After she'd asked about his shop on the other side of the rift and turned to make her way toward the park, Lee thought that this other Tarin wasn't going to answer her, that he was going to just continue on his own way. Because he didn't seem to be following her. The energy she was feeling from him wasn't moving.

Well, whether the man followed her, whether he answered her question, it didn't really matter. Lee had a lot of stuff she was going to need to figure out and still needed that coffee.

Though she was consciously paying attention to his energy in particular, it had just about blended into the background and faded away from distance before Lee felt that Tarin moving. Catching up with her.

Lee nodded, not at all surprised when he came up beside her and spoke. "So much better than random jobs," Lee agreed, not looking over at the man walking beside her. And that's probably what he would be looking at for work if he didn't set up a shop on this side.

"Not having to break the lease would be one less headache to deal with in all of this," Lee continued. A lease she had arranged a decade earlier to last a good many more years.

Lee seemed to know a bit about odd jobs and Tarin just nodded when she agreed that running the shop was better than trying to work odd jobs just to make ends meet.

That was absolutely true. It was also what had probably ultimately put Tarin on SUPER’s radar. Life had been so much easier with somewhere to live and work. Keeping a low personal profile had been much easier, but surely word had eventually gotten around about a Medium shop that seemed to be shockingly accurate because Tarin simply couldn’t bring himself to take advantage of people looking for help in their grief.

As they walked into the park, Lee spoke again and Tarin glanced over at her in mild surprise. A few minutes ago she’d been visibly distraught over the fact that she couldn’t find the Tarin from this side of the rift. Her Tarin. Now she was casually discussing not having to give up the lease on his shop…that she was apparently on.

“You don’t have to think about this right now…” he said. “It’s not like I can go anywhere.”

He was right, Lee didn't have to think about what she was going to do with the shop now. What she was going to do with Tarin's apartment, his stuff.

She didn't have to think about it now. But time wasn't going to change the fact that she was going to have to think about all of this. The only way that time would change that would be if Tarin came back alive and well.

And with their luck, Lee honestly doubted the chances of that.

Plus, even if she contacted the lawyer the moment the office opened in the morning to get things started, the smallest issues were still going to take days to sort out.

"I don't," Lee agreed as she came to a stop in the short line at the coffee vendor in the park. "But I will have to deal with it, and putting things off isn't going to make any of it easier."

As they walked deeper into the park, presumably towards the coffee place that Lee had mentioned, Tarin tried to wrap his head around how all of this was potentially going to work out.

Was he really this lucky? After everything that had happened in his life, was Tarin actually going to have things on this side of the rift just fall right into his lap? The cost to other people was assuredly high. Lee was being astonishingly level headed about everything, but there was no way that she was actually as okay as she seemed. Was it okay for Tarin to be a little excited…a little grateful that it was all working out? What did that say about him?

It turned out that there was, in fact, a coffee cart in Central Park at this time of day. Tarin didn’t question it, morning was relative in a city this size and people ran on coffee as assuredly as they ran on anything else.

Lee acknowledge that she didn’t have to think about this right now, but she also pointed out that that not thinking about it wouldn’t somehow make things easier.

Tarin nodded again, ”I’d be lying through my teeth if I said I wouldn’t leap at the chance.” he said, wincing a bit internally at how awful it sounded out loud, “I know how awful that sounds, I really do, but…” he let the words hang.

Lee could understand what he meant. This Tarin was starting over completely. Not just a new city but a new world, and he probably had very little with him. As he had said earlier, it wasn't like the rift had closed on a known schedule.

And here Lee had all but offered him the shop. A way to make money, doing something that would be far less difficult than finding random, general jobs, which came with a place he could live until he got himself more settled and could find an apartment.

Before she was able to say anything, Lee reached the front of the line. "Extra large black please," Lee ordered before turning to Tarin. "You getting anything?"

After waiting for his reply, Lee paid then stepped to the side before looking at Tarin again. "But you'd be a fool to not take it," Lee replied. "No, I understand that."

“No, I don’t usually drink coffee.” Tarin said when Lee asked if he was getting anything. He didn’t know if it was just the cheap hotel he was staying at or if it was a difference about this world, but the coffee had been absolutely awful. Lee on the other hand had gotten a huge coffee and Tarin had to wonder if she planned on sleeping any time soon. Probably not if that was what she was going to drink.

Lee stepped to the side and seemed to understand what Tarin had meant when he’d trailed off. He’d be a fool not to take the offer Lee had made.

Yes he would. So very many things would make so much more sense and be so much easier here if he had the shop.

“Then yeah…I mean as long as you’re sure and it all works out after everything I find out tomorrow…” God, all of the paperwork the first time around had been insane. What was it going to be like moving to a new universe?

Tarin didn't want anything. That was fine. Coffee at this time of night was not normal for most people. For most people, the caffeine would keep them awake. That was not an issue for Lee. Caffeine would not be what kept her awake that night.

It did not take long to make a black coffee, and as Tarin was speaking the took the cup, holding it between both hands as she slowly started walking. Away from the cart and further into the park.

"I can't see any reason that Kevin or I would need the place," she said after a few moments. "Not any time in the foreseeable future, anyway."

No. She had been added to the lease years earlier as a just in case. So she'd still have the shop and could do something herself to make sure she'd still have an income. At the same time she'd convinced Tarin and had negotiated a 30-year lease with the family that owned the shop. But Lee didn't need the shop anymore to make money to survive.

Yet, it almost felt wrong to completely give it up.

"But yeah, I'm sure," Lee continued, glancing over as she walked. "There's obviously stuff I need to look into and take care of, but the shop should stay open."

Lee was sure that the woman from the Empire State Building would want that as well.

Once Lee had her coffee she started walking again and Tarin followed. He hadn’t really had time to look around Central Park and…it was honestly very similar. It wasn’t like he’d spent a ton of time there back home, but if there were differences they weren’t big enough that he was noticing right off the bat.

She and Kevin wouldn’t need the place? Kevin had to be the son that Lee had mentioned. Tarin wasn’t going to ask for clarification though, he didn’t need it and it seemed really really weird to pry.

Lee was quiet again and again Tarin had to think that it was incredible that she was holding things together so well. He couldn’t imagine what was actually going through her head as she walked.

It was a moment before she spoke and when she did she emphasized that she was sure, pending all of the same logistical things that Tarin was also unsure about. The point of everything that Lee was saying though, was that the shop should stay open.

The shop was important.

Tarin decided that he’d try a little harder here than he had at home. Things weren’t nearly as volatile and he could surely do more than just make ends meet. He also didn’t need to run off to the island, even if it was in the exact same place and used for the exact same purpose as it had been back home. It wasn’t something that he needed to do.

“Is there a lot of well established clientele?” he asked, deciding that if nothing else he could give Lee something else to think about for a little bit. “Don’t want to pry, but It sounds like you’re close, and I figured you might know…”

Tarin, the man that shared a name with her ex-husband who had come from the other side of the rift, followed her when she started walking away from the coffee cart and further into the park. He didn't have to, and there had been no discussion about it, but he was following. Walking with her.

Though it made sense for him to follow her. How else would he manage to actually get the shop that Lee had just offered him?

The two of them walked in silence for a short time, Lee occasionally sipping her coffee. And though they had only met a very short time earlier by chance in front of the shop because she'd confronted him about hanging around while she was knocking and yelling through the shop door, it was not nearly as awkward or uncomfortable a silence as it could have been.

That could have been because Lee was starting to go through in her mind to come up with a list of things she was going to have to start on in the morning.

Until the silence was broken by a question. A question that at one point she would have been the best person to answer.

That time had been over 6 years earlier, though.

"Not so close anymore," Lee admitted as she looked ahead of them on the path. "Unsure how to act around each other and more awkward than this since I came back to the city last year. But there have always been regulars, and at one point the shop alone was able to support the two of us."

He hadn’t intended to ask for so much information, but when Tarin asked if there was an established clientele at the shop, he got quite a bit of context for some of the things he’d been wondering.

The long and the short of it was that clearly Lee and his counterpart on this side of the rift had had…something. Enough of something to run the shop together and have a kid. That something had not lasted and according to Lee, things had been awkward.

As awkward as running into the alternate universe version of said ex person? Tarin didn’t know and was still trying to wrap his mind around the situation in a meaningful way. He’d left the hotel to basically do reconnaissance and was now on a walk in the park with a stranger who had basically offered him a whole new lease on life.

”Ah…” he said brilliantly in response to Lee’s revelation. “That’s good to know I guess…that there’s a market, that is.” not the other part. Tarin was answering his own question from a little earlier.

”Does the shop on this side still have a kitchen and living space in the back?” he asked, trying to swerve the conversation away from topics that were awkward and none of his business.

It sounded weird that things with Tarin had been more awkward in the last year than now, running into a version of him from another world. But it had been, because while they had been divorced for years at that point, and something had broken between them, Lee still loved the man. She was still able to read his emotions and gestures as easily as when they were together, and he hers.

Awkward, because in a lot of ways, Lee hadn't known how to be around Tarin, but not be with him.

That alone made this here in the park less awkward.

Lee nodded when he spoke again. "Business goes up and down, but there's definitely a market."

And this Tarin was being very practical, too, asking about the living space in the back of the shop. So he'd have somewhere to live at first. Though Lee couldn't help but wonder just how similar the two shops were.

"It does," Lee confirmed with a glance over at him. "We had ended up moving the sessions into the back, apparently Tarin had ended up living in the back again at some point after the divorce, so it should be at least somewhat set up for that still."

Definitely a market. Well, that boded well. Tarin wasn’t particularly good at getting the word out, so hopefully he could get in touch with that old client list and make something happen. If the other Tarin had been gone for several days, people would probably be wondering what was up.

Again, it struck Tarin how awful this entire line of thinking was and how much worse he was for walking here and thinking about how he was going to poach the clientele of the poor guy…wherever he was. Glad he’d had the common sense to at least not mention that part out loud, Tarin shook his head at himself as they continued to walk.

The shop here did have a living space, but at least until recently the former occupant had been staying there. If everything worked out, Tarin was going to need to get some replacement furniture and figure out what to do with all of those things. Again. Weird.

It also appeared that at one point the Tarin here had been married. To Lee. Apparently things were different enough on this side that the other Tarin had really had his life together…at least at some point. Tarin had an idea what one of the big differences was, and it made the idea of a somewhat stable life and something resembling a stable relationship seem like it was possible. It was, once again, not something Tarin was going to bring up.

“That definitely makes things easier…” Tarin said, wracking his brain and trying to figure out what else he needed to know. Did he have any questions that he hadn’t been able to ask? If nothing else, Lee seemed safe to ask the truth, ”This is probably going to sound odd..but maybe it won’t…” he said slowly, still trying to give himself a chance to back out if he wanted. “Is it actually safe here? Hopefully she’d understand what he meant. Tarin had a feeling he knew the answer, but he wanted to hear it from someone who seemed like they’d know.

Considering that he had been staying from scratch here, the fact that the shop did still have the living area in the back would make things easier. Lee wished she'd had an opportunity like that one of the times she had had to start over from scratch, trying to find a new job and place to live even once in her life.

Maybe that was why she was doing this.

Was it actually safe here? Lee looked up at this other Tarin for a moment trying to gauge at what depth he was asking the question. Then took a sip of coffee as she thought about how to word it.

"Unfortunately, I think there's always going to be bigots and people who hate and fear us," Lee started as she turned her eyes to look into the park. In the direction the camp had once been located.

"But are we at risk of being taken and collared by the authorities? No. Generally speaking, this is probably about the safest I've seen New York. And from what I've heard, a hell of a lot safer than your world."

Well. At least Lee had understood the question he was asking and as they continued to walk, Tarin mulled over what Lee had to say.

There were always going to be bigots and people who were afraid of mutants. That was a given, but Tarin had absolutely never concerned himself with those people. They weren’t worth the time it would have taken him to try to convince them otherwise and Tarin couldn’t understand why he’d want to anyway. In also wasn’t lost on Tarin that Lee had said “us.” So she was a mutant too. That made sense. Mutants had a tendency to find each other, to gravitate towards others who had shared experiences.

Lee mentioned collars and Tarin glanced over at her in surprise before moving his eyes back to the path. Maybe things hadn’t always been as harmonious as they now seemed. Still, Lee said that this was the safest she had ever seen this city and Tarin found himself breathing a sigh of relief.

Lee said that from what she’d heard it was safer here than on the other side of the rift and Tarin nodded grimly.

“Yeah…things weren’t great.” he said by way of confirmation of what Lee thought. “And it’s going to take some getting used to things being different.” Not having to worry all the time? Not being ready for SUPER to show up at his door? Not feeling the need to run and hide? Yeah, that was going to take some serious getting used to.

“Thank you.” he said sincerely, still trying to figure out how things could have worked out the way they’d worked out.

As Lee mentioned the collars, she wasn't properly seeing the path and the park as they were now, so she also didn't see Tarin's surprised look at her. But she did hear his sigh of relief a moment later when she confirmed that things were safer here than they had been on his side.

Not good. Lee didn't know a lot of details about how things had been on the other side, but the way her ex-husband had alluded to what he'd learned from spirits, saying things were 'not good' for mutants over there was like saying that the registration camp had been just a bad summer camp.

Then Tarin thanked her. Lee wasn't sure if it was for letting him know it was actually safe here, if it was for what they'd discussed about the shop, or everything.

"I've been where you are," Lee said softly, looking at him briefly before facing forward again. "Not the new world part, but starting over. With no idea where to go or what to do next. More times than I can count. I wish there had been some help, any help…"