Bar -- Caritas -- Pikeman's Circle

        Warmth, light and noise are likely to be the first impressions of
someone entering Caritas. Passing through the old warehouse doors from the
street, it's necessary to take a step down and through metal detectors
before getting to the club proper. The bar runs along the right-hand wall,
glass shelves behind it bearing bottles in various bright colours. The
main space is mostly taken up by tables, placed far enough apart on the
wooden floor to allow some wandering around. The chairs are comfortably
padded, and there are a few booths to the left of the doors for the
benefit of those who would prefer privacy.
        For those who would not, there's always the stage. Curved slightly
and taking up a good quarter of the floor space on its own, the performing
space is only elevated by a couple of feet. Spotlights and footlights
direct plenty of attention to the current incumbent, and microphones are
provided on three different stands for varying heights. Turned to face the
stage is something which at first glance looks like a TV screen, but
coupled with the sound equipment off to one side can only mean one thing.
Karaoke.
        The usual clientele of Caritas is limited to those of...unusual
appearance, and those who don't mind them. Metahumans, demons, whatever
you'd like to call them, this is the place for masks and coats to be cast
aside. There's no need to hide how you look in here - there's bound to be
someone even stranger at the next table.

It's snowing lightly this afternoon, the skies stubbornly grey. It's damn
cold, too, and for that reason Lorne doesn't walk to the wheeled dumpster
outside Caritas, he jogs. Cold cold cold! Lift lid, toss in trashbags. "Oh
the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful. So since
we've no place to go, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!" Four
sweaters, coat, gloves. He's not taking risks, lately.

Lots of people not taking risks - but Kitty, this time, isn't taking it
quite as far as to get air-taxi help. She's still wearing Pete's coat, but
there's a sweater and turtleneck underneath it instead of one of his
shirts. Jeans, boots, hat and gloves. And it's completely automatic - not
even thought about - that, as she's approaching Caritas and hears the
singing, she joins in for a few words. "... let it snow, let it snow!" -
and she cuts herself off, remembering and looking amusedly apologetic.
"Sorry," she calls. "I meant to /ask/ first - hi, you..." Not that, for
once, it's a jolt that he gets from the bit of music. Kitty's ... calm.
Peaceful.

The sound of singing turns Lorne's head, and he smiles on seeing Kitty,
wandering to the end of the short alley to meet her. "Well, aren't you
feeling relaxed and easy today, cookie?"

Kitty pauses a couple steps away to blow Lorne a kiss. "Have been," she
answers, head tipped back to show a pleased smile. "It's been making Pete
nervous. How've you been? Things settling down?" A pause. "And should we
go inside? It's /cold/ out here."

"It is indeed cold out here, which may be occasioned by the fact that it's
February in New England." Lorne opens the door for Kitty, standing back to
allow her room to enter. Warmth rolls out from Caritas in a wave. "Things
are pretty much normal, or as normal as they ever get. What brings you by,
sweetness?"

"The only good thing about it being February," Kitty comments as she slips
inside, "is that it's /close to spring/. Almost there. Warmer soon. It'd
better be, anyway." She glances back at him, and there's still a hint of
amusement - no, she's /not/ laughing at him. "Well - I wanted to ask you a
favor, actually. If I could, um. Sing for you. Like I said, Pete's been
getting nervous, and ... I guess, after he pointed out that I hadn't
actually left the house in two weeks, so'm I."

Close to spring? "Spring isn't till April around here, honey, so I'm
told." Lorne closes the door behind him, bolts it, and then turns to give
Kitty a look best described as amused exasperation. Nobody ever just drops
by. "Can't see how that'd be a problem, darlin, find yourself a seat while
I get out of some of these sweaters."

"Closer to spring than December was?" she offers somewhat weakly. Kitty
/has/ just dropped by! Except that ... well, she hasn't /just/ dropped by
anywhere since ... since the last time she was in Caritas, actually. She
did stop by Liam's. Once. And that was because of the weather, and to
bring by firewood, not for the sake of dropping in. Somewhat abashedly,
she meanders to perch herself by the bar.

It's not just Kitty, it's everyone. The only person who comes by because
they like Lorne's company is Liam. But that's all right! That's fine.
Lorne wanders through into the bedroom, and it's about five minutes before
he emerges, looking rather more swish and rather less like a man wearing
four sweaters. "Planning to hop up on stage, or just want to go acappella,
honeypie?"

Kitty's taken an almost teenaged pose, elbows on knees and chin on her
hands. She'd better not be planning to sing like that. Her hat and gloves
have found their way into her lap. "Does it make a difference? I mean, is
one or the other more comfortable for you?" The /tone/ of the questions is
a little different: usually she's interested for the sake of the answers
themselves. Right now, it's just for Lorne's sake, and it probably shows a
little.

"Doesn't make any difference to me, darlin, thank you." Lorne appreciates
the tone, and he takes a seat next to Kitty, watching her seriously,
scarlet eyes bright. "You can tell me as much or as little as you'd like,
but sometimes it's better just to sing, so I won't be projecting
anything."

Kitty takes him at his word. She straightens up, drawing a breath, and
sings. It isn't loud, but it's not as if they're far away from each other.
There's no training, and her voice is nothing special, but she has a good
sense of rhythm and - with her concentration on Lorne, not on her singing
- her distraction actually keeps her from tensing up and meandering
slightly off-key the way she usually would. "I come to you with strange
fire; I make an offering of love. The incense of my soul is burned by the
fire in my blood. I come with a softer answer to the questions that lie in
your path; I want to harbor you from the anger, find a refuge from the
wrath..."

Peace. Calm. It's not entirely simple relaxation, not being at ease. It's
a different quality of stillness - Kitty normally revolves around
/action/, around /doing/, and right now neither one of those has much of a
part in her. She's found a harbor from her own anger ... and it's not
entirely a good thing.

Moving blindly through the riddles of Claire and the angels, searching for
a way to understand them, she submerged herself in them instead. In a cave
on Mount Caith, she held a burned angel in her arms (in cramped confines
that she barely noticed, she held the charred wreckage of a body that
*had* looked like Pete Wisdom's), and forced herself to forgive him. Gave
up her anger at what the twisted creatures had done, at the attacks and
the death, at what had happened to Lorne, to Kess - to Lindsey. She
stepped back from it to do what had to be done, and now she doesn't know
how to get it back. The fire that moves her, indignation and anger and
rage at what might have been done to friends or strangers or the world, is
missing.

It's not that she's moved off her path, just found a stopping-place on it
and not been able to get up and start moving again. And with movement so
much a part of her... She's a nice person, just now. Calm. Happy. Caring.
But at the moment, other than for a few brief minutes at Liam's, she's not
particularly *Kitty*.

"This is a message, a message of love.."

Hm. Lorne tilts his head and gazes steadily at Kitty, that scarlet stare
never more weighty than it is at this moment. He might be reading from the
back of her skull. He'll wait until she's finished, and then say quietly,
"Well. Was there anything in particular you wanted to know, sweetheart?"

Kitty doesn't flinch from it; she isn't, at least not as she is right now,
afraid of anything he might see. (Which is, in a strange way, in itself a
measure of how much she trusts Lorne, and how much affection she has for
him. He's one of two people she's let her guard down this far with. And
she married the other one.) "I don't know," she answers, straightforwardly
enough. "I kind of get the feeling that if I knew what I wanted to know,
I'd already know it." A pause. "That made a lot more sense in my head than
it did out loud."

"Makes perfect sense, cupcake, trust me." Lorne considers Kitty a moment
longer, then brightens. "Drink, sweetie, while I consider? I think I see
what the deal is, but putting things into words can take a moment or
three."

And mirror-brightening from Kitty, when she sees his expression shift.
"Ooh. Could I talk you into a Seabreeze? I think you've hooked me - and I
can't have them around Pete, he'd never let me hear the end of it." No
girly drinks in front of the boys!

"See, you shouldn't let the opinions of others sway you from a decent
cocktail." Lorne gets to his feet and strolls around the bar, to mix a
couple of Seabreezes. Whenever he has a hand free, he gestures with it,
helping himself talk. "I don't think it's anything to get horribly worried
about, darlin, but there's definitely an issue to be addressed. It's not
that you're going the wrong way, it's that you're not really going at all.
Does that sound right?"

"It's a small price to pay for domestic harmony?" Yes, she's joking. Kitty
turns to lean on the bar a little, watching Lorne attentively. Seeing him
at work usually fascinates her, and the gestures catch her eye neatly. "I
don't know if it sounds right or not. /I/ haven't noticed anything weird.
On the other hand - there's probably a reason Pete was asking when I moved
to Stepford."

That reference gets a grin. Lorne is very up with pop culture considering
he's only been around it for five years. "Weell, you must have noticed
something, surely? Unless you're perfectly and completely happy the way
things are now?"

Kitty crooks a grin back. "I think 'perfectly and completely happy' is a
good synonym for 'dead.'" She pauses. "I don't know. I don't - actually
/notice/, you know? I didn't set foo t out of the house for ten days, and
I didn't notice I hadn't till Pete pointed it out. I haven't talked to
anybody. Pete prodded me into getting annoyed on purpose because he wasn't
sure I still /could/. I don't..." She trails off for a moment, her eyes
dropping away from Lorne to look at her hands. "Uh. Starting every
sentence with 'I don't' is probably exactly what you mean, isn't it."

"That would be the kind of thing I was talking about, yes, peachpie."
Lorne slides Kitty's Seabreeze across the bar, then leans forward, resting
one forearm on the counter while he sips at his own drink. "You've lost
your drive, your direction. You need to get that back, get back on your
path."

"That makes the question, how, doesn't it?" Kitty looks up at Lorne, brown
eyes wide as always. "How do you get back on a path when you don't know
which way it is?" Besides ... oh, going and talking to the Host. She sips
at the drink herself, and - well, when she's not intentionally hiding
them, her emotions are /always/ clear in her eyes. In this case,
appreciation going right along with the interest and gratitude.

There's a slight pause, and then Lorne levels that bright, weighty scarlet
gaze on Kitty once again. "You may not like the way I phrase this next,
darlin, but it has to be said. You've stopped caring."

... and then there's startlement. But - underscoring his point - there's
not anger. And there's not hurt - she did /ask/ him, after all. "I ...
don't understand," Kitty says after a moment. Her tone implies a 'yet.'

"You've stopped caring." Lorne isn't trying to sugar-coat this, the words
said simply and as honest truth. "The world's the same place it always
was, the same injustices, the same cruelties. But you don't care any
more."

Kitty doesn't do what most people would. She doesn't snap off a
contradiction or a protest. She doesn't ignore him. She /does/, for the
moment, ignore her drink. There's several seconds of complete quiet; all
she does is look at him, thoughtful. "... then I'd better find a way to
start again, huh."

"Mm-hm." Lorne sips his Seabreeze again, gazing steadily at Kitty. He sees
a great deal, and he sees her now, and he doesn't really like it. "It's
where you're meant to be. There's no fire in you right now, sugar, you're
flatlining."

That choice of words actually makes Kitty shiver, and take a drink that's
rather quicker than perhaps deserved. "Look," she says somewhat weakly,
"when I told this kid that'd been hassling Liam that I was already dead
and I'd haunt him if he kept making trouble? I didn't /mean/ it."

Kid hassling - right. That little nick under the angel's jaw that made
Lorne want to grab an axe and go looking for trouble. The Host smiles, but
doesn't take his eyes off Kitty. "Then start living, honey, before the
universe gives up and goes on without you."

Maybe that should've been a tipoff. When Kitty saw that happen and her
temper /didn't/ snap on the spot. After a moment, she lets out a breath.
"D'you think," she asks, "speaking of Liam, he might be able to use a hand
on his rounds for a while? Since it's still pretty cold..." And it'd get
her out of the house. And expose her to the people in the city who're
worst off. And really, when someone's flatlining... well, you shock them.
Like, oh, Lorne just did.

"You'd have to ask him, sugar, though he might not be averse to a little
help here and there." Steady, calm staring. Lorne is very good at
administering certain specific kinds of shocks.

"I will." Kitty takes another drink, then rubs at her eyes with her free
hand - and then, abruptly, there's a very small hint of a grin. "I /have/
to. If I'm not doing anything, I'm technically in violation of my wedding
vows. And if Pete figures that out before things are back to normal, I'm
in /so/ much trouble." Something else about shocks: they tend to come with
something else. Sparks. It's just a hint of one, in her tone of voice, but
it's there. "Is there anything you could use help with? Yourself? You said
things were more or less normal, but..."

Yes, because the wedding vows are the most important thing. Lorne smiles
slightly, appreciating the humour. Then, at her question, he looks
surprised. People don't generally say that kind of thing, even now. "I'm
doing just fine, sugar, thanks for asking." Kinda. Mostly.

"Sure?" Kitty pauses, then adds quickly, "I'm /not/ prying. Just
offering." Because 'normal' for the last couple months has meant 'very not
good,' really.

Another smile, this one rather more genuine, and Lorne cuts his gaze away,
before taking a swallow of Seabreeze. "I'm sure. Though I still haven't
been able to find anyone to give me some security around here, crumbcake,
so if you hear of anybody looking for work, let me know?"

Kitty nods more firmly. "I will." And even without music, it might be
possible for Lorne to pick up on a certain sense of tension-release - now
she has something to /do/, even if it's a small thing. Larger ones would
probably overwhelm her right now anyway. "And I'll pester Pete about it,
too. Um..." She trails off once more, and her voice is softer when she
adds, "Thanks."

"You're welcome, sweetpea. It's my job, after all." Lorne does a rare
thing, then - he reaches across the bar to pat Kitty's hand. It'll be all
right.

In an entirely different sense than the one she's been drowning herself in
for a few weeks. Kitty's pleasant surprise at the gesture registers not
just in her face and eyes, but whole-body: she straightens, her posture
improves, her head tips up. /And/ she smiles. Her hand turns over to brush
fingertips against his while he's taking his hand back: thanks. Again.
"... Actually," she says after a moment, "I /do/ have one other question."
She shifts to lean forward on the bar herself, regarding Lorne directly
for a moment. "Do you celebrate birthdays? Or anything like that? Or
should we just pick a random day this summer and declare it Host Day?"

The last suggestion startles a laugh out of Lorne, and he shakes his head,
grinning. "Where I come from, honey, there are two suns and our
timekeeping is just a little different. So no, come to that, I don't have
a birthday, nor am I sure how old I am. I could take a guess if it'll make
you happy?"

"Binary system?" That expression is /definitely/ more like Kitty than this
conversation started out. "Wow. A guess'd be nice. Or we can just pick a
convenient day. I mean - it's not how old you are that actually matters,
it's just the vague imbalance of everyone else getting celebrated and you
not." She pauses. "Sorry. There's for some reason a whole flood of people
I know around here who were born in February, so it's been on my mind a
lot. Maybe May is a slow month for metahumans or something."

"Maybe," Lorne agrees, amused. "For the record, if I had to take a shot,
I'd say I'm twenty-four, twenty-five." And no older than that, for all he
can express wisdom beyond his years. The demon considers a moment. "You'll
have to pick a day for me, sugar, I can't decide."

"Easy. We'll make Liam pick." And then the first thing Lorne said catches
up to Kitty, and she blinks at him. This conversation is full of
startlement on her end. "Wait. You mean we're the same age?"

"I have no idea, I'm guessing, remember? But yeah, from what I remember of
how long the years go, I'd say that conversion's about right." Lorne
grins, watching Kitty. "Why, how old do I look? Fifty, sixty?"

"No!" Indignant squeal on Lorne's behalf, and Kitty doesn't even notice.
"You look - I don't know - you look like /you/. I guess it's just that
'wow, we're the same age' implies 'huh, that means that you had to suffer
through being twelve too,' not to mention 'there is a possibility that
there was some time when you were still only /learning/ to be as cool as
you are now,' and it's kind of weird to think about."

This time the laugh is more quiet, and has considerably more of an edge to
it. "You should have seen me five years ago, crumbcake, you wouldn't have
recognized me at all. It took work to become this wondrous specimen of
demonity you see before you." Lorne remembers being the age suggested by
'twelve', and he wishes he didn't.

"In that case," Kitty replies, "I'm gonna have to work /myself/ to
appreciate the wondrousness more." She pauses. "Is that even a word? I
won't say anything about 'demonity' if you won't say anything about
'wondrousness.'" Given what she was doing five years ago, she's /not/
about to pry into that edge.

"In fact, cookie, there is such a word as 'wondrousness', but I'll keep
quiet in any case." Lorne pushes off the bar to stand straight, and
finishes off his Seabreeze. "So in conclusion, you should drop by and see
Liam. That work for you, kitten?"

There's no more twitching at that particular endearment, anymore. Just
vague warm fuzzies. If Kitty ever noticed her own reaction to it, she'd
probably be amused. "That works, all right. Thanks. Again." She gets to
her own feet, matching Lorne with the drink-finishing. Oooh, citrus. "I'll
do that. And keep an eye out for reasonably decent security types looking
for work. And, you know, try not to be a jerk."

"Good girl," Lorne says, without the patronizing edge that praise would
usually carry. "Give me a call, let me know how it goes, hm? I'd like
that." He reaches to take Kitty's glass.

The glass is surrendered promptly. "I will," Kitty promises. "And you give
a yell if there's anything you need, okay?"

"Sure you want me to do that? Many people value their hearing." Lorne
drops a wink to Kitty. "Take care now, princess."

"Well, the advantage is," Kitty returns, grinning, "/last/ time I could
hear you all the way from my /house/... You take care, too, gorgeous."
That habit of Lorne's is weirdly contagious sometimes.