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They actually arrived back at the farm a while ago, in the middle of the night, with no fanfare. Since then, Katara has been soaking in the winter sunshine, running around blissfully, practicing her bending and hugging her friends and brother, and basically just having a wonderful time. Today she's sitting at the edge of the pond, feeding Spots and grinning enormously at everyone who comes near. Life is great! Especially when you haven't had it for ages!

Steph is still working in Smallville at the bar, and has been catching up on missed shifts for the past couple of days; this is the first afternoon she's had off since they got back, and she's down at the training area making good use of her workout time. At the moment, just bending and stretching and general maintaining-of-absurd-Battish-flexibility. Any suggestions that she is avoiding Babs, using physical activity to avoid thinking, will be ... avoided via physical activity.

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Neil has heard about Spots, but heard about is not equal to met.

So he grabs an apple (for himself) and a ham (for the kraken) from the kitchen, and heads over to have a look.

When he sees Katara, he smiles. It's quite friendly, as smiles go.

Exiting the back door of the farmhouse, mug of hot cocoa in hand, Bridgette sees Katara and begins to smile. She forgets that Marie is right behind her.

Bridgette's blue eyes track an invisible form, her smile becoming a small, worried frown.

Maybe having been dead allows you to still see ghosts?

A three-foot tall tongue of white flame approaches the training area, flickering an inch above the right hand of one Oliver Wycliffe. The man gazes intently at the flame.

It rises, slowly, to four feet. Oliver stands, stiff and taut, breathing deeply. No matter how he tries, he can't get it beyond that.

With a small nod, as if this confirms something he'd already suspected, Oliver makes the Godflame wink out of existence.

When he relaxes, he notices Steph. Considering the last conversation he remembers them having was an argument, he should probably clear up the issue. Should she look his way, he'll give her a polite nod and wait to see if she wishes to be interrupted.

Spots is about three yards long at this stage, and is slouched ~~towards Bethlehem~~ happily on the edge of the pool. One long tentacle lifts to wave excitedly at the newcomer. EEE MORE FRIENDS, HE LOVES FRIENDS!

Katara turns to see who he's waving at and beams at Nick too. "Hi! Don't mind Spots, he's just excited that I'm real now."

He grins, crouching down at the side of the pool.

"Me? Mind? Not at all." To Spots, "A little bird told me you like ham. Want a snack?"

Spots indicates, tentacularly, that ham would be OM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM!

And he forgets that he's not a foot long any more, and tries to cuddle Neil's leg. TENTACLESQUISH :-*

Katara giggles, pulling ineffectually at a tentacle. "He's really sweet," she says happily. "And he likes me because I can waterbend! My name's Katara. I haven't met you before, are you new?"

It does not occur to Katara that there could possibly be any other reason for her not to recognise someone, of course.

Katara jumps to her feet and beams at Bridgette. "Bridgette! Hi hi hi hi hi hi! Where's Marie?"

Steph has already forgotten it. She was watching the flame eagerly, and when she looks again she grins and waves happily. "Hey, Oliver! How're you?"

"I'm Neil. I just got here a week or so ago."

Now that his hand doesn't have ham in it anymore, he wipes it off on his pants and offers her a handshake. (He's wearing gloves. Neil always wears gloves.)

"Nice to meet you."

And in a minute, the waterbending thing will click. In a minute.

Then this will be a fun conversation for the both of them!

Oliver is startled for an instant before he smiles. "Quite well, miss." 'Quite well with a side of tired' is more accurate, but so much more of a mouthful.

"And how was your vacation?" he asks politely, referring to the road-trip with Mel.

Bridgette points to Katara's shins.

"Well, it was ..." She waves a hand, hopping to her feet and stretching one last time. "It wasn't great, but I guess work never is, you know. How's stuff been at the farm?"

Katara blinks, confused, and then her eyes widen and her face falls.

"...I can't see her," she says, desperately upset. "Oh Marie, I'm sorry!"

"It's really nice to meet you, too!"

Katara is also wearing gloves, and hoping nobody notices. Nobody will think it's weird, right? It's winter! It's not weird that Nick is wearing gloves either!

"I think we left just over a week ago." ~~Time: this word does not mean what you think it means! ~~"But we're back now!"~~~~

Bridgette clears her throat, wishing her palms hadn't started sweating. Looking somewhere to Katara's left, she says, "Um. I'll. Uh. ...I'll talk to her. Later. So she gets it."

Katara sits down on the ground and holds out her arms to slightly-to-the-left-of-where-Bridgette's-looking.

"I'm sorry," she repeats dismally, lower lip wobbling. "I didn't think it would ... I didn't know."

"...Did you say waterbend?" he asks curiously.

His other hand is busy with that apple, so it's only after he's done shaking Katara's hand that he can pat Spots' leg-cuddling tentacle.

Being snuggled by a kraken is no weirder than being snuggled by a robot. A lot messier, but no weirder.

Katara nods proudly. "Do you know what waterbending is?" She is totally adjusting to this world and the fact that people don't sometimes! SO PROUD OF HERSELF. "I can show you!"

"I've heard about it, but I've never seen it. I met somebody a little while ago from-- well, your world, I guess."

Her enthusiasm is endearing. Neil smiles.

"Sure, why not?"

"Well." A small, irritable shrug - she's irritable at the situation instead of Katara herself, though Bridgette can't express that clearly. "Not everybody gets this chance. So. Not like anyone could know, I guess."

It's just Bridgette and Marie again. Like always.

Oliver, who hadn't heard anything about there being work on this vacation, blinks in surprise, but figures she probably meant some form of monster on the way there or back.

"Miss Belmont had her baby - a son, Ralph Trevor Belmont," he says, quietly beaming. "A good, strong lad, by all indications, and they're both thriving.

"We have a spaceship now, and a machine called a Gundam out by the bunker." They're both very obvious, so Oliver doesn't bother to point them out. "A few more latrines were built. I'm looking into new techniques for the fields in the spring."

All that relatively minor news was Oliver gathering his courage for....

"And," his expression grows graver, "we lost one of our residents. Gabriel Grey -- ah, the older one. It's believed he went outside of Kansas and ran into some form of trouble."

Steph, who had grinned enormously at the baby news, stops doing so at the last.

"Gabriel's hurt?"

D:

"And nobody can find him? Have you asked Babs?"

Katara could definitely have known if she ever paid attention - actual real attention, not just seeing-them-as-people-to-Save-Heroically-With-Waterbending - to anyone besides herself.

Not that she'd realise that. Katara is kind of dumb.

"I'm sorry," she says again, sadly, still hugging the air. "I'm going to miss her."

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