Owner Pose
Donna Troy     It's all over. Well, not all of it, but the really important part where people were fighting each other (and angels) on the streets of Manhattan, and Caitlin and Jon had found themselves as champions of opposite teams. Michael is still pursuing his somewhat demented yen for warfare but on a rather smaller scale, in a different dimension, and for much smaller stakes.

    There was a promise yet unfulfilled though. Caitlin had seen the light and helped Jon in his journey through Duat, the two opposing champions, joined with a third and some assistants, working together. But Donna had promised Jon that Caitlin was someone he'd one day realize could make an excellent friend, and Donna had promised Caitlin that Jon was someone she'd one day realize had a good heart. It was time for them to meet off the battlefield, without the weight of worlds on their shoulders, in a social setting. Donna had arranged for both to come to her office at the Embassy, and because Donna has a good memory, she had insisted to Caitlin that she bake some cookies to bring along.

    "Okay that was Gala," she tells Caitlin, switching off her phone. "He's at the front desk. I've asked her to show him in. He's not here for you to apologize to, or to try to explain yourself to. Just to come and have the opportunity to meet you as... /you/. And for you to meet him as him. Not as champions of this and that, not as opponents or team mates in some stupid cosmic war."

    She grins wide and gives her old friend a quick squeeze on the upper arm. "It's going to be fine, Cait. An opportunity for you to put all this behind you. And an opportunity for him to see that you really are the person I told him you are."
Caitlin Fairchild Caitlin shoots Donna a look that's part grateful relief, and part wry worry all in one. The touch to her upper arm is met with a subtle flexing and fingertips giving Donna's elbow a gentle squeeze of acknowledgement.

"I know that's the /idea," she tells Donna. "But it's gonna be kinda hard to get through to... that, y'know, whole 'bridge of friendship' without touching on 'and I'm sorry I tried to kill you a few times'. I almost hit him with a truck tire," she tells Donna, fretting. "I fastballed it at him so hard--" she sighs heavily, shoulders slumping. No more combat armor, either; Caitlin's back in her usual comfortable clothing. Speckled granite leggings that stop at midcalf, interrupted with blue slashes, and a faded pink hoodie that says 'Columbia' in crackling white vinyl. With her hair held back by a simple scrunchie, she could almost pass for any college student wandering across the quad between classes. Brass bands, a temporary (poor) substitute for the true Amazon aegis bracers, cover dark red and purple scars that have left angry notation on her thick wrists. But at a glance, they convey the quiet symbol of sorority that associates Caitlin with the Amazons in the Embassy grounds.
Jonathan Sims     Jon looks... different as he comes into the room. He actually has a second arm, for one, though he wears it stiffly and oddly. Not his real arm, though it certainly looks lifelike. The scars on his face are gone, his jaw has subtly softened, there's less grey in his hair and beard. Not really any less world-weary, but maybe less uptight about it all. Same gold-rimmed glasses, same vague air of distraction, like he's hearing things nobody else is most of the time.

    He's wearing a rust-colored turtleneck sweater, dark blue jeans, and sneakers when he comes into the office, hands stuffed in his pockets. He looks like he belongs at STAR Labs or Stark Tech, not leading a group of mystics or saving the world or any of the rest of that. He smiles at the two women as he's let in. "Long time no see," he says amicably. He's certainly not flinching at Caitlin or glaring at her or anything. Maybe he's just that forgiving.
Donna Troy     "Sure," Donna says with a smile. "You almost hit him with a truck tire, and that makes you feel guilty. You're forgetting about the fact that he zapped you with void energy though. Give him the chance to feel guilty about zapping you with void energy while forgetting about the truck tire, huh?"

    She's dressed a little less casually than Caitlin, but not exactly formal. The black slacks and red blouse could pass as office wear, the leather biker jacket not so much. It's an outfit with the flexibility that allows for relaxing with friends and doing embassy business though. There's always embassy business. Now though it's definitely a matter of relaxing with friends, and she sits comfortably on the sofa, one arm resting across the back of it. The coffee table in front of them bears a plate of warm cookies, recently Caitlin-baked, as well as a bottle of Themysciran wine and three glasses -- though there is the makings of coffee, or indeed chai, waiting on a sideboard.

    Donna stands as Jon comes in, but gives him his space, having observed a certain physical uneasiness in the man at his 'I was dead but I got better' party. Instead she makes do with a smile that's even bigger than her usual smiles, which for Donna means a quite impressive smile. "Come on in, Jon. Take a seat. Would you like a glass of wine? I thought this was an occasion for something special, though there's chai too, if you want it. And..." she gestures towards the plate of cookies. "Not store bought, this time," she says with a wink.
Caitlin Fairchild Caitlin rises when Donna does (albeit more carefully) and watches Jon carefully as the magus joins them. Her smile is friendly but less enthusiastic, still a little hesitant and un-nerved. It wasn't all that long ago the two of them were at violent loggerheads, and she rolls her shoulder with the twinging discomfort of a painful memory of void energy crashing into her body.

"It's good to see you up and around," she tells Jon with a sober sincerity. "And, um... thanks. For coming in," she adds. The redhead fidgets a little; Donna's taking over the hosting in her usual urbane way, so Caitlin lapses into a little awkward silence while Jon's given time to peruse the craft services table and pick out his hors d'ouevres of choice. She doesn't sit until Jon does, with the sort of straight-backed polite posture that must have come right out of an Emily Post book.

"How's, uh, Becker? Cael?" she amends. "No lingering unpleasantness after Duat, right? I'm sure that was quite an, ummmm.... /experience/ for her."
Jonathan Sims     "Wine would be lovely, thank you," Jon replies with a wry grin. "Ever since I got back Martin--my husband--has been pushing tea on me like it's going to keep me from ever being hurt again." He says it with easy fondness as he grabs some cookies and goes to sit down. He's been trained to put off an air of being at ease, so it might just be for that reason that he looks relatively relaxed as he settles himself.

    "She's..." He hesitates, frowns. He can't get away with easy 'oh she's fine' anymore, not since merging with Ma'at. "Angry with Michael. Angry with /me/, somewhat. I did something stupid the other day and she is, understandably, annoyed. But overall I think she's happy I'm alive and we're... mostly defeating Michael."

    He hesitates again, then says, "I... wanted to say thank you, actually. That you... came down there. You could have handed the leaf off to someone else, but you came down, and came back on the barque. It, ahh... I appreciated that."
Donna Troy "It'll take a little time," Donna says. "These things always do." It's not clear exactly what she's referring to, or indeed who she is aiming the comment at. Her eyes are on the bottle of wine, which she is opening. It's a slightly different procedure than with non-Themysciran wines. There's the wax and resin seal to crack and pull away, then the clay cap to remove, and then finally a cork projects out from the bottle and gets pulled out by hand. A handy process to disguise the target of your conversation when you want people to be unsure you you aim it at.

    Finally the wine is poured, three glasses of clear, greenish white wine that Donna passes around without adding water. This is a superior wine, meant to be drunk neat. "Do you get any sense that he's learning anything from these defeats?" she asks Jon. "Or at this stage is it more a matter of giving him something to do? From what Terry says it sounds very much like he's... playing games, at this point. Perhaps I should have another go at talking to him. He seemed almost inclined to listen to me. He might even feel like he's got nothing to lose from doing so at this point."

    Once the glasses are handed out to Jon and Caitlin, she raises her own. "Here's to everyone being alive - again. To problems solved. And to opportunities to get to know each other properly."
Caitlin Fairchild Caitlin silently lifts her glass in response to Donna's toast, but from her expression, the gesture's more about polite solidarity than enthusastic agreement with the proposed salutation. She takes a small, polite sip of the wine and sets the glass back down in front of her. The redhead's really not much of a drinker, even in the comfort of the Themysciran embassy.

"Michael is..." she hesitates, glancing at Donna and Jon as she answers the question which Donna puts to Jon. "I understood his plans, kinda. Better than most. What he's doing, he's... it's still part of something, something that's very important, but also very small. He's going about things a very certain way because he has to. There are a lot of, um... rules, I guess, for lack of a better word. If it was just about a straight fight, we wouldn't have had a snowballs' chance against him. He could have gone back in time and wiped out every Neolithic Homo Sapien with no effort."

She swallows, glances down at her interlaced fingers, and looks up again to direct her focus on Jon. "Rules are rules, though," she tells him. "Michael has his, all the ways he... he has to do things. And I was the reason you got k-illed," she says, fumbling over the word, "in the first place. I owed you what I could to try and make that right. Handing over the leaf to someone else, that would have been wrong. I felt like I owed you that much, at the very least."
Jonathan Sims     Jon glances at Donna and raises a brow, but doesn't comment on what she says as she's uncorking the wine. Instead he takes the glass and peers at it for a moment before raising it with a smile and taking a drink. He's a drinker, for sure, though that's hardly surprising, given his origin. "To life," he murmurs, because that's really what all of that means to him.

    "Michael is the reason I got killed," Jon says firmly, then, looking to Caitlin. "I may have stepped in to try to protect you, to give you a chance to get away... but he the one who drew the sword, and chose to kill me. It wasn't an accident--usually things that die by that sword, their souls go /straight/ back to the Presence. He wanted me out of the way; it's only intervention on the behalf of other archangels that gave me a chance to go to Duat and come back. And... a chance to ask for the archangels to be able to... learn and grow, somewhat." He glances to Donna. "He /has/ learned. He's not trying to brute force his way through everything anymore. He's... playing my game, actually. Trying to... understand his opponents, to talk us out of fighting."

    He looks down at his wine glass and frowns slightly. "Now that I am back... he's... actually kind of obsessed with me. He's been... affecting my mind. Invading my dreams. Trying to... he, ahh, he offered me half of his power, if I would stand at his side, where his brother used to stand, and help him shape the universe." He glances up with a smirk. "Obviously I turned him down, or I wouldn't be here, but at this stage it's very much... he's lost his army and his sword, but he's no less powerful or dangerous. We need to convince him to give up the Demiurgic Force and go back to his place at the Gates of Heaven."
Donna Troy     Donna looks down into her glass of wine, an easy frown crossing her face. "Perhaps, Cait. But if he wasn't playing by those rules, then it would have been a different... game. You must have wondered why you were facing..." she looks up at Jon, then back across to Cait. "Well. Think of all the people who /didn't/ get involved. And not just people. Consider what was at stake. It wasn't just Earth that was under threat. Did you never wonder why Gaia chose Jon here to be her champion? Rather than say... no offense Jon, but say someone like Zeus? Why all those wards and spells were being cast by a small selection of Manhattan's sorcerous community rather than say Hekate herself, who could have just willed those wards into existence? For that matter, why weren't there like... ten thousand alien gods turning up? I'm pretty sure there was an... I don't know if agreement is the right word for it, but an /understanding/ at least. "

    She lowers her gaze again, shrugs her shoulders, and takes a long drink of her wine. "After Michael had finished with you, Cait... we talked about Athena. How she would have wanted you fighting the other side. But she never said that to you, did she? She could have, but she didn't. I don't know if that was part of the deal Gaia struck or what, but the whole thing was... there were a lot of powers not coming into play on either side. Like two armies agreeing to send their champions to fight a battle rather than launching the nukes, you know?"

    Donna sits back and looks over to Jon. "So how do you persuade him? Is defeating him in a series of by the sound of it very weird gladiatorial contests on the astral plane going to just... show him the futility of all this?"
Caitlin Fairchild Caitlin grimaces at the rejoinder from Jon, from Donna's plaintive observations. On some level her expression registers acquiesence (perhaps not agreement), but emotional waters are still quite turbulent. The redhead seems as-yet unconvinced of the rightness of her role in the cosmic debacle-- particularly when Donna mentions the unvoiced opinion of Athena.

Still the question about Michael's personality piques her interest and she finds herself nodding unvoiced agreement with Donna's inquiry, flicking her focus back to Jon. "Michael's a pretty good chess player," she points out. "He'd always playing towards the end goal and he'll take losses if he has to. But he's also a big follower of the rules. If you can prove a point is invalid on the micro scale, he'll embrace it on the macro."
Jonathan Sims     "We're trying to find these boards that are helping us... build a stairway." To Heaven. Jon can't help smirking; he gets the joke whether or not anyone else does. "Left by Chas, I think. He's trying to help us get him back. Michael's been... trying to keep us from doing that. I think on some level he's just playing out the game. The plan right now is to try to... turn things around on him. To build challenges for /him/, to try to teach him... well, whatever we can think to teach him."

    He sips his wine, and frowns slightly. "The whole point of the 'game,' as set up, was for mortals--or near-mortals--to face off against Michael. Partly, I think, because what was wrong in the universe was down in the mechanisms of death, but... partly to remind Michael, I think, that every soul matters. That /power/ isn't what makes someone worthy. Having a god--any god--as Her Champion would have undercut the point."

    He chews on his lip. "I learned something when I was dead, and I can't... some of it's not meant for the living to know, but the gist of it isn't revolutionary. I was given a second chance, and what makes me deserve that more than anyone else? Nothing. I'm no more deserving of that than the poorest refugee or the mightiest leader of the Shi'ar. But I'm no /less/ worthy than anyone else. Why did Gaea chose some... temple scribe, second-rate psychiatrist, trainee sorceror, to be Her Champion? Honestly, because I'm one of Chas Chandler's oldest friends, and /Chas/ is the reason all of this happened. If someone else had summoned Michael... it'd be someone else as Her Champion, someone close to that person. And... I think that's rather the point. What makes a hero isn't superpowers or fancy tech or magic. It's the willingness to step up when the opportunity comes."

    He frowns. "I just... I wish I could figure out how to... get that through to /Michael/. That we don't need the Demiurgic Force anymore. That he can let go. If... if either of you, or anyone else, would like to come help us build astral illusions to try to convince him, you're quite welcome."
Donna Troy     Donna nods her head thoughtfully when Jon suggests that having a mortal be Gaia's champion was the whole point. "The thing that really struck me when talking to him was how hierarchical he is. Apparently Heaven has the universe's biggest class structure. But it's not just a matter of a willingness to look past rank, it's... it's more than that to him. The implication of what he said at the end, that he thought that had I been one of the archangels, he suspected I would have persuaded him to turn from the path he had chosen, that's... that's /crazy/. By any standards."

    She rolls her shoulders and takes another drink of her wine. "To admit that is to admit that he saw the validity of my arguments, but couldn't accept them /even though they were valid/ because of the source from which they came. It couldn't be the correct solution, even if it was the right solution, because to him the acceptable solution had to be angelic in nature."

    She tilts her head towards Caitlin, giving her an apologetic smile. "I suspect that had he been that honest with you, you would have figured out what to do a lot more quickly, Cait. He might not have been able to lie, but that doesn't mean he had to be honest."

    "And that might be the angle you need to take too, Jon." She leans back in her seat, crossing her legs and looking at the man speculatively. "I suspect you can't persuade him to give up the demiurgic force. You need to find a way to get him to persuade himself. Show, not tell."
Caitlin Fairchild "Part of the confusion was that you guys were using, um." Caitlin hesitates. "Well, words," she admits. Fingers flex and flop apologetically at Donna and Jon both. "It's so hard to explain what a conversation with the angels is like. How they talk to each other. I got-- bits and pieces of it, mostly," she admits, "but when I could understand them, it was like... it was like listening to Superman talk. Or Captain America. It just sounds -right-. Like down in your soul." She touches fingertips to her sternum, just under her heart. "And all I could take away afterwards was that feeling of rightness. Michael is just ...."

Caitlin purses her lip. "Elemental, in that way. Whatever you end up doing, it's gonna-- you gotta talk to him not just as like, an individual or a person. It's like convincing a mountain to stop being a mountain. I'm sure it's doable, but..."

She looks down at her interlaced fingers in her lap. "I guess it was beyond me."
Jonathan Sims     Jon frowns thoughtfully. "Maybe... maybe that's the real problem," he says slowly. "The other night, umm... Ma'at got /furious/ at him, and it... he actually stopped, and paid attention, when she spoke through me. Because, I mean... she /is/ Truth. Justice, and Order, and Balance, literally like... well," he gestures, "in the interpretatio grecia, she is Themis, which of course is Iustitia or Lady Justice. Hence the scales. But that is to say, she /is/ the divine law, at least the Egyptian... or, well, Kemetic... version of that. So maybe /that/ telling him what he did was wrong... made him listen?"

    He picks up a cookie and chews on it thoughtfully. "It's not that I want to convince the mountain to stop being a mountain," he says slowly. "It's that the mountain... /isn't/ being a mountain. Or, no, that's not quite..." His brow furrows. "How can I... the Nile floods every year, and that destroys but it also brings up fertile soil that let my ancestors build a civilization. Michael's the flood, but he's forgetting that he's supposed to bring up the fertile soil. Does that... make... sense? I... I want to remind him what he created the universe /for/. I just... he's got me so furious I can't think my way through that, most of the time."
Donna Troy     "Yeah that makes sense. You're trying to persuade the mountain to stop thinking it's a volcano." Donna gives a little smirk and shakes her head. "You know what makes them sound right, Cait? Cap and Kal? It's because they usually /are/ right. Deep down in your soul, you trust them. And that's why. I mean yes there's a charisma thing too, but that works for a lot. Cait, you know my mom. You know what it's like trying to persuade her of something? Even when I know absolutely that I'm right and she's wrong about something, there's like... I can't help but doubt myself simply because I'm disagreeing with her. She's /Queen Hippolyta/. She has had thousands of years to grow her wisdom. The gods themselves listen to her. Even the fact that I'm disagreeing with her makes me doubt myself. And to some extent it's going to be like that with you and Michael. Because of who he is. Because your whole life has told you... this is the archangel Michael, how could he be wrong?"

    She takes a deep breath, and shakes her head a little. "But there's something more than that too. When I came to visit you at the church, Cait. The way people were listening to /you/. That was one of the things that worried me most, you know. I don't know how aware of it you were, but they weren't listening to what you were saying as much as they were listening to /Michael's champion/. And it wasn't -- it wasn't natural. There was a kind of magic in your words, I think. I don't know how to explain it properly, but it felt like... there was Truth with a capital 'T' there, and somehow it was nothing to do with facts, with right or wrong. I honestly wondered whether you could have told me the moon was purple and my truth sense wouldn't have blinked. Like somehow the essence of truth had been distilled out and inserted into your words, regardless of whether they were truly true or not."

    She takes a deep breath and looks across to Jon, giving another slight shrug. "And that might be it. Michael is surrounded by Truth with a capital T. Even when he's wrong. So how can you persuade him of truth without that capital letter? I think just the fact that it is in discord with his view makes it inherently untrue in his mind. I think you need to find a way to make him persuade himself."
Caitlin Fairchild Caitlin looks almost startled at Donna's suggestion, eyes flickering wide as she considers her words. The redhead's mouth moves as she tries to form words into order, and she just ends up shaking her head in consternation.

"Donna..." she touches her tongue to her upper lip, shifting slightly to address the princess specifically. "When I say 'like Cap', I mean that in the sense of how flashlights are like sunshine," she says. There's no argument in her voice-- a careful, almost regretful tone, apologetic for correcting her. "I don't-- I didn't-- know about the.... Truth, thing," she admits. Hands flip once, then twist into each other in a silent expression of consternation. "I don't like the idea I was doing that. I was just trying to be hoenst with people. Explain things -I- barely understood in a way they could understand, too."

She looks back and forth between Donna and Jon. "I got glimmers of it. Michael's... aura. His power. He wasn't just saying things that he 'felt' were true. Things that he'd-- that we'd say are right, or true," she says, gesturing from herself to Jon and Donna in turn. "He didn't tell me 'the sky is purple', but if he said 'the sky could be purple', it's because he could *make* it that way. He could make it so that it was *always* that way."

"And ..." Caitlin glances skywards, appealing to the heavens for clarity, then back at the other two in the room. She takes a slow, controlled breath. "And I think that is how you have to convince him of something. Beyond that something is, or isn't. You gotta ... you have to make that argument that things *must always* be That Way. Then, now... forever."
Jonathan Sims     Jon wrinkles his nose. "Ugh," he says. "No, Caitlin's right, he... I mean, he saw /right/ through every obfuscation I've made about myself, to the... truth at the heart of who and what I am, and forced me to see that by my own words. The things he says, they are True, but that doesn't mean they're /Right/. The universe is not fair. Bad things happen to good people. That is True. That doesn't mean it's /Just/."

    He frowns, contemplating. "I could try to sit him down and put him through therapy, essentially, but... he's better at it than I am," he admits. "I... actually asked if I could step back from this, because I'm a liability. He's... I am afraid if I sat down and talked to him, I'd wind up seeing things his way. Because he... has a point, about... everything. He needs someone with creativity and vision to work alongside him; why not me, as Gaea's Champion? The power was tempting, not... as /power/, but as... well... a chance to do good in the world. To make the world what it /should/ be."

    He shakes his head. "Blo--err, blimey." He wrinkles his nose. No, no, that word does /not/ sound anything but /ridiculous/ in his accent. He shakes his head and goes on, "I... we're supposed to be getting to know each other and all we're doing is talking about Michael. What do you do, besides baking cookies, when you're not getting embroiled in angelic politics?" He smiles at Caitlin.
Donna Troy     Donna nods her head encouragingly at Caitlin as she speaks, and when she's done she reaches over to give Caitlin's arm another squeeze. That, however, is as much commentary on what Caitlin says as she's going to give right now. Getting Caitlin to open up a bit was rather the point, if in her mind less about the ideas being discussed and more about trying to help her to reach the point where she might feel at least approximately comfortable doing so.

    "Besides baking cookies?" Donna asks Jon with a grin. She gestures at the part eaten cookie in Jon's hand with her wine glass. "Don't dismiss the cookies. Cait has saved the world several times, but that's well documented. Baking cookies is her secret superpower, and you have been inducted into the rare group of people blessed enough to have had the chance to eat cookies baked by Cait. You should pay proper attention to her culinary mastery!"

    If Jon wants to change the subject, Donna's certainly not going to be the one to stop him. Especially when there's a danger of him inviting people to join in the efforts to convince Michael in the astral realm again.
Caitlin Fairchild "I'm a clone."

The words come out a little fast, tumbling out in a hurry. Caitlin holds her breath for a half a second after, glancing from Jon to Donna, back again.

"Kinda. It's parthogenesis. It's-- complicated," she amends, instead of expanding into a lecture on genetics. "That's-- that's what Michael meant. At the last stand at Lady Death's hospital. No one knows," she hurries to add. "I mean, just a few know," she amends, and gestures at Donna. "The original Titans, um, Vorpal, they know. A few friends. But it's not something I-- I tell people."

Caitlin swallows, brushing her palms against her thighs and trying to keep her fingers from curling up into her skirts in consternation. Fear and worry marks her fair features, torn between hesitation and rushing the words out. "That's why I snapped. At the wall, when he called me to him. He was trying to get in my head. He'd never done that before. I don't --" she struggles with the words as her anxiety mounts, fingers rubbing at the bracelets on her wrist; a dull, crude imitations of the ones Donna wears, covering purple scars that still haven't healed from that fight. "People in my head it makes me-- I get really angry, and I kind of black out. I usually black out. I didn't that time. I don't know why. But that's--" she gestures fitfully, hands curling into each other to hold back a little shaking. "After Duat, I know you-- it was hard for you, there, and I know it wasn't maybe for all of us to see, so I thought I should at least, um, I should... I mean sort of settle things, because it wasn't fair for you, for us to see you go through all that, so-- I--" she inhales shakily, tries to still her hands again, on the verge of slipping into anxious and incoherent babbling. A firm grip from Donna's free hand intercepts Caitlin's shaking fingertips, and she flashes a sharp look of gratitude at Donna's silent support before making herself take a steadying, trembling breath.
Jonathan Sims     Jon frowns for a moment, a few things clicking into place. The things Michael said to Caitlin, about being an abomination, about the hubris of mankind. Fury flickers in his gaze, replacing the fluster that had risen up at Donna's chiding regarding Caitlin's baking. He has to take his time, to take another sip of wine. When he finally does speak, his tone is tight, measured, with that barely constrained fury.

    "It doesn't matter. You being a clone." A pause. "I know it /does/, to you. I know people... can be awful, and cruel, to people born different. But I don't... you are /alive/, and it doesn't matter /how/. You have a soul. You are a good person who tried to do what was right by the world, and that's all I care about, and Michael can... can..." He frowns, and grips the wine glass so hard his knuckles go white, trying to think of something to say that doesn't involve swearing.

    "He was /wrong/," Jon manages finally. "You are not a monster, any more than... than I am." He hesitates, swallows, and then says, "I, ahh... I'm not... I'm not a /man/. Nor a woman. It's... something I'm still coming to grips with, myself, I only just told /anyone/ a few months ago, but it... I know the... the fear. That if anyone found out, they'd call you a monster, an abomination. Even the people who love you. And it... Michael, using you like that, it..." He shakes his head. "It's wrong. And... and..."

    A pause, and then he manages to shove the anger away, and smile. "And I think you're brilliant. In the, ahh, British sense, the... 'very cool and amazing' sense? Nothing about your origin changes who you are." He laughs. "I mean, I'm friends with /Terry/, who is... inherently inimical to my well-being, as a force of Chaos. And who may or may not have the same type of soul we do. But what does that matter? People are... are /people/, however they were born."
Donna Troy     In the back of Donna's mind is the fact that Jon has worked as a psychiatrist. That in his professional career, he had no doubt many times faced a situation where he had attempted to put two people in conflict into a situation where they could open up in ways that would allow each to gain an empathic insight into the other. Where, by reaching a stage in a conversation where each was able to reveal their vulnerabilities, each could see an echo of the other's conflicts in themselves. While this is hardly couples counselling, there is some irony there that Donna's intentions in getting Jon and Caitlin together today is not a million miles away from Jon's professional career.

    Were Donna a psychiatrist, and Caitlin and Jon her patients, this might be the time she's say something about progress, about breakthroughs. Or she might perhaps more usefully sit back and nod her head in that ambiguous but approving fashion intended to create a void in the conversation that those making a breakthrough might feel subconsciously driven to fill with further revelation.

    She's not, but there are some instincts in common. Certainly the instinct not to comment on those revelations at this point, but rather to let the two with her have their reigns. Instead, being Donna, seeing the strain in Caitlin's reactions, seeing Jon's resort in his laughter to a little humor, and she doubles down on that. "Really Jon, don't take it personally. Terry's chaos is inimical to everyone's well-being, but it's part of why we love the little lunatic."
Caitlin Fairchild A relieved smile crosses Cait's face at Jon and Donna's cheery repartee. The jest from Jon clearly expresses that they're not upset with the conversation, and Caitlin borrows the moments in laughter to focus herself and marshal her own flighty emotions in the moment. At Jon's admission, her eyes flicker around vacantly as if trying to recall some relevant bits of data. "Well, sex and gender is a fairly antiquated construct from a biological perspective," she points out with a cheerfully clinical helpfulness. "Only one X chromosome works most of the time, and aside from the SRY gene, the Y alleles are really just spare bits and backup data."

She looks back and forth between Donna and Jon. "Which is not at all relevant to the, uh, discussion at hand," she adds, more deliberately, and nods along with herself before pointedly shutting up.

"...But if you want some reading material, I've got a -ton- of studies I can dropshare to you," she says sotto voce, unable to hold back that last tidbit.
Jonathan Sims     "Actually, it's entirely relevant," Jon replies with a smile. "I like to understand a thing as much as I can. Which is why Terry is a hazard, because I /cannot/ understand him, except I can, except understanding him leads me to go cross-eyed. But I think there's /something/ else going on there, I react to his powers the way the angels did--it makes me, ahh, loopy." He shrugs.

    "I appreciate the baking, though! I really, truly do. I don't bake, much; I cook, but baking takes time I often don't have. My daughter's been covering the kitchen in flour though. I think it's her way of dealing with the whole... trip to Duat business. She understood what was going on probably better than anyone else I know, but that doesn't... make it easier, you know?"

    He bites his lip, then adds, "What happened in Duat, it... I didn't mind, people seeing it all. It was, umm... rather close to the funerary texts, actually, and it felt like..." He tilts his head. "A performance? Sort of? I was playing a part. The Great God Ra." He says the last in strident tones, but with a grin. "Perhaps that's why I didn't mind, as such, I enjoy the stage. You have to... show a bit of yourself, be vulnerable, to make that work."
Caitlin Fairchild Caitlin smiles in relief and gestures vaguely at Jon with both hands, then clasps them in her lap once more. "See, I-- I didn't even know you had a daughter," she admits. "This is... good, this is building up some rapport," she says with a more encouraging tone. "It's not something I'm great at. Donna and Nightwing did all the um, public stuff, forever and ever. And Gar did later when he got his feet under him. ...and Kori, but that's because Kori has zero filter," she amends. "Aaand Vic sometimes gets going on a roll, like this one time he created an emulator program based on his gramma, and his personality matrices imprinted -super- hardcore and it was like living in a Wayans Brothers movie for a week." Her eyes roll theatrically.

"Honestly, Terry's really not even all that bad, is he," she asks Donna. "I mean mostly. Sometimes. He /tries/, I mean, and that's what really matters."
Jonathan Sims     "Admittedly, /I/ didn't know I had a daughter until a few months ago," Jon replies with a smirk. "And it's... well... it's a thing you have to learn. Social skills, I mean, it's... mmm... I'm not as good at it as I seem to be? It's not easy, I mean. I had to learn to... well, I learned all the, ahh, techniques to help people feel at ease in therapy, but that's..." He puts out a hand. "There's a space there, a divide. Professional relationship. Letting people in, that's... harder. Trusting your friends will still be your friends, even if you mess up. I'm still working on that."

    He tilts his head a bit. "Do you have... family? I have, umm... my daughter, Agnes, my husband Martin, my girlfriend, well, you've met Cael. That's... about it, really, that's alive."
Donna Troy     "Terry's /fine/" Donna tells Caitlin with a grin. "He tries... too hard, sometimes. And he certainly has a nose for trouble. But he's a good kid, and smart. Chaotic yes, but that keeps us on our toes. Honestly, he's ideal Titans material. Apart from the glitter, that is."

    She smirks into her wine glass. "Diana likes to refer to him as my sidekick, but I think that's mainly to try to tease me. If he was my sidekick, I'd certainly ban him from using glitter as a weapon. It's just inhumane. But he's one of us. Along with no-filter Kori, and Vic who can't help himself with technology and would probably have turned into one of the mad scientist supervillains if he hadn't joined us, and Gar who's all heart and everyone adores despite the terrible jokes and occasional times when one of his socks escapes and has to be hunted down. And... all the Titans."

    She looks up to Jon, smiling wide. "It's dangerous asking a Titan about family, Jon. We have a rather large extra family right there. But I guess you found that out when you came to the tower to ask about Cait."
Caitlin Fairchild Caitlin blinks in momentary surprise. "Jon came to the--" her memory catches up with her a beat later and she puts the details in order. "Oh, that's right. You mentioned that," she reassures Donna. "I'd forgotten, 'cause I wasn't there. Um, here."

She looks back at Jon and smiles almost shyly, hesitating before reaching for her purse. "Yeah, actually-- I mean, I'm adopted," she clarifies. "My daddy passed just before I was, uh, born," she adds, a little evasively. There's a few seconds of digging through her photos and she turns the phone around to show Jon a picture of a scrawny redheaded girl who looks like a stiff breeze might knock her over, trying to shy away from the camera while held in place via a hug from a towering, athletic young man with a Colgate grin and deeply brown skin. Nearby, a rake-thin man who can only be British with his poise and bearing smiles on with paternal pride. "That's my brother Alex, and my uncle Billy," she says. "Billy was my dad's best friend. And of course, there's--" she gestures at Donna and smiles fondly. "The Titans. And the Amazons, but that's like, a big sorority, mostly," she admits.
Jonathan Sims     "Must be nice," Jon says almost wistfully, expression full of something not /quite/ jealous. "I mean, the, ahh... trusting your friends that much. Knowing they'll always be there. Everyone did seem... when I came to the Tower, they all seemed concerned, but certain you'd come 'round."

    He leans forward to look at the phone, expression turning to a smile. "They look nice. Happy. I, umm..." He pulls out his own phone, and pulls up what is clearly a recent picture, of Cael and a girl with dark skin and lavender-dyed hair proudly presenting overly gooey s'mores to the camera. He swipes the picture, and there's the girl again, this time with a short man with dark hair, both with their faces painted and showing off a plate of triangular pastries; hamantaschen, specifically. "That's Agnes, you know Cael... and that's Martin. He was really happy to have a reason to celebrate Purim, he's been... unobservant since our other daughter died." He taps away the camera app, which shows that his background is himself and Martin with another girl, red-haired and lighter-skinned, grinning at the camera at the top of the Coney Island Ferris Wheel. Presumably said other daughter.

    He sits back, then, and adds, "I don't mind the glitter, really. He keeps dumping it on me when I most need to, ahh, get over myself." A pause, and he frowns. "Wait, socks have to be... hunted down?"
Donna Troy     "We /think/ they were originally socks," Donna explains. "They look sock-like, they smell sock-like, and every time we've had to hunt one down and exterminate it, Gar needs new socks. We're not entirely certain, but it's a fair assumption."

    It's honestly quite impressive how much Donna's able to keep a straight face saying this. From the degree to which her emotions normally seem to etch themselves so easily across her features you wouldn't think she had much of a poker face, but apparently when it comes to delivering jokes about her team mates, she can be ice cold. It's probably from years of practice -- the Titans certainly seem to joke about each other a lot.

    "Two weeks, Jon. Two weeks. That's how long it took me to wash the last of the glitter out of my hair last time I got glittered. Aquaman was sneezing glitter for almost a whole month." Donna takes a sip of her wine, puts the glass down, and takes a cookie to munch on.

    "If you guys are feeling hungry, there's a Korean place around the corner Di and I went to a few months back. Really good. My treat."
Caitlin Fairchild Caitlin's face flickers in sympathy at the loss of Jon's daughter. It seems to fraught a topic to pursue though, and when Donna suggests Korean food, Caitlin nods eagerly at the suggestion. "Yeah, a... I mean, when am I /not/ hungry?" she inquires of Donna philosophically. "I could do Korean. If Jon wants to," she amends quickly, and puts the question to Jon with a swift glance.
Jonathan Sims     "I've had two teenaged daughters. I'm pretty sure there's still glitter lurking in a box somewhere from one of Lyra's primary school art projects, not to mention the 'draw on everything you own with a glitter gel pen' trend. One learns to adapt." Is Jon being serious? It's hard to say.

    "It's been a while since I had Korean," Jon admits with a smile, tucking the phone back into his pocket. "That sounds wonderful. I, ahh, well... I don't /need/ to eat like I was starved for forty days but tell that to my psyche."