The weather had been so very bipolar lately that Lixxie had not been sure what she would need to bring for a day's outing. That explained the green canvas jacket slung across half a bench and the black fleece blanket that covered the back of it. Atop it rested a small boy, dark-haired and gray-eyed, that seemed more interested by the coloring book in his lap than in his teenaged mother. He colored messily, outside and over the lines, occasionally going so far as his crayon- blue, his favorite color of the day- scuffing up Lixxie's jacket. Neither child nor mother seemed to mind.

Lixxie had grown older, but she acted the same as always, spinning too fast with her arms out. She became so dizzy, she fell onto her side of the bench rather than sat. "It's a real indian summer," she said cheerfully to her son, and she sat up sedately. Carlisle looked up at her and smiled; a single black line ran from his hair line and down to his eyebrow, where it disappeared. It reminded Lixxie of a crack on a porcelain doll, and she still wished she knew where it had come from. The same black colors had stained parts of his hands an inky, dark shade, like he'd stuck his fingers in her writing ink and then held them up over his head. Not for the first time since she had gained eight years on her physical growth did Lixxie wonder what, exactly, her son was.

He didn't wonder what he was. The child painstakingly colored in the large bow around a puppy's neck in his coloring book. "Can I color, too?" Lixxie was amazed that her son was so easy to occupy. A colorful leaf, another child, some crayons and a piece of paper- other children she'd babysat had torn the wings off beetles and set the poor insects aflame for entertainment, but not her boy. In her self-absorption, she almost didn't notice the yellow crayon he put into her waiting hand. She did notice his next command.

"You color over there," Carlisle said, pointing at an approaching group of people. She followed the gesture, standing up to fit action to words.

"Wow, the sun's really bright," she said inanely, holding up her free hand to shield eyes that were still a dull gray. As soon as she recognized one of the group- how could she forget him, even if she never did get his name. He'd been... rude. But he'd listened, or at least pretended to, and that had been nice. But Grim had told her not to talk to him again.

"I want to color with you, Carlisle." There was a tiny note of desperation that her son did not catch. She was already rebelling by not bringing him to meet her foster father. Anything else might make her catch a severe case of dead.