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“You could just call him, you know,” Paris said.

Alaska was freaking cold. Paris had assumed it would be, given how far north it was, but still. Back in Destiny City she could get away with just a sweater most days, or a light coat over-top when it was a little chillier at night and in the early mornings, but here? Nope. No sirree. If she'd tried that she'd die. Most certainly die.

If she didn't like the idea of dying in glorious battle, she liked the idea of freezing to death in Alaska even less.

But she wasn't grumpy at all. On the contrary, she wore a grin on her face the entire time. This impromptu trip was a nice change of pace. She liked getting out of Destiny City every once in a while, she liked visiting new places and expanding her horizons and seeing things she'd never seen before. What accommodations they'd been able to find were cute, Fairbanks itself wasn't so bad, and the fact that they'd come here to find Finn meant she had plenty of opportunities to tease Chris about his feelings toward Babylon... whatever those were.

“I mean, this little boyish crush you have is cute and all, but we can't keep wandering around without knowing where to look. It's not like he's just going to pop out of thin air,” she said as they crossed into the store.

It was a blessed relief. Even her big puffy pink jacket, gloves, earmuffs, and boots couldn't quite shield her against the cold.

Chris was almost surprised to see that Finn was in fact working in the one store they happened to walk into, but upon further reflection it wasn’t so surprising at all. It figured Finn would have a job that dealt with outdoorsy stuff, seeing as he was tagging caribou and whatnot.

“Here to see you, of course,” he said, trying to disguise his eyeroll by glancing around the store to see if there was anyone else around. This wasn’t the ideal place to talk to Finn about the war, but he supposed it would have to do for now. “If I wanted skis, my grandmother knows a maker in Switzerland where I’d get them custom made,” he mumbled, feeling defensive for absolutely no reason… which made him feel guilty and like a horrible person, so he ducked his head down and kicked at a scuff mark on the floor.

“Yeah, this is Paris…” he added, his hands still in the wool peacoat she’d picked out for him. “She knows who you are…” He figured Finn had the right to know. It was a little awkward trying to explain why he was going to Alaska when Paris didn’t know that Finn was Babylon, so… she had to be told.

“We’re, uh… married now, too…” Hey! A lot has happened since the Surrounding incident.

"Here to see me?" gawked Finn. Well, that seemed sort of extreme - especially because he'd never said anything to Chris about where he worked. Chalk it up to dumb luck or a really good private investigator, because he didn't think Chris knew enough about his personal life to ask the right people the right questions otherwise. "I'm not sure whether to be flattered or creeped out," he confessed. Maybe a little bit of both, if Chris thought Finn was important enough that he shelled out for two people to fly to Alaska last-minute.

The girl was definitely Paris and definitely Ganymede, and Finn was relieved to hear that she thought Chris was being ridiculous, as well. "Congratulations," he said to the both of them. To Paris, he added, "I bet you're a good influence on him." Well, obviously. Anyone able to tease Chris Gallo and get away with it was good in Finn's book.

"I don't remember saying anything particularly worrying," he said to Chris. It was a good thing that Paris had shot down the asinine ski comeback or else Finn would have felt compelled to say something. "But it's kind of an expensive trip to make just because you missed me, and a bit of a gamble if you're counting on a transcontinental booty call. Which I would not even be game for. Just saying."

So basically, Finn was really glad Paris was here as a mediator. "We close at eight," he said to her. "I can meet you at the diner up the street - they make a really good caribou burger. Where are you guys staying? Or had you not planned that far in advance?" He was sort of expecting the answer to be can we sleep on your couch?

“I don't know about a booty call, but I was kinda looking forward to having a sleep over,” Paris joked, grinning broadly, “but Chris needs his space. You know how he is,” she really didn't have a clue if Finn knew, but that wasn't the point, “just a big, sweet baby. So we got the cutest room. Look's like some old lady's cabin.”

Paris was quite enjoying herself and they'd only just arrived. Although, further beneath the surface there was concern; it'd been a while since she'd seen Babylon and hearing that he'd left the city had been worrying, in a way. She couldn't say she blamed him. There were days when she wanted out, too, and she'd been sorely tempted on more than one occasion, but there was always something that kept pulling her back.

And that, she thought, was where her concern stemmed from. She didn't know what had made Finn leave, but he had to feel the same way, didn't he? Did they all not feel like that at some point? So what was keeping him here? Did he lack that feeling, she wondered, or was it something else?

Thus her accompanying Chris on his journey.

Well, and she supposed someone needed to be there to mediate.

“We'll stop being creepy stalkers and meet you at the diner when you get off work then, okay?” she said. She bounced a few times on her feet excitedly, and then grabbed Chris by the arm to usher him toward the door. “Dinner'll be my treat!”

Chris didn’t look up as Finn joined he and Paris at the booth, but instead glanced out the window at the flakes of snow that had begun to fall while they waited for their teammate. He felt… anxious for some reason. Like he was only there to ruin things for Finn, who was obviously enjoying his time away from everything related to the war.

He didn’t blame him — trying to get away. Chris didn’t think he could bring himself to leave the city, but he knew of those who had and was grateful they were now away from that danger.

A glass of water sat in front of him, and his arms were crossed, resting on the table. Jumping on a plane to go to Alaska to talk to a guy he typically couldn’t stand had been pretty rash, even for him, and while he gave Finn a hard time, there were still things about him that maybe he was jealous of… if he’d allow himself to admit that.

Finn was smart… to an extent. He was sure he wasn’t as intelligent as others, but he had a good head on his shoulders. He was open and idealistic and Chris knew the war must be tough on a guy like that. Someone who wanted to do so much, but everything seemed to be done in vain. And maybe Chris didn’t think that was fair to the rest of them. How could someone like Finn escape and leave them to deal with all this on their own?

“Avalon was corrupted,” he said in a low, soft voice as he continued to stare out the window while Finn and Paris greeted each other or looked at the menu or whatever they were doing that he was ignoring. It took him a few moments longer to turn and look Finn in the eyes, hoping that he could see how distressed he was about the news as well. Paris… he didn’t think had ever met the knight, but she would know the severity of the situation, surely.

Finn nodded at Paris, and ordered coffee when the waitress came by. He had homework to go finish up after this, so the late hour didn't even phase him. He was starting to look through the menu, when something Chris said broke through his thoughts. A chill ran down Finn's spine. Part of him wanted to ask Chris if he was joking, but he knew that despite their disagreements, Chris wouldn't lie about something like this.

"Oh," he said hollowly, resting his hands against the table. In a way, he felt like he'd already known things weren't alright with Tate. For her to stop returning texts one day should have been the tip-off. "I'm glad you didn't tell me that over the phone. And it's okay," he said to Paris. He thought maybe he understood Chris's reasons for delivering that news somewhere so mundane, where the three of them had to keep up appearances of not being involved in a war four thousand miles away. "Better out than in, that's the saying, right?"

Now that he knew this, he had a choice. He could stay in Alaska and act like nothing was wrong, maybe confide in a few acquaintances that his best friend back home had died. Or he could go back to Destiny city and... and what, really? Lina's defection back to the Negaverse had left him once bitten and twice shy. If Avalon had gone willingly - he didn't know if she had, but which would be worse, really? If someone had reached inside Tate's chest and turned her into something she wasn't, or if she'd gone of her own accord into the darkness, made her own decision and stuck it to the sticking point?

"Avalon's always been really stubborn and strong-willed," he said, stirring cream into the mug the waitress had brought while he was lost in thought. "If she wants to be corrupt, then I'm not sure there's anything we can do to help her. Purification only really sticks as long as the person wants to be purified." After all, Lina had gone back. And that still hurt. "We never talked a whole lot about our knight lives. I don't know who most of her friends are. Maybe she was with a bad crowd and I didn't know. I'm not her dad. It wasn't my business to ask who she was hanging out with and where she was going and who'd be driving and if there'd be alcohol and boys at the party."

The waitress came back by. "Are you ready?" she asked. "Do you need another few minutes?"

"A caribou burger, please," Finn said, "And fries for the table."

Once she had taken Paris and Chris's orders and gone again, Finn turned back to the pair. "If I go back, I'm not going to go on some crazy wild goose chase trying to purify her again, because even if it's physically possible, we don't know if she wants to and if she doesn't want to then it's not going to work. I'll see the team. I'll wrap up loose ends." He'd deal with whatever the ******** was going on with his wonder and his ancestor. "But I'm not going to get involved in this Avalon fiasco and if I get on the ground in Destiny City and start trying to get involved, I need you to stop me, because I'm calling it now, it's a shitty idea. Two, I want to be back here when the spring semester starts."

This was punctuated, dramatically, by the fries arriving.

Paris sat awkwardly and waited for some sort of an opening to get back into the conversation, but between Finn's rambling and Chris's lecture she didn't feel like there was much room for her to speak. A part of her even thought it better that she kept her silence. Let Finn and Chris work part of whatever this was between them out on their own. Besides, she knew next to nothing about the situation and couldn't hope to offer any help or guidance when the only information she had was what passed between Chris and Finn.

She placed her order, nursed her tea, picked at the fries when they were dropped off, ate a couple, looked down at the table, and tried her best to sort out her thoughts when she wasn't even sure what they were. She was conflicted, warring against the realities of the war and the hope that still lingered in spite of it.

Wincing as Chris came to the end of his rant (the stress he put on 'dying' she thought was unnecessary; she shifted in discomfort), Paris placed her hand along his lower back, pulled his shirt out of his pants and slipped her palm up beneath to touch his skin—a lulling gesture. She wouldn't like the subject or the situation under any circumstances, but she liked it even less when it went to Chris's head and left him fuming.

“You don't know that she's beyond saving,” she tried, staring sadly across at Finn. “I don't want you to do anything stupid either, but you can't just... give up on her without trying. If she went willingly then she had to've had her reasons. Just... figure out what they are and... fix it.”

It sounded far too easy saying it like that, and though Paris had her own reservations, her own doubts and fears about the war, she couldn't quite believe some things weren't worth the effort, whether the attempt was successful or not.

“And if she didn't go willingly,” Paris continued, “then... I'm sorry, but I don't understand how you can walk away from that. I know this isn't easy, and there's been a lot of times when I've wanted to... you know... just... escape. But I know there have to be other people you care about, and things that... I mean, there had to be a reason you were fighting before. I didn't— we didn't come all the way out here to force you to come back. That's your decision. But, Finn, if you do... whatever you decide to do, or however you end up handling this, you know we'll help, don't you? Even if you don't come back, if this... and if Avalon... if she means anything to you, we'll do what we can for her.”