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[ Rex clicks his tongue. ] I'm not babying you. What I'm doing here now is no different from what I'd do for...

[ Ah. Never mind. Rex shakes his head. He doesn't know if she'd understand, or if she did, if she'd even appreciate the sentiment. As close as Rex is to those he's found here, he knows that he doesn't see the world the same way that he does. He moves quickly by necessity; a single month for him seems to last an age. Is it any wonder that he grows attached? And he grows attached quickly. It's the way he's always been. Either someone is one of his own, or they're not. He doesn't know how to move in half measures. It's not his way.

It's a damn good thing clones can't be Force sensitive, because he'd make a damned awful Jedi. He cares too much. And somehow, though he's not sure when it happened, that includes Cassandra.

He discards the thought, opening a menu on his communicator and shoving it Cassandra's way before rising to his feet. ]

Chinese is good. Here, you look at the menu and figure out what you want. I can at least take care of the dishware.

[ Ugh. Though she's trying to bury it, she already feels guilty about all of this. Guilty because so many people she's close to got wrapped up in it. Guilty because she didn't realize Woden would do the exact same thing, just on a larger scale, that he did back in London. Guilty because she didn't realize Woden was right there, using her, for so long. Maybe she's reaching, but Rex seems aware of it- too aware of it.

At the very least, he's aware of how bad she really feels. And she doesn't even want herself to know that.

Fine; if he's going to be so fucking helpful, she'll take that as an excuse to needle him. She starts looking through the menu, but she's not that intent. ]

What you'd do for who?

[ Hell. Of course she's going to make him say it, isn't she? It doesn't feel like the thing that ought to be said out loud. It ought to be the sort of thing that's just implicitly understood. But that's never the way it is with Cassandra, who likes to pick and tear at everything until they're down to their base elements, so perhaps he should have never expected it in the first place.

It's easier not to look at her as he unloads dishes, thoughtfully rubbing his fingertips against some of the dust while she - hopefully - busies herself with figuring out what she wants to order. ]

A brother, [ he says, stiffly. ] After undergoing a hardship.

One of the other clones, you mean.

[ That's- she barely knows what to make of that. Rex clearly sees the world through a somewhat militaristic lens, his relationship with his fellow clones included. But he seems to consider them family, too.

Which would mean...come on. They haven't known each other a year. Rex is certainly one of her closest friends here, but if he thinks of her that way- she doesn't know how to take that. ]

You don't have to... [ Fuck. She doesn't know what to say. She didn't know what to say to Martin, she doesn't know what to say now. Why does this have to be so hard? ] You don't have to be dramatic, Rex.

[ She puts his communicator down. ] The Lo Mein's fine. I guess.

I'm not being dramatic, [ Rex says, rolling his eyes, trying to make less of it than it is. Really, this is why he hadn't said it in the first place, and now he wishes he hadn't been so reflexively honest. To get dismissed so handily is just embarrassing, not that he had expected anything else. ] I hardly have any other frame of reference.

[ It's easier to downplay it, even if he does care about her nearly as much as he cares about many of his brothers. It's not purely dishonest either; what do ordinary people do for one another after they undergo trauma? It's only natural to go to someone, to provide conversation and solace, to provide some handy hidden contraband, human contact, make sure that they eat and drink and that their bunk is kept in order for them. He can't think of what else one would do.

Maybe most of them just ignore it. That's what the Jedi seem to do. Somehow, Rex doesn't think that his Jedi, as much as he likes and respects them, are a good example of that sort of thing. ]

...Lo mein's fine.

[ She wants to tell him that that isn't good, to know how to process only a certain type of relationship; but she doesn't feel like fighting him right now. She feels awful in a new way, suddenly. Someone thinks of her this highly and she just acts like a total fuckwad. She keeps doing this. She's always doing this. It makes her want to lie down, not think about this, about anything.

But she wanted to do that before Rex walked in, too. She'd just never let it happen. ]

I'll order it. You're the guest. [ And she's going to be firm about that before he steps in and says he's going to pay. ] You sure you don't want anything else?

[ She's not looking at him. It's not usual for her, to give up so easily, and it nags at her. ]

[ This, at least, he can answer. ]

Ah... get some beef and broccoli as well as some form of vegetable. I eat a lot.

[ That's an understatement. If not for good manners, he can inhale an entire container of Lo Mein on his own - and that's on a good day. When particularly famished, he can pack away a lot more.

He had been expecting her to needle at him more than that. She must really not be feeling well. He cleans the rest of the dishes in relative silence as Cassandra orders and, true to his word, he's finished going through all of her dishes and silverware in that short period of time. Even so, he dallies at the sink, wiping his hands off on one of the paper towels she had sitting on the counter, considering what to say, how to improve upon matters. He suspects he was not of as much help as he wanted to be, but he should have expected that cultural differences would get between them. ]

How do you do it, then?

[ It seems a brusque, abrupt question, though Cassandra may know him well enough to know that it isn't; he's simply the sort to ruminate on a single subject for far longer than others do, and to continue the conversation as though the other party had been thinking on it as well. ]

[ If she was in a better mood, she would smirk or roll her eyes at his final request; of course Rex wasn't going to just have Lo Mein. It's why she asked.

She makes the order, but she's entirely on auto-pilot, really; she's ordered enough take-out in her life that she barely has to think about it. If Rex watches her tone he'll know she's mentally somewhere else, though. Mostly in that she's coping with the sudden exhaustion that comes with the realization of how awful she's being, and the idea that she's going to have to sit here and eat with Rex when what she really wants to do is fall asleep somewhere.

Not that she'd let herself sleep for very long. And not that she doesn't want Rex's company; she thinks she doesn't, to some extent, but she does. She just doesn't know what to do with it. ]

What? [ She asks, clearly caught off guard, though she's not doing well hiding it. ] Sorry, we- we've talked about like five different things here, Rex.

Right.

[ Unless Cassandra stops him, he's going to start folding dishtowels and putting them away. It's fine. It's kitchen gear. It's all within the same category and is, in his humble opinion, simply adjacent to taking care of the dishware.

(Really, what he needs is for Cassandra to go lie down for fifteen minutes and he can finish the whole thing. She looks like she could use it, poor thing.) ]

Providing assistance to a friend who could use the support. How do you do it?

[ It is, in essence, a smaller question and one he suspects Cassandra will catch onto: what do you need? If what he's doing now isn't it, the only way to know what to do is to gain verification from the source herself. ]

[ She's on the verge of telling him to quit it when she sees him move onto the towels, but she's also on the verge of giving up on stopping him altogether. Clearly he isn't going to stop easily, and she's known Rex to be stalwart if anything; she doesn't doubt that he'd go out of his way to help anyone he cared about, even if jumping to potentially considering her family feels strange. She opens her mouth to stay something, and makes a small noise as if about to speak, then stops.

She leans her elbow on the table, rubbing one of her temples. She is starting to feel drowsy, but she doubts she'd sleep comfortably. ]

With the people I know? Make sure they don't destroy anything. Make sure they're not partying themselves too hard. Try to actually figure out what the problem is, not that they're good at telling me.

[ She doesn't mean it to be a dig at Rex, but it kind of is. But it's also, unintentionally a dig at herself. Evens out. ]

Well. I'm hardly worried about the first two.

[ Cassandra may seem as though she has an explosive temper from speaking with her - and in many ways, she does - but she's never been at all destructive. And partying too much? No. Not a chance.

(And, frankly, he's not self-aware enough to consider how any of these can apply to him. He's too sensible for that sort of behaviour, after all, and too resilient to let things bother him more than he ought to.)

He finishes folding the last towel and shuts the drawer, each item in its place. ]

Though if you want to discuss anything else - [ though this doesn't apply to Cassandra either; Rex knows what the problem is, and it's that di'kut Woden burning down the very house he'd built for himself ] - my door's open.

[ She won't want to now. She won't want to in the future. He knows that, sees the way she's propped up on the table, defeated, sees the way she's rubbing at her temple. She's underneath a great deal more stress than she can reasonably deal with. ]

If you want to rest before the food arrives, feel free. I'm the intruder here, and I'm perfectly capable of entertaining myself.

[ Read: perfectly capable of cleaning the rest of this place up. ]

[ Don't know about that, Rex; he might think differently if he'd seen what she did to David Blake's office. She's at a low right now, but she can get lower.

She nods at his offer for help, not knowing quite what to do with it. She sighs. Well, she does know what she should do- it's more that she doesn't know how she feels. ] Thanks. I'll...I'll keep it in mind. [ She says, in the clear tone of someone who's just saying it to say it.

She snickers dryly at his last statement, though. As if she's going to let him do that. ] What would you entertain yourself with? Mythology textbooks? Endless notebooks of research? I watch TV on my laptop. Unless that's not what you mean.

[ For once she knows what he's up to. ]

Keep it in mind, Cassandra. Really.

[ She ought to give it more thought than she's giving it right now. Rex isn't what he'd call touchy-feely, nor is he particularly good at discussing feelings, but everyone needs an outlet. Even him. There has to be at least one person you can confide in when the going gets tough and he's not confident that Cassandra has that outside of those that are intimately involved in her affairs. It has affected Rex, true, but he wasn't involved. It's why he treasures his friendship with Cody so much. Sometimes you just need an outside point of view.

Of course, when she catches him out, he pauses. He doesn't even have the good grace of looking at all guilty. ]

I'll have you know that I like cleaning.

[ As if Cass ever confides in anyone. She was so connected to the Norns they knew her problems without her having to say much of anything, and thank fuck for that; but they're not here, now, and she's starting to think they never will be. Someone would have to pry a lot more than Rex is to get anything out of her that's more than I'll figure it out.

That said, at least this gives her an excuse to needle him again, though it's closer to teasing this time. It's somewhat of a relief. ]

Of course you like cleaning. You're exactly the kind of person who would. [ And, shockingly, she's not, although she'll pretend she keeps things clean. ] Do you actually like doing it or do you like knowing everything's finished after?

I'll take that as a compliment.

[ Which he does, really. There's nothing wrong with keeping things nice and tidy and he's always been detail-oriented, focused on making sure that things aren't just going passably well but that things are done right. Sometimes that means hours poring over stratagems with Cody and sometimes that means making sure everything's in its place. ]

Can't it be both? I'd hardly waste my time if not for the end product but I don't mind the process. It's relaxing.

[ Of course that's how Rex relaxes. ]

[ She rolls her eyes. This weirdo. No wonder he considers this something he needs to do; it matches up so cleanly with the habits he already has.

He's a good friend. She should probably tell him. But that's...difficult. It always has been. She's not even really sure what she's doing with him, or Martin, or anyone in that household.

But she is starting to feel useless. She pushes herself up out of her chair, approaching him and whatever he's been working on. She can't be that tired, right? ]

Come on, give me something. I need to figure out where all of this shit even goes anyway.

If you say so. You may well feel better once this is taken care of.

[ Clean spaces are good for you, in Rex's professional opinion. The longer the to-do list, the more unease you'll feel until you've at least managed to pare it down. His to-do list is almost never done back home - there's always more to do, no matter what - but he always felt better being proactive about it, even when ostensibly in recovery. ]

Why don't you take care of the mugs? [ He says, passing the box over and getting started on a new one. Clothes. Somehow, he thinks she'll appreciate him rummaging through them and getting them washed and pressed less than Andy does - which is to say, Andy accepts it without any complaint and Cassandra probably isn't fond of the idea of him rifling through her things.

(Did. At this point, he's just cleaning her clothes for his own peace of mind, as though she'll show up needing something clean to wear for tomorrow. Stupid thing to do. He ought to be more mature than that.) ]

Have you always lived alone, then? Or is this a first?

[ She thinks mugs are kind of a simple option, especially considering Rex has started on her clothes, but she's getting too tired to push it. If Rex looks, he'll see basically all of her clothes are in the same mold- black, flowy, some tights and hooded cloaks. They're actually not nearly as nice as what she would wear back home, considering her limited budget, but at first glance they may as well look the same, and serve the same function. Benefits of wearing all one shade of color.

She starts on the mugs anyway, stacking them in a cabinet over the counter. At his question, she shrugs. ]

I might as well have been living alone in the other housing, considering how little I saw the people who lived there. I had too much to do. [ Although a lot of what she did involved sitting in her room, all holed up. ] But yeah, I mean, I've done it before.

I wasn't doing it before I was Ported in...but it looks like Lachesis didn't give a fuck about that, so I'll have to get used to it. [ She sounds particularly bitter, on that front. It's been half a year, and she's still not used to being alone all the time. ]

[ She doesn't have to get used to it, Rex thinks. She has a team here. Comrades. People she works beside and likes, people she cares for. She could live with them. If she were to ask, he thinks they would accept. He can't imagine that they wouldn't.

She's just moved, though, and he quietly considers that that suggestion will ultimately be an unwelcome one, so he doesn't say it. He'd hate to live alone, though. He's not much of a fan with how fragmented they are as it is; even after all of this time, it feels strange going to sleep in an empty room. ]

I suppose it's not much to get used to if you didn't see your roommates as it was, [ he notes instead, looking at her curiously. For all that they've gone through, there's precious little he knows about her. ] You lived with your family, then?

[ Even if she did live with anyone in the Pantheon, her frustration with them would destroy her- not Dio, and perhaps not Inanna, but everyone else would make her want to implode.

There is a part of her that thinks she could probably tolerate living at Maurtia Falls #10; she would if she had to, and if she didn't think it could potentially put the residents of the house in the cross-hairs of Woden. But she's also still flummoxed by how quickly she's gotten to know Rex and Martin, and isn't sure what to make of the feeling. ]

Until college. Then roommates for awhile, and then I was with the other Norns when I got Ported in. [ She pauses, and sighs. She hadn't realized this before- that she doesn't talk about them much- and feels a familiar twang of guilt. ] Have I really not mentioned them to you before? I know you wouldn't know the mythology, you're not from Earth, but...

[ But she's done a great job not mentioning her girlfriends at all. Maybe people are right when they say she doesn't acknowledge them enough. ]

[ Rex offers Cassandra a wry sort of smile, if you can even call it that; it's more of a crook of the brow and a twist of the lip than anything else. ]

You haven't mentioned a great deal about yourself. [ He pauses to puzzle over a particularly flowy bit of clothing. How does Cassandra wear this stuff? Honestly, he has no idea. It looks like it just gets in the way. He'd probably rip it off of himself in frustration before lasting an entire evening with it. Surely there's a better way to fold it... ]

You've been too concentrated on questioning me for me to return the favour. So? Who are these Norns?

[ Finishing up the mugs, she sighs and leans against the counter. They're actually talking about this, then.

The farther she gets from the Norns, the more she thinks anyone who questioned her treatment of them may have been right. She didn't intend it. She misses them like fucking hell. It's wrong to have a part of yourself cut away like that. But there's no one here who could reassure her she did nothing wrong, is there. ]

There are always supposed to be three Norns. I'm the god of the past, Verdandi's the god of the present, Skuld's the god of the future. It's a common trope, we're just the Norse version. You don't want me rambling on the entire history of it, it...doesn't matter right now. The point is when I became a god, they became gods too. Or- something like it. Nobody's really sure how it works.

[ And she stifles a bit when she says that. That's so much of her problem, now. Would they have always been gods? Are they doomed, because of her? Or... ]

They used to be my interns. Before I was in the Pantheon, when I was just reporting on the Recurrence. When I became a god...they were with me, so it seemed obvious they were the other two. We're supposed to perform together. Use our powers together. That sort of shit.

[ And...well. She's not very public about it. But she trusts Rex. ] They're my girlfriends. Hence why I'm so fucking pissed about it all.

[ All of this is still a little beyond Rex, but he listens dutifully anyway, just to make sense of it all. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that, despite having powers of her own, Cassandra's never held herself as a god, never held herself as anything more than a rather extraordinary human. Remembering that she means more as a symbol to others than as a person is always surreal in its own way. ]

Somehow I'm not surprised to hear you were originally a reporter.

[ He's probably more surprised than he should be to hear the word girlfriends. Cassandra has always been a reticent sort. To have not one, but two people manage to crawl underneath her skin is quite a feat. They must be extraordinary women. ]

It sounds like they're your partners in every sense of the word. That's something to be treasured, certainly. [ Absently, he wishes they were here. Maybe Cassandra would be happier that way. ] Are they angry about it?

Fuck, did I not mention that, either? [ Sometimes it's easy to forget people don't just automatically know things about her- even before she was a god, she'd end up in places where people had seen her face online, already knowing who she was, how she felt. This place is the same in some ways, and very different in others.

But it's Rex's question that seems to get to her more. She looks away, shifting uncomfortably. Despite the fact she shared space in her brain with the Norns, she's not sure what she would answer. And that's another reason why this makes her so deeply uncomfortable, and another reason why she's so full of doubt. ]

Are they angry about being gods? About not knowing shit? [ To some extent, she's talking to herself. ] It's...I don't know. We're strange. Nobody really knows how we're supposed to work, if we constitute one god, and there's three of us. It seemed like Ananke was after me, but it's not as if they didn't get powers too.

[ She grimaces. ] Nobody knows if they're supposed to die, either.

There's a great deal you haven't mentioned.

[ There is a long, pronounced pause. Rex is certain that he heard her correctly. He's hoping that he didn't hear her correctly because, as it so happens, he's surrounded by loss, dead men walking, and a tenuous future filled with all of the above. Cassandra is still a young woman by anyone's standards. To already be speaking of death...

He deliberately folds one of those odd cape-like things Cassandra's so fond of. He doesn't look at her. ]

Supposed to die, Cassandra?

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