spncentral | Back to the future, but no movie ending yet...

Claudia had been absolutely relieved when it worked. She didn't know how Loki had pulled it off, given that her time there would have really changed things, but except for the time that passed, everything was pretty much the same. Well, it had been once Gabriel calmed down. But after showers and a lot of other things she'd missed, things were finally settling down. The Warehouse was still ecstatic that she was back, which had some interesting side-effects, but nothing like on of its bad moods, and once the portal device had been permanently destroyed, she was given some time off.

And that was spent pretty much eating, sleeping, and making it up to Gabriel for her absence. At least, it had been until she woke up this morning to race to the bathroom and throw up. It wasn't bad, as things went, but she had no idea why she would be sick like that. If she'd eaten anything, well, surely she would have noticed that it was off, even if her senses had gotten inured to some scents in the past.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

While she was gone, Gabriel managed to hunt down and find the one responsible for her disappearance and made him seriously regret his life decisions in the time he had before dying messily. Not that it did him much good, as it took that past version of him finding the Warehouse o the time to finally make progress on getting her home.

Needless to say, he'd been sticking around Claudia the majority of the time since she'd returned home and heard her quickly enough. He's in the bathroom in fairly short order, giving her a concerned look. "What's wrong?"

Claudia was resting with her chin on the edge of the toilet having just flushed down whatever had disagreed with her. As always, throwing up sucked, but she just closed her eyes a moment before answering.

"Stomach bug, probably," she said, completely unsurprised by the helicopter archangel in her life. "No big deal..."

Given she'd been stuck close to two thousand years in the past and spent some of the time as a slave, Gabriel thinks he's allowed to hover.

Gabriel frowns at that. "You're sick. When I'm around to automatically fix things."

"You can't catch everything, Gabe," Claudia pointed out. Although it was true that she didn't get sick much when they were together. At work, well, sometimes she got the odd case of sniffles after a few days away, but even that got quickly fixed.

"Could just be all the rich foods you've been spoiling me with. Not that I miss roasted goat and venison and rabbit stew and the like."

"You shouldn't be sick. I don't have to consciously fix that sort of thing and we've been in plenty of contact over the last week or so," he points out.

Claudia got to her feet, moving to get a glass of water from the sink and rinse her mouth out before pressing a kiss to his cheek. "I feel fine now. Something just didn't agree with me. You really going to be all worried about that when we have other things we could be doing?"

"So sue me for being suspicious," he grumbles even as he lets the kiss mollify him.

"I know it's one of your many charms," she said, still glad she had everything back to normal. "Loki took really good care of me. I mean, at first it was just because I knew too much about him, but..."

She wasn't sad to be home, but there were things she'd found in that life that she missed. "You think I should take up bead-making?"

"You're lucky he didn't quietly get rid of you instead," Gabriel agrees, moving out of the way so she could leave the bathroom. "As a hobby or as something to sell?"

"Yes?" Claudia said, shrugging a little. "I just got in a habit of making small decorative chazerai to sell or trade, and it was nice. I couldn't cook to save my life. Not over an open fire or stone hearth."

She went out, but only as far as the edge of her bed. "It was different. Especially the village."

The first few days, it had taken conscious effort not to just keep speaking ancient Norse.

"Maybe you should learn if you're going to be getting yourself dropped in the past," Gabriel says, following her to sit by her.

At least there was one person guaranteed to understand her, since he was the one who taught her the language in the first place.

"Can we try not to have that happen again? I was like three bids away from ending up in a brothel," Claudia said, dryly. "I'd rather be here."

Which was why she shifted to snuggle against him as soon as he sat next to her.

"That certainly would have fucked your status in the event of you earning or buying your freedom," Gabriel observes as he wraps an arm around her. "You would have been on the register of sex workers for life."

"Not to mention however many diseases you would have had to cure when I got back," she pointed out. "Instead, I get my favorite archangel and something resembling time off. You would never have stopped looking for me, anyway."

"Along with fixing anything that had gone wrong while terminating an unwanted pregnancy so you could keep working," Gabriel points out.

"Don't be crass," Claudia said, sighing. "Everything turned out fine in the end."

Sometimes, Gabriel could be impossible. "How do you want to spend the day. I was thinking maybe we could take the walking carpet over to the P-A-R-K and let him run." Yes, she was spelling, because Loki-the-dog was entirely too intelligent about hearing his favorite words.

"Sure, we could do that. Is there a particular time you want to head out?" Assuming she's don't with being sick, anyway. Going anywhere wouldn't be happening if she wasn't finished.

Claudia shook her head. "I was thinking after breakfast, but I think that's just going to be toast right now, and maybe more while we're out."

"So around ten or eleven then?" It's after breakfast and gives her time to do whatever before they leave.

"Sounds good. Should I dig out the harness and leash for the demon-weasel, too?" It usually was just them and the dog, since Loki could actually mostly behave himself on outings, but Jormangundr was a completely different story. He'd been causing her headaches since he first popped out of the kettle, and that was part of why she loved both of their furry babies.

"We can spoil them both rotten."

"Sure the catsnake will stay in it and not ninja out?" Gabriel asks with raised eyebrow. He's well aware how slippery ferrets can be.

Edited Date: 2016-06-15 03:05 am (UTC)

"You'd think by now he'd have learned that means getting fetched by Loki," Claudia reminded him. Because the ferret seemed to hate being the prize Loki got to carry on the walk home. Any good dog-parent should know that the reward for a good session of fetch was to keep the toy for a while. It was also pretty much the only time Loki got to be the furball in charge.

"Since when has something like that ever stopped an animal from doing what it wants?" Gabriel asks drily. "Particularly those of the cat and ferret persuasion."

"Something they have in common with archangels, I've noticed," she teased. "Is that a no, then, to bringing the tube-rat?"

"It would take a direct order from Dad to get one of us to do something he doesn't want and well, obviously with Lucifer even that's not a sure thing," Gabriel says with a shake of his head. "Let's skip Houdini the Ferret today."