Re: log: flash/gwen at the orchard
Gwen wasn't going anywhere. She was sitting on a jacket on the rapidly dying summer grass, and her attire made it super obvious that she'd kind of just climbed out of bed and made her way out to the orchard. The orchard itself bore some signs of her recent presence, mostly distance markers on tree trunks with notes alongside. But, at present, she wasn't near any of those markers. She was super deep into the wood, too-sweet apples heavy on the night air and a chill that she totally wasn't feeling as she focused on the items spread out on the ground with her. She had the reading device she'd "borrowed" for the Tethys incident, a stack of books, an RC racer, notebooks, an iPad, and her fried laptop. Currently, she had earbuds in, and she was checking out the neural netting that she'd constructed across the low opening on the ancient tree trunk. It was rudimentary, but it sparked to life as she slid her fingers along the screen of her iPhone, and the readings were super consistent, which was all she was really hoping for.
But it was all kind of a distracted (which was weird for her). She could usually focus entirely on science, but there were so many other things buzzing around in her head. It was totally inefficient and, given the circumstances, potentially dangerous, but all the logic in the world couldn't make her focus entirely on the tree and the hole that would need to be crawled into in order to access whatever was beyond it.
Because telling Flash about MJ had been really, really hard. Super hard. Illogically hard.
She didn't hear his wheels slam off the pavement, but she totally knew he was there somehow, and she turned by the time he tossed his skateboard down and shivered. She could see him, and she did consider (for a few seconds) attempting to scare him, but she ultimately just pulled the earbuds from her ears. "You'd need to be able to catch me in order to work your kung-fu on me, Flash Madison!" She glanced at him with seafoam eyes that gave away worry and concern, but her smile was genuine. "No Reaper?" But, and this was way more important, "I'm totally sorry I got you out of bed. I can't even say I didn't want you to come, because, um... that would be a lie, but it wasn't a deliberate attempt to get you to come here. I'm not really accustomed to telling anyone about my exploring."
Her cheeks went warm a little. "Whenever you say or type 'babe,' I totally think you're talking about someone else." She uncrossed her legs from their criss-cross position. "I like it."