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Penny Figgins was a creature of habit, and coming back to DC after so many years had disrupted many of hers. Some of her favorite, shitty places had closed down and become boutiques or cafes or some other Instagram-worthy snap scene. Where was her grimy, dangerous DC? Jesus, you could barely smoke inside ANYWHERE anymore.

A trip down memory lane had taken her way back to an old neighborhood she used to troll, wasted and cursing until the wee hours. Her feet carried her by muscle memory, a pint-sized human salmon swimming upstream to the ancestral grounds. And what was that for Penny?

A very shitty, very dank, very sketchy bar that gave two solid ******** about the non-smoking laws or general health codes and let its scarred and broken patrons do as they like. These... these were her people.

Penny was two beers deep -- each served in a glass dirtier than the one before -- and dragging down her fourth cigarette. She had no desire to talk to anyone in particular. A fat stack of network reports lay open beside her on the bar, and she casually thumbed through it, staining the page with stray ash more often than not.

If Penny was dramatic, which she was not, okay, she would have sworn she felt him approach. But the voice was unmistakable, and the smell of him -- though less boozed out, must be early in the night -- hit her straight in the memories.

Reflexively, she passed the lighter to him, sparing him a side eye. "It's good you're alive," she said at last, pulling in a drag so deep the exhale obscured him from her line of sight. He was still there when it cleared though. Yep, not a ghost.

"Could've fooled me."

Her voice was not upset, more inquiring without inquiring. It had been awhile, and Penny was not a needy friend. The fact that she noticed his absence meant he had truly disappeared.

"Look, I had the decency to text after I was out of the country for---" Her words stopped cold as Kam ordered an... O... Doul's?

Penny completely ignored his question as the bartender left and returned with a non-alcoholic beer.

Her cigarette hand pointed at it aggressively. "Uh, the ******** is that, Kam?"

Sober. Kam was sober. Intoxication went hand in hand with Kam, as nicotine-poisoning did with Penny. She double blinked a bit extra slow, processing the information at a pace very much unlike her. Sober Kam. Kam sober.

"Huh," she said at last, sinking back into her seat and downing the rest of her beer. Two fingers tapped the bar to signal for another and she stabbed out what remained of her spent cigarette.

"My absence was less Europe and more covering a warzone in the middle east," Penny finally replied. "And so, what, were you in, like, rehab or something? Talking about your ******** feelings or whatever?" Her voice wasn't warm, but it wasn't mocking either.

Pluto was a pretty chill planet to hail from. Penny did stupid stuff all the time, and it didn't lock her up. Maybe that was just the nature of time though? It has seen it all so it knows it all so it lets it all go. Or whatever. Something like that.

"All the Knight jargon is still kind of lost on me," she said with a shrug. It was no secret that Penny had never been a very good Knight. s**t, she wasn't even a Knight. She had managed to make her way up to Squire, but she was pretty sure that was some kind of social promotion based on how very, very long she had been a Page. Back in my day, there were like three of us! No, but really. It had only been this year that she had even met another Pluto knight.

"Being locked up, though, ********. If mine ever..." Her voice trailed off. She imagined missing work, and her blood ran cold. "That's a whole bucket of ******** NOPE right there."

Penny picked a flake of drywall off the edge of her glass. "There is a whole heap of new tech and whatnot. I was outfitted with some of it, not sure how to use it. Not sure I want to even get involved, not that I ever was. Are you still... doing all that hero stuff?"

Feverish, manic energy, Kam. Also, insomnia and being so busy you forget to eat. Burns so many calories.

"Oh yeah? I've never been one for pets. Can't keep other things alive, even temporal, summonable beings of questionable nature," Penny said, mostly into her half-empty beer.

It had been a hot five minutes since her last cigarette so Penny fished in her pack for another one, lighting it and exhaling on the words, "So, is that your job now?" She finished the exhale. "I mean, saving people, doing the magic thing. Is there anything else I should know about New Kam? Thank god you still smoke or we'd have nothing in common."

It was sadly kind of true?

Penny snorted loud and a few trails of smoke escaped through her nostrils. Like a tiny dragon. Remodeling a house? Sounded right. Kam with a project seemed like a more balanced Kam. As for her... "Well, if it ain't broke, leave it the ******** alone," she said, coughing the cough of a woman twice her age. Ah, cigarettes.

A sudden rattling vibrated across the bar top, and Penny took to cursing as she lifted one stack of papers, then the next, until she finally unearthed her phone.

"What?" she barked. This was her work voice. "When? Oh yeah, how many? Anyone on the scene yet? Marcus, I swear to ******** ********, if those pricks at Channel 7 have scooped us again, I will wear your balls as earrings in the morning -- yeah? What? Okay, text me the address, I will beat you there."

The phone snapped shut -- yes, flip phone -- with a loud crack, and Penny began feverishly stuffing papers back into her bag. She fished a wad of crumpled money and loose tobacco from her pocket and slammed it down. "This is probably enough to pay for your fake beer," she said hurriedly, "so consider it my help in your sobriety. I don't want you to be double depressed having to drink that s**t AND pay for it." Her coat was slung on in a quick flash, bag over her shoulder. She did all of this without smashing her cigarette. A real art form.

Her half-empty beer stared at her so she pounded it down with one gulp. "Look, Kam, if you feel like you may disappear again, drop a line, okay? I thought you were dead so it is good you aren't. Let's do it again? At some point? Yeah." She offered him a salute, capping off what was maybe the nicest compliment she had ever given him, being happy he wasn't dead and whatnot, and then peaced out of the bar like her hair was on fire.