Following Nick being hauled off to the Headmistresses office, Roz had barely paid much attention to the rest of the day. It was all she could do to ignore the smug look on Aiden’s face, and the complete lack of backbone shown by the other students who had been involved. At some point she’d get her chance to talk to the headmistress right? Because her own account of the fight club wouldn’t follow what the others were saying. That had to mean something. Even without Roz’s input, the Headmistress had to be suspicious. It had been Aiden, for God sake.
Most of her afternoon had been focused on exchanging texts with Sabrina. When she was out of school, she headed back to the Mortuary as quickly as she could to see if Nick had been there. He hadn’t been. She’d dropped off her bag, picked up Phoebe as a shadow, and had enough time to check Dorian’s before she had to be at work.
Her search unsuccessful, she arrived at the Sanctum in a fairly bad mood. Her goal was to get her work done so she could get the hell out and get back to looking for he-who-sucked-at-responding-to-messages. But maybe she’d also stop into the kitchen to see if there was any birthday cake left too. Chocolate always helped.
Roz entered the Sanctum, Phoebe at her heels, her eyes adjusting to the dimmer lights as the door closed behind her. She never bothered to check in with Dr. Strange, she was pretty sure he always knew when someone stepped foot inside his home. She pulled out her phone one more time to check for any updates, before headed to quickly check the kitchen first.
The kitchen door opened and Nick looked up from his pie, tensing for a moment before he saw who it was. "Hey Roz," he said with a somewhat sheepish smile. "We made pie. You want a slice?"
She was about to open up her messages when Nick’s voice caused her head to snap up, eyes fixed on him standing in the doorway of the kitchen. “Have you been here all along?” she demanded, shoving her phone into her pocket and walking toward him. She didn’t need to ask who we was, it was probably Wanda. Though Roz didn’t realize the two of them really knew each other. “We’ve been trying to reach you.”
"Not the entire time," Nick replied. He pulled out his marker. "Sabrina got a hold of me. My phone was blowing up so I turned it off." Days like these he didn't like that sort of technology, with people m.
"Wanda's around here somewhere. She said she needed to do… something." Nick realized he didn't really know where she'd wandered off to but she'd left him alone in the kitchen and told him not to go exploring. Which, after she'd snuck up on him when he'd showed up, he wasn't about to.
"Anyway, pie?"
Realizing that Roz was upset and he wasn't giving her any real information, he relented. "I needed to cool down. Went to Dorian's first but that was a bad idea. So I just walked around until I found myself here."
It was good to know the Sabrina had reached him. Roz had no idea if she had filled him in on their plans for Aiden and his cronies, but she wouldn’t bring it up. After he gave her a few more details, her shoulders visibly relaxed a little. At least he had come here. It was hard not to feel a little bit better when Wanda made food.
“What kind of pie?” not that it mattered, she’d eat it anyway. “And are you okay? How are you doing?” It wasn’t over, no matter what Aiden might have thought. The truth was going to come out, one way or another.
"Blackberry. And I promise Wanda monitored my sugar and salt measurements." Well really she'd done that bit already, but that wasn't the point. Nick just needed the moment of levity in the midst of anything.
"I'm tired," he said. "Angry. At them. At myself. At them pinning everything on me. On the school suspending me immediately and from what I could tell, no one else." He shrugged. "I came here thinking you might be here already, because I don't know how to face Sabrina. I mean she told me I didn't need to fight any of them."
And because he had, he'd been suspended.
Her mind briefly flashed back to their horrible experience with pancakes made during sleep deprivation. With Wanda there she figured there was zero chance of anything that bad happening. “Wanda does most of the food monitoring around here.” she replied with a nod. “She’s the only one the fridge demon seems to like.” Roz hadn’t even tried to make nice, she kept her distance.
“They’re not going to get away with it.” She said flatly. One way, or another. Either Aiden would crumble, or people would force the Headmistress to keep looking. She hoped the Headmistress would do that anyway. She didn’t seem like the kind of woman who would easily let herself be manipulated. Though her initial reactions were not starting this off in her favor. “I went back to the Mortuary after school got out to see if I could find you, then I came here.” She had stayed in school, other than ducking out for her errand with Sabrina at lunch, to see if she could figure anything else out.
"They won't," Nick agreed. He knew Sabrina well enough to know she wouldn't sit on this. "But even if they reinstate me, I'm not going back."
That decision had been made easily, pretty much the moment the headmistress had told him his fate, right after he'd given his side of the story.
She wasn’t sure how she expected Nick to react, but she hadn’t been expecting that. Roz was visibly surprised as she watched him in silence for a moment. “At all? There’s no way the Headmistress will just let herself be manipulated by anyone in Vorerra.” Or that was what she had to tell herself, at least.
"At all," Nick replied. "I'll just switch to the university full time. Not all of us can be Sabrina and bounce back and forth like it's nothing, anyway." He shrugged, and took a bite of pie. It was still warm from the oven.
"I'm not going to let it completely spoil me on Vallo, but I just want today to be over." Put some distance in between everything feeling so raw.
At some point Roz figured she would apply to the University, but she had only just turned 17, she had another year of school. She wasn’t looking forward to senior year on her own, but that wasn’t a new concept. Not hanging out with Nick in any classes was though, and that was going to suck. In some way it felt like Aiden was getting what he wanted and she wanted to do more to him because of it.
Slowly she nodded, and stepped into the kitchen to look for this so called pie (she was sure it was great, but she had to give Nick somewhat of a hard time). “Well you picked the right place. There’s like a never ending list of distractions in this place. From the fridge demon to the countless artifacts Dr. Strange has here.”
Nick gestured to where the pie sat, figuring Roz would know where things were to cut herself a slice. "I promise it's not like the pancakes," he teased, showing some signs of relaxing. "I'm taking Sabrina a slice, even."
“I know. Wanda is great at baking. You should have come around last weekend for the cake.” she went to go look at the pie, and reach for something to scoop up a piece. “Did baking help?” she asked, looking back at him briefly before grabbing a fork as well to actually try it. It smelled delicious, and looked just as good.
"It did," Nick replied. "Wanda's great. Other than sneaking up on me when I got here with that glowing red eye thing? Have you seen that?" It had been unnerving. "But yeah, I needed a distraction and this worked out." Better than drinking alone at Dorian's would have.
Roz nodded “Yeah, you get used to it. I’d hate to be someone stupid enough to actually break into this place.” The pie was good, as expected, and she nodded approvingly once she had her first bite. “So good.” she confirmed. “I’m glad she was able to help. Though I’m not as glad I won’t see you in any classes anymore.”
"Don't worry," Nick said. "I'll still bug you at home all the time. We'll have to bake more. Or cook. Or both." Apparently that was one way he relieved stress, as long as he wasn't too tired to remember what a recipe actually said.
In the end it mattered that he was happy with where he was studying. In the end he was probably more qualified for the University than Geliara anyway, so it did make sense. It just kind of sucked, but she would get over it. “I’ll hold you to that. In the meantime, did you want a tour of this place while you’re here?”
"You'd better," Nick grinned. "And I was hoping you'd ask. This place is weirder than the Mortuary."