noteful | Birthday Party for Laura/X-23

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Birthday Party for Laura/X-23

It's a pretty low-key party, all things considered, and not significantly different than the one Parker or Meg would have thrown in a dorm room for a friend at home, not-exactly-traditional menu not withstanding.

There's music, low enough to talk over (and maybe with a little more folk in the mix than one expects to find a party). Balloons and streamers in purple and blue and red. A place to leave presents. People to meet or catch up with.

And, most importantly, a chance to wish X-23 (or Laura) a very happy birthday.

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"It's a good thing, really," Jamie says, considering.

"I mean, in the world I come from they used to say it takes a village to raise a child - so how many people does it take to raise a full-grown former experiment?"

Meg blinks.

"I'm not sure I'd have put it quite that way," she says.

She wouldn't say that Laura needs raising.

"I mean, I think I kind of see your point, but . . ."

Jamie laughs.

"You're probably thinking 'raising' is rich coming from a boy my age, and I suppose you're not wrong," he says, good-natured.

"But what I mean is, well, learning about people. You need a lot of different examples for that to even get you any kind of idea."

"I was thinking more that raising isn't a word I'd apply to Laura, no matter how old the person using it is."

She smiles.

"And I think being exposed to new people and new ways of thinking about things . . . I guess I think we all need that, to learn about people.

"Laura is just starting from a place most of us don't."

Jamie grins, a little ruefully - he's got personal reasons for thinking that exposure to new places and new ways can go a little too far, sometimes; gbut he won't go into that now - and tilts his head.

"Well, she didn't get raised at all as a kid, did she? And most of us got at least a little of that - nearly every world I've been on, people take some kind of care to put something into the heads of their children that'll help them grow into people."

Meg thinks for a noticable moment before she answers.

Laura is, in Meg's opinion, an intelligent, capable person, who has her own home and job, and cares about her family and her friends.

"I guess it depends on what you mean by raised. It certainly doesn't sound like her childhood was what would be considered conventional by any stretch of the term for my world. But she certainly grew into a person."

And a remarkable one. With or without help.

"Have you been on very many worlds, then?"

"Of course she did. And one I'm awfully fond of, too. But you don't think anyone can do that without help, right?"

As far as Jamie is concerned, being completely alone sucks about the most of anything. And for the first half her life, as far as he understands it, that's what Laura was.

"Oh yes," he adds, offhand. "About a hundred, I reckon."

"I . . . I don't know. Probably not, no."

But she's still not going to get behind use of the word raising. Sorry, Jamie.

Meg's eyes widen.

"A hundred?"

"Around that. Give or take a few, I suppose. I haven't kept count."

Jamie says this with the elaborate carelessness of the show-off who knows that what he's saying is impressive, and suspects that it will come off as even more impressive if he doesn't acknowledge its impressiveness.

"That's . . . I don't know that I can get my brain around that being something I could lose count of," Meg says.

(And take notes on. And make lists of. And . . . the organization this is kinda innate, to Meg.)

Jamie shrugs, with a grin.

"You get used to it. Really. It helps that a good number of them aren't worth remembering."

Some, because they aren't much fun, and some because they're really dull.

"Is, um, is that normal, or 'typical' maybe is a better word, for where you're from? To travel that extensively?"

That gets a slightly rueful laugh.

"Not half. Most people - maybe everyone - in my Home, they'd think you were mad if you started talking to them about travelling worlds. I just got lucky."

'Lucky' is meant as a joke, but there's a bitter twist on the word he can't quite keep out of his voice.

"Most people in my world, too."

Meg would be one of them, in fact.

The twist isn't lost on Meg.

"I . . . "

She's not sure what the right question to ask here is.

"It sounds like your world's not so different from my Home," Jamie puts in helpfully, after a pause to let her finish her phrase, if she's going to.

"There's lots of people here that come from worlds like mine - while most of the worlds I've visited are quite different. If I said England, would you know where I meant?"

Meg nods. "Yes, I would. England, we had. And I'm from Canada.

"Is that like your Home world?"

"Very like." Jamie grins. "I'm from England - from a city you've never heard of, no one ever has. Though if you named a city in Canada I wouldn't have a clue, either, so I suppose it's even."

"I suppose so, yes."

She smiles.

"Have most of the people in your world heard of the city you're from? I mean . . . is it just that it's small or off the beaten path, or is it that it doesn't exist on different versions of . . . worlds with Englands?"

"The second, I think," Jamie says.

"Well - maybe just the one. The world I'm on now, the city I'm in now, it's - well, no one's told me the name flat out, but it's a lot like mine. Spookily like. My guess is it's only a world over."

There's barely suppressed excitement there. Almost home. He's so close -

Meg is trying, but there's only so much confusion she can hide.

"I . . . I don't think I understand."

"- sorry," Jamie says. He looks a little embarrassed. He doesn't usually get carried away like this.

"What I meant is - well, worlds that are close together often resemble each other quite a lot. It's sort of like how you expect someone's sibling or cousin to look quite a lot like them. So working backwards, if you ran into someone who looks like someone you know, you might try to guess their relation."

Though that's a bad analogy really, considering the preponderance of doubles across the worlds. But Jamie decides there's no reason to get into that; it will just make it more confusing.

"Oh. That makes sense."

More or less.

Meg thinks back over things, extrapolates things from the excitement of a moment ago, and then asks, very carefully, "Am I correct in assuming, then, that you're trying to find a way back to your Home? And . . . have been for a while?"

Edited 2009-03-03 22:07 (UTC)

"You're quick," Jamie says, with a rueful grin.

"So I've been told," Meg says.

"I'm very sorry to hear that."

Jamie shrugs.

"Well, if I'm right, you won't have to be sorry much longer. Happy ending and all," he says, with a quick grin. "But either way, a party's not the right place for a sob story, so I'm sorry to have intruded it in."

Re: Mingle with the other guests

noteful - 2009-03-04 13:37 (UTC) - Expand

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