Somewhere over Iowa

[walking_napalm]

In the belly of a BPRD cargo plane, Liz kicks off her pinchy shoes and flexes her toes. She momentarily considers lighting her feet on fire to get rid of the stockings, but ultimately dismisses the (really satisfying) thought. Lighting up while at 32,000 feet in a flying tin can isn't the greatest idea ever.

Abe is up front chatting with the pilot, which means that, due to the limited (three-person) size of the team that was on this particular mission, Liz and Hellboy are alone in the cargo bay with a whole lot of crated-up equipment. She settles in sideways on the bench seat, using Red as a backrest. "The next time someone has the bright idea of me being the public relations liaison," she says, tipping her head backward, "remind me to shoot them."

Comments

[walking_napalm]

Liz sits up and turns around to face him, sitting cross-legged with her hands in her lap. "She's already out." She shakes her head again, just a little. "No jailbreaks."

[bprd_agent_red]

He shifts when she sits up, and keeps his eyes on her.

"How's she doing?"

[walking_napalm]

When she exhales, it sets a couple of loose sections of her hair to swaying. "I don't know," she says. "Probably not great, but it's hard to tell with Laura, you know?" She tucks her hair behind her ear. "She was pretty shut down.

"I did have an idea, though." She glances at him.

[bprd_agent_red]

"Yeah, she's not that chatty."

While he's glad that Laura isn't trapped somewhere, a jailbreak would be something he could handle. He wants to help, but it gets harder for him when heavy lifting (or hitting) isn't involved.

Lucky for him, though, it seems Liz has an idea.

"Yeah?"

[walking_napalm]

"Well," says Liz slowly, picking up momentum as she goes, "she talked about taking care of a friend's cats for three months, and she said how much she misses them."

Which, for Laura, was a huge admission. (Liz thinks so, anyway.)

"I thought it might help to have one of her own."

[bprd_agent_red]

"What, a friend?" he asks, knowing full well what she really means.

On the other side of him his tail thumps against the bench, a sign of his sudden, inner unease.

[walking_napalm]

Liz rolls her eyes, though in deference to how understanding she's trying to be, it is a very small eye roll. "She'd take good care of a cat," she says, leaning forward over her knees; she doesn't bother to address his intentional misunderstanding. "And you are almost up to 30 again."

She thinks. It's hard to count a room full of constantly moving cats, especially when there are lots of places for them to hide.

Liz likes cats, but 30 is a lot for her.

[bprd_agent_red]

"It ain't 30."

It's 28.

He frowns again, but this time it's stubborn moving on towards relenting.

"They did kind of like her, didn't they?"

[walking_napalm]

"They made a living cat tree out of her," Liz points out, a little wry. (Which is to say: yes, yes they did.) She aims a tiny smile at him as she shakes the last of the braid out of her hair.

[bprd_agent_red]

For a minute he refuses to be swayed by that small smile she's aiming at him, or her words.

He crosses his arms over his chest, unfolds them, looks away up at the roof, then across the bay, heaves a sigh, and finally turns his eyes back to her.

"If one of them feels like going with her, I guess that'd be alright."

[walking_napalm]

She's been watching him steadily this whole time, and when he finally glances back at her, her soft smile grows.

"That's very generous of you," she says, resting a hand on his knee and squeezing lightly. (She's teasing a little, but she means it, too.)

[bprd_agent_red]

"Well, I'm a generous guy," he says with a shrug.

False modesty aside, he knows he's doing a nice thing for Laura, and the more he thinks about it, the better he'll feel about the decision.

[walking_napalm]

Her mouth quirks. On impulse, she leans up and kisses his cheek.

"Yeah," she allows magnanimously, low and warm; her eyes are bright. "You're pretty okay." A smile threatens again in the curve of her lips.

It will possibly be a whole new discussion if Laura decides she wants two cats.

They'll cross that bridge when they come to it, Liz thinks.