#inftr

-of course, soon after getting off the train, jesse and lake have to explain the whole train thing to jesse's parents. they're shocked but have no choice but to believe him because there's an entire metal person right there

-they have to call law enforcement and be like "hey our son's back, you can close the missing person's case." lake hides when they come over to question jesse and his parents about what happened (bc cop-related trauma. honestly jesse's pretty nervous too). jesse just says he ran away and hitched a train and the investigators just. immediately Understand. apparently the train is a well-known phenomenon in that field

-lake stays with the cosays for a while. jesse and nate share a bedroom room and have bunk beds so lake sleeps on a cot next to jesse's bunk and it's really crowded but they all make it work.

-it's all just very hectic for the whole family while everyone settles down from the train stuff and the "our son/brother went missing" stuff. lots of hugs and crying and whatnot. it takes a few weeks before jesse is ready to go back to school.

-there ARE support groups for train survivors and their families. both newer passengers and passengers that had gotten off decades ago and have long-since adjusted to post-train life are there. a lot of the general public looks at those groups the same way you'd look at a support group for victims of alien abductions but the groups are legit. they're a little for emotional support but also good for like. connecting you to therapists that know about the train. or getting your life back together after going missing for a long time. or getting in touch with some secret train-related government bureau to iron out any other issues. etc.

-the cosays+lake get in touch w one of said groups. the members are all a bit shocked about a denizen getting off the train but are generally willing to do what they can to help lake adjust to being out in the real world and handle any legal troubles

-lake needs a month or two to calm down after all the train trauma before they can really think about what they wanna do with their life. but eventually they decide they do wanna try to go to school and have a somewhat normal life. and then the group starts getting in touch w the right organizations to get them legally recognized as a person and whatnot

-lake is about a year younger than jesse but. they choose their birth date to be the day they escaped the train, rather than tulip's birthday. and they fudge the year so that when they DO go to school they'll be in the same grade as jesse. they figure they'll already be pretty behind, learning all the information they missed while stuck in a mirror, only getting bits and pieces of tulip's classes, so what's one more year's worth of class to catch up on?

-lake ignores jesse's suggestion to make their last name be "dracula" but DOES decide to make it "alan" in honor of their dear deer friend

-they're given the choice of it they wanna stay with the cosay family or get adopted by someone else. they're kinda on the fence about it. because on one hand they wanna stay with jesse and his parents and brother are really nice. but on the other hand, they kinda wanna have their own family instead of relying on jesse for all of their connections- and although the cosay parents have done their best to hide it and would absolutely never make lake feel unwelcome and are fully willing to adopt them if need-be, lake can kinda tell having a third child unexpectedly added to their lives has been rough on them.

-in the end, they decide to meet a few potential families (mostly either former passengers, or friends/family of former passengers) and see if any of them are good fits, and if none of them are, they'll stay with the cosays.

-it takes a couple different tries. some families just don't seem like the right fit. some parents change their mind soon after, realizing they're not prepared to raise a traumatized teen. some live too far away and lake doesn't wanna be completely separated from jesse. it's pretty stressful and disheartening for lake, because the venn diagram overlap of "people who understand train stuff" and "people currently looking to adopt a teenager" is pretty small and they've already burned through a lot of their options. they're about to throw in the towel and decide to stay with the cosays but...

-the final parents they meet end up being a PERFECT match. they're an older couple with no children, a former passenger and her wife. (i have headcanons about these two bit that'll be added in a reblog bc this is already so long). their personalities and interests mesh really well with lake's. they're mentally and financially equipped to take in a new kid who needs extra support AND they live only a ~25 minute walk from jesse's family

-they do take a while more to really get to know each other and to get lake adjusted to their house because just immediately shoving a traumatized teenager into a new house with people they don't know very well would obviously be a recipe for disaster

-still though, jesse and lake end up at each other's houses a vast majority of the time and sleepovers are pretty common. their parents have accepted this

-it takes around a year of homeschooling from their moms and some professional tutors until lake is ready to go to real school. i once saw the hc that on top of missing a lot of class, they're also used to reading and writing backwards, which i think is neat. so yeah, it's pretty difficult but they're determined and have people dedicated to helping them learn

-during this time, their moms and jesse and his family help them explore different interests and just overall get used to living in the prime world. of course, the people in town see a metal person walking around and are pretty shocked and confused and some react poorly but. lake at least always has their best friend or their family there to support them through that