2019-09-01 - Homecoming

It had been a bit of a trek with the Uhaul and the car, with Carter driving the truck and Claire driving the car from San Francisco up to Gray Harbor. They'd done the first eight hours or so of driving the first day, and then stopped and crashed out to sleep at a motel along the way, and finished the remaining four the following day. Boxes had been unloaded into the house in a clear space in the livingroom, and the rest of the furniture in one half of the garage, before Carter returned the Uhaul and they'd driven back to the house.

Now, faced with the reality of the space in which they found themselves, Carter stands in the middle of the livingroom, hands in his pockets, in a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt, and just stares at the room, the furniture, the sheer clutter, and he says, "I am almost tempted we should stay in a motel room again tonight until we can actually clean some of this place out.."

In army green shorts and a grey tee shirt that reads 'SFPD' across the chest in blocky, navy lettering, Claire is wandering through the piles of stuff, picking things up to look at and setting them down, kicking something here, scooting something over to make a walkway there. She stops in the doorway of the the room her brother is in. "It's not a bad idea, except, well, money," she replies flatly. Then, with a droll little smile she lifts her shoulders as she stuffs her hands into her pockets, "I think it's safe to say neither of us got our Dad's genetic disposition toward collecting ... everything. Do you think he left us this as a punishment? Or that there are clues to a treasure hidden somewhere in -- " She drags one hand back out of its pocket to gesture to the room grandly. "-- all this?" Claire meanders over to her brother trip-hopping over an old fan with a clang. She patpats her hand at the small of his back then slides it up to his shoulder. "We're going to have to find a way to afford one of those construction bins that they leave in the driveway."

"I'm going to hope that there's some buried treasure, or million dollar baseball card, or just some really ugly clock an old lady will buy for enough money to get a pizza," Carter decides with a slight shake of his head as he watches her poking around in the detritus that surrounds them. "I don't even know where to start." He lets out a breath. It seems like a monumental task, and the double clutter between what was here and their still-packed things makes it look even moreso. He reaches out a hand to steady her when she nearly trips over the fan, letting his arm loop around her waist. "I'm thinking maybe just having a big rummage sale. We can just let people make us an offer on whatever they unpack.. and just sell stuff til most of it is gone. Or we can just push all the junk to one side and call Got Junk or something, and they can come haul most of it away."

Claire lifts her hand from her brother's shoulder and settles in beside him as his arm wraps around her. "First of all, I think we should eat. Second, I think we should figure out sleeping. I don't know if garage sales work in little towns or not, but we could try a couple weekends in a row and empty out as much as we can into the driveway, put signs up around town, see who bites." Claire settles close for a moment then turns a slow circle to grab a pile of books from atop a table. "Law for the Entrepreneur, Stock Market Secrets, and

Claire lifts her hand from her brother's shoulder and settles in beside him as his arm wraps around her. "First of all, I think we should eat. Second, I think we should figure out sleeping. I don't know if garage sales work in little towns or not, but we could try a couple weekends in a row and empty out as much as we can into the driveway, put signs up around town, see who bites." Claire settles close for a moment then turns a slow circle to grab a pile of books from atop a table. "'Law for the Entrepreneur', 'Stock Market Secrets', and 'Kitchens: Remodeled'. Someone had grand designs," laughter traces through Claire's dry observations. "Do you think he felt guilty when he got sick? Or maybe he really wanted us in this nowhere-ville city for some reason." She shakes her head, "I'll take a stack of books out to the garage and then come in and scout for a place for us to sleep. You figure out food. Anything but more Doritos and yogurt. The sky's the limit. Well, the sky, Gray Harbor, and twenty bucks. I'm betting they don't have a good Indian place here."

"Eating is a good plan," Carter agrees with an amused smile. "I'll see what I can find that delivers for relatively cheap." Because the kitchen has, mercifully, at least been cleaned out and is empty. Nothing too terrifying to find in the cabinets or in the refrigerator. Fortunately, whoever closed the place up and draped things in drop cloths had the foresight to remove perishables before the power got cut. But now the power is on, and the water, and while kind of a disaster, it's not as bad of a disaster as it could be. He releases her to take the books out to the garage and says, "Well at the very least, we can just push a ton of stuff into the garage, and make some room in here to declutter. Then we can always go through whatever we've dumped in the garage later." He pulls out his phone and looks through local restaurants, finding Pizza Kitchen. "Alright, I found pizza."

Claire calls as she heads out to the garage with her arms full of books, "Pizza's good! I want pepperoni and whatever veggies you choose." There are some thumps from the garage through the kitchen before Claire heads back inside. She stops in the kitchen and looks around with her hands settling on her hips. "We could sleep in here," she calls out. "I'll get groceries tomorrow. Order some soda with the pizza. And salad if they have it. Wow, I'm pretty starved, C." She mutters to herself as she peeks into a cupboard, "Pret-ty frea-kin starved. Hey, pops? What did you eat for dinner? Tell me it wasn't frozen dinners. No salisbury steak." The refrigerator is present and working. Claire wolf-whistles at it in appreciation, then heads back into the other room with Carter. "Things are going to be okay, bruh." The teasing words. A warm smile. "We've so got this." And Claire believes they are. And they will.

While Claire disappears off into the garage, Carter lifts the tops of some of the boxes in the living room. He also goes over to pull the drop cloth off the couch. It's old, but in good shape. Everything's just a little dusty, but nothing too frightening. He wads up the drop cloth and tosses it into a corner before unearthing a recliner. Flicking on a lamp in the room, it gives off a yellowish glow. The floors are hardwood, with a couple of throw rugs here and there. He pokes around through a bookcase when he hears her come back through the kitchen. "I can sleep on the recliner and you can have the couch, if you want, depending on what state the bedrooms are in. Or maybe it's a sleeper sofa." He tugs on it to check. "There is a bed in here.." He has no idea what the state of the mattress is, but it's there. He doesn't try to open it up right away. Then he taps an order into his phone and says, "I got salad, bread sticks, pepperoni and mushroom, and a two liter of coke." He tucks the phone in his pocket, then, and glances up when she comes back into the room. His own expression shows he's a little less confident, perhaps, than she is, as to what they've gotten themselves into. "Yeah.. we'll figure it out."

Claire regards the magical sleeper sofa with new-found delight. "We both can sleep all regular-like, Carter. And damn, food sounds delicious. Things are looking up. I'm gonna check to see if the showers work." She stops and turns back. "Tell me delivery in this town isn't an hour's wait. Because I don't care about using gas. I will drive to get that food." She widens her eyes to emphasize her sincerity, then smiles brightly at her brother, delayed from her shower testing. "You have cash? I think I still have, like, thirty-four bucks in my wallet. We need to stop missing meals. After I get groceries in the morning, I'll make you waffles. And if there's no waffle maker, I'll make pancakes. With bacon. Because I love my big brother that much."

"There might be actual beds, too, but I'm kind of scared to go upstairs. I'm already feeling overwhelmed just by the mess down here," Carter laughs, and while he's joking, he's only half-joking. He glances toward the stairs and says, "I'll go look." Then when she asks about the delivery he says, "It said thirty minutes. I don't think it's going to be that long. But I'm definitely looking forward to waffles, or pancakes, tomorrow. Either one. With bacon." He grins over his shoulder at her and then begins to climb up the stairs to take a look around up there. The sound of his steady footsteps can be heard moving from one room to the other, opening one door, and then another. "Oh man," his voice can be heard from above. "There's an attic up here, too. I'm not even going to look up there til tomorrow."

Claire's brown eyes soften as her brother expresses his overwhelm. "We're gonna be okay, big brother," Claire states in a tone that brooks no argument. "You want to check them out? Okay." But hardly a minute passes and she's running up the stairs, calling out the demand: "Do not investigate the attic." To herself, "Not without me. Not tonight." She reaches the entry to the upstairs bathroom just as he's coming out. "This place is going to be perfect, Carter. Just you wait. I have big plans. You'll forget it ever looked like this. It's going to be our home. And I promise it'll be better than you can imagine. Just ours, you and me. Trust me, okay?" She peeks into the bathroom and will allow nothing to overwhelm Carter without a fight, "What's the verdict?" Where Carter is overwhelmed, Claire is excited. She's feeling a future. A place of theirs that doesn't have rent. Sure there will be some months of getting things into basic living conditions. Sure there will be renovations and repair costs. But it's their place. It's the first time they've had something of this caliber that was their own. And, dammit she wants to see her brother happy. If it takes grit and hard work, that's just frosting.

Carter comes out of the bathroom as she comes running up and he grins a little lopsidedly, "Don't worry. I didn't go up there without you." He nods toward the door in the ceiling halfway down the length of the hall with its little knob to pull it down, presumably into a ladder that one can use to go up. "That will wait til tomorrow." He nods toward the bedrooms, "There are two bedrooms up here, one bath. The shower works in there. The bedrooms don't look like they were used, though. There's little in them, just a few bits of old furniture. Maybe he had trouble getting upstairs? I mean, that could bode well for nothing too scary being up in the attic." He smiles a little at her enthusiasm and gives her shoulders a squeeze. "Okay. I believe you. It's going to be great. We'll make it great. Even if it is going to take a ton of work."

Claire glances up and down the hall. "It could be so much worse, Carter. All the rooms could be floor to ceiling --" She's all ramped up to tell him how good they have it but slows down. "Yeah, if it's mostly the main floor, I think you're right. He must have been stuck downstairs. That would explain some things." She catches her breath. "And if the shower's working, we're all kinds of good. Kitchen's in working order. We have a place to sleep. The rooms aren't all full of shit. This is our dream coming true. Just without the good sourdough." Claire grins at her brother. "We'll have all this done in a few weeks and then you'll be bored. You watch. Now hug me and tell me how happy you are." She shoves at Carter's shoulder, all sweaty and tired from travel, hungry and on the eve of their new life.

"Yeah, did you check the downstairs guestroom? Maybe that's the one that he was using," Carter says as he looks around the mostly empty second floor. At least this portion they'd be able to clean out and move their own stuff into relatively easily until they had a chance to renovate things. "Yeah, you're right. It could be a whole lot worse," he finally agrees, though neither of them has seen the basement yet, either. Who knows what terrors might lurk there. But for now, Carter seems to relax just a bit, and he wraps his arms around Claire and gives her a big hug, lifting her a bit off the floor and setting her down again. "Ugh, you reek," he tells her and ruffles her hair good-naturedly. "Let's see if we can get at least one bathroom cleaned up, and a little bit of space to sleep in, and then I think.. we'll at least be good for tonight. I'm glad I have a little time off to work on this place before I have to report for duty."

Once Carter's brain is engaged more fully in the mystery of the house and it's potential, Claire smiles a satisfied smile at him. "We're not looking in the basement until tomorrow. So just ... pretend there isn't one." She senses Carter relaxing which settles her a little out of the energetic optimist role and laughs as she's scooped up into a hug which she returns fiercely. She smacks his shoulder as he sets her back down. "And you smell like a field of roses, Mister Reid. We are going to have to work on your manners if we're going to find you any sugar." A glance past him into the bathroom, "Deal. Let's just listen for that delivery. Because I may faint from hunger if they come and we miss it." She heads in and starts right away on decluttering the bathroom, checking out sinks and the toilet. "It's not that dirty. I'll take this load of stuff downstairs and bring up some cleaning supplies." She grabs a bundle of assorted items she picked up. "I think I know where our towels are. In that top box..." And Claire heads downstairs, her feet sounding on the steps as she runs down them.

"Oh god, Claire," Carter rolls his eyes and says, "We just got here, have a whole house to try to put together, and I have to start work soon. When do you think I'm going to have time to be trawling for 'sugar'?" he asks, and one can hear the air quotes in his voice. Once she's brought up the cleaning supplies, he sends her back downstairs to play lookout for the pizza with the cash while he gives the bathroom a quick once-over, cleaning out the shower and the sink, scrubbing things up. By the time he's done, he can hear the doorbell ring with the food. "I'm going to wash up real quick and I'll be right down," he calls down the stairs.

Claire's laughter echoes up the stairs behind her. "When you're busy is when you need it most, Officer Reid. Trust your sister. You get grumpy when you're under the gun and you're not getting any? And insulting too!" Claire hollers up unnecessarily when the doorbell rings. "Door bell works! And food's here!" She's grabbed her wallet from her purse and is gathering all the items that were deliered. Salad. Breadsticks. Pizza. Soda. And they included some complimentary dessert brownie. "Thanks," she tells the teen delivering the food and she tips him. It's probably more than what he's used to because he doesn't live in San Francisco. As Carter comes down the stairs she is muttering to herself, "All that for under twenty bucks. Maybe small town life isn't so bad after all." Claire unceremoniously dumps everything from her arms on the counter and goes searching in the cupboards and finds some miraculously clean-ish tumblers. "We have plastic-ware!" she calls with a whoop of delight. Plates are looked for next, and they take longer for her to find. But they're out along with one of their rolls of paper towels. She's shoveling salad onto a plate when Carter comes into the kitchen.

Carter scrubs his hands, arms and face, so he's at least clean enough for his standards to eat the pizza before he comes down the stairs and into the kitchen. He immediately goes to grab a slice of pizza, the ooey gooey cheese still hot and melty and he immediately half-folds it and shoves some into his mouth, groaning in happiness at the tasty goodness while holding it over a plate so he doesn't drip toppings everywhere. "Okay, this day is officially okay. We have a house. It's not horrible. We have pizza. We have a working refrigerator and a working shower. I think, maybe, yeah, everything is going to be okay." After that initial emergency bite of pizza, he slows down long enough to put some salad and breadstick on the plate along with his slice and then hops up onto the counter to sit on one end of it while he eats.

Claire ends up sitting in one of the old chairs at the kitchen table. She, too, eats as if they hadn't eaten since that morning aside from Doritos and a yogurt. "So good," she agrees with silences in between comments for the inhalation of salad, breadsticks, and pizza. "Officially okay. I'm holding you to that." Claire fairly sparkles with excitement as the feeling of the house begins to tip in a positive direction. "We're gonna have parties, Carter. Excellent parties that put this tiny town on the map." She takes a long drink of soda. "You're going to start work next week. I'm going to interview. It's all going to turn out perfect." She looks up at the ceiling, "Thanks, Dad!" She looks back down to Carter where he's perched on the counter. "You've gotta admit, aside from not being there our whole lives, he really came through on this one." Amusement shines in Claire's brown eyes. Oh the plans she is formulating.

Carter pokes at his salad and eats most of it before he glances up and raises both brows, "Parties that aren't going to get me fired, hopefully." He grins just a little bit at her from where he sits, and then picks up a breadstick and wiggles it in her direction. "No getting me into trouble before we even get settled in," he warns teasingly. He chuckles a little when she thanks their now-deceased father. He looks thoughtful for a moment and then he says, "I kind of wonder who he was, you know? I'm kind of wondering what we'll find out about him, and our blood, in this house." He looks around, "If anything."

Claire finishes off her first piece of pizza with a happy groan. More soda. "I definitely will make sure you do not get fired." And she means it. No matter how much fun Claire likes to have, her brother's job is sacrosanct. "And you'll have fun. You might even invite some of your hot fellow rookies to come over." And Claire enjoys Carter's fellow rookies. Oh, how she enjoys them. She's digging into her salad as he muses about their parentage. "I think it's inevitable. Imagine leaving your whole life suddenly. Just having someone put some sheets over it and leaving it to a family member you'd never met before. He wanted us to know about him, about his life sometime in those last days or weeks. And we're not going to let him down. By the time we've cleared this place out, I'll bet we know most of his story. Ever the optimist is Claire. "When I imagine him, he's a lot like you. Just ... older. And with some tough shit in his life." Not that they haven't had their own share. "We'll need to get some boxes, but as we sort through everything, we'll go through what we find and keep track. By the time we're through, we'll know what he did for a living, why he chose Gray Harbor, and how much we have in commonn with him. What I wonder is how he ended up at the end all alone. Maybe he went around telling women how much they reeked. Poor guy." She smirks at Carter and pops a piece of a breadstick into her mouth.

"I see what the real motivation is here," Carter smirks when she mentions him inviting his fellow rookies over to the house. "How do you know there even will be any fellow rookies in this tiny town? What if there's only three cops and they're all grizzled grandpas? You still want me to bring them home for you?" He flashes her a mischievous grin from where he sits, making his way through his breadstick before he finishes off the slice of pizza. He listens as she goes on about how they are going to unearth their family history and find out about their father. "I'm kind of curious what happened to our mom." Since she was not mentioned at all in the information the lawyers gave them about their father or the house. He then rolls his eyes at her and says, "Maybe he did. Maybe that's what happened to mom. She reeked so bad he kicked her out."

Claire starts laughing as Carter teases her about actual motivations. "You can't blame a girl for trying. I mean it's that or the Rotary Club. And if I have to choose, I'm definitely starting with your fellow rookies. Andy Griffith and Barney Fife. Maybe at the same time." Claire pushes up from her seat and brings her plate over for another piece of pizza. She then stands beside the counter where Carter is perched and takes another large bite. It's after a few moments of chewing and swallowing that she listens and nods. "Yeah, finding out about our mother would be nice. But I'm not so optimistic about that one." It's faint, but Claire is a bit tender about that subject. For her, somehow it was always their mom who gave them away. She has no facts to go on, but the feeling runs deep. "It'd make sense," she agrees with a roll of her eyes. "The 'reeking' being a mother-to-daughter thing. You'd better not kick me out." She steps back and actually lifts her sneaker-clad foot to kick at one of Carter's calves. "I know too much. I'd tell your secrets." She smiles an impish little sister and world-class pest smile. "You haveta keep me, C."

Carter reaches over and grabs a second slice of pizza and peels a pepperoni off the top, eating it before saying, "Nah, can't blame a girl for trying. If there are any hot rookies on the force, I will be sure to make sure they're not assholes, then bring them 'round so that you can oggle appropriately. Because that's the kind of brother I am." He grins sidelong as her as she settles next to him with her pizza. He leans over and gives her a little nudge as she tries to kick him, laughing, "Oh no, not my seeeeeeekritz," he says, drawing out that ee for some time. "I guess I will have to keep you, after all." Not that there was any doubt about that.

Claire leans forward to rest her elbows on the counter and her chin in her hand, pizza left to the other side as she watches Carter eat his pizza. "After you vet them yourself. I know how this goes. You always take the good ones." Her smile is affectionate, teasing, warm. "But yes, please. I expect a fashion show of rookies walking down the runway so I can rank and rate them all and determine the dating potential of your fellow rookies. I mean, where else am I going to find someone hot and cute? The library?" She giggles as he starts playing about his secrets, the words interspersed with mirth. "Yes please. Keep me." She steals a piece of pepperoni of Carter's pizza just to prove her difficult nature. Eating it, she laughs again and does a little dance-twirl around the kitchen. "Look, Carter. This is our house. I can stand over here. I can dance over ... here." She demonstrates how much the kitchen belongs to them.

"Hey, that's not entirely fair," Carter points out. "I don't date coworkers. That's generally not a good idea." And it's true, he really doesn't. Especially since he hasn't dated since he went into the academy. He takes a swig of his soda and laughs while she dances around in the kitchen and proclaims each spot on the old linoleum as theirs, all theirs. He reaches over to the pizza box and grabs a slice of pepperoni off one of the other slices still in there to make up for the one she stole off of his with a grin in her direction. "Hey, you never know. You could find someone hot and cute and single and smart at the library," he points out.

Claire frowns, "Well whose stupid rule is that?" Not dating coworkers. Of course, Claire understands Carter's rationale. She may even agree with its wisdom. But rookie cops are hot. She finishes her little dance and wanders back over to lift up her piece of pizza for a large bite. She lifts a hand to cover her mouth as she speaks around that large bite. "Yeah yeah. I'll need to look up the dewey decimal number for hot, eligible guys. Let me get right on that. Besides, do you think a town like this even has a library? I think we drove from one end to the other in four minutes."

"Pretty sure it probably does, maybe even a post office, so you can get a mail-order date if you can't find one at the police station or the library. Oh, firefighters. We could probably see if we could find you a hot firefighter, or park ranger. I bet they have those, too," Carter grins. He works his way through his second slice of pizza and then sighs a bit contentedly. "Man, I am glad to be done with driving for a bit. I mean, other than the driving we'll need to do to haul stuff to the dump but.. glad to just not have to hop back in the car for hours tomorrow."

Claire tips her brows up at the veritable smorgasbord of options her brother lays out. "Get right on that on day one for me, would you big brother? I'll be happy to try the sampler box. I mean, I left my pillow warmer back in the City by the Bay. I need a new one." She's not quite as fickle as all that. But Claire has excellent self-defense mechanisms for the people who go in and out of their lives. She keeps things at a superficial level. "You can say that again. It was a long drive even if we'd been in the same vehicle. In separate ones? That middle bit of Oregon looked like the same minute of footage looped on itself. So when exactly did you say you start at work?" She nibbles at her pizza with far less chance of finishing it than Carter does of his. "Wow. So full. But not too full! There are --" She drags the package from the place where she tossed it on the counter. " -- complimentary brownies!" Her pizza is abandoned as she works on opening the still-warm insulated foil bag. Pulling one out she bites into it. "Oh, not bad. I think someone actually made these rather than just heating up something from a national distributer. Try one."

"You ready to get rid of me already? I've been off for all of a couple of days," Carter laughs when she asks when he goes to work. "I see how it is." He reaches over and fishes out one of the brownies for himself, seeming finished with the pizza for the time being. He eats it with one hand as he begins picking up the leftovers with the other, hopping down from the counter to seal up the salad, close up the pizza box, and migrate the leftovers into the very empty fridge along with the remainder of the soda. "These are actually pretty good," he agrees as he makes his way through the brownie. "Tomorrow I vote we go out and try one of the restaurants in town.. actually see some of this place we moved into."

"No..." Claire replies. "Not getting rid of you. Just getting a schedule in my head. Counting down what we need to get finished and by when." She helps with the food and dishes, focusing on the latter while Carter puts away the former. "Should we chance it on the dishwasher?" She has stacked the dishes and utensils after rinsing them and opens said dishwasher as if she expects a raccoon to come scurrying out of it. No raccoon! She starts loading. "Only one way to find out." She looks beneath the sink just in case and voila! Dishwisher detergent. Some is poured in. "We didn't even have a dishwasher at our other place." Claire is positively delighted. "I'll still flick bubbles at you, don't think you're off the hook. I'll just have to take up bubble baths." The tiny place in San Francisco only had a shower. And a small one at that. "In the morning, I'm going grocery shopping. But I'll definitely let you take me to a restaurant for lunch or dinner." Claire closes the dishwasher and turns it on. Wonder of wonders it makes all the right sounds. She laughs delightedly. "I think I'm gonna like it here, C."

Carter glances over toward the dishwasher dubiously, as though considering it. "Well, everything else seems to be working." When she opens it up and no strange creatures come leaping out of it, he nods, "Do we even have any..." Yep, she finds the detergent. "Looks like we're good to go." He can't help but chuckle. "I wonder if we have laundry. I'm betting there's laundry.. but is it upstairs, or down in the scary basement?" He glances over at her, considering, then goes and peers down the hall past the bedroom, which he peeks in on. "Yeah, this was his room," he can be heard saying from the hall, and then there's some opening and closing of doors. "Laundry's upstairs.. washer and dryer, side by side.. looks like they probably work, too. Scary basement door, check, leaving that closed.. and a mudroom.. that leads out back to the back yard.. which is tiny, and a mess." Much like rest of the house. He then comes back toward the kitchen. "Yeah, we've actually got way more space, and more appliances, and more everything than we had back home."

Claire whirls around from the dishwasher with her best Vanna demonstration. She beams. They'd might as well be in the Taj Mahal for how happy this old, run-down house is making his sister. "If we do --" she begins as he makes guesses about the laundry, then says almost in synch with him, "It's in the basement." She follows after her brother, the cop to the bedroom. She folds her arms across her chest and pauses halfway down the hall. "I'm not sure which feels more spooky: his actual room or the beasement." The yard's tiny and a mess. "But we have a yard," Claire exclaims, forgetting some of her discomfort. "We could plant flowers or herbs or put up a badminton net or buy a jacuzzi..." So many possibilities. Likely they won't be able to afford a hot tub for some time to come. Still it's possible. And yes, they have so much more room! Arms still folded, Claire heads back into the main room. "This room doesn't feel as daunting when the rest of the house is factored in. We've got some usable space already. I figured it'd all be this packed in when we first got here." She catches a yawn with the back of one hand. "Wow. Get a little food in me and I suddenly want to go to sleep. And it wasn't even Indian food." Her favorite.

"I don't know if there's room for any of those things out there, even once we clean it up," Carter says skeptically with a little bit of a laugh, "But I guess we'll find out. We could definitely plant some herbs, maybe, as long as they were tiny herbs." He holds his two fingers close together as though illustrating liliputian sized herbs. "Yeah, I am feeling a little better about things so far. Even not knowing what's in the basement or the attic. I was afraid the upstairs was going to be so jam packed it'd be like a crazy slide puzzle game trying to do everything. But honestly, I think if we clean out the upstairs first and set up our rooms, that will make enough room that we can kind of tackle everything after."

Claire mimics Carter's liliputian size with her fingertips and meanders toward him with an impish little smile. "I think there's room for both some fresh thyme and a small spa. And you're going to agree with me, brother-dear." She closes in on him so she can 'kiss' her fingertips to his and expand the hot tub size from a quarter-inch to a half-inch. "Think of it. Coming home after being on your feet all day long and climbing into the bubbling, hot water. Having a delicious meal your sister has made for you. Then mowing the five remaining feet of of lawn before heading to bed. It's going to be perfect!" She places a hand on his shoulder then holds it there as she circles around behind her much taller brother, winds her hand around his neck and hops up onto his back with a provocative laugh as her knees tighten against his hips, as little sisters are wont to do. "To the hot tub!",

Carter chuckles when Claire touches her fingertips to his and makes that space incrementally bigger in which to put a hot tub. He shakes his head a little and says, "It's going to be a very small hot tub. But, we'll see what we can do." He makes no promises, but doesn't seem entirely against entertaining the idea, despite his skepticism on whether or not it would fit. "Though I'm more than happy to eat any meal that you want to make me, and mow the tiny postage stamp of a lawn." That much, he seems prepared to agree with easily. Then suddenly she's hopping up onto his back and grunts a bit as he's suddenly giving her a piggyback down the hall, "You want me to dump you in the yard?" Because that's all there is out there at the moment. He does in fact carry her all the way to the back door and opens it as though he might indeed just toss her out into the yard.

Claire laughs up at her brother before leaping on his back. She laughs all the way down the hall, the sound light-hearted and full of delighted, despite how tired they both are. "Small but fierce!" she both agrees and argues. "We're going to be so suburban." She's carried down the hall and announces, "No dumping sisters into the scary before-picture lawn! You can take me to the front room for our bags." Oh he can, can he? So imperious, his little sister.

"I dunno," Carter says as he leaaaans out toward the small landing before the steps lead down to the lawn, "I think you wanted to be dumped onto the lawn instead. You did say, to the hot tub.. I'm thinking the hot tub would be about... there." He points at a spot a few feet in front of him and begins to swing, but then instead he pulls back into the house and closes and locks the door, and indeed he does carry her back out to the living room before he dumps her onto the couch. Fortunately the cushions are still on it, letting her fall onto it with a plop. "Welcome home, Lady Claire of Dustopia." There is a little bit of dust that poofs out from her collision with the couch.

Claire's laughter peals out into the night as Carter swings her out toward the yard and drags her back. The neighbors might not be used to such noise from next door. Then he easily hefts her back into the house after locking the door and she rides happily along until she's dumped into the sofa in a fit of giggles and then a cough at the puff of dust. "Aren't you tired? I mean, unless we're doing sleeping bags, I have to dig out our sheets. I don't think I want to play who's-been-sleeping-in-my-bed with rando-stranger sheets, myself." Claire drags her feet up to the sofa cushion and props her chin on one of her knees as she arches a querying brow at Carter. Yes, she said 'rando'.

"Yeah, I mean if I had my druthers, we'd have the whole place sanitized before we slept on anything at all, but I'm thinking just throwing sheets on it and then our sleeping bags on top should be fine. Won't be touching anything, and we can have someone come and like, upholstery clean it once we get some stuff out of the way," Carter says as he looks at the couch dubiously. "Alright, you go get sleeping bags and sheets. I'm going to try and open this thing up. And tomorrow we can start tackling the upstairs."