Chapter Text
It was a terrifying thing to know people were after you, people you never realized could turn on you so quickly for so simple an object. Still, it's happening and Katherine can’t help but feel frustrated about the entire situation. Pushing her anxiety aside for the moment, she bursts out of the hall closet and sprints for the front door only to be tackled in the living room.
"Terasa," the man shouts from the kitchen," hold her down!" Where his accented voice used to be comforting, now it was hard as stone and held an authoritative note.
"I'm working on it," Terasa snaps, sitting on Katherine’s back and pinning her against the hardwood floor. "Give it to me, Katherine."
"No," she cries, struggling to get the stronger woman off of her. "Get off, you ass!"
"Katherine Diane Maxwell, you'll hand it over this instant." Terasa’s tone was the same stern one Katherine used on her pre-school kids, one meant to force children to obey in that instant. Too bad for her that it doesn't work on stubborn twenty-two year olds.
"You guys don't even like this kind!" The man kneels in front of her, his dark green eyes locking with her brown ones as he holds out a hand expectantly. Carl was supposed to be on her side, not siding with a woman he can barely stand to be around. When exactly did I become the enemy?
"Kit," he implores quietly, using her nickname in the off chance that it'll soften her stance in this. "No one needs to get hurt here." Katherine shakes her head stubbornly, redoubling her efforts to escape. Man, for Terasa to be the fit one of all of us, she weighs a ton. "Just give us the Pop-Tart."
"It's the last cherry one, so fuck off!" He gives Terasa a defeated look, inclining his head. Terasa adjusts herself on the brunette’s back so that she’s straddling her and then she had Katherine in a headlock that she couldn’t escape from. Of all the things my self-defense classes taught, why couldn’t escaping headlocks be one of them? "Alright, I give for Christ's sakes!" She throws the Pop-Tart across the room, watching in slight satisfaction as her friends scramble after it in a mad dash to get there first. Laughing a little, she stands and brushes off her jeans before starting for the kitchen.
"You were wrong, Kit, this one's s'more!" She looks at them over her shoulder, finding both of them sitting on the floor with the Pop-Tart split in half. They looked more like four year olds than anything, the only thing missing being a ring of chocolate around their mouths. "Where you goin'?"
"To get some pudding out of the kitchen."
"Chocolate?"
"That's the only kind we buy, dork." With a grin, she continues into the kitchen and opens the refrigerator, rummaging around for the pudding cup she usually had stashed behind the leftover pasta and finding nothing. "One of y'all are going to be missing a few teeth! Who the hell ate my pudding?"
"That might have been me," Terasa admits. She and Carl walk into the kitchen, the Pop-Tart devoured in what had to be record speed. They may not look like they ate much, but Katherine’s fairly certain they could win a pie-eating competition and end up in the Guinness Book of World Records. "I was hungry and training really wore me out. You know how it is for us defenders of justice."
"You're a lawyer, Rasa, not Batman."
"Close enough, we both crush souls for a living and end up rich." She shrugs, nudging Katherine aside and bringing out the chocolate pie the latter had made yesterday, grabbing up the whipped cream as she went. “Get the plates and butter knife, Kit.”
—Terasa—
Terasa takes the knife from Katherine and begins to dish out pie on the plates, trying her best to keep the slices even and around the same size to keep Carl from throwing a hissy fit. "Guys," Katherine says after a moment," I don't feel so hot." Terasa glances up with her brows furrowed, watching as Katherine gripped the counter hard enough to make her knuckles go white.
"Did one of those little snots you're teaching give you the flu," Carl asks in concern, moving closer to her as she begins to sway.
"I don't—" And then she was falling and Carl barely caught her before her head collided with the counter. Terasa’s first instinct was to drop the knife and move to help, trying to support Katherine while Carl adjusted his footing on the slick wood. Katherine’s heavier than the other two by twenty pounds easily and dead weight didn’t exactly make things easier.
“You ever heard of the flu doin’ this?” Terasa tried to answer, but a wave of nausea had her releasing Katherine and hunching over with a moan. Whatever this is, it’s not the flu since it’s coming on this strong so quickly. There was no warning aches or fevers, just a wave of symptoms that hit her harder than her mind could keep up with.
“Carl,” she manages, feeling the color drain from her cheeks. Sweat made her tank top stick to her in places, though she felt as though someone had thrown her into a freezer as she shivered. It was summer outside and the air conditioner was busted, so why did she suddenly feel so cold? There was no warning when her knees gave out, eyes rolling up in her head as she joins her friend in unconsciousness.
There was a flash of light behind her eyelids and then she felt the ground under her give way.
Meanwhile...
Calypso gives a little laugh to herself as she moves the three trinkets around on the board in front of her, rotted teeth showing as a portal opens up to allow her to see exactly what was going on. She needed those three back in their proper dimension for things to go according to her plan.
She watches with interest as the three adults chattered away in the kitchen, using her limited magic on the brunette woman before moving on to the black-haired one, and then the young man. They would be useful in the game she had going, blessed with a gift from her to help things keep moving.
Calypso knew Carl and Katherine well, having protected both of them when they were only sixteen years old until it was time to send them away. She had kept an eye on all three kids for a while; watched them grow up and get jobs, enjoy their life, made sure they stayed close to each other for when this day came. Now it was time and she grinned as they fell through the gap between worlds, the three adults coming back into consciousness only when they breached into the world Calypso resided in.
Despite how serious the situation was, Calypso couldn't help the laugh that escaped when Katherine landed on the newly appointed Commodore, knocking him right into the dirt. Yes, she would be good for the strict man and all three of them would help Calypso get her freedom back.
She would be free.