For Peter: Dated Sunday November 25th

[tooprettytodie]

Valkyrie was glad that she didn't have to hound Peter too much to make sure that he showed up for the picnic. She tried to make sure that she was understanding of his schedule and didn't assume every time he said a certain time wasn't good for him he was just making up excuses. In the end, they settled for a Sunday afternoon not all that far from the Compound.

It wasn't anything fancy, mostly just leftovers from whatever meal was cooked a few days ago with a lot of fruit and vegetables. An exciting meal wasn't the point, the point was to give Peter a reason to get cleaned up to have human contact with someone. Valkyrie hoped that after she saw him he'd start to pick himself back together at least a little bit. The guy lost his wife, so she wasn't expecting a miracle, but hopefully knowing someone cared about him enough to check up had helped.

So, with warmed up boar burgers and some side dishes, Valkyrie waited for Peter to show up. She'd give him five minutes past the agreed upon time to show up before she started hunting him down. If it came to that, she would find him.

Comments

[daretodo]

I considered just not showing up about fifty times. I've done my socializing for the week by accepting Cap's invite to Thanksgiving, even if I didn't end up staying for very long and I barely ate. I've got other things to do -- lesson plans and research, experiments and punching the occasional tree. There are still a few walls in my house that I haven't covered in equations, surely I could be doing that instead?

But the kid had a look in her eye that implied she'd be paying a house call if I didn't turn up, so in the end, I'm only a few minutes late. I'm showered, shaved, and I pulled on clothes that actually go together -- my usual teaching uniform of a buttoned down shirt and a pair of jeans. I ditched the tie on the way here.

Weirder things have happened to me, but I'll be damned if I can think of any one of 'em as I spot Valkyrie. I mean, what kind of person invites a perfect -- not to mention bleeding -- stranger on a picnic? How does one make that leap of logic? I swear to ya, I've been scratching my head about this since she first asked, and confronted with the reality of it now, I'm still not sure what to make of it.

"...so this is actually a thing we're doing," I say in lieu of hello, smoothing a hand back over my (combed) hair. "Picnic-ing."