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"I don't mind smotherings," said Wisp radiantly; she looked as sweet and blue-eyed and golden-haired as Adam did violet-eyed and brunette. After prolonged arguments, talks and dissertations on what was cool or not regarding grandparents, Irelia and Jace had stayed home studying for a test they both had; it had been Wisp who had gotten to come along and she was obviously thrilled to bits about enough not to look like a walking refugee from 1984. She was simply wearing jeans (though she had painted the bottoms to look as though a flock of cranes was flying from one leg to another) and a t-shirt that was remarkably just one colour, blue, though she had kept the rainbow armwarmers. And the Rainbow of Light, too, though that was belted at her jeans. Your normal preteen, really. "Are you super excited, Uncle Jack?"

"He's on the edge of his seat," said Beatrix drily, though it was not that acid; really, she was the one nervous as all hell, and she touched Jack briefly on the shoulder. Thwomp was distracted eating cough sweets in her handbag. "It's not as though your father's got any stones to throw about your driving. Becca was a good driver but she liked to gun the accelerator, too, though she never got any tickets I knew of. Mysterious."

"Okay," said Wisp, who had quite wide eyes. She was often a bit jealous of Jace who claimed Jack all entirely her own, so she was not so secretly thrilled whenever her beloved uncle shared something with her specifically. "I can zip my lip. I can lock and stow. What's the haps?"

"I did teach you English, I thought," said her mother rhetorically from the seat ahead.

Wisp giggled over Adam's infectious baby laughter; as she did, Beatrix longsufferingly put up with Adam yanking at her long blonde hair, the bits in front that she hadn't scraped into the bun. She tilted her head forward and attempted to unwind his surprisingly strong grip, offering her finger instead. "Okay," said the preteen, laughing, "okay, I promise. Except for the last one. It would be so cool to live in England and be English and everything."

"It's not that different to living at home," retorted Beatrix, who reached down to tickle Adam in renewed effort to get him to Let Go The Hair.

"I pinky promise," said her daughter, and reached out with her pinky hopefully to wind it around Jack's and shake pinkies from the back seat. Honour was satisfied.

Beatrix blindly tried to tuck her hair away with her other hand, looking resigned to have her finger being a chewtoy. The taxi started to pull up into the airport grounds, through the toll booth; she did not look as sickened as expected. Then again, Wisp and Jace had been babies once. "Already developing the taste for human flesh," she said, also trying to help dislodge, "apparently."

"It's all right if you say Christ," said Wisp kindly, "Jace says about a billion times worse. So does Iree. They both have a case of the sassmouth."

"So does Akili, as you're about to discover," said her mother, "so I'm glad you're immune."

"Really??"

"No," said Bea, and as the taxi came to a halt leant over to start undoing the straps on Adam's carseat. "After all, it would break up your uncle Jack's and my secret marriage. No, you'll understand when you meet Akili. God, I can't believe we're about to go and meet with Akili. -- Do you want to grab Adam, Jack?"

"Okay," said Wisp, not quite at the age where she would fuss about getting lost; possibly she thought that this was for her mother's benefit rather than her own. She clasped Beatrix's hand solicitiously as her mother took the diaper bag after Jack had finished, her own purse with Thwomp inside over the other shoulder, leaving the vehicle as briskly as though she could still see. Her daughter could tell she was nervous; it was something about the way she was holding herself. She stood next to Jack as he directed them across the busy thoroughfare out of the parking lot; into the press of people in the airport, making their way towards the arrivals gate.

"Well," said Beatrix, not quite as grimly or as dignified as she'd have liked, "this is it."

Wisp grasped her mother's hand more tightly as she watched the woman running towards them; she looked nothing like she had imagined. Being a grandmother, although she had expected Rebecca to be very pretty -- just like in the pictures -- she expected her to be more grandmotherly, somehow; Becca just looked cool. She was wearing jeans.

The man who she'd pushed the suitcase at followed behind; he was also somehow a bit ageless, more than a bit scruffy in the way that Uncle Jack was scruffy, dark-haired with surprisingly, shockingly blue eyes. "Oh, ta," he drawled, carrying both, "nice one."