a little bit stronger

"I mean, it is not impossible that's what's going on. I might prefer that's the plan, better than what my head is making up. It's on the calendar already."

"Oh, honey. No one would blame you for thinkin' zebras when it's actually horses around here. I mean, hell, we get through one week without the roof caving in and it's a miracle. It better be, I'm not messing around."

Jamie grinned as her Aunt Harper as she dropped down beside her. "Oh please, if you think I haven't read cowboy romances already..." She shook her head, "There's even a series about alien cowboys." Jamie wiggled her eyebrows- probably the only part of her she could wiggle without flinching. "Not to be insensitive, but do you think you and Dean could make it work if he had a tail that he could wrangle you with?" She barely got through the question before she started laughing. "Sorry, I know. I just... have this insane need to be dramatic. I think it might be genetic." Jamie leaned over a little to rest her head on Harper's shoulder. "I'm sorry for scaring you all."

"Alien cowboys? They must be takin' being born for leaving to a whole new high, literally exiting the planet after promising not to break your heart. I hope they're at least hot," she added with a wicked grin. Harper let out a loud, unexpected, laugh at her question. Sweet Christmas... imagine. Her plan was to be indignant, to roll her eyes, eschew any further Dean related question. Instead, she raised her brows and said, "Yes." She smiled sadly as Jamie rested her head on Harper's shoulder. "Oh, it's definitely genetic. We don't do anything in half measures, honey. Hush," she started, placing a gentle kiss atop her head. "It only matters you're alright."

"It would be socially devastating," Robbie nodded, remembering Jesse's hermit era all too well. His eyes lit up with Harper's enthusiasm, which was cause enough for him to make good on his word. He adored this woman, he truly did, and if he could brighten her day even a little bit with important gospel from the field, he would drop everything to make it happen. He brushed his fingers through his beard triumphantly at her confirmation, leaving his hand on his chin to think on her question. "I love these girls, you know? Worship them. I'll let them walk all over me, happily. But would I date them?" He looked wistfully into the distance, shaking his head. "I'm more of an... accommodating friend. In many ways." He battled his moral compass in regards to his duties as best friend to Carrie to find an acceptable way to lay it all out for Harper, but came out empty-handed. That wouldn't stop him though. "You did not hear this from me, okay? Or anyone else, really. This is high confidentiality stuff." He took a deep breath. "She wants to bone Scott Smith."

"Oh, yes. A moment of silence to his pre-prom hermit era," Harper nodded, crossing herself dramatically. She would never say it, of course, but you could have sniffed that boy out a mile away when he was rotting in that room. Bless him. Harper couldn't help laughing as Robbie confessed his romantic status to her in colourful detail. "You sound like me in college," she mused. "Word of warning, some stiletto heel marks don't heal up right away. And the more beautiful they are, the deadlier." Harper took a moment to look wistfully into the distance, too, thinking that she'd give her left arm for a beautiful woman to walk over her right about now... Anyway. "As long as you're happy. And respectful, obviously. You wouldn't want to go around behavin' like that peacock cousin of yours, Bobby Jerkface. No offence." As soon as he said, 'you did not hear this from me', she was glued to the edge of her seat. She leaned in conspiratorially, holding out her pinky, "My lips are sealed." Yeah, right. In the years of scandalous gossip that had transpired down here, whispered between Harper and Robbie, she did not see this one coming. Trouble in paradise for Carrie and Alex, sure, who could blame 'em but Scott Smith! "Scott? Grump-and-tumble Scott? Only speaks in minimal sentences, Scott?" Okay, she could have totally been describing Dean, too, but that wasn't the point. "I am shocked!"

Charlie stared at her blankly for a moment too long, his brain trying to catch up with what she had just said. "Y'know, if it wasn't for the fact you're on opposite sides, you and Suzy would probably have a hoot together." He watched her as she looked around the kitchen, piecing the scene together, and his eyes dropped to the bag behind him on the counter. "Why on earth would I do that?" He could not, under any circumstances, allow Harper to start sniffing around.

"If I ever break outta here, I'll be sure to book us a table at il Piacere," Harper said dryly. He did have a point, though. In another life, Harper was sure that they'd get on like a house on fire. But she wasn't about to get distracted! Clearly, this vamp was up to something. "I don't know. It sure doesn't make sense," she started, narrowing her eyes. Her brain was working overtime, putting together numerous scandalous scenarios that could account for Charlie's midnight snacks. "Oh. Oh! Unless... this isn't for you." But who? Who'd he be bothering about? "Someone... special. Secret. With a functional stomach. Someone... inappropriate. Or... very important?"

Callie may have blushed at that comment and nudged Harper bashfully with her hip. "Oh, stop. I've barely done anything. He was amazing long before I met him." She had to work hard to tear her eyes away from him before she said anything else embarrassing. "Well, luckily, we have plenty of IV's too, so I'm sure that can be arranged. Have any big plans for your child-free evening?"

She was so sweet, and Harper was so happy for her. And only a teeny tiny bit jealous. At least they were happy, right? Plus, Blake-and-Callie made a perfect aunt-and-uncle babysitting duo for the kids. "He was alright. Mean pipes at karaoke, mind you, I've gotta give him that. Oh, c'mon now. Don't tease me, Callie." She grinned, tapping her wrist before laughing. "I am starting with a coffee and definitely ending with a wine. I'm dyin' to hear the latest goss too, there's always something happening down here. I've gotta live vicariously where I can."

"No, not even after that." Dean was toeing a line with Blake's secret, but it was hard to change the subject when Harper was speaking to him about something almost different from the kids. "My pleasure." He was always so polite with her these days- actively afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing. It never used to be that way with them, but for the life of him, he couldn't figure out how to get back to the way they had been when they were just a couple of teenagers causing mayhem. Could they ever get back to that? Dean hoped so. The overly cheerful niceties were going to be the death of him. "It's nothing. Don't worry about it." He waved a dismissive hand and took a sip of his coffee, knowing immediately that he had already fucked it.

He was always so polite. Harper had to use all her will power not to roll her eyes at it. That wasn't fair, of course, she knew he was trying. He was trying too hard, and she didn't know what she wanted. Maybe she didn't want him to be nice. She shook the thought promptly, focusing instead on what he wasn't saying about Blake. "Oh, come on now. There's no way you're puttin' him in the doghouse over nothing. Worse than using your toothbrush...," she mused, running over the thousand things it coulda been. With those two, you never knew. "Wait, hold on. Did he say something to you?" she asked, raising an extremely interested eyebrow. "Did he say Mustangs sucked?"

Robbie nodded, his lips pressed together, eyebrows lifted as high as they could go, "yeaaaah, the apple fell far, I'm afraid." He shifted in his seat, face scrunching up to form a frown, "If Jesse starts fuckin' around with Faye I will have to, I dunno - I'll shun him." A burst of ambition hit him as he realised the mystery of the paternal source of Ava Montgomery would remain as such until someone went snooping. "I feel we have some sleuthing to do here, Harper. Let's revisit this one in a couple weeks time. I'll be digging - literally, if I have to." Robbie sighed, feeling bitter regret that he hadn't pushed the topic further with Joey, but there was only so much he could coax out of that particular man without making it weird. "Yeah, weirdos. Also, she doesn't like my beard? Rude. Oh.. I mean, Jenny is a sweetheart and like- well, I don't want to ruin that. Too pure for this earth, she is. I'm shameless. Lewd. Borderline immoral. Speaking of which... Caroline McReid. Keep an eye on that one for me when I'm out on patrol, please."

Harper dramatically shuddered at such a chilling threat from Robbie. "Shun him, huh? You're bad to the bone, ain't ya? Do not cross Robert Wilson." To be fair, if Jesse dared do such a thing, Harper would be the first to smack him into the next dimension. Thankfully, she knew her nephew. He was cuckoo for Faye Montgomery. Harper grinned, clapping her hands together enthusiastically. No one could dish, no one understood how important it was to dish, like he did. "I know you won't disappoint, you've got your finger on the pulse around here. What? Everyone likes your beard." Harper quirked a telltale brow in his direction as he spoke about darling Jenny. She flashed him a wicked grin, prodding some more, "So who exactly are you going to ask out sometime, Mister Lewd?" Her eyes widened when he mentioned Carrie, another absolute darling. This was gonna be good, she could just tell. "Caroline? Our Caroline? What on earth could she be gettin' up to around here?"

Jesse wasn't a regular visitor to the underground, usually only making an appearance to spend time with his Aunt Harper and her kids, but with Jamie still recovering, he had taken to spending some nights down here. Honestly? He was losing his mind a little. "What do you guys even do to pass the time down here?" He asked, now just swinging from the door frame after quickly becoming bored of pull-ups."

"Jesse McArthur, will you get yourself down from there before you break something!" Harper chastised from behind him, her arms crossed. Even she heard it though, the mom voice and she promptly uncrossed them. "Get your butt over here."

Charlie had waited until the kitchen was empty before making his move. The last supplies he had gathered for Karen were slowly dwindling and, unfortunately, humans needed actual food to keep surviving. Somehow, as per her wishes, Charlie had managed to keep the resurrection of Karen McReid a secret, but it had come at the expense of him being uncharacteristically quiet and unantagonistic.

Harper was having trouble sleeping. How could she not? On top of everything else, Jamie was down in med bay, recovering from the scrape of a lifetime. She hated to think about it. Hated it happened, hated that rat vampire who did it. Hell, she even hated that kid Bobby JERKins for being nowhere in sight. All of her hatred had brought her sneaking into the kitchen, quiet as she could. And when she walked into the sight of Charlie, she looked almost as guilty as she reckoned he did. "You reckon if you lean far enough back, no one'll notice you hoppin' around like a cat on a hot tin roof?" Harper raised a brow at him, not waiting for an answer as her eyes scanned the room. "Charles Emerson, are you stealin' food?"

Scott observed as the resident mother bestowed him more parental care with two short sentences than he'd ever experienced from his own parents. He appreciated the sentiment, however strange and futile it was. "Scott is fine," he grabbed the pudding despite not really wanting it, wondering if he'd just fallen for a trick of some kind. Scott looked at Harper with slight bewilderment as he held his pudding in one hand and plastic spoon in the other like an ass, "I don't- thanks, no, I'm good. Cheers." Her motherly attempts at catering to his unspoken needs were truly uncharted territory for Scott. "Did you want something, or, just- what the fuck do you want?"

Harper Belhaven could handle a mopey, surly, grouchy man like it was nothin'. If they gave out awards, she'd win them every year. And she was so damn charming, the academy wouldn't even be mad about it. With all that in mind, she raised a famously expressive eyebrow in his direction. "Scott, you look like you've been dragged through hell backwards, and then they couldn't validate your parking. I wanted to check on you, you goose. You do know we've lived in this tin can together for years now. Like it or not, you're kinda part of this whole thing," she said, giving his arm a sympathetic pat. "Now we've got the obvious out the way, do you need anything?"

Being stuck in the med bay of the underground was slowly driving Jamie insane. Obviously, it was the safest place for her after everything that had happened, but she wasn't built for this life. She missed her own bed, her dumb brothers... her friends. God, her friends... Jamie quickly shifted her thoughts before she could remember the last time she looked at Laurie, or picture the massacre of her classmates... or recall the sound of the implosion...

When the news reached Harper that her beloved, baby, niece was down here in the pits of hell, her heart dropped. When she found out Jamie was in med bay, she went to the worst case scenario. For a minute, she let her whole world shatter. She let herself feel it, be devastated by it, and then she shut it down. Harper dried her tears, suppressed her rage, and walked into that damned room like she didn't have a care in the world. Fake it 'til you make it, right?

Scott had been awake for a while replaying yesterday's unfortunate series of events over and over in tune to the beat of his heart rate monitor. Madness. It would drive him to madness, he thought, staring at the ceiling from his allocated bed. He was stuck in med bay, in a crowded room, with all the other unfortunate souls destined to end up in here after yesterdays debacle. He'd heard the news by now - Jordan and Ruby's return. He'd always thought he'd be relieved to have them back, but all it had done was hammer the nail further into his figurative coffin. Everything was returning to its original state. Jordan. Ruby. Carrie and Alex. He'd survived to see it all happen. He noticed the flicker of a batten light matched the beeping of his monitor. It was going to drive him to madness. "Can we turn this goddamn thing off?" He tugged at the wires to the machine, "it's pretty clear I'm fucking alive." @havensdalestarters

"Can we get this turned down at least, please! Can't you see from the general scowlin' and fussin' that this man is alive," Harper shouted at one of the nurses, waving her hand dramatically before falling into the seat beside his bed. Harper looked him over, concern clear on her face as her brows knitted together. What a mess. But at least he was still breathing. "I'd ask how you're coping, Sugar Plum, but I can take a pretty accurate stab at it. Here-- I stole you the last one," she said, handing him over a little chocolate pudding and a plastic spoon. Harper was still reeling from last night. She couldn't believe the risk she'd taken to sneak out, a risk she was going to share with exactly no one. She was feeling the relief of breathing too. "Do you want me to get you moved somewhere more comfortable or something?"