>> "There's a lot to adjust to. The Yankees are pretty good here, which is cool. I had to relearn my commute, but the streets make more sense here. That's neat. Oh, but I had a go-to beer brand, Winsbrew, and nothing has tasted quite right here."

Pippa buried her nose in her wine glass, trying to mask her look of recognition. So much of what Sabine said, or implied, was true for her too. This New York was just different enough that she kept forgetting it wasn't the other one, and taking wrong turns on a commute initially. Now it was better, but she still forgot sometimes. And yes, there were drinks she missed. She didn't care much about the Yankees, but she knew the feeling of déja vu mixed with nostalgia.

>>"I never got to say sorry to my mom. I should have pulled in all my favors to transfer her over. She would have gotten better care here. I probably wouldn't be unlearning so many awful beliefs if that rift could have opened up sooner. You're meeting me at my best, honestly, not that it's saying much,"

Well, this took a somber turn. And they were on their first glass of wine. Pippa missed her own parents.

"I'm sorry... Your best is pretty good, actually" she said with a small smile. Sabine had come a long way from kidnapping mutants for sure. "Did you ever... look up the Sabine in this universe?"

Sabine settled onto the couch with her drink in hand. How did they get on such a bittersweet path of conversation? Sabine was carrying a lot on her chest for the better part of four years. There were other people she had near-death experiences with in that time, but they were all SUPER people. Pippa was working with SUPER, but she was different. Pippa was just a person with a big heart and Sabine found her easy to trust after months of watching each other's backs.

Pippa did not lie to Sabine, but she did offer her support without judgement. Sabine placed her hand on Pippa's briefly, just to give it a squeeze to thank her for being what Sabine needed in the moment. "You say that because you're sweet, but thanks." Her smile reached her eyes that time.

The topic shifted, thankfully, to Sabine's doppelganger in their current world. "Of course. Who wasn't curious about the other version of themselves?" Sabine had the benefits of a government database, not that she needed it for her doppelganger. "Sabine Sang-Marques, an actress back in Quebec. I'm not going to reach out to her, because how weird must that be, but there is at least one Sabine in this universe living a pretty normal life," she joked. "What about you? Did you ever cross paths with your double?" Her tone suggested nothing, as if Sabine knew nothing of the Pippa in her own world.

>>"You say that because you're sweet, but thanks."

Sabine squeezed her hand, and Pippa held it. Not sure why, but it felt natural, after having carried and dragged each other through various crises. Pippa wondered what the Other Sabine was like. Was she better or worse than this world's Pippa?

>>"Of course. Who wasn't curious about the other version of themselves? Sabine Sang-Marques, an actress back in Quebec. I'm not going to reach out to her, because how weird must that be, but there is at least one Sabine in this universe living a pretty normal life. What about you? Did you ever cross paths with your double?"

"No way" Pippa grinned. Sabine, an actress? "Did you watch any of her movies? Because I'd love to see that... Do you think she saw you on TV?" Sabine had a media presence, and Quebec was not that far away.

"I... haven't. Maybe she was living under another name. Didn't get around to finding her." It was a believable lie. Since she claimed she had not visited the other side much anyway.

Sabine was not good at being herself; for a long time, she struggled to identify what "herself" was. With so much of her time spent mirroring people around her, Sabine fell into a struggle with her own identity apart from the people interacting with her. She hoped the real her was some semblance of who she was with Pippa tonight. It felt easy being like this; casual, but vulnerable.

Admitting she knew her doppelganger opened Pippa for bemused questioning. "She's a stage actress. Small roles, but she seems to be doing fine. Funny enough, that was a possible career I looked into in University." Her unique educational path gave Sabine a breadth of career path options, and life would have been wildly different if she had not been called by a desire to prevent tragedies like what happened with her mother. She could have been living in the Village, performing off-Broadway, likely still in her own world.

And if she did that, maybe she would have kept the burden of her biases. There was no telling what paths a life could take, except for her doppelganger, whose mother never died, keeping her in Canada. "She might have seen me. I'm not going to bother her, but I'm sure if she was really curious about me, she'd reach out." Sabine was annoyingly reachable thanks to SUPER.

Both Sabines lived lives semi-publicly, but it made sense for Pippa not to cross paths with her AV self. Given that Pippa's relationship with SUPER, reaching out to this Pippa would have been a degree of visibility not worth the risk. It was not Sabine's place to air out details of Pippa's doppelganger if neither Pippa pursued that on their own. "Whoever she was, I'm guessing she was passionate and trying to do good. Some things feel universal." In the AV, Pippa was labeled an extremist, but she lived in an extreme world. Sabine was learning to view the struggles of those vocal protests in the context of what mutants in her world went through.

"Speaking of doing good, I imagine your garden is still hoping for some love. Maybe I can lend a hand?" Even with a glass of wine, she had a free hand for a trowel.

Pippa tilted her head, trying to picture Sabine on a Broadway stage or something. She certainly had the looks, and at least a decent talent for pretending, as disturbing a thought as that was. If she had gone that other way... maybe much fewer people would have gotten hurt. But then they would have never met either. Pippa wished she had never found out who her doppelganger was, as useful as she turned out to be.

>>"Whoever she was, I'm guessing she was passionate and trying to do good. Some things feel universal."

Zero out of two. Pippa buried her nose in her drink. Some things were most definitely not universal.

>>"Speaking of doing good, I imagine your garden is still hoping for some love. Maybe I can lend a hand?"

"Drunk gardening, here we come" Pippa grinned, getting up from the couch. They were far from drunk, really, but the night... day was still young. Pippa led the way out of the apartment and up the stairs to the roof, where the greenhouse stood. A panel of the roof was still covered over with cardboard and a tarp. Someone needed to get around to fixing it after AJ's fiasco. "Ta-da!... What's your thing? Tomatoes? Chili peppers? Pickles? Spices?..."

Fate was weird. Not that Sabine was a believer in fates, but the way life kept throwing poignant, plot-driven curveballs at her, it was hard not to imagine some rhythm to life. Pippa could have been anyone loaned out to SUPER by Sveta, but she was inevitably a face from Sabine's checkered past. It figured she'd learn to confide in a woman who, through no fault of her own, reminded Sabine not just of how far she had come but how low she was at her worst.

Drunk gardening didn't fix a monster, but it did give her something fun to do.

Grabbing their drinks, Sabine let Pippa lead the way to the rooftop. It was very New York, in one dimension or another, to enjoy an evening on the roof with friends. And it made sense for Pippa to be tending to a garden above the city-- right next to the patched space from the AJ incident. "You really weren't kidding about how he dropped in on you," she muttered. They approached the glass greenhouse and Sabine contemplated veggies. "It all sounds good if it's fresh," she admitted. "Chilis and spices sound very much my speed. Toss it up with some noodles, garlic, and peanuts and that's basically half my stakeouts." In a pinch, Thai food was easy to find in the city.

Feeling the change in temperature as they stepped into the greenhouse, Sabine looked around at the flourishing plants. "You know, when I was looking for an apartment, I didn't even think 'garden in the sky' was something I could include in my hunt. How long have you had this place?"

>>"You really weren't kidding about how he dropped in on you,"

"Nope!" Pippa noted cheerfully as they walked into the lush green warmth of the glass building. AJ falling in was definitely one of the more memorable moments of her life. Minus the tomatoes.

>>"It all sounds good if it's fresh. Chilis and spices sound very much my speed. Toss it up with some noodles, garlic, and peanuts and that's basically half my stakeouts."

Pippa smiled. Spicy food, it sounded good. She imagined it would be the takeout variety, but she was happy to experiment with home made versions of things sold in paper boxes as well.

>>"You know, when I was looking for an apartment, I didn't even think 'garden in the sky' was something I could include in my hunt. How long have you had this place?"

"It's not really mine" Pippa admitted "It belongs to the building. Technically, a community garden. But not everyone has the time, or the interest, to take part in it."She led the way to a long table, which held rows of potted plants, and pulled out some of the smaller pots. "Chilies. They need to be re-planted into something larger. If you feel like getting your hands dirty."

It was annoying reading people passively because Sabine did notice the way Pippa's tone and expression shifted when thinking about meeting AJ. Not that she could be blamed for that; the guy was heroic without all the ego of your typical "heroes." They also had a meet-cute torn from some TV romance flick, which was better for reminiscing than a tense office meeting.

You know what else Pippa clearly enjoyed? The communal garden! Sabine was going to keep her head in the moment and turn of her analysis brain because she was invited to enjoy her night surrounded by vibrant greens and colorful fruits. "I mean, as fancy as a private garden sounds, a community greenhouse somehow sounds more wholesome. And I'm sure the non-gardeners will really love you when the zombies come." Everyone had to have a zombie plan, and a sustainable shared vegetable garden was the cornerstone of an S-tier zombie plan.

Pippa knew where she was going, finding pots of growing chilies. They needed to be transferred, which Sabine guessed was a standard part of the potted plant life cycle. She was not an expert gardener, but she was an enthusiastic learner, so she held out her hands. "My hands are up for the challenge, Pip," Sabine assured her, shortening her name without much thought. "Just tell me what you need me to do, and I'm very ready to get down and dirty."

It was a little strange to see Sabine in the middle of the greenhouse. Like she was somehow out of place. But she had come here willingly, and seemed to appreciate the place anyway.

>> "I mean, as fancy as a private garden sounds, a community greenhouse somehow sounds more wholesome. And I'm sure the non-gardeners will really love you when the zombies come."

"Well, I gotta make myself useful in the apocalypse somehow..." Pippa smirked. She was clearly not the warrior or survivor type. But she did grow chilies.

>>"My hands are up for the challenge, Pip. Just tell me what you need me to do, and I'm very ready to get down and dirty."

Pippa giggled. This was probably not the kind of down and dirty Sabine liked to get. She pointed at some larger pots under the table, and a bag of soil.

"Pots. Soil." she paused, then dug around in a box for a pair of gloves, and handed them to her. "Gloves. Safety first. You can start shoveling dirt now. Much like PR work." she added with a grin.

Everyone thought about the wasteland warriors when imagining their apocalypse plans, so people assumed Sabine was the person to keep around. She was a fighter, a shooter, and a tactician. Sabine knew that you wanted people who could keep people fed (like Pippa) or alive (like AJ) so she knew who she'd be calling when the s*** hit the fan. "Please, every dystopia story has to have its plucky main character."

Slipping on the sturdy gardening gloves, Sabine grabbed her gardening tool and dug the blade into the soil, heaving a sizeable pile from the bag and into one of the larger pots. "Trust me, I don't envy you, and I'm the one who ends up in front of the mic half the time." Shoveling was going to be her workout for the evening, but Sabine was enjoying the wholesome labor. It was a change of pace doing something domestic. "I know you won the... dirt lottery when it comes to this job, but if it makes a difference, I've liked having you around. Totally selfish, I know," she added in a more playful, overdramatic tone. Sabine was allowed to be selfish in this one regard.

Pippa never really felt like a main character, dystopian or otherwise. And she was fine with it. Not everyone had to be an all-out hero in a story. She liked doing her own thing, without the added pressure of carrying everything else.

Sabine got to work, putting on the gloves, and shoveling dirt. She was nothing if not dedicated.

>>"Trust me, I don't envy you, and I'm the one who ends up in front of the mic half the time. I know you won the... dirt lottery when it comes to this job, but if it makes a difference, I've liked having you around. Totally selfish, I know,"

Pippa looked up, pausing her own work, to give Sabine a smile. She was a little surprised. Not of what she had admitted, she knew Sabine liked her company... just the fact that she admitted it at all.

"I like being around you too." she nodded. It sounded awkward, but it was true. "You are not... what I expected."

Sabine dutifully did her part, wondering if she could set up a little herb garden on her balcony at some point. It was nice feeling like she was playing a part in growing things. Though she might need the help of an actual green thumb like Pippa. Which would involve inviting Pippa to her place, which gave Sabine the very uncommon sensation of butterflies.

"Not what you expected," she repeated, smiling. "That's fun; I'm usually just about what people expect." By design, of course; there was comfort in the status quo, even when the status was less than stellar.

Having successfully dug out a space to transfer the plants, Sabine set her spade down and turned to face Pippa. "I guess this is the one time I'm glad I defied expectations." Noticing a spot of dirt on the finger of her glove, Sabine smirked and, without much thought, booped the tip of Pippa's nose. "Even if I'm dirtying you up a little."

>>"Not what you expected. That's fun; I'm usually just about what people expect."

It really depended on the expectations, but Pippa was not about to point that out. She was from the other side, just like Sabine; a universe where SUPER had done a lot of bad things that did not quite spill over to this one. The bar had been low from the start. But Pippa had not expected Sabine to not only be a salvageable human being, but... kind.

And willing to do gardening.

>>"I guess this is the one time I'm glad I defied expectations. Even if I'm dirtying you up a little."

She... booped her nose. Sabine Sang, hardass, no-bullsh*t leader of SUPER and former menace to the mutant community, just... booped Pippa's nose. Pippa blinked, no doubt looking amusing with the smudge of dirt on her nose.

"Oh no you didn't" she squeaked the next moment, taking up a handful of soil to toss it at her.

Sabine may have been somewhat cheeky by brushing a very small amount of dirt on Pippa's nose, so it totally made sense for her to respond by tossing a whole handful of soil at her.

Managing to close her eyes and mouth in time for the loose dirt to hit her, Sabine felt cool, damp bits crumbling into her shirt and sticking to her skin. Sabine scoffed, resisting the urge to grin. "Throwing? I'm sorry, are we seven, Miss Swan?"

That indignation did not stop her from grabbing her own handful of soil and scattering it in Pippa's general direction. At least SHE had a shower and drawers of clothes downstairs. "Fair is fair!" It could totally end there, but Sabine was ready to dive behind a table for cover if necessary.

"Excuse you! That's ageist!" Pippa laughed. Sabine, half covered in dirt, was really an amusing sight. Especially with that look on her face. Pippa knew what was coming before it happened, and she managed to duck out of the way of the worst of it. Still, her hair was showered with dirt. She made an indignant noise, running around the broad planting table, and tossing another handful of dirt in Sabine's direction who was also going for cover. She laughed. This was fun. Silly and ridiculous, but fun. And a welcome change in the mood.