Log: Cammie, Kurt, Catseye & The Blacks: Homecoming

[x-scorpion.livejournal.com]

The weekend before her birthday, Cammie brings Catseye and Kurt home to meet her adopted family under better circumstances than last time.

The long drive was almost over, and Cammie was more than ready for it to be. As the landscape became more and more familiar, she got more and more twitchy. She was past the childish stage of asking ‘are we there yet.’ After all, this was her home and she was driving. She still knew it like the back of her hand. She might have changed, but small towns did not. “Damn, I can’t wait to get out of this car. Cruise control or not, my leg is fucking cramped.”

"Perhaps next time, we should bring more than one person who can drive", Kurt suggested dryly from the back seat. "I hear taking breaks is a good thing."

“Even if someone else drove, I’d have to be awake to give directions,” Cammie returned. “Either way, I wouldn’t really be getting a break. Anyway, we’re almost there. I don’t live that far past the one stoplight they have here.”

"I can drive," Catseye grumbled, arms folded across her chest as she pouted. "I am a veryverygood driver. It is not fair I cannot drive just because Cammie and Kurt do not have licenses." Still, she wasn't going to jeopardize her chances of having a real license some day soon by being caught at the wheel without a licensed driver in the passenger seat. Not that anyone would have a reason to pull her over. But the fact that they had been in the car for so long and she hadn't been allowed to drive had left her feeling grumpy.

"Ex-nay on the o-nay icense-lay," Cammie hissed to the catgirl sitting next to her in the passenger seat.

"What? What does that mean? What language is that?" Catseye demanded curiously.

"Ighsay, ouyay on'tday eakspay igpay atinlay, on'tday ouya?" Cammie said, rolling her eyes, "Iway on'tday owknay atwhay I'mway oinggay otay oday ithway ouyay, eallyray. Owhay oesn'tday earnlay igpay atinlay?"

"Stoppit! Catseye does not understand! Tell Catseye what that means and what language it is!"

"Oay ooklay ereway erehay," Cammie said brightly as she turned and pulled into the driveway, "imaginehay atthay."

"Cammie, stop teasing Catseye", Kurt said patiently. "And Catseye, it is not a real language. She is only taking the first letter of each word to the end."

“Fine,” Cammie said, parking the car, “Look Cats, I’ll teach you it later tonight. It’s really easy. But here we are, home sweet home,” Cammie said, a bit of acid on the last few, but that was directed at the town, not at her parents.

"Ooo!" Fake language forgotten, Catseye opened the door and got to her feet, glad to be out of the cramped car even though she'd spent a lot of the drive sleeping on the dashboard in catform. "Cammie's house! It is a nice house Cammie! And there are Cammie's parents!"

Upon seeing the car nearing, Tim Black had already made his way outside of the door, a warm smile on his face. During his long day of typing up inquests, the only thing that was getting him through was the thought of being able to see his daughter and the friends she had promised to bring. Other than that, it was his job to try and make the house look as homey as possible, that added slightly to the pull of the smile on his lips. "Welcome home, honey!" He screamed as soon as the door opened.

Back in the kitchen, Julia had just been taking some chocolate chip cookies out of the oven, hoping they were still Cammie's favorite. "Oh! Are they here?!" she yelled to Tim, setting the pan on the stove-top, unfortunately leaving the oven mitts on-top of it with one lying half-on the stove's hot element. "Wait for me, Tim!"

Julia headed out the front door after her husband and toward her daughter, "Welcome home honey!"

"Annnnnd, it's the Twilight Zone," she said, but it didn't stop her from giving her Dad and Mom a hug, "So, um, these are my friends. I'll do the introductions and stuff inside. Last thing we need is the neighbors staring out their windows. Well, that's the last thing I want to deal with after a long drive."

"That's completely understandable." Tim said as he stepped back from the group. With everything that had happened to his daughter, he was well aware that not everyone would be as accepting to mutant-kind as their house had become. "Please, won't you all come on." He continued to smile was he met the faces of Cammie's traveling companions.

"Thank you very much!" Catseye exclaimed warmly, smiling back broadly. "We are very happy to be here Mister Black. Does Ca... do I smell cookies?"

"Why yes," Julia said, trying to get her bearings with such a strange bunch. She had to remind herself that god loves everyone, and that included mutants, "Chocolate Chip actually, would you like some? When Cammie was little, she loved them, so I thought...." She let the comment hang in the air as she made eye contact with her daughter.

"Uh, Cat... Uh, I smell burning," the catgirl pointed out with a sniff.

"Burning cloth", Kurt backed her up, glancing towards the house. "Mrs. Black, perhaps we should go inside and check?"

It took a moment to realize what it must have been, "The cookies!" Julia yelled, hurrying back inside.

"Let's go inside before Mom burns down the house," Cammie said, and headed casually for the door, "Which is totally a new thing."

Standing to the side of the door, Tim Black eyed his wife playfully. "You'll have to watch out for her Cammie. We may have to take her to the hospital for that dementia check sooner rather than later."

Julia Black simply sent her elbow into her husband's side and started toward the house muttering something about burned baked goods.

---

Cammie and her Dad have a long overdue talk. Which isn't as serious as it could be.



After saving Mom's attempt at recapturing her childhood from setting the house on fire, it was all about settling in. No matter how eerie it was to be home again. At least this time it wasn't because she thought her parents were dead. It was still weird though, being home again. It was even weirder than thinking she'd be twenty in a few days. That part didn't bother her either, even though twenty was old ancient as far as living on the street was concerned.

"So... hi, uh... Dad." she said again to her dad. It shouldn't have been so awkward.

"Hi... uh... Dad?" Tim walked forward with a kind grin on his face. "Is that the kind of social skills they've been teaching you at that fancy school in New York?" He chuckled at his own joke, but still was trying to calm his own happiness that his daughter had found her way back home. "Or am I just not cool enough to get the new slang?"

"Hey, you know how these scholarship schools are, I just have to be there," she said shrugging, "And when have you ever gotten slang, Dad?"

"You know, some of my hommies down at the hospital have been spitting some mad beats at me." He took a double take as soon as the sentence was done. "That sounded horrible even to me."

There was a pause for a moment and than Cammie started laughing, "Yeah, don't keep trying. You could hurt yourself. That's absolutely horrible, Dad."

"Well I'll have to take slang off of my resume then." He smiled even wider as he approached his daughter. "So how are they treating you up there honey? I'm I going to have to have a talking with that teacher of yours about anyone giving my daughter a hard time?"

"Dad, I'll be twenty in a couple days. I'm not exactly taking classes. Well, fighting lessons, but that's a different story. And I doubt that teacher would be really threatened by a firing squad," Cammie said.

"Firing squad, no, but I'm sure one of my lessons in teaching Latin could scare the pants off of any of those X-People at your school." Crossing his hands in front of his chest, Tim did his best to look intimidating.

"Haha, I don't have to take Latin anymore," Cammie said, "And Dad, no one would be intimidated by that."

Tim quickly let out his breath. "Not even a little?"

"Well, maybe people afraid of Latin. I was always terrified by Latin. It's one of those things, I guess," Cammie said lightly. "But I still love you. Even if you are weird. ...and um... Sorry... about leaving, but..." There wasn't really a good way to explain it.

The man waved off his daughter before she even had a chance to finish. "Don't worry at all about that, as long as you're happy, and healthy, then I'm fine." He took a moment to look over the girl standing in front of him. It was hard to believe that the person he still considered to be his little girl would be two decades old in a few days time. "But I think if you tell me where your going ahead of time it could save the few hairs that are still their natural color from turning gray."

"Meh, it suits you. I mean, you are a doctor. Doctors are supposed to look all gray and wise and stuff. Or you could just use hair dye," Cammie suggested.

"I kind of like it to be honest, but just between you and me, let's still talk about any sudden plans before you run of anywhere unexpectedly." He grinned at his daughter, hoping to remain sincere. "Deal?"

"Fine," Cammie said simply, "I don't think I'll be leaving. I mean, I'm not exactly safe for the general population yet. And believe it or not, where I am now is like the one place where that doesn't matter."

Tim was taken aback slightly by this. There was a lot that had changed with his daughter, and he was happy to say that maybe the school had changed her for the better after all. "Well I know your mother and I would like nothing more than to see you spend as much time here as you'd ever want."

"I don't know, I'm still half afraid that if I step out the door I'm going to get arrested," Cammie said dryly.

"Well if they're going to arrest you, I'm coming right along with you in the squad car. You can count on that." Tim wasn't bluffing. He had seen some of the things that others had done to mutants, and he wasn't going to let anything like that happen to his daughter again on his watch.

"Yeah, that's great, but I did kill someone," Cammie pointed out. She still missed him still, which was stupid. It was four years ago. Four years was not enough to shake it off though.

"I know honey." There was no way around that fact, all he could do was justify her feelings. "But it wasn't your fault. It was an accident, and you'll never be able to fully heal until you fully accept that."

"Doesn't matter if it was an accident or not," Cammie said, "It happened. I can't change that."

"No you can't." Tim walked to just in front of Cammie. "But I can't change that I'm your father, and that I'm going to be there for you no matter what happens." He tilted his head to the side. "You do know that right?"

"Nah, I had a concussion that wiped all wordly knowledge," Cammie said, putting one of her hands on her hip, "No seriously, Dad, I get that. That's not why I ran away."

"In my head I know that." Tim forced a smirk across his face. "But it does my heart good to say it and make sure that you know."

"Yeah, you guys can stop angsting now," Cammie said.

"I don't think I ever will." He added as he made his way closer to his daughter. "And to tell you the truth, I doubt that I would ever want it any other way."

"...Dad, you might not want to touch me. Just... a safety thing, really."

"I know." Tim leaned back next to his daughter. "But having you back here is enough for now..."