Vanessa & Laurie | BACKDATED

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After getting home from India Laurie shows up to check on Vanessa and spoil her with dinner.

Laurie stood by the window in Vanessa's high rise apartment, her gaze fixed
on the horizon as she waited for the sound of the timer to go off. India had once again left its touch on her, and she knew it would be awhile before she could sleep without bad dreams. It helped to exhaust herself before she put her head down on a pillow though, kept her sleep so deep that she didn't remember the dreams she had.

And so, she was cooking dinner for Vanessa, and whoever else happened to come by.

"I'm starting to think I'm your surrogate child." Vanessa wasn't suffering from nightmares. She'd left fewer dead bodies behind her than she normally would have thanks to that promise she'd made to Xavier so if anything she was feeling conflicted about letting people live. Some of them, she was sure, had deserved to die despite the mercy they received.

An arm draped around Laurie's shoulders and red, luminescent eyes peered down at the stove. "So whatcha making, mum?"

Laurie leaned into Vanessa, resting her head back on the taller woman's shoulder as she pushed away the memories of surgery and suffering.

"Lamb curry, with Naan bread to go with it," She answered readily, smiling at Vanessa's words. "Does that make Eamon your Dad then?"

"Are you marrying Eamon?" Vanessa narrowed her eyes at Laurie even though the girl wasn't looking at her. "Are you saying you birthed me with Ea's help?" Then she really thought about what it made Eamon if Laurie was her mother and the metamorph frowned. "Ow." The word was mostly a whine.

"Not any time soon," Laurie answered honestly. "And that'll teach you for teasing me about my mothering ways."

She had a medical degree to get, and that sort of thing tended to take a lot of concentration and hard work. It wasn't that she would say no if Eamon did ask, but she was in no rush herself.

"Your mothering ways hurt my head," Vanessa complained. "That was all part of your diabolical plan, wasn't it? Make yourself out to be all sweet with a penchant for mothering but really you're out to take over the world by hurting everyone's brain until they can't put up a fight!" God, she needed coffee or something if she was babbling like this.

"If you'd stop getting yourself hurt, I wouldn't need to mother you," Laurie pointed out with what she thought was flawless logic. "Besides, it's much simpler to take over the world via cooking. I just need to find the perfect brunch recipe and then the world shall be mine."

"Getting myself hurt?" Vanessa used her most incredulous voice and there was an expression to match. "Yeah, because I walked up to Charles and said, 'Hey, I'd like some guy to try to gut me so could you ask me to go do this thing over here for you?'"

"Exactly," Laurie said, a hint of humour creeping into her tone. "You need to stop doing that, maybe get a nice comfortable job where they only try to kill you every other week."

"I'll work on that one for you, mum." Vanessa's voice was flat and sarcastic and came with a well-placed eye roll. She was kidding, though, and a few beats later a smile began to form on her face. "Do chicks really dig scars? 'Cause I'm thinking I'm going to have some impressive ones from these wounds. I should go pick up girls."

"I think soldier boy might protest," Laurie noted mildly, wondering how long the massive amounts of coffee she'd consumed throughout the day would last. She didn't think Vanessa would mind if she crashed there for the night, if she did drop off. "But I'm sure there's women who dig scars, there's usually people who'll dig almost anything out there."

"He won't mind," Vanessa decided with the wave of a hand. "I mean, just because I pick them up doesn't mean I need to take them home with me. Or go home with them. They can be like little trophies. You know, they mark accomplishment but they aren't things you play with. You just stick 'em on the shelf or make a notch in your belt. Wait, no, not the last one."

"You'd have to shrink them for that," Laurie noted idly, thinking that she should check on the curry before it burnt but unwilling to leave the view of the New York skyline. It let her know that there was something other then death in the world, and even disasters can be recovered from. "Little tiny Barbie people to hang off your belt."

"Oooh." Vanessa's eyes lit up, literally. "Hanging them off my belt would be brilliant! It'd be like a charm bracelet, only bigger. And full of bragging rights! I like it. Now, we just have to figure out how I'm going to shrink my near conquests!"

"You could ask Nico, since you and Amanda are sort of doing that non-speaking to each other thing," Laurie noted, imagining the chaos that would cause. Not that she thought Vanessa would seriously ask anyone to shrink down women to hang on her belt. "Or there was that Dr. Strange guy wasn't there? Maybe he knows a spell."

"I don't know that guy and I don't ever use amateurs when there's a professional available." Vanessa wasn't sure if she and Amanda were totally doing that 'non-speaking to each other thing' still or not. After all, Amanda had called her in as back up when she needed it and Vanessa had shown up without much in the way of questions. Then again, calling in someone because they had the skills for the job said nothing about your personal feelings for them. That made her nose wrinkle up a bit.

"So...," Laurie began, and then paused for a moment to wonder if she was being a worrywart, or as Jean-Phillipe had put it, a bit of a mother hen. She decided that she most definitely was, but that didn't stop her continuing anyhow. "You're safe now? I mean, after all that stuff with Eamon and Thom and you? I won't have to spend my free time wondering if you or Eamon are lying in a ditch somewhere?"

Vanessa considered the immediate answer which was to reassure Laurie that everything was cool now. That wouldn't be the whole truth, however, would it? With a sigh the woman shrugged. "Probably. That's the most honest answer I can give you, just probably. Chances are some of the jobs we took pissed people off who could always trace it back to us. There's no promises that anything we get into in the future won't be dangerous. But for now we're all fine. Ea says he's probably spending most of the summer 'round here, though." Vanessa nudged the girl a bit with her elbow. She knew it was partially for her own sake as well, but the metamorph would not be convinced it wasn't mostly so he could see his girlfriend for more than a week at a time.

"Really?" Laurie squeaked happily, and then realised what she'd just done. She blushed, and was at a loss about what to say next. "Um, I mean...That's nice?"

It was hard to do more than smile at that, particularly since laughing would pull on her stitches and that would hurt. "Yeah, really. Not sure when he'll be showing up but he'll be about."

“Around is good,” Laurie noted, unable to contain the silly smile that had broken out. She grabbed Vanessa’s hand and started drawing her away from the windows and back toward the kitchen. “Come on, you can chat to me about these scars while I check on dinner.”

She hadn’t dismissed what Vanessa had said about the possible dangers to herself or Eamon but since there was very little she could do, and that soon she’d have them both in at least visible distance, she would put away any particular worry she might have till it was needed.

"Aye, ma'am," Vanessa returned with a small salute from her free hand. "Who am I to argue with the girl that's feeding me?" Stitches or no stitches, some days the Bostonian was horribly spoiled. She pretty much liked it that way.