Our Home and Native Land

Talia checked her phone with her cold hands which was more difficult than she thought. The touchscreen must have been heat sensitive since she couldn't type in her password. When she finally did manage to get it to work, she saw that there was yet another text from Aurora. She read it then deleted it like the rest. She didn't care what her sister had to say anymore. Marc walked in just as she put her phone back into her coat pocket. "Yea...it's much colder than I'm use to." Despite it, though, she didn't think she wanted to wear Cassie's clothes.

"Yea, it's all back there. Jacob was organizing it...he should be done soon." She was a little nervous that Marc may have thought she flaked out early when she hadn't. It was such an odd feeling to not want to disappoint Cassie's father. There was suddenly a father figure around and Talia wasn't entirely sure how to react to it all.

Despite the responsibilities and newfound social interaction, Talia yearned for something comforting and familiar. "Is there a starbucks nearby?" She also just wanted to get away before she had to talk to Jacob again...or Nick...or anyone really.

"Good. Thanks for doing that. You're a big help." Marc leaned in an gave Talia a pat on the shoulder. Then he opened the door to the garage and called out back. "Jake! Are you coming?"

"Well, I was gonna go to, uh, maybe."

"Well, we're leaving in a minute." He closed the door and turned back to Talia. "I think there's one in town. You can walk there from the gym, if you'd like to come. I think all of us but Rachel are going to train. You can do whatever you want. Stay here, come train, come watch, come explore the city. Whatever you want, and just let me know if you need money or anything."

He went back to get his gym bag, and slipped the water bottle into a side pocket. He picked the bag up, paused, and then set it back down. He came back and stood directly in front of Talia. He put his hands on her shoulders and stooped over just enough to look her in the eyes.

"It's not you he doesn't like," he said softly. "It's what happened. But it's over now, and we all have to start fresh. Every day. Cassie's his little sister, and the two of them..." He wondered if the girl in front of him, so much like his own, had ever had the sort of relationships that Cassie had with her siblings. He wondered what she was really like. "But he's a good boy. He makes people laugh. I know you'll like him, just... be patient with him, if it's not wrong to ask for that. He'll figure himself out eventually."

He picked up his gym bag and went into the garage to round up Cassie and Jacob while Nick started the van.

Talia was caught off guard by Marc's physical contact and chat. She looked up at him with concern that wasn't warranted in hindsight. It, like almost everything else in the last two days, felt surreal. She didn't understand why they were being so nice to her. Nothing seemed to make much sense to her nowadays. She didn't say a word as he went into the garage. Of everyone here, she understood Jacob the most. They all should hate her. They were just too pure to realize that. She sighed and thought about what to do.

The gym sounded like a big no-no. And as much as she just wanted to retreat to Cassie's bedroom, the thought of being alone in the house with only Rachel made her uneasy. She'd have to brave the car ride with them to the gym and go off on her own. Then she'd have time to think about things on her own accord. After everything that had happened, she was too preoccupied with her predicament to think about what everything meant. One thing that did resonate from this all was her need to talk to people about her problems. More specifically, she needed to talk to her family about it.

If there was anything that she learned from her experience was how important family had been in making Cassie. Talia envied how lucky Cassie was to have such a perfect family. She wanted to be mad at her own family. She wanted to think it was all their fault that she turned out the way she did. But that couldn't have been the case since Talia never gave anyone the chance to ruin her life. She pulled out her phone and finally texted Aurora back. I'm in Canada, I'll call you later. After that, she walked into the garage to wait for the family to pile into their van to leave for the gym.

Jacob quickly too the far back seat. Nick drove, and his dad rode shotgun, leaving Cassie to sit next to Talia on the way to the gym. Conversation was minimal, aside from a few questions to Cassie's dad about the gym, to Cassie about her training in Japan, everyone was mostly silenced by Talia's presence.

Cassie kept her voice down like they were in a library when she leaned over and spoke to her fellow redhead. "So do you want to check out the school at all? We can get you clothes if you want, it's no problem. Everyone's really nice, so there's nothing to worry about."

Talia was grateful that she didn't have to sit next to Jacob again. She didn't have anything against him, but it was never easy to be near someone she knew didn't like her. "Huh?" she looked to her side at Cassie. "Oh...umm...I guess so. I mean...I'm already here...so I guess I'll at least check it out." She didn't want to actually train with them but she didn't mind watching. After she got her coffee of course.

"I don't want to be any trouble."

"You can partner with me if you want. I could teach you a gogoplata!" Cassie said in a hushed voice, and glanced over at Talia with an impish smile. Maybe that was too soon, but it couldn't be too soon forever.

She understood that Talia probably didn't want to spend all of her time neck-deep in jiujitsu. She couldn't blame her if she was somewhat turned off to it, given her experience with it. All of it on the receiving end.

"But if you want to go exploring in the city, I'll come with you. It's not much of a city, really, not after Tokyo, but we can find lunch somewhere or something. Or go shopping?"

Cassie's mention of the move nearly made Talia flinch. It had been a long time since she'd been hospitalized but it was still a very vivid memory to her. She could forgive Cassie, but she couldn't forget that moment of her life. Maybe eventually she'd be comfortable sparring or training with the other redhead. Eventually. And even though she wasn't entirely comfortable with Cassie, it was infinitely better being with her than being around the others. Oddly enough, Cassie was her only real friend in this far away place.

"Yea...I've never been to Ontario before." She looked outside the window. It wasn't nearly as lively as the cities she was accustomed to. "Yea...yea that sounds like fun." Talia managed to look back to Cassie and crack a smile. She had an idea of something she wanted to get.

A goofy, carbonated smile came over Cassie's face while she bottled in laughter. She probably shouldn't laugh at Talia.

"Well..." She said, sounding as understanding as possible. "Ontario is the province. Like states in America. The city is London. Like I said, it's nothing like Tokyo or Kyoto or anything, it's pretty small, but it's okay."

Once they arrived, Cassie grabbed the straps of her backpack and excitedly ran inside to make the rounds and say hello to her old teachers and training partners, the ones she wasn't related to. It took longer than she intended. She knew a lot of people there, everyone that wasn't new, and before long she had a line of people waiting to get to her. She was the perpetual kid sister of everyone in the gym.

"Well," she said finally. "I should really find my friend Talia. I think she's... a little shy." She craned her neck and looked back toward the entrance to see if she could spot her.

Talia slowly walked into the gym with the others. Cassie looked so happy to be there. It was yet another side of the girl she had never seen before. She couldn't believe how popular she was. It only made Talia even more averse to interaction. It was likely that they all knew who she was. Or at least what she had done. She sat down at a bench in the corner and pulled out her phone. There was another text from Aurora. Why are you in Canada? She hammered out a quick, Spending time with friends to satisfy her sister's curiosity. She really didn't want to explain the situation. She was certain Aurora would've called her stupid.

Talia looked up from her phone and towards Cassie just as the popular girl looked her way too. She smiled to her and looked back down. It felt so weird to think about where she was at that moment. A few months back it would've been out of the question. Now, though, she couldn't help but feel a little...happy that she had come to Canada. It had taught her a lot about the girl she use to hate. A girl who in so many ways was just like her. She still wasn't sure what she was going to do when she left. But at least she'd know that there were good people around her. She just had to open her eyes on occasion to see them.

Cassie smiled back at Talia, and then excused herself from her honorary extended family. She'd be back, she was planning on being home for a while, but today she was going to show Talia around. If that's what she wanted, at least.

She walked back to Talia and stood in front of her, beaming with a smile from ear to ear. "Okay, ready!" She chirped. "Where do you want to go? We've got a couple hours, or if you wanted to stay out longer I could have Bucky pick us up later. Maybe we could all see a movie or something later! That'd be awesome. Bucky has a girl who isn't his girlfriend, but I think he thinks the wants to be, but I don't think he really wants her to be, but that kinda happens a lot with Bucky. All the girls like him because he's just so cute!"

She stopped, realized she was rambling, and paused awkwardly. Then she looked back at Talia and put on a big smile.