((ooc: Continued from [FP] It's time.))

A pie. Even Rupert was dubious about that: a pie. What else was he supposed to do? Show up empty handed? Hell, at least it gave him something to do with his hands. Something besides reach for a gun that wasn’t there.

Rupert spent about a half hour in his closet. Thirty-seven minutes, if you wanted to be exact. A suit? A suit screamed “I’m here for your funeral. Again.” There went the respectable half of his closet.

Some kind of band T-shirt? “Heh. So, how about that mental suffering, freaks?” There went the rest.

Rupert rummaged in his hamper, and came up with a plain white T-shirt he used under dress shirts in the winter. Simple. Boring. Lacking in voice. An hour and a half later, his drier tumbled to a stop. That was plenty of time to bake the pie.

The pie: it was an apple pie. Simple. Not too sweet, not to fancy, and generally a safe bet. Made from scratch. At least when they threw it back at his face, he wouldn’t be getting preservatives in his eyes.

Yeah.

As ideas went, this one was crap. Rupert realized this. The fact that even Rupert could realize this stood as a testament: this wasn’t going to go well. That’s why he left the gun at home. Its weightless lack pulled at him, as the shop came into sight. Did he really want to walk into this shop unarmed?

Would he really use it, even if he had it? Even if things went wrong?

All around, it was best he’d left it at the apartment. What he’d brought instead was pie.

Pie.

****.

Rupert did what he did best: he didn’t give himself time to think. He just opened the door, and walked straight into the Medium’s shop, white pie box balanced on one palm and the start of a scowl on his face. What, should he smile, too?

They were getting an apology. They were getting a pie. What more could the freaks possibly expect? Dream or no dream, he wasn’t a saint. He wasn’t a pastor, and he wasn’t a godfather, and he didn’t give a crap about a friendship that never was and a girl that didn’t exist. Not even if her name was Alice.

So why the pie?

Damned if he knew.

Things had been interesting recently. Why did things always have to be interesting for them, Lee wondered, why couldn't they just simply be normal? A fight at a pharmaceutical lab to destroy a potentially lethal virus...

As if Columbia hadn't been enough.

At least that day, at that moment, things seemed to be going fairly normally. Lee was sitting in the shop, going over some paperwork for ordering more merchandise, and Tarin had just run out. While the back of the shop had been slowing down, the sales in the front had finally started to pick up a bit more, meaning that Lee had to do this ordering stuff much more often to keep things on the shelves.

But at least things were normal now, Lee thought as she gazed across the shop at one of the shelves, trying to puzzle how much to order.

And then she heard the little bell over the door jingling. Another customer. Well, that was normal too, and finishing the order would just have to wait.

Turning to look over at the door from where she was sitting behind the counter, the smile slide off her face as she saw who exactly was standing there. With a box in one hand.

So much for normal. Yet, despite her thoughts about having Rupert there, in the shop, after the last time she had seen the man, there was a strange sense of comfortableness and familiarity about it that was far from normal.

And then Lee remembered what Tarin had said about that night he'd been in the graveyard. "What the hell are you doing?" Lee asked, her anger rising even more. Standing quickly, the stool she had been sitting on clattered to the floor behind her, but Lee didn't walk out from behind the counter; she knew that with Rupert there, after what had happened, at least the counter might stop her from actually beating him.

"How can even you think it'd be ok for you to come here after you put Tarin in a coma and left him for dead?"

Lee looked so young. For a moment, that struck him. Towards the end of the dream, Lee had been different—more mature in face, and the way she carried herself. A mother. The ten years had only made her more attrac—

>> "What the hell are you doing?"

Thank God for that interruption to his thoughts. Rupert screwed his face into a cynical smile, and lifted up his box. “Making a delivery. What’s it look like? Is Tarin here?”

>> "How can even you think it'd be ok for you to come here after you put Tarin in a coma and left him for dead?"

Rupert stepped further into the shop. Closer. Right up to the counter, in fact: he set down his pie box. He didn’t drop it, as much as he wanted to: just set it down, like a civilized human being. That was an hour of his precious time, sitting in there. And it was going to taste damn good.

“Don’t be a drama queen,” he snapped. “I didn’t leave him for dead.” No; he’d just left the man duct tapped to a grave in a cemetery. “He would have been found in the morning.” His tone was dismissive. Something in his eyes, though, was taken aback. A coma? The last he’d seen Tarin, the man had been groaning his way back to consciousness. That last parting kick definitely wasn’t coma-inducing. What? Had someone come along and beat the man after Rupert had left? Whoever did it, Rupert could sympathize. Just looking at the man’s face...

“Is Tarin here, or is he still in his little coma?” He asked, scowling at some place on the wall.

...That was not a twinge of guilt, damn it.

Lee blinked as Rupert said he was making a delivery. What the hell did he mean by that, anyway? But with how he asked if Tarin were there, it set Lee on edge even more. The last time that Lee had seen this man, he had come to their apartment to kill Tarin. And though that hadn't succeeded, now the man was back here, asking whether Tarin was around.

"No, he's not here," Lee said carefully as she watched Rupert approach the counter. Approach, though keeping to the other side, and then setting the box down on the counter between them. "And what the hell could be so important that you'd actually deliver it here in person?"

But before Rupert could answer that, he started talking about something else, telling her to not be such a drama queen. Lee's eyes widened as she looked across the counter at the man.

"Drama Queen?" Lee repeated, her voice rising slightly in shock at how Rupert was acting. Even though it shouldn't be surprising, he almost always had done everything in his power to anger her, hadn't he?

"Just left him taped to a grave stone?" Lee questioned what Rupert was saying, though the details had come from what her husband had said, not this man. "Just left Tarin stuck in a cemetery??

"He was in a coma for a damn month," Lee continued, her voice growing more angry with the man in front of her, and by the time she had finished speaking, she was leaning across the counter slightly toward him.

>> "No, he's not here. And what the hell could be so important that you'd actually deliver it here in person?"

Rupert didn’t answer that; not unless you count a slight avoidance of her gaze. Were those new bookshelves? Not that he gave a crap. They looked good, though. Went with the carpet, and the cheesy junk stocked in them.

>> "Drama Queen? ...He was in a coma for a damn month.”

A month. Rupert tried to keep the shock off his face. He hadn’t—

“Since I brought him there to kill him,” Rupert scowled, “you’d think you could cut me some slack on the details. Last I saw him, he wasn’t in a coma.”

He seemed to be looking everywhere in the shop but at Lee, though he could almost feel the heat of her presence, so close to him. Or maybe he could feel her. What was her power, again? Something with proximity—sapping energy from a person, he thought. He swallowed uncomfortably, but stood his ground.

“I came to ****ing apologize,” he muttered. And he took it back: those were pretty crappy bookshelves, on closer inspection.

Rupert was doing that whole not looking at her thing again. What the hell was it with this guy? He comes here, is actually talking to her, but won't look at her?

And then, still without looking at her, Rupert continued to speak. "Oh!" Lee exclaimed, straightening up where she stood as she looked directly across at Rupert. "So because you had meant to kill him, I should be happy with anything else that happened that night because Tarin's still alive?"

Well, in a way what she had just said had made sense, but she was dealing with Rupert here; logic and rationality often jumped out the window as soon as this man stepped inside.

But then Rupert said something that completely floored Lee. Blinking in surprise, Lee only realized when she noticed that Rupert was further away that she had stepped back in shock. Had those words actually come out of this man's mouth?

For a few moments, all Lee was able to do was simply stand there and stare at the man across from her. A man who, on a number of occasions, had tried to kill her husband.

"You came to what?" Lee finally managed to get out, her voice very low, as she stared at Rupert. She had to have heard him wrong. Right?

>> "Oh! So because you had meant to kill him, I should be happy with anything else that happened that night because Tarin's still alive?"

That had been his point, yes. His scowl deepened as Lee mocked him. Right. That was genius: try to push the zealot’s buttons. Good plan. His fists tightened at his side, but he kept them there. He didn’t come to fight. That was rare enough, in and of itself.

And then came the step backwards. The blinks of surprise. The utter melodrama of her acting. Rupert gritted his teeth.

Then, just because she wasn’t rubbing enough salt in his eyes just yet, she tried to get him to repeat it:

>> "You came to what?"

That. Was just. Too. Much.

Rupert snapped.

Muddy hazel eyes whipped to Lee. He braced his hands on the counter, and leaned forward. “I came to apologize,” he repeated. “That’s right: I came to ****ing apologize. And I made a ****ing pie.” He flippantly opened the box lid. The apple pie sat in its tin inside, still slightly warm, and entirely unaware of how out of place it was in this situation. “Go ahead; mock me all you want. Could you tell me when your damn husband is going to be back, while you’re at it? Or should I write a ****ing note?”

He repeated himself. Rupert Kelley actually looked at her across the counter and apologized.

With a pie.

Lee looked between the pie Rupert had flipped open on the counter, she could smell its still slightly warm aroma as it sat there, completely at a loss for what to say. She hadn't thought that Rupert was even capable of apologizing, yet here he was, saying he was here to apologize a couple times over. And with a pie.

Looking back up at Rupert, Lee remained silent as she still didn't know what to say to this newest development.

But then Rupert was asking when Tarin would be back, or if he should just write a note. Shaking her head slightly to try and get rid of her sheer surprise, Lee glanced unconsciously at the door before turning back to Rupert. "He should be back soon," Lee said slowly, almost a little uncomfortably. She honestly had no idea how to react when Rupert was being nice like this. Well, nice for him. Lee could deal with Rupert so much better when they were fighting than when he was acting like this.

Glancing back down at the pie, its smell kept wafting up to her, Lee finally turned her eyes back to Rupert. "Did you make that?" Lee asked, her mind drifting back of its own accord to that night they had shared Eggplant Parmesan at his apartment.

>> "He should be back soon."

“Soon,” Rupert repeated, with the same slow discomfort. Soon. Right. And in the meantime, they would just stand here, waiting. Him, and the man’s young wife. With a pie between them.

>> "Did you make that?"

“Yeah,” Rupert said, with a bare minimum of bristling. He scratched at the back of his neck, awkwardly. “Does he like apple pie? ...Do you? It seemed like a pretty safe choice...” He trailed off. Apple pie: the mac and cheese of the pie world. Even the people that didn’t get excited by it would usually eat it just fine, and admit it was good. Still, he would have preferred to know what the man actually liked. That was the right way to cook. Like with the eggplant parmesan he and Lee had shared in his apartment, before she’d spent the night on his couch: he’d gotten a chance to ask her first, whether she would like it. That had been consensual cooking. This? This was showing up at your girlfriend’s house with a six pack, and hoping her parents were still on vacation.

Rupert didn't seem happy about the fact that Tarin would be back 'soon'. It sounded like he wanted her husband to have walked through the doors 30 seconds earlier, so that he could get out of there all the sooner. So part of Lee was wondering why the hell Rupert had even bothered to come by the shop. The rest of her was still in shock that the man had actually apologized.

But then Rupert asked if not only Tarin would like the apple pie, but if she would, too. Again, Lee was shocked. The last time he had been concerned about anything like that, she had been sitting on his couch pretending to watch hockey while he was cooking Eggplant Parmesan.

"I know I like apple pie," Lee said slowly, a small frown of thought on her face. They didn't exactly eat pie all that often; when they did have dessert, it was normally ice cream, or cheese cake, or something along those lines. "I think Tarin likes it too. Or, at least he doesn't dislike it."

Then Lee just looked at Rupert for a couple moments in thought before she opened her mouth again. "You really do seem concerned by this," she commented, her voice soft, far from the tone she usually had when dealing with Rupert. "What happened?"

Lee seemed to be going into shock. Nice to know that his apology was up there with war crimes and natural disasters in the ‘how to react’ list.

>> "I know I like apple pie. I think Tarin likes it too. Or, at least he doesn't dislike it."

“Great,” Rupert snarked. He cleared his throat, and tried that again with less sarcasm: “Good to hear. That he... doesn’t dislike it.” Those words would have sounded a little less lame if he had been sarcastic, though.

>> "You really do seem concerned by this. What happened?"

“It’s nothing,” he stared at the bookshelves again. ‘The Eightfold Path to Inner Peace’ was mocking him with ruthless serenity, sitting between a few other volumes of equally worthless paper. “And it’s stupid. I had a dream. I was a Godfather—” so help them both if she snipped in with a mafia reference “—to this little girl; Alice. She was your kid. Yours and Tarin’s. Like I said; it’s stupid.” The pie cooled off between them, testament to stupidity in action.

Snarky comment when she told him that she didn't think Tarin disliked apple pies. Well really, what did Rupert expect? He came in here, out of the blue with a pie and an apology, when the last time either of them had seen the man, he was wanting them dead.

But Rupert wasn't looking at her once again when she asked what was going on. It wasn't a hard question, was it? For Rupert to go from what he had been like to this, there had to have been something major.

Rupert was talking, still not looking at her, as he explained that what had happened had been something stupid, just a dream. Wow, it must have been quite a dream for him-

Lee's thought cut out right in the middle and she blinked across the counter as Rupert said the name. She had to swallow twice before she was able to find her voice again. "You were Alice's Godfather?" Lee asked, her voice barely a whisper, her brow furrowed in confusion. Why in the world would she and Tarin have ever even considered Rupert for something like that? It was even more unbelievable than the whole dream itself was.

>> “You were Alice's Godfather?"

Rupert gave a short laugh, turning back to Lee. Yeah. That tone of hers was about right; it summed up what he was feeling, too. “You think that’s the crazy part? I was apparently a good guy, too. A pastor. I even talked you into letting me bring her to church every Sunday.” After all, it was a godfather’s duty to make sure his goddaughter grew up morally sound, heathen mother and her kidnappings to Texas aside. He gave a self-deprecating grin. “Stupidest dream I’ve ever—”

Something clicked. Something that had seemed so natural, he hadn’t even noticed it at first. There was nothing natural about it, though: Lee knew what he was talking about. She knew Alice.

It was Rupert’s turn to swallow. Twice. “You dreamed about her, too?”

Rupert was explaining more, trying, it seemed, to convince her that the simply fact that he had dreamt he was her daughter's Godfather wasn't crazy enough. He'd been a pastor, had taken Alice to church every Sunday. If that was the case, maybe that would explain why they had chosen Rupert to be her Godfather, because there was no way in hell that Lee would even consider that possibility right then.

But it was just a dream, nothing more, Lee tried to tell herself. They were talking seriously like this about nothing more than a dream.

Yet it was a dream that not only had her and Tarin shared, but it seemed Rupert had as well. Somehow.

And it was about then that Rupert seemed to click in about that fact. Or at least that was Lee's guess since he was standing there in silence for a couple moments just staring at her.

Then he asked the question, if she had dreamt about Alice as well, and Lee just nodded at first, trying to figure out how to explain it. But how did one explain the impossible like this?

"I did," she finally said, her voice slow and quiet. "I don't really remember it, just feelings. Like, it felt completely normal for you to walk in here, even though my mind was telling me otherwise. Or, that the apartment feels empty, though it's always just been me and Tarin there. And I miss her, it almost feels like a piece of me is missing, but she's not real, never was, and I can't even remember her...."

As Lee finished speaking, telling Rupert about her experiences with this dream they seemed to have shared, Lee's gaze dropped back down to the counter between them, to the open pie box sitting there, as tears silently filled her eyes.

>> "I did. I don't really remember it, just feelings. Like, it felt completely normal for you to walk in here, even though my mind was telling me otherwise. Or, that the apartment feels empty, though it's always just been me and Tarin there. And I miss her, it almost feels like a piece of me is missing, but she's not real, never was, and I can't even remember her...."

“S***,” Rupert said softly. That summed things up as eloquently as a guy could damn well want. They both remembered Alice. And Lee was starting to cry.

S***, indeed.

“She was a good kid,” he quietly said. “Really beautiful—she took a lot after you. She liked drawing.” By this point, something should be painfully obvious: Rupert remembered Alice better than her own mother. The dream was fuzzy about the setting—he felt like there was some monster in the closet looming over the whole thing, but he couldn’t remember what. And he sure as hell couldn’t remember what had made him into the man he was. But the people—the important people—those stood out.

Uncomfortably, he rubbed at the back of his neck. “Listen, I know this isn’t going to help, but I... I know how you feel. Right at the end of the dream, my wife and I—” yeah; because it got better: not only had he been a decent human being, a pastor, and a godfather, he’d actually convinced some woman to marry him, “—we were in the hospital. We... she was having a baby. I don’t even remember if it was a girl or boy. I was holding it in my arms while everything was falling apart—she was disappearing, the hospital was disappearing, and I knew it was a dream—but I could feel the weight in my arms.” He gave a small, helpless shrug. “I was my kid.” Lee might actually be able to understand that. She might just be the only one.

“Then I woke up,” he finished, “and I was back to being... this.” It wasn’t hard to miss the loathing in his voice. He stared down at the pie, too, for a long moment. “****. Do you want a slice? Don’t know about you, but I think they’re best while they’re still warm.”