Welcome to Gaia! ::

The journey from her home to the underground facility was one that Mimsy had made no less than a couple hundred times by now, steps taken as careful and dainty as a graceless woman's footfalls could, in hopes of calling too much attention to imprints of broken weeds on the grounds near the cornfield. There was still work to be done - always work to be done - and she didn't mind a bit of it, didn't mind making the trek out to the place he'd left before they could make it their own.

His absence alongside her in the lab was a thing that she certainly did mind.

She paused just outside the stalks and sighed, fingers brushing a dried, brittle leaf with particular care. Oftentimes she thought of how easy it might be to burn the whole field down, to make her (pointless) efforts of secrecy (even more) pointless. Each time, the strong consideration gave way to the knowledge of what might be found among the ashes; fire was a lazy solution, if momentarily efficient, and she had little trouble accepting the inevitability of long-term problem solving.

Maybe a little too little.

Or maybe she just had not waited long enough.

"Please remember that I trust you," she murmured, to no apparent conversational partner. But she knew she was there, always there. She knew she would hear her.

It seemed that the reminder was unnecessary after all, and Mimsy might have been apologetic to whomever 'she' was if she were not so thrilled by the other presence. She immediately perked up, tearing off the leaf in her haste to stand upright, and regarded her company with an uncomfortably wide beam of a smile.

"Lucky! Oh, hello!" It took only one stride of her spindly legs to reach him, but there was a particular bounce to it, uncannily jovial in nature. She welcomed him with a kiss on his cheek (just like last time) and took his hand without warning, holding it tightly in her grasp.

"I am enduring the sunlight only momentarily," she briefly explained, tugging him towards the field. "I have something wonderful to show you, I--we--well, there is--it is a surprise for you!"

Apparently, witnessing his reaction to this confession was important enough for her to stop and turn to him again. She waited as patiently as she could, rocking on her toes all the while.

Really, she looked vaguely like she might explode with excitement.

"Are you all right?" Mimsy inspected Lucky's features with a faint suspicion of her own, and released his hand to reach up and poke his cheeks into a better smile, if brief. "Nevermind. You will be, I am certain!"

The entrance was not very suitable for two people at once, so she stepped down first, then gestured for him to follow.

There was no audible indication that she had fallen or otherwise encountered any dangerous terrain - in fact, the sound that emerged was one of boots upon stairs, then two soles distantly landing on concrete.

"Come on," she called up to him, accompanied by the echo of her boots scraping against the concrete as she shifted back and forth.

If he found the courage to enter, he would discover the rough beginnings of an underground laboratory that was not at all as he'd left it. There were actual stairs, to begin with, and the rubble seemed to have been cleared or located to less critical portions of the facility, and the descent no longer ended in the filthy remains of a men's restroom.

At a glance, it actually seemed fairly usable, if a bit empty at the moment.