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Elke woke up, alert in an instant, and she listened critically to the noises of someone in the kitchen downstairs. The sink didn’t run, so not the housekeeper (as if Aysel would want the woman to come in at--she checked her watch--seven thirty in the morning). And no one was coming up the stairs (or if they do they were doing it very quietly) so it wouldn’t be any movers. Maman’s flight had landed an hour and a half ago. It seemed, to her, obvious who it was. She rolled over and was stricken by the panicked look on Finn’s face for a moment; she put a hand on his cheek and said, “It’s my mother. Let’s go look.”

She shivered in the chill of the morning once they got out of bed, though she shrugged on yesterday’s bulky cardigan to ward it off; tucking herself up under Finn’s arm seemed to help, and together they went down the stairs with Elke’s henshin pen in hand. They rounded the corner into the kitchen and--there was Elke’s mother, making pancakes over a stovetop griddle. “Bonjour, maman,” said Elke, and Aysel looked up with a cheerful smile.

“Hello my love,” she said, setting her bowl of batter aside and sweeping across the room to encase Elke in a floury hug. Her maman didn’t smell like she’d just gotten off a twelve-hour international flight; she smelled like spices and ambergris, like her favorite bakery on the banks of Seine. Elke did not want to cry, not when Finn’s father had just died and there was no reason--it was only that she had not seen her maman for almost a year, and she had missed her.

Aysel stepped back and placed little bises on Finn’s cheeks, smiling brightly at him in a way that did not look calculating, for all Elke knew it was. “Hello to you as well. Finn, yes? Elke has told me much. I hope you are hungry; I am making pancakes.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Elke quickly, following him to the counter. Mostly because she didn’t want him to be alone, and… it was embarrassing that Elke’s mother felt it was necessary to come back to Destiny City when she’d previously disavowed the entire enterprise as ‘an exercise in self-harm’. If Aysel still felt that way, Elke couldn’t tell; her mother was industriously sprinkling chocolate chips into pancakes and then flipping them over. It made Elke feel a little nauseated, but she didn’t complain when Aysel passed across a stack of pancakes for Finn and one for her as well.

She cut her pancakes into very small pieces, and pushed them around the plate to see if that would make them look smaller. It didn’t work.

Aysel smiled at Finn again. “My condolences, for your father,” she said, and that appeared to be the end of that conversation, as she was pouring out a very, very thin pancake. Crepes? Elke wanted to bury her face in her hands. “These shopping services always overstock.” Elke did bury her face in her hands. But not because she was embarrassed! Okay, well, she was. Who else’s parents had a shopping service? “Elke tells me you’ve finished college at DCU! She’s starting there in the fall, of course, she could have started this past semester but with all the upheaval recently I thought it was best she take the time off.”

Elke pushed her pancake pieces around her plate again and sort of wanted to die.

Finn and her mother were both watching her, green eyes and blue fixed on her--like predatory birds, or--she took a bite of the pancakes, a very small bite, and their attention returned to their own plates. "So I have heard," said Aysel, piling chocolate chips into her crepe base and then folding it carefully. "Elke's ex boyfriend was a dropout." Aysel sniffed, to show what she thought of that. Elke was reminded that her mother had already been a mother by the time she got to secondary education, married with a little girl on her hip. It meant she didn't approve when Grayson had decided to become a firefighter instead of pursuing secondary education. No excuses or reasoning would see her to letting Elke take a gap year.

"Finn isn't my boyfriend," she said to her plate. She put her silverware down, fork and knife crossed over the lower half of her plate. She pushed the plate towards the far side of the counter, tried to avoid eye contact. Her pancakes had been sliced into neat tiny pieces of mush.

"Finished already," marveled Aysel, and she took the plate and cleared it without further comment. Elke slanted a sideways look at Finn, to see if he'd noticed anything odd.

"Oh, darling," said Aysel, "So is my husband." At which, she laughed, and Elke did her utmost to pretend she did not exist. As far as she cared to know, there was nothing going on between her parents and Marcel's. Things were not like that. "I believe you," she said, soothingly; "Elke has never been shy about introducing us to her boyfriends before."

Elke actually... Had not known Finn was gay in as many words. But it sort of made sense, in some ways. She leaned on the counter and thought of Menachem, his dark hair and blue eyes, and-- she had a type, she thought, sighing and remembering Avery. Finn was not it. Was he a lovely friend? Indubitably. But not dating material. His eyes were very lovely and blue, though... Exactly the shade she tended to like.

She hid her face in her hands and sighed. "I need to shower and change, Maman. I think Finn does too--no hurry, of course," she said to Finn. "But it is something that ought to be done before we go to the airport."

Elke glanced between Finn and Aysel, and then slid off her chair and padded off upstairs again. Which left Aysel and Finn, and Aysel was presently eating a crepe in the neatest, most polite manner possible. “Of course you’re welcome here any time,” said Aysel. “I know how stressful a death in the family can be. It’s not something to try to face without someone outside the family to offer support.” She tucked a red curl behind her ear and regarded Finn solemnly. “I don’t expect to be that to you. It seemed to me that the offer might be welcome, though.”

That business out of the way, Aysel waved a hand in the air. “So, you are not dating my daughter. Are you taken?”

“Andrea,” repeated Aysel, mimicking Finn’s accent--or lack thereof--to be sure she got the pronunciation right. “That’s a sweet name for a sweet boy, I’m sure. How long have you been together?” She got up and bustled (no, bustled was not the right word; the right word would be something more along the lines of swept, graceful and glorious and burnished-copper curls bouncing against the small of her back) over to the fridge, unearthing orange juice and pouring two glasses. “It makes me happier than I can express that Elke has such normal friends,” she said, passing a glass to Finn. “She used to run with such an odd crowd. I don’t suppose you knew them--she called them her astronomy club, but they were a bad influence.”

Aysel sipped her orange juice, looking out the window at the back of the kitchen. There was a small yard, fenced-in, with new-growing plants, some potted roses, and a sapling. Evidently this was a place she was planning to stay. “I hope you aren’t insulted,” she added, as if she’d just thought of it. “I suppose it’s a mother’s prerogative to be concerned when her baby becomes so forlorn. I don’t think I’ve seen her smile since…” She shook her head. “Not including this morning, of course. She’s always so pleased to talk about you, though. She says you’re very kind to her and you’ve re-introduced her to some friends she’d thought she’d lost?”

“My,” said Aysel, “so long? That’s wonderful. Congratulations.” She tapped her nails (painted a muted rose) on her glass, thinking about it. “I don’t think I was with Elke’s father for more than six months before we had to get married. That was a different time, of course.” The early nineties were so long ago. She smiled--she had the same manner of smiling with one corner of her mouth as Elke, though on her the expression was saucy rather than sweet.

She took another sip of orange juice, leaving blush-pink lipstick on the rim of her glass. “Boys and girls of your generation tend to place far too much stock in individuality,” she said. “When I accused Elke’s friends of being ‘normal’ when I picked her up from Crystal for her spring break, her first year here, there was a very angry redhead who insisted her ‘team’ was anything but.”

Apparently her good opinion of Finn would not be easily spoiled.

“Of such are the best friendships made,” she said. The water shut off upstairs. “Oh, but you don’t have any clothes here,” Aysel realized. “I’m sure Elke meant to go home and clean up. I apologize.”