That day had been…surprising is really the only single word to describe it. The day had started off normally enough: she had gotten Kevin off to school, then she and Tarin had gone for a run. He’d then gone to the shop while Lee made sure that everything from her end was taken care of at the bar before the weekend.

Then, because she still had hours before school pick up, and she was still feeling pretty…energized from the night before, Lee had decided to go for another run. One of her runs.

Only to get a text from Tarin saying his schedule that afternoon had opened up. Well, so much for Lee sleeping that night. She had then made her way over to the shop.

To find Robert there with Tarin. And things had gone worse than she would have expected. To the point that Lee had needed to call Rachel to get Robert’s concussed ass out of the shop after Lee had punched him.

At least the rest of the afternoon had gone well, and was enjoyable. Even if she had told Tarin, in detail, what she had done in Columbia.

But it was now Friday night. Dinner, Chinese as normal, had been delivered about 15 minutes earlier, and Lee was sitting on the couch in the living room eating. Kevin had actually been out of his room almost before the delivery boy had even left, he was apparently quite hungry tonight, and was currently beside Lee on the couch inhaling his food. And as Kevin hadn’t been very talkative that day, Lee was expecting him to head back to his room as soon as he’d stuffed himself with the Chinese food goodness.

Which was just as well because Lee was looking forward to more of the cuddling that she and Tarin had done that afternoon. And while he said that he was fine with her and Tarin liking each other and everything, Kevin also said “gross mum” whenever he saw them snuggled together or kissing. And Lee expected that Tarin should be home fairly soon.

What. A. Day.

The mornings had settled into a kind of comfortable routine where Lee and Kevin would get up and get off to school, Lee would return, and they’d go for a run.

From there, Tarin would get ready and head to the shop where he would work and then head home.

Today…had not gone quite that smoothly and Lee’s brother had showed up at the shop.

Luckily…and Tarin wasn’t sure if it was lucky for him or for Robert, Tarin had texted Lee just a few minutes before and she showed up right as things had gotten really tense.

What had followed had been some kind of thing. Lee had knocked her brother right off his feet when he’d tried to bodily remove her from the shop.

Then he and Lee had spent the afternoon in bed.

All things considered it had been a pretty damn great day.

Getting through the rest of the day had been awful though and when Tarin finally locked up the shop that evening he was more than ready to head home.

It was a nice night out and that made it easier to make the walk home and into the lobby Tarin went, jogging up the stairs to their floor.

Then he was home, and Kevin and Lee were already eating chinese and Tarin grinned as he noticed they’d already set out a plate for him. ”Excellent, I’m starving…”

Grabbing said plate and dishing up some of the food that was left, Tarin dropped onto the couch next to Lee, ”How was everyone’s day?” he asked nonchalantly.

Lee smiled when she heard the door open, but didn’t turn until she felt that Tarin’s energy had gotten close enough that she’d be able to see him.

”Excellent, I’m starving…”

Lee’s smile turned a bit more teasing and a playful glint came to her eye as she looked at Tarin. ”Oh? Busy day?” she asked before taking another bite of her food.

”It sucked,” Kevin said, not even looking up from his plate. ”We just handed in a project for social studies, and we already have another one due Friday. And Zack got in trouble and lost his computer until Tuesday.”

Lee shook her head slightly hearing her son speak. ”Maybe you’ll have to go and actually see him in person then,” Lee told him, then shrugged her shoulders as she took another quick bite. ”My day was pretty good. Ended up going for a run this afternoon.”

”Absolutely wild for a Friday.” Tarin said, ”Thought it was going to be a mellow day, but walk-ins took up most of my afternoon.” .

It was absolutely true after all.

It seemed that Kevin’s day had not been nearly as good and as the boy complained about his social studies project, Tarin couldn’t help but ask, ”What's the project over?”

It seemed that Kevin’s friend Zack, the one he was always playing computer games with, was grounded as well and that meant they couldn’t play their game. Tarin could see how it was a disaster for Kevin and he shook his head in sympathy as Lee pointed out that maybe they could simply see each other in person. The look on Kevin’s face shared what he thought about that idea.

Lee said her day had gone well and that she’d ran that afternoon and Tarin couldn’t help but wonder if she’d gone on another run or if the one she’d been on when he’d texted her was the same one.

”Nice.” he said by way of acknowledgement, waiting to see if Kevin would share about his project.

”I hope there weren’t too many,” Lee said, playing along with Tarin. ”I know walk-ins can sometimes be quite difficult.”

”How would you know, mum? You just do paperwork.”

Lee was about to point out to Kevin that she had worked in his father’s shop years earlier, but caught herself. ”Just like I did things before I was a mum,” Lee told her son, changing directions. ”I have had other jobs before.”

”We already finished the WWII stuff weeks ago,” Kevin explained about his project, his voice sounding annoyed by it. ”But now we have to do a project about the concentration camps.”

Lee tensed, her chopsticks pausing for a moment on their way to her mouth when she heard Kevin. She had not been expecting the subject for her son’s project, especially not brought up as he had. But she had also not expected her reaction. At least she had only stopped moving for a moment before her chopsticks finished their trip to her mouth and she chewed slowly as she tried to force her body to relax again.

Lee kept teasing and Tarin was about to point out that one customer who had relentlessly taken up his time this afternoon when Kevin stepped in and once again expressed disbelief that his Mom would know anything about anything other than paperwork.

Lee pointed out that she’d had a lot of jobs besides her current and Tarin couldn’t help but think back to their talk in the shop. Boy had she.

But then…Kevin decided to share about his project at school. A project adjacent to World War Two that had to do with concentration camps.

Tarin saw the chopsticks freeze on their way to Lee’s mouth, saw how she had to pull herself together before she finished the bite.

Kind of wild project for teens in New York considering what had happened there in the not so distant past.

”Two big projects back to back like that does suck.” Tarin said, hoping to direct the talk of the project away from the subject matter.

Lee's body was still tensed as she sat there chewing slowly. Using as long as she was chewing, and thus had food in her mouth, as an excuse not to speak, Lee attempted to relax her body.

Then she heard Tarin speak, and she glanced over at him thankfully.

”It really does suck, Tarin,” Kevin replied, sounding frustrated. ”I thought we were done with projects until the end of the year now.”

Having said that, Kevin stood up, plate in hand. ”I’m going to go see if anyone is online. Later Tarin,” Kevin said as he made his way to the kitchen with his empty plate. ”Later mum.”

Lee continued eating slowly until she heard Kevin’s bedroom door close. Then she looked over at Tarin. ”Thank you,” she told him softly. ”I didn’t expect to react like that…”

Tarin nodded when Kevin pointed out that he’d thought they were done with projects for the year. It was getting kind of late, but maybe the teacher had wanted to make an impact at the end of the year.

That was apparently the end of the conversation and while it had been rather short, Keven had actually talked about his day. That was a win in the teenage discussion category if Tarin did say so himself.

Kevin disappeared into the kitchen, then down the hall to his room and Tarin looked over to Lee as she spoke.

”You’re welcome.” he said.

”Its not surprising with the subject matter. You okay?” he added.

Lee thought for a moment as she leaned forward and set her plate down on the table in front of her, even though there was still some food on it; she was done with eating for now.

”I think I am,” she finally said as she looked over at Tarin. ”I think it was really more the shock of how suddenly that was what we were talking about.”

Lee closed her eyes for a moment as she took a deep breath. ”His teacher knows I’m a mutant,” Lee continued after a moment, looking over at Tarin again. As she spoke, her the volume of her voice gradually dropped. ”But even when humans remember that there were camps in this city, most either seem to think it is ancient history, or don’t think that any ‘decent’ person would have been there because they were for ‘dangerous mutants’ or those who refused to follow the laws…”

Lee pointed out that it was more the shock of how fast the topic had come up than the subject matter that had her on edge. She sat her plate down on the table and Tarin followed suit, the teenager had already left the room, the food wasn’t going to magically disappear.

Whenever something was difficult to think about or remember, Lee always seemed to close her eyes and take a deep breath. It was a tell that whatever she was thinking or about to say was heavy or a bad memory.

History was important. It was a common thread throughout society that if you didn’t know history, didn’t learn from it, that it was doomed to repeat itself. It was something that had happened on this side of the rift, if not on the same scale. It seemed like a great learning opportunity in what not to do. Kevin hadn’t talked about the details of the assignment, or how they’d approached the topic, but as Lee pointed out, most people acted like the camps had never even happened.

”Propaganda is a powerful thing.” he said, ”And sometimes laws are written in a way that you just don’t stand a chance.” Tarin had read a bit about the camps, and Lee had told him even less, but he knew that it had to have been hell there. He’d seen how hard it was for Lee to function when she wasn’t around people, and to have been hurt every time she touched someone. ”It’s also easy to ignore what you don’t want to see when you realize you might have been complacent in something so awful.”

It was all just another thing that Tarin hated to watch Lee remember.

”I want to say I’m sorry, but it doesn’t feel like enough.”

Lee nodded as she listened to Tarin speak. Everything that he was saying was so true. So many times over.

” It's also surprisingly easy for the world to repeat mistakes, even when almost no time has passed,” Lee whispered as she leaned into Tarin's side. ”Romania had its own camps up and running less than two years after the breakout here…”

It had always been hard for Lee to talk about this sort of thing, the registration camps, the breakouts. It still was. But, Lee was noticing, while it was still hard, it was getting easier for Lee to voice. At least to Tarin. She hadn't attempted to talk about any of these kinds of topics with anyone else in years.

”I'll have to see what the details of his project are,” Lee said after a minute. ”If they're going into detail about the German camps, it's probably time Kevin learns about the more recent camps, too…”

Registration camps in Romania. That was something that Tarin knew next to nothing about. Lee had talked about Romania and the bare details of what had happened to her there. It was a lot even in those bare details and it couldn’t have been easy to talk about or have brought up in seemingly casual spaces.

Lee was quiet for a minute and Tarin just watched her in the silence as she thought. If she wanted to say more, she would, this wasn’t something he was going to push about, especially after how viscerally she had reacted when Kevin brought up something similar.

Lee spoke then and Tarin nodded gravely at the logic in what she was saying.

”It’s going to come up if they’re talking about it in class. It would probably be better if he hears what really happened from you before he hears things that are inaccurate from his classmates.”

The whole thing was gross. That a mother had to prep her son to hear about something like this. That it had happened at all.

”You’ll do the right thing.”

Lee shifted so that she could snuggle closer to Tarin as they talked. At least enough time had passed now that contact was comforting when speaking (or even thinking) about the camps rather than her flinching away.

”God, that’s a whole other can of worms I wish we didn’t have to deal with,” Lee groaned. Kevin’s friends, and their parents, were good as far as Lee could tell. But who knew what the parents of the other children in Kevin’s class were like. And even if they weren’t bigoted, that didn’t mean they actually knew accurate information.

Lee sighed as she reached out for one of Tarin’s hands. ”This weekend just got decidedly less fun, hasn’t it?” Lee asked, shaking her head against Tarin’s shoulder.

Then Lee remembered what they could have been doing that afternoon before Tarin’s self control had cracked and they had done something a whole lot more enjoyable. ”Were you still wanting to watch that documentary, or should we find something else?”

Lee snuggled in against him and Tarin draped his arm over her shoulders, pulling her close as she mused over the difficulties of dealing with the other students and the varying accounts of what had happened in New York that would obviously exist.

The varying accounts and the varying opinions on what had been done, if it was the right thing to do, and the existence of mutants in general. Kevin was getting to a tough age where all of those things, their societal impacts, and the social implications were going to become relevant.

Lee reached out for his hand and Tarin entwined their fingers as she suggested that the weekend had suddenly gotten a lot less fun. Tarin wanted to find a reason to say that it hadn’t, but there really wasn’t any getting around the fact that this was heavy stuff and some of it was probably going to be hard for Kevin to hear.

”Let me know what I can do to help…” he said a bit awkwardly, Lee was going to have to handle most of this, but Tarin just wanted her to know he was there to help however he could.

Lee mentioned the documentary and Tarin shrugged, ”It was highly rated.” he said, ”And I am curious how it all pans out…”

Lee smiled when Tarin said he would help with whatever she needed. ”Thank you,” she said softly. ”Depending on what the project actually is, and how…strongly I react, I may need you get you to step in if he needs help researching or something.”

That had been so much harder for Lee to say than such a simple request should have. Especially since it wasn’t even asking for help yet, just asking that, if certain things happened, she may need to ask for help.

But she was trying.

Trying very hard. Because not only had it always been hard for Lee to ask for help, but this was for something she might not actually be able to do, and something regarding Kevin.

She was trying extremely hard here.

And he was interested in watching the rest of the documentary. Which sounded good, except for the fact that they were snuggled together and the remote was on the coffee table. For a few moments, Lee just stared at it, willing it to teleport over to them. When it didn’t happen, Lee sighed slightly before reluctantly releasing Tarin’s hand to lean forward

Remote retrieved, Lee leaned back, handing it to Tarin as she got herself comfortable against him again.