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Long hard night of work, and nothing but baked beans in the local grocery store? Feh.

Jane sighs, and buys three immensely overpriced cans anyway. It's not as if there's anything else around this week. Life is more fun in Metropolis since the apocalypse, but it's a lot harder, too, in some really unexpected ways.

It occurs to her just before she opens her front door that she's left her stompy boots at the club - with the night's takings stashed in the toe. Damn. That won't be there tomorrow if she doesn't go back now.

So:

Dawn is breaking over Metropolis, and a tired-looking girl in jeans and a sweater is walking down a seedy street, alone.

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Sokka remains grinning. Because he and Steph are unloading boxes of fruit from the farm and it's early in the morning and Jane has clothes on and this little excursion will make everybody happy.

...or at least, it's one of those do-good things that makes Steph smile, and he's been worried about that lately.

"Hey!" he calls again, grinning, and comes around the jeep to meet her. A glance back and he's holding a hand out to Steph encouragingly. "We brought you stuff."

It is totally making her happy! She beams up at him, and then refrains from flinging herself at him for a hug - because she has a pretty good memory and he was way weirded out by the touching.

Handshake? Plz?

"You brought me stuff? Oh my God, is that what I think it is?" She turns to Steph, to the boxes, and back, expression delighted. "Oh wow and this is Steph, right? I heard so much about you!"

Steph nods, grinning. Helping Sokka do good stuff is just as good as doing good stuff on her own - she gets to feel good about it! Also, one of the mangos got crushed in transit and everything smells like mango and it's SO GOOD. So Jane gets a big - if slightly shy - grin.

(Shy, because even tired-looking and without makeup, the other girl is way pretty.)

"That's me. The fruit is all Sokka's idea, though."

Handshakes are go. They can work on hugs when Steph quits looking quite so apprehensive around Jane.

Steph is getting an arm wrapped around her waist, too. "Well, I promised," he points out, a little sheepishly, shrugging. "But we didn't know when we'd come back, so we brought a few boxes."

"Oh my God." She puts both hands over her mouth, trying very hard not to jump up and down with glee. "Oh my God, you are amazing."

To Steph: "He is amazing! You should marry this one!

To both: "Oh my God, wow, is that mango!? Do you know how hard it is to get a real, fresh mango in this city? Oh my God you are my favourite people ever!"

If they have never seen an edging-towards-thirty woman gleeing like a sixteen-year-old, now is education times! (Not that she looks much older than twenty, but that's not the point.)

Steph laughs, leaning against Sokka and sliding her own arm around his waist too. "I know," she points out happily, amused by Jane's spasms of glee. "I probably will."

Glamorous strippers are totally less intimidating when they're just normal people secretly.

"Yep, it's mango. Lucy brought them from Australia just a day or two ago, so they're still super fresh."

Sokka is grinning, too, incredibly pleased with Jane's reaction.

...which is so great and so gleeful, she probably completely misses that look of gobsmacked-ness on Sokka's face as he looks sharply at Steph.

I probably will.

There is so much grinning now.

"Pineapple, too," he adds, still beaming at Steph, even if the words are technically directed toward Jane. "From Hawaii."

"Wait, seriously?" Jane gives him and her both a sudden doubtful look. "Someone went to Australia? Just for fruit? And then Hawaii in the same day?"

Are you guys crazy?

"Lucy flies," Steph explains, grinning because Sokka's all grinny, like he somehow failed to notice her total adoration or something. She elbows him.

"Fast."

"One of those hippie freaks you guys keep wanting to avoid," Sokka agrees, glancing at Jane with his grin unchanged. "Lucy's pretty much the entire reason why anybody lives at the farm at all."

"She flies?" Jane looks bemused. "Is she a person? Like a mutant? An X-Man?"

"I think she's a dragon?" Steph checks with Sokka for confirmation. "Or just turns into one, or something. Way cool. It's totally not all that weird unless you start thinking about it!"

"Nnnnoo, still weird." Jane blinks at them both. "... I am seriously thinking I'm going to have to visit."

"The kraken and the pirate ship stuff is all true, too," Sokka warns her, though he'd only shrugged to Steph's glance. Like he knows what Lucy really is. "But it's still totally worth it. Here."

He reaches down and tosses Jane a mango, grinning.

Steph is grinning at her too. "Go on, try it," she urges eagerly.

"You don't need to order me," Jane says, laughing, already digging into the skin of the fruit with perfectly manicured sharp fingernails to peel it free. "I should wait until I have a plate or something..."

"Nope." She grins even wider, peeling the skin away triumphantly and closing her eyes to take her first bite. "Oh, mmmmmmph! Mmm-mm MMMM!"

Sokka wouldn't laugh at her. That would be rude.

...oh wait, she's a friend now. He can totally laugh at her.

A lot.

"Shush," Jane orders him imperiously, lost in her mango. "Oh my God. You guys, you guys, will you come back to my apartment so I can cook for you? Please? I make a kickass salad, and oh my God, all this fresh food! Pleeease?" She turns impossibly hopeful big, warm brown eyes on Steph first and then, when the short girl shrugs and grins, glancing at Sokka, to him.

Sokka, though, was glancing at Steph. But since she's grinning and shrugging, he turns a grin and a shrug on Jane. "Um... yeah, sure. Okay. We were gonna stay for a few days anyway."

Steph grins. "I was hoping you'd say yes," she informs Sokka, and leans down to grab a box. "So we'll put all this back in the car then and take it to your place? Sweet."

Jane looks pleased, giving Steph a surprised grin. Girlfriends don't usually like her.

Then again, given that this particular guy seems to be basically the sweetest person she's ever met, she has no doubt he'd have made sure the girlfriend knew what was going on.

... damn it, Jane really needs not to be crushing on practically-strangers who bring her food.

"You two are amazing. Let's go - I wanna cook now!"

"You love cooking for me," Sokka teases his girlfriend, grinning at her as he leans down to pick up a box as well. He nods to the car with a smile for Jane. "You can take the front seat, if you want, so you can tell me where to go."

Jane glances at Steph - that sounds like something a girlfriend might take badly. But the shorter girl shrugs and gestures to her to follow Sokka's suggestion.

"Okay. It's not too far..." Her description is short and easy.

From the back seat, once they're almost there, a thoughtful question: "Hey, so, I'm totally interested in your job. I mean, not to actually work! Just, you know... the moves. Do you teach anyone? ... me?"

Sokka may or may not have just choked on air.

In any case, the car definitely swerved a little before he got control and back on Jane's directions.

Also, his face is a little pink.