whiskey, neat.

Karina knew that their version of date night was different than other couples’ but at least they weren’t robbing banks or committing crimes. When Angeline and Indi were together, she was pretty sure that they were responsible for many of these unsolvable crimes, but she never brought it up because of how their children looked at them so lovingly. “It will be. We’re the couple who cannot die.” She liked to believe that they were the strongest together and against their enemies, extremely lethal. Karina looked up at Gray and tilted her head at him. “Ok, so if they are here… you’re going to have to tell me where because I don’t see them… and sometimes,” she lowered her voice to a whisper, “I like it when you tell me what to do.” She reached over to grab a fistful of his shirt to pull him down but before she could give him a kiss, she spotted a small device right between them. Its lights blinked at them. “That can’t be good.”

"We've been defying death for awhile now," Gray admitted as he could recall many near death experiences and actual deaths. There were many times when even he couldn't even lie to say it was because he was that good; as much as his luck turned soured, it seemed he was just as lucky as he was unlucky. He turned to face Karina with a smirk, "The River Styx must be tired of waiting for us to finally take that ride." Although, with the amount of trouble that had befell him and his team within the Dome, he was hoping that his luck would continue to save them - especially when his lucky charm was standing in front of him. He looked over to her as she spoke and smirked as her hands grabbed a fistful of his shirt. As he leaned in for that kiss, the unknown device between the popped up. Gray didn't need to be Micah to know that this was a bomb. "Shit," he muttered he reached for Karina and pulled her to him before he tried to roll them both out of the way. If there were devices like this being put between them, he knew their cover was already blown.

“I don’t walk away from missions and leave my teammates behind.” The Inner Sanctum might have left her behind a few times, but she wasn’t about that type of mentality. At the very least, her mother let her do what she needed to do and didn’t expect her to eliminate everyone. Not yet, anyways. “I know, I can appreciate the way you look from here now.” Karina knew it as a lie to say that she always appreciated good looking men, but when she learned to take the time to do it, she was happy to know that she had landed a good one. “Yeah, that was strange… a monkey.” She chuckled as she stepped in sync with him. “It was date night and I didn’t want you to get fat from sitting home all day with the girls.” Because he was a vampire, she knew that he wouldn’t, but she liked to tease him. She turned when he looked around. If he thought he heard something, chances were that he was right. His senses were much stronger than hers. “I didn’t fight any of the Atlanteans. Any chance of them still being on this rock?”

“That was back when I was annoyed with how much you talked. I didn’t know that you were flirting.” Karina was more than a little dense when it came to things like these. She needed a drink or two to get passed those filters. She stood up straight and pressed her back against the wall. “And I’m pretty sure I took point back then.” She hadn’t, but she liked to change small details of their shared stories to see if he would notice. It was like a little game to see if he remembered them just as well as she did. She used to do this because it was important for missions, but now, she just liked keeping him on his toes. “They wanted an Atlantean flower… It’s root, I think. I’m not sure what they need it for, but they both look like they were going to throw a tantrum if we didn’t get it.”

“Hey…” She placed her hand on the counter and leaned against it before looking up at Gray. “I’m not homeless anymore and I’m not a kid either, so don’t sweat it…” She knew that it had only been a few months, but she was still surprised at how much he hadn’t changed. “It has… Have you seen Sawyer yet? She got Rina’s genes.” She hadn’t seen her parents around yet, but as far as she knew they had survived the dome.

“I’m glad to hear… I like your friends.” They were her friends too, but she wasn’t as close as he was. Over the past five years, she realized that she wasn’t very good at making friends. She didn’t get along with the PTA mothers and while she didn’t have too many troubles with Apollyon, she couldn’t bring home her coworkers. Now that she had Gray around, maybe her new goal would be to make new friends. “Magical Grad School… So she trusts me more than someone who actually went to school? I mean when Goldie remembers things, she’s very accomplished… Maybe I should go to school.” She placed her hand on his chest. “No, Gray, don’t feel like you did anything wrong. Let’s just focus on making new memories together. I don’t need you to go around celebrating missed birthdays. That’s weird.” She smiled when he kissed her hand. “They’re excited to have their dad back… Nico especially, but I need to warn you, she expresses herself differently in comparison to Sawyer.” 

“Oh good, Merlin’s Mickey is alive.” Karina didn’t know much about Merlin’s family, but she was glad that they hadn’t lost anyone. As far as she knew, the magical community hadn’t really figured out the Atlantean dome or what to do about it. She wasn’t sure who thought about bringing back Ceres, but she didn’t have access to that information. She could request it from her mother, but she liked it better when she didn’t have to do things for Amara. Watching the company whenever her mother was on vacation wasn’t her favourite thing to do, but at the very least, the vampire made sure her children were provided for. “Not Goldie? Goldie’s the most magical person I know aside from Mickey. And on a good day, she remembers what she learned from Magical Grad School, or whatever she calls it.” She rested her arm on his chest. “I missed you too… 

“why you always gotta be actin’ like a old white man?” godrick asked as he looked at gray, “man, you know, i’m your boy and i ain’t ever going t'go against you or nothing, but yo …,” he looked at gray and rose both of his brows at him.  he didn’t have finish his sentence, all he needed to do was grin.  "my godbaby is a cute-ass baby though,“ godrick said as he pointed at him, "she got all of that cute from rina.  not your ugly-ass.”  his eyes wandered from gray and over to the other buildings.  if he and christine had a family, he hoped they’d get all of christine’s good traits.  those thoughts drew to a halt as he heard the sound of glass breaking.  "the fuck is that?“

“why you gotta be so fucking serious for, man?” godrick said as his eyes squinted at gray, narrowing as he eyed his best friend before he shrugged.  “we work when we work, man.  that’s why people come to us,” he admitted.  godrick wasn’t worried about the gamble starting back up - it wasn’t even an issue.  he would support his best friend through everything, but maybe, he needed to do something for himself one of these days.  he looked at gray and laughed at, “yeah, well, it’s going to be one hell of an adventure.  christine is a fucking beast, man.  so, i ain’t worried about whatever comes our way.”  he looked over at gray and nodded, “bet you’re excited as fuck to get back to rina, huh?  probably been dreaming of that for months.”  he gave gray a smirk and rose his eyebrows suggestively.  then he laughed and walked ahead, “can’t wait for everything to settle down though.”

“Can’t blame a guy for trying, you know?” Brett replied to Gray.  Though, through the circumstances regarding about the damages done to the Oliver family, Brett was almost certain that nothing would change it.  The Director of the Inner Sanctum knew that they need a lot of work before they could claim to do justice by everyone’s hand.  He looked over to Gray as he heard him mention Hunter.  “It’s Hunter.  He’s going to come running in, full forced like a Bull, man,” Brett said with a grin.  Then nodded, “What about you though?  Ceres is going to be empty without The Gamble running forward, you know?  Lot of people need a place for good whiskey, you know?”

He could see her husband’s troubles move across his features and Karina would have brought attention to them, but she didn’t want to make them worse. What mattered now was that they were all together again and they could be a complete family. “Once she started talking, she would ask me questions to get a baseline for what her mother would say… and she’s taken a liking to the magic on your side of the family… I don’t have many books to share with her, so I tried to to help guide her on learning some things with the books Goldie has.” Karina frowned. Later, she’d need to explain what was happening with Goldie. “Ok, let me know if I can help. I didn’t think it was right to keep River Styx since it disappeared…” She leaned in to give him a kiss. “I thought about you a lot.”

Gray frowned at the mention of his family’s magic. He didn’t want to spoil their reunion. His eyes filled with a flash of momentary sadness before he looked over to Karina and shook it away slightly. That was something they could discuss later; deciding how to break it to Sawyer was something that they needed to deal with delicately. “Well, we can ask Mickey for help in that aspect,” Gray suggested with a smile, “God knows that a descendant of Merlin probably has a million books and guides in it.” At the mention of Goldie, Gray let a smile break through. He’d been worried she had been an early casualty in the Dome, but was thankful to know that the reason they didn’t find her was because she wasn’t in there. Gray shook his head, “Mom wanted you to take it if anything happened to her.” He went silent as his thoughts swept over him. Although, he tried to keep those thoughts at bay, it was hard. Until Karina leaned in for a kiss. He’d miss the taste of her lips. “Baby, I missed you too. I’m sorry I kept you waiting for so long,” he said as he placed an arm around her waist, gently pulling her closer. “I really missed you.”

Karina nodded at him. Sawyer seemed so excited to share everything she knew. Their little girl was ready to burst with all the stories she was waiting to tell. She turned her attention to the youngest again, waiting to hear more questions from her. “She’s going to ask you a lot of questions to test that you are her dad. I’m just glad that Altimira is back because then they’ll be able to answer all of her other questions about the world.” She smiled softly. “I’m just glad that you’re back… So did anything change with the Gamble while we were gone?” Nico had already ran off to explore with her sister. “What’s the deal with your bar? Are you going dry, Gray?”

Karina pretended like she was good at moving on, but the truth was that she wasn’t. It was why she had such a difficult relationship with her mother and why she refused to ever work with the Inner Sanctum again. Their idea of the greater good just didn’t work well enough for her children in her opinion. She watched Gray and Sawyer. “She could probably read them to you. Sawyer’s really good at that now.” Their youngest continued to hide, shyly. Gray looked so much bigger in comparison to the five year old. For a moment, she thought that Nico would start crying but then she looked over at Gray and whispered, If you’re really my dad then how do you make seeds happen?  Karina smiled. “They found a biology book.”

“You know, somehow, I expected that answer,” Brett said with a firm nod.  The reparations that the Inner Sanctum needed to do for the Oliver-Hernandez clan was far more than just Brett taking over;  the trust was broken and without rebuilding that first, Brett expected Gray’s answer to be the same.  He let out a sigh but he wouldn’t push the man anymore.  “I think our goals will line up,” Brett said with a growing grin as he walked ahead of Gray, “I mean, you are a good guy.  One of the best, man.  Even if you and the rest of The Gamble will swear up and down that you’re no heroes.”  Gray was right though.  After five years, the list of potentials was far greater than Brett could even imagine.  “I’m changing it, Gray.  It’s not going to be the way you remembered it.”

“No, of course not. I have access to the bills, too, so I figured that I’d keep the ones that still mattered… Which reminds me, if you get a bunch of texts from Sawyer it’s because we didn’t cut off your phone… and now the dome’s down, maybe you’re getting all of them.” Nico hid her face at Karina’s shoulder. “I missed you, too… So did Sawyer.” Their eldest ran over to give both of them hugs. “Do you know how excited they are to see you?” She paused and then took a mental step back. If she didn’t introduce Nico now then they’d probably be too busy later when the emotions really started to roll in. “Gray Oliver, this is Nico… Nico, say hi to your father.” The five year old reluctantly looked over at the vampire and then stated plainly that the man was a vampire. “Yes, but he’s also my husband and your father.”