanically. She was alone. She'd never been anything else, except when Father had protected her, and he was gone.

"I don't mind complicated," she said. She felt a bit shell-shocked. She was in Baltimore, and someone was in her head who didn't know her. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to ... disturb you."

He was a stranger, and she'd flung herself at him like he was a life preserver. How strange this must be, for him.

Really, he'd been through stranger. He gave his head a shake, offering a pulse of calm in the place of the apology he'd sent a moment before, and reached a hand to rest on her shoulder, if she'd let him.

//Not at all, luv. It sounds as though you've had a difficult time of it.// Which was said matter-of-factly, not a trace of pity to it. Jono loathed pity. He wasn't the sort to give it, because he knew how much he hated being on the receiving end. //You felt something familiar and you grabbed at it. I should be the one apologizing, if it led to false hope.//

BWI Airport Portalocity Lounge, Saturday Morning

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