\/Luna Lee Taylor\/
Luna nearly jumped when she heard the door close behind her with an odd sense of finality. it was pretty clear at this point that they were definitely heading out, well Dwyn had specifically mentioned they were going to get out of there, but the door closing behind them as the lock clicked shut of its own accord seemed to solidify it quite a bit more and remind her that when they stepped out of here, they were actually going to be done, or at the very least Luna assumed that was what would happen. She hadn't been to anything like this game before, but still it wasn’t like she had zero idea how things worked. Absolutely nothing going the way she’d expected couldn’t be right. She wasn’t that bad at this.
For starters, there hadn't been anything remotely approaching a congratulations. If nothing else whoever was in charge of conducting this had directed the actors to be a little extra harsh and make it seem like they were doubting their ability to ever complete the game. Luna didn't know a lot about business but treating people like that didn't seem like an effective way to get people coming back to play your game again. If Luna didn't know any better, it almost seemed like these people wanted them to be getting out of this place as fast as possible and never coming back.
There was a sound from behind her and Luna realized that Dwyn had just told her to lead them out of here, which meant she was not supposed to be here frozen in place just imagining why this ending had been quite so lackluster. Hoping that the other two would simply think she'd been considering which door would lead them back to the entrance, Luna moved once again, trying to recall exactly what said door was. She had a pretty decent idea of generally where it was, especially relative to where she'd been standing earlier, but now that they'd gone through another door and looked around, it was slightly harder to get her bearings.
One door did seem to be the right one however, and without hesitating for long enough that Dwyn would relinquish her of her current responsibility, Luna marched towards said door. If it ended up not being the one, well she'd deal with that if it came to that. Thankfully, it seemed her subconscious had been paying enough attention to her surroundings despite Luna herself spacing out a bit, and the door opened into a semi familiar hallway. There was every chance that there was more than one doorway leading to a similar looking hallway that wouldn't necessarily lead them outside, but Luna didn't stop to think about it as she walked out, picking up the pace ever so slightly as she realized that they were probably supposed to have left a few minutes ago.
There was undoubtably going to be a few people standing outside to ensure that the three of them did in fact leave and she did not want to run into problems. At least Luna knew that's what the people here wanted them to act like. Given this was a game, them taking a second longer than normal to leave should probably not cause any problems, but at least Dwyn and Conrad seemed to treat it like they couldn't take it easy just yet, so Luna, knowing that following their lead so far hadn't led her too far off course, stuck with the faster pace.
The longer they travelled down the hallway, the more concerned Luna got. Maybe it was the apprehension earlier, but the walk to the table when they'd been coming in hadn't felt nearly this long and Luna was starting to doubt that maybe they'd gone down the wrong hallway after all. A shaft of sunlight coming from somewhere up ahead managed to ease her worries however as it was clear there was some sort of exit coming up ahead
Of course, it was too far off for Luna to tell if it was the door they could maybe leave through or maybe some sort of large window. At this point though, she'd take it. As long as the outside world was visible it meant they could get out of here, and it wasn't like that car they'd arrived in earlier was going to be waiting for them to take them back. Or at least she assumed that was what would happen. No one had mentioned anything about a return trip. For a brief second Luna wondered if she should maybe turn back to confirm this with Dwyn, but then decided that the woman would have already spoken up if Luna was doing something wrong. It wasn't like Dwyn was having her lead them out because Dwyn couldn't. There was no chance the woman didn't have the proper route mapped out.
Her trust managed to pay off soon enough, as finally the doorway they'd come in from earlier came into view. Once again Luna couldn't exactly be certain this was the right one until she'd actually stepped out, not to mention there wasn't even anyone standing there to see them out, but Luna soldiered on, trusting that it wasn't all going to end up being an elaborate ruse and they'd end up on the other side of this building or worse, in some inner courtyard or something that would end up getting them into some sort of extra trouble. For a second, she had wondered if getting to some inner room was part of a side quest of some sort, given Dwyn's idea to check the place out, but given how fast the woman had walked out of said inner room, it was probably not how this was meant to go. If Luna didn't know better, she'd almost think Dwyn had wanted to steal something from here.
Trying not to think too deep into that and what that could possibly mean, Luna continued on, soon stepping into the sunlight as the three of them made their way out the door. As the semi familiar skyline Luna had glimpsed on her way in earlier registered, she let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. She'd led them out of the right door after all...unless. She shook her head as her mind tried to introduce yet more doubt into the situation. She really needed to stop doing that or she was never going to be able to get anything done. With that in mind, she looked around, seeing if she could spot any sign of the car that had gotten them here.
It wasn't the most distinctive car that Luna had ever been in, but she liked to think her memory was good enough that she'd be able to recognize it again if she saw it. And at the moment, there was nothing in sight that remotely resembled it, which means here suspicious that they were now just going to be left to find their own way back was most likely true. It was starting to feel like a bit of a massive anticlimax now. She'd been imagining this being the craziest part of the whole thing what with the pretense of the whole thing being a heist maybe being finally dropped and some sort of prize maybe being handed out. Not for the first time that day Luna wondered if she had somehow missed something very important that everyone else just knew. Before her brain could talk itself into yet another temporary panic attack in the span of a few minutes, Dwyn interrupted her thoughts.
“Well, one of us needs to call a cab,” said Dwyn, “it wouldn’t do to stand here for longer than necessary.”
"Yes...yup...we should do that, " managed Luna, nodding along like this had been fully obvious to her this whole time. "Of course, they weren't going to wait for us and take us back to the airport or something. But they did get us return tickets, right? Or didn't they? I mean we have the money to buy them easily, but also..." Luna trailed off, face going a deep red as she realized she'd slipped back into rambling mode out of nowhere. Dwyn gave her a look that suggested that Luna's comments were not really worth a response. Conrad somehow seemed to have read that look correctly as well because whatever he'd opened his mouth to add onto the subject of plane tickets seemed to die in his throat.
Trying to hide her embarrassment for the moment, Luna looked out to see if she could somehow hail a cab from here if she was going to have to summon, uber or tuber or one of these things her friends kept mentioning. She really needed to learn this sort of thing a little bit better than the little knowledge she currently possessed on getting around when she didn't have anyone to drive her around or if the place wasn't within walking distance. Luckily for her, the other two didn't seem like they had any similar issues when it came to finding a way to getting back. Within minutes one of the two, Conrad Luna suspected by the way he was looking at it, had managed to summon a cab from somewhere and he was gesturing for the two of them to get in before him.
Smiling, Luna managed to utter something resembling a thank you as she nodded to the man and managed to squeeze herself, luggage, and all. Conrad and his hockey bags were stuffed into the center of the car for some reason, most likely because Dwyn probably wanted to have a way to quickly get out of the car if she had to. It wasn't one that she'd summoned after all and then soon Dwyn was sliding in, a lot more graceful than the two of them combined. Conrad once again seemed to be about to say something, probably about taking them to the airport when Dwyn directed the driver to some random location which she somehow seemed to know. Luna stared at her in shock. Was this some sort of side quest after all?
Dwyn seemed to have read the pretty obvious question on Luna's face however as she proceeded to roll her eyes before nodding almost imperceptibly towards the bags that Luna was currently holding onto. The one that had been stuffed full of clothes. Luna almost nodded back before deciding maybe that was too obvious and settled for a smile. She had been thinking about when they were going to bust out said clothes but had assumed that maybe they'd change at the airport itself. She supposed Dwyn wanted to change their appearance slightly earlier given they did now have to essentially got away. It was an interesting medium at any rate. Given how Dwyn had acted earlier, Luna had almost expected her to just take off without them, but perhaps she wanted to get back to Chicago first, or maybe it was because the game was somehow finally over even though Luna just couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't quite right there.
She didn't let herself dwell on that just yet however, knowing that until they were safely on the plane headed back to Chicago, things were still up in the air somewhat. Dwyn directed their driver to what appeared to some sort of fairly random clothing store where she proceeded to march in, not even waiting for the two of them to follow. After only a moment of hesitation Luna followed suit and she could hear Conrad trying to do the same. Just as Conrad was about to tell their driver to wait for them Dwyn appeared again and proceeded to stuff some cash into the driver's hand and tell him to drive somewhere. If the man was confused, he didn't show it, nodding before peeling out of the parking lot.
Luna didn't think much of it at this point. She'd seen that particular trick pulled off in countless heist novels, and she was glad to see that it was at least a usable tactic, even though it seemed to be a bit late in said heist when they didn't even have any of the items on them to be using such a trick. Still, she didn't try and overthink it too much, already seeing Dwyn make us some sort of story to whoever was running the store as she just made her way to the changing rooms without even waiting to be told. Things were coming to an end, and it was pretty obvious what they were here to do. There was simply no point in trying to ask Dwyn everything and just getting even more embarrassed. She'd had enough of that for a while now. Maybe she could get back to the villager trading hall she'd been building in Minecraft. Wrangling hundreds of video game NPC's for absolutely no good reason would help her forgot about all that for a bit.
Changing into whatever looked the most different to what she'd been wearing, Luna was in and out of the changing room in ten minutes to almost run right into Conrad who was standing there awkwardly holding his hockey things. He seemed to do a double take at her outfit change before he seemed to come to some sort of realization and he promptly disappeared in search of a changing area. Luna wondered if he hadn't understood something Dwyn had said or if the woman hadn't bothered to tell him anything. She wouldn't be surprised either way.
Soon enough, Dwyn emerged from the room next to Luna's and it seemed like it was her turn to a double take at the sight of Luna already ready to go. Whatever expression came onto her face didn't last long however and woman simply gave Luna a nod. The lack of any sort of remark made Luna internally fist pump the air, knowing she had probably done the right thing here. After a few more minutes of waiting Conrad arrived. He didn't look nearly as different as he probably should have but Dwyn, either no longer caring because they were essentially done with the heist or because she was tired of yelling instructions nodded at him and proceeded to march out. Once again Luna followed without question to find another cab sitting there waiting for them judging by how quickly Dwyn slid inside. It definitely wasn't the one they'd come here in, and Luna didn't have to long to reflect on that anyway because the cab was already leaving before Conrad had even managed to close the door on his side having gotten in last.
The ride to the airport wasn't eventful after that, this time Dwyn directing the driver in that direction once they'd gotten a bit of distance from the store. The silence was almost as awkward as the previous ride, but Luna didn't dare take a call here. That could wait until they were all back in Chicago and she was going to have to plan some sort of way to get back home, provided of course there wasn't another shoe waiting to drop like her instincts kept trying to tell her for some reason she couldn't fathom.
Before Luna knew it, they were getting out at the airport, her mind now immediately jumping to the idea of having to book the tickets back to Chicago. She had ones that would take her back home from Chicago, but judging from the way Dwyn had spoken earlier, it was pretty clear they were going to have to book their own to get back to Chicago first. After all, the other two did kind of live there, at least Luna was 85% sure Conrad lived there, (Dwyn may as well be from Antarctica for all Luna knew) and whoever had booked their tickets to this place hadn't given them ones to get back.
Dwyn clearly knew what she was doing as she marched off almost immediately. Luna probably should have been slightly more concerned than normal that Dwyn hadn't even gestured for them to follow her. It was almost as if she was planning to run back on her own. Conrad however seemed to be headed in that same direction too, so Luna decided she may as well follow. She knew next to nothing when it came to pulling something like this off, so she was going to have to watch and learn anyway if Dwyn wasn't going to do it for her. Well, who was she kidding, there was no chance whatsoever that Dwyn was going to do it for her, especially not at this moment when all appeared to be done and dusted.
Keeping up with and keeping track of a Dwyn on a mission was a difficult proposition at the best of times, especially for Luna, and in the midst of an airport that was fairly crowded, it was proving to be a very difficult task at the moment as the woman wove through the crowds with what was clearly a practiced ease while Luna was doing her best to walk fast without outright running after the woman and looking unnecessarily suspicious. Luckily for her, Conrad was also lumbering his way behind Dwyn, and he was a much easier target to keep track of that Dwyn ever would be, not to mention he didn't move nearly as fast as Dwyn was doing at the moment.
It wasn't long before both of them were coming to a stop however, and Luna waited patiently, trying to lean in close enough to hear what they were saying as they bought the tickets while doing her best to make sure she didn't end up accidentally getting too close either. It was proving to be a bit of a delicate balance given Dwyn wasn't the loudest when it came to speaking, but safe in the hope that Conrad was also definitely going in the same direction, Luna didn't let that bother her too much. She should be able to hear what Conrad was saying, or if she absolutely had to, she could probably ask the man. Given how he'd helped her out with the trains she had no doubt he'd probably buy it for her too, but she was entirely too embarrassed to ask just yet unless she absolutely had to.
Fifteen minutes later, surprisingly without as much trouble as Luna had been expecting going into the situation, she was the proud new owner of a ticket on the next plane back to Chicago. She'd just about managed to stutter her way through the whole thing and now she quietly continued following after the other two. It was starting to be a bit of an odd procession given that Dwyn still hadn't acknowledged the two of them at all, and Conrad while he'd looked behind and locked eyes with Luna on a couple of occasions, hadn't made any sort of move to talk. This meant Luna had been relegated to just following the two, doing her best to look like she knew what she was doing while also hoping that the other two would do or say something. It seemed like Dwyn had pretty much cut herself off from their little group now that they'd functionally finished off with their little mission and Conrad seemed to be torn between following in Dwyn's footsteps and trying to make contact. From what Luna had heard, they were at the very least going to be on the same flight back, so knowing that once they were through security and everything, they had a bit of a wait in store, Luna didn't try to press for anything. Once they'd waited for long enough, she was sure at least Conrad had to crack, even if Dwyn likely never would.
Her theory was put to the test not too long after when they were finally all seated down at the gate, waiting patiently for the officials to call them to board. For some reason they'd managed to sit in relatively close proximity, Dwyn on the far right of the row of seats and Conrad and Luna a seat apart on the far left. It wasn't too different to how it had been on the way there, not just in the seating arrangement but also the atmosphere that currently engulfed them. The only real difference was the absences of the one and only red shirt in a different seat that the three of them cautiously peeked at every so often. That particular absence was so far turning out to be a bad thing for the moment given that without that common activity for them to participate in, the general awkwardness was only growing.
Dwyn continued to maintain her silence with ease. It didn't seem like she was even trying if Luna had to be honest with herself. Conrad on the other hand looked close to cracking. He'd done his best to stare determinedly at the ground for some time now, but he'd started to look between the two of them with increasing frequency in the past five minutes and it looked like he was just about to say something. That was the exact moment that they chose to call the first-class passengers and both Conrad and Luna exchanged a very deliberate look as Dwyn proceeded to get up and stalk off. There wasn't so much as a wave involved and Dwyn was gone. A myriad of thoughts swirled through Luna's mind, starting out with the idea that Dwyn had definitely abandoned them at this point. She had serious doubts that they'd even be able to run into her once the plan landed in Chicago. Then there was also the fact that there was definitely enough money on her right now to buy a first-class ticket, but she'd just automatically defaulted away from it. How could she possibly have missed that? Of course, Dwyn was going to fly first class.
It looked like once again Conrad was going to say something, especially after this latest revelation, but before he and definitely before Luna could think to work up the courage to that, they were already calling for their seat numbers. Luna really wanted to talk this through but postponing things in the hope of catching the two after the plane landed and because Luna was going to take any excuse she could to prolong this conversation, Luna got up, charging into the line of passengers already forming to board the plane. She didn't look back to see if Conrad was going to follow her, not until it was too late anyway. By then there was already five passengers behind her and despite his size making it impossible to miss him in the crowd, there was no way she could talk.
She knew that at this point, the only person she was successfully fooling was herself, but she couldn't really do much about that at the moment, not until they had landed. That fact became quite clear once the flight attendant directed her down the hallway she was supposed to go in and she found her seat number. For starters, she hadn't even passed by Dwyn. It was probably a stretch to imagine Dwyn had picked a seat number to avoid Luna given that Dwyn had selected her seat before Luna and had been well out of earshot when Luna picked hers, but that didn't stop the thought crossing her mind. Then later once she sat down, she could see the tall form of Conrad squeeze into a seat a couple of rows in front of her. He didn't even seem to spot her, despite it looking like he was in fact trying to find her.
Once that was done, Luna turned back to the window next to her, opening it before she turned to the entertainment system in front of her. Hoping to take her mind off of everything currently plaguing it for the next few hours, she plugged into the earphones they'd provided her with and settled down. Forgetting all of this sounded like a great idea for her own sanity as well as Dwyn and Conrad when she inevitably had to ramble something and do some sort of goodbye once the plan had landed, assuming of course that she was even going to be able to catch up to Dwyn, who'd probably walk away as fast as could be considered not running.
With those thoughts swirling in her mind, Luna settled into browse the selection available on the plane and before long, she managed to push those thoughts to the back as one of her favorite movies began to play in front of her. The flight passed by pretty calmly. Not even a surprise patch of turbulence to throw things into disarray. It was pretty much an ideal journey and before long, Luna was pulling the earphones out of her ears that were half ringing from the constant shooting that had gone down in the final movie she'd just about managed to sneak in. As she blinked to renter the normal world after having been lost in a few different planets over the course of the last five hours, all the thoughts she'd pushed aside earlier came rushing right back.
Luna let out a sigh. For better or for worse it was all going to end up coming to a head a few minutes from now, and given she hadn't managed to escape these thoughts for even a second once her distraction was over, she might as well embrace them for the moment until she had to set about figuring out how she was going to be getting home.
Doing her best to get up in the stream of people doing their hardest to leave without falling over and dropping the luggage she had to stand on her tiptoes to reach, Luna just about managed to get herself moving. She would've much preferred to wait till the massive stream of people had already left and she was the last one off the plane, but she was going to have to brave this human tsunami if she was going to catch up to Conrad who was definitely not having any trouble getting a clear path from what she could see up ahead. Dwyn had probably already gotten off the plane given she was so far up ahead. Luna hadn't exactly seen Dwyn to see which seat she was on, but Luna would bet money that it was pretty close to the front row so that Dwyn would be able to make as quick an exit as was feasible.
Fighting her way through the crowd, Luna eventually made it to the exit from the plane. Doing her usual smile and barely audible thank you to the crew at the doorway, she proceeded to walk as fast as she could to catch up Conrad. She couldn't afford to lose them here. It was now or never. There was a slight chance that Conrad might end up waiting for her or at the very least get bottlenecked at the baggage claim they'd all have to visit, but with Dwyn, even that wasn't a given, and Luna did want to at least say a simple goodbye to the woman.
The chase, not chase lasted for a few minutes as they all finally ended up at the baggage claim. This was really starting to become something of a movie, the only thing that wasn't accurate to the big screen was the fact that the world was not at stake and Dwyn was (probably) not carrying anything that could somehow end the world unless a specific button was pressed before a specific time. There was also the fact that Dwyn was probably not trying to run away from Luna either, she was just more efficient when it came to getting out of a place. At least that's what Luna was allowing herself to believe for the moment. She didn't know why, but the idea that Dwyn would just run away from her without so much as a proper goodbye felt like it was going to cause a little bit more hurt than Luna had been expecting.
The baggage claim portion of things went about as well as Luna had predicted. Dwyn was already leaving when Luna was just about arriving, Conrad now in tow as Luna had managed to race ahead of him once she'd actually spotted Dwyn again. The pretense of just walking fast had been abandoned a few minutes ago as Luna had basically run through this part of the airport to catch up to Dwyn. Now she was staring at the conveyer bringing in the bags giving some serious thought to the idea of taking off after Dwyn and coming back for the bag later. Her fear over losing the bag won over however, because Luna resigned herself to watching as Dwyn marched off, praying for the bag to magically appear in the next few minutes. The chances of that were growing steadily lower the longer than Luna watched, but she didn't give up hope, not just yet.
Just as Dwyn disappeared around a corner, Luna spotted her luggage. She was off in a flash. With a strength she didn't even know she actually possessed, Luna had grabbed her luggage and was charging through the airport. She was totally done pretending or waiting or doing anything else. She was going to catch up to that woman and have some sort of interaction, even if it was going to be Dwyn pushing her away like she was a stranger. She had no idea where that particular idea had come from, but Luna's brain knew how best to conjure up the worst-case scenarios even at the best of times.
As she neared the exit, Luna almost did a double take at the site. Just outside the doors stood Dwyn. Luna was just about to dismiss that as her simply waiting for to call a cab, when she sees that Dwyn was quite clearly looking at the inside of the airport, eyes searching for something. It was entirely possible that Dwyn was just going to meet another one of those associates she said she had. Luna still didn't have any idea what any of that was about. Maybe it was like the three questions you could ask someone in an escape room. Before Luna had time to sink properly into that tangent her brain had invited her out on, Dwyn's eyes unmistakably stopped on hers.
Luna barely had time to process through everything that could happen as a result of their eyes meeting when Dwyn made a 'come here" gesture with her hand. Luna almost wanted to look behind her to see if there was someone else, in fact she couldn't resist and she did only to find empty air. It appeared Conrad hadn't acquired his bag just yet. Luna looked around one more time for good measure before her eyes met Dwyn again. The woman was still looking at her, and the rolling of her eyes was pretty clear in what it wanted her to do. Luna swallowed the lump that was suddenly forming in her throat and started moving again, this time not running, but still walking at a pretty fast pace headed straight for Dwyn.
It was probably barely a minute of walking, but it felt like it had been almost an hour when Luna finally made it out of the doors and stood in front of Dwyn, bag by her side and hands clenching and unclenching. She really should carry more things around to play around with when it came to moments like this.
"So, umm...it was nice...umm...worki...heisting...umm...with you," Luna stammered out once the silence had grown to a point where even she couldn't bear to just stand there silently.
“Let’s wait a bit until Conrad catches up, shall we?” said Dwyn, “we can’t be doing this goodbye twice after all.”
“Oh umm. Yup, that makes sense, yes, why not…” stammered Luna, going beet red again. She tended to do that entirely too often around this woman. She really needed to do something about that going forward. Her brain proceeded to remind her than that wasn’t going to matter anyway since she would likely never see Dwyn again. Before Luna could process that thought, Dwyn was speaking again.
“Where is Radical anyway? I thought we was ahead of you when coming out of the plane?” asked the woman.
"Oh, he was...umm...well he was standing at the baggage claim when I last saw him," Luna managed, proud of herself for only minimal stammering on that last sentence," of course maybe he's coming in now, or he went somewhere else. I umm..I ran..I uhh left there too quickly to be able to tell. Sorry."
“Well, I suppose he’ll come out of here eventually,” said Dwyn.
"Of course," managed Luna to that before she fell silent once again, the air of awkwardness building up once again after that exchange. She turned back towards the airport, hoping that Conrad was going to emerge soon so that this conversation could come to some sort of end. Getting brushed off by Dwyn, Luna could deal with, but this sudden wait as she had to look forward to potentially getting brushed off was turning out to be a much worse fate than her mind could handle at the moment here.
Luckily for her, like some sort of hockey playing, extremely muscular angel Conrad chose that moment to stumble into view. If Luna didn't know any better, he seemed to almost have a casual pace to him, but Luna could see that his eyes were much like her own, clearly searching for something, or more likely someone. It didn't take too long for him to turn his eyes to the exit and spot them. Luna looking down at her bag by this point while Dwyn, Luna could see was gesturing to him much like she'd done earlier to Luna herself.
The man rushed over a lot faster than Luna had, probably due to the fact that people gave him a wide berth the moment he started walking faster than normal pace. Whether it was just his size or the large hockey bag that was now swinging around rather dangerously as he half ran half walked, it was anybody's guess.
He was soon sliding to a stop right beside them as Dwyn gestured to the side so that they could move away from the exit before someone reminded that they had in fact been inadvertently blocking the doorway for the past few minutes. Once they stood to the side, done with everything that could possibly delay this conversation, the silence only continued to build for a few minutes as all three of them probably thought of something to say. Well at least that's what Luna was doing, and what Luna was pretty positive Conrad was doing judging by his scrunched-up expression. Dwyn was an entirely different matter.
Unsurprisingly, it was Dwyn who finally took the plunge and ended up breaking the silence.
“So, we finished,” said Dwyn, before adding in a slighter quitter voice, “somehow without messing up.”
“Yup…umm yes…even though something seems to tell me we aren’t fully done yet, we are,” managed Luna, wondering why she’d even voiced her fear to everyone. It really was something random that she knew was only her brain being paranoid. Maybe she just wanted to make sure that everyone felt the same way. There were times her brain’s paranoia had paid off after all. This wasn’t turning out to be one of those after all, as the other two barely seemed to react.
“Well, my bank account tells me otherwise,” said Dwyn, lowering her voice ever so slightly.
Luna nodded, doing her best to work up the courage to blurt out the final part she wanted to say here before Dwyn, who was starting to glance around for a cab was going to quickly charge off.
“I... umm...don’t know how I even got to this point, but I... umm…I might miss…” began Luna before she was cut off a little abruptly by Dwyn.
“You know what, maybe you did learn a thing or two after all, “said Dwyn, “not bad middle schooler. Well, toodles.”
Before Luna could even begin to process what on Earth that had been about, the woman proceeded to direct a little wave at the two of them, one which Conrad returned with a spluttered “Catch you later” before the woman was walking in the direction of a cab, one which she proceeded to quickly slide into as it drove off in double quick time.
“Well, that was quick, “said Conrad,” can’t say I’m surprised. So, how are you going to be going back?”
“Oh, I’ll manage,” said Luna quickly, maybe a little too quickly, but she was reaching her emotional maximum for the day rather quickly here. She really didn’t want to be spending too long talking if they were all definitely going their separate ways never to reunite again. “Dwyn’s always been that way I suppose.” She added the last part as an afterthought, not really knowing why she said it, although she felt like she had to. The expression on Conrad’s face wasn’t the most desirable, but it looked almost like he needed to hear that. Maybe. What did Luna know about emotions after all?
“Well, in that case,” said Conrad, holding out a hand to shake. “It was nice working with you.”
“It was nice working with you two,” said Luna. “We really did pull off a pretty insane thing there. I didn’t ever imagine it was going to be this fun. I mean, I knew it was going to be fun. That’s why I even signed up for this whole thing in the first place. It’s not every day you drop everything and run for a game. But umm….it was nicer than I thought it’d be, and you two played your part in that.”
“Glad to hear that.”
“I will head out then. I think you also live around here, but I need to actually be going back inside here and figuring out how I’ll be getting back home,” said Luna, managing one last smile at the man.
“Well then, that’s that,” said Conrad, before adding as almost an afterthought,” maybe I’ll see you around.”
“You never know,” said Luna. She gave the man a short wave, before Luna turned around, walking a few feet away. She didn’t fully know what she was doing. She was definitely going to have to make a call or two to figure out her next move, but she knew she had to get a few feet away from Conrad and look like she knew what she was doing, or the man was probably not going to leave and that would be a bit too embarrassing. She could manage this. She was supposed to be an adult.
As Luna walked a bit further away, she could just out of the corner of her eye see Conrad give her one last look before the man shouldered his many bags, and turned away, already eyeing up a vehicle somewhere off in the distance. It wasn't long before she could spot Conrad getting into said vehicle and before long Luna was standing alone at the airport, this whole heist done for better or for worse, now having to figure out how best to be getting back home.
Luna decided that if she was going to have to reorganize her thoughts and plan a way back she'd have to start by getting all of her stuff, which meant returning to the room she'd spent that one night in and maybe spending a bit of time there brainstorming the best way to go about this was in her best interests as well given that this was going to be a bit sooner of a return time than planned which meant while she could always just stay around until the time her currently booked plane was scheduled to depart, or she could book a new one or do the smart thing and muster enough courage to figure out how to move her booking up to something more recent. It couldn't possibly be that hard. She'd seen her dad do things like that all the time. Maybe she should have paid more attention the few times her dad tried to actually show her how to do that sort of thing.
With this fresh plan in mind, Luna brought out her phone, trying to map out how far her previous hotel was from the airport. If it was going to be at least somewhat within walking distance, that was the option she wanted to go with, calling for a cab was not the sort of thing she wanted to do. Then she remembered the fact that she did actually have a few things on her, which meant she couldn't just try and lug it all back herself on foot anyway. Sighing, Luna resigned herself to having to call on something. Either that or ditch the clothes and as much as Luna didn't feel like she'd ever wear the atrocities she'd bought there on Dwyn's unspoken command, she felt like she couldn't just throw them away either. She was going to be keeping them, even if it was for them to just gather dust in the bottom of her closet for the rest of time.
With that thought settled, Luna set about summoning a ride, and once she was safely bundled into a car, she produced the address she'd decided to write down so she could avoid having to say it and inevitably cause an accidental confusion with all her stammering. It wasn't long before she was then pulling up into the hotel and she was quickly walking up to her room. If the people at the hotel were wondering why she'd never turned up last night despite having definitely paid for it, they didn't bother to ask her. Luna honestly wondered if they'd even noticed or cared. As long as they were paying, they probably had very little time to waste wondering about whether or not their guests were wasting their money on empty hotel rooms or not. At least Luna hoped that was what would happen. She did not want to be subject to any sort of interrogation at any point today.
Luna sank into the bed quickly as she lay there for a few minutes, just trying to process everything that had happened and catch her breath. She knew she was going to have to unpack all the thoughts flying through her head at some point, and maybe the best way to do that was going to be once she was back, and perhaps with Sadie. It felt only reasonable to discuss all of this with her given she was the one who'd given her the opportunity in the first place, and she'd want to know, Luna had promised to tell her after all. And knowing that had to happen, Luna didn't know if she could handle trying to unpack these emotions twice, so for now they were going to stay bottled in while she figured out how best to make sure she could get home.
After a little poking around on her laptop she finally managed to figure out how to get her flight time moved up. It was surprisingly not as complicated as she thought it was going to be and did not require any more embarrassing human contact. The how to do x videos on YouTube were really stacking up in number for increasingly specific things, not that she was ever going to admit to her parents that she'd used one of those to move her flight up. As that thought flashed through her mind, she realized she needed to maybe call them and let them know she was coming. She had made sure to give them updates when she could and they'd avoided calling because of her warning that she was potentially going to be too busy to answer unless she called herself, but now if she was going to be going home, a bit of a warning seemed like it was only appropriate. Explaining this whole thing was probably not needed to inform them she was coming back, although she was going to have to tell them most of this too. Considering her options for a second later, she decided she may as well surprise them. Something told her that running by Sadie's place before she went home would be a good idea. The only slight spanner this plan threw into the works was her needing to find some form of transport to get to Sadie's house instead of calling her father to pick her up.
Once she'd booked something to deal with that new problem, Luna once again flopped onto the bed beside her. Everything was ready for her to wrap up and run back to the airport. She'd be back home before she knew it and she'd soon be able to return to her normal old life, preferably after she'd had a long chat with Sadie about this and stopped all the feelings that were currently nagging away at her, not to mention the ever present concern that there was more to all of this than she'd initially anticipated. Even Dwyn's parting remark was now echoing through her. She knew that the woman was definitely not the sort of person who'd do anything resembling a sappy goodbye, but those last words were a bit more confusing and thought provoking in an entirely different way which when combined with all the weirdness that had gone down in the drop off point, made Luna question a lot of things she'd seen in the past couple of days. It was yet another thing she was going to have to try and run through Sadie. She'd know a lot better about deciphering humans than Luna ever will.
With another one of her problems filed away to be looked at later, Luna managed to finally roll herself off from the bed and set about making sure everything she'd brought here with her was packed and ready to go. It was time for her to return home. It took a surprisingly short amount of time given that Luna hadn't really gotten the most time to actually unpack most of her stuff, and she hadn't brought that much stuff with her anyway. Before long, Luna had marshalled everything she’d be carrying back onto her shoulders and she was heading out of the hotel, having checked out. Another cab was waiting outside to take her back to the airport she'd been at only a few hours ago and soon she was going through the terminal, looking for the gate she needed to be waiting at. This part felt a lot more familiar than it had not too long ago when they were flying out for the drop. And now that she knew she was going home, despite all of the thoughts that nagged at her, she was finally able to properly smile, knowing that being back home would start the process of putting all of this behind her finally. It wasn't really going to be easy, but she knew it'd be possible. Already dreaming up the plans for the Minecraft sessions she'd missed while being out here, Luna decided she may as well catch a bit of sleep on this particular flight. It seemed as good a time as any.
Luna awoke with a jolt as the plane touched down. She slowly came to her senses, realizing that after all that travelling, things were finally coming to a point where she'd finally be home. Only once she let herself realize did she feel just how much she'd missed being here. For the first time she understood why everyone else in the plane seemed to want to run out of there as fast as they could even if it was the least efficient way of doing so. Still, as she normally did, she hung back, just stepping out briefly to wrestle her hand luggage down. With that hugged to her chest, she sat back in her seat and waited for the flood of nonstop humans to slow to a trickle. Once she was sure she wasn't going to get toppled over, she joined the fray, making her way out with slower steps borne out of relief, nothing like the frantic pace she'd maintained in the flight she'd gotten out of earlier or the steps of quiet anticipation like she'd experienced much earlier in the day when they were still headed towards the drop off point. Making her through the airport and out seemed to take a lot less time than it had earlier in the day, although that was almost definitely because she was no longer chasing after anyone trying not to get lost in a crowd.
It wasn't long before she managed to find the car waiting for her, this time one that she'd specifically ordered and not a random mysterious one she had to think about carefully five times before she managed to get in. It was certainly a lot less stressful, and the car ride was also probably going to be much less awkward because she was just going to be the only one in there. Okay, perhaps it was still going to be awkward sitting there in silence all by herself, but that was an awkwardness she was somewhat used to. Whatever was happening earlier there in the car was an entirely different level of awkwardness, a level that she didn't really like all the much.
With that in mind, Luna pulled out her phone. Even if she did want to surprise her parents later on by getting there earlier than she was supposed to, she should probably call up Sadie to give her a heads up, just in case there was something going on there where Sadie wouldn't be able to deal with Luna and all her bags while Luna rattled off the whole experience to her. Suddenly she wondered if she should've made this call a bit earlier as the driver pulled out headed towards the address that Luna had just handed the man. Trying not to think too hard about what would happen if she had to awkwardly tell the man to go towards her house instead, Luna dialed Sadie's number.
Sadie picked up almost instantly. For a second Luna wondered if Sadie had somehow been waiting for a call before she realized the girl probably just had her phone on her all the time. It wouldn't exactly surprise her if that was true. Trying not to overthink even that and wanting to cut to the heart of the matter, Luna cleared her brain once again, and managed a quick "Hi".
"Hey," began Sadie," How are you? Did you find some time to talk again? What's going on? You were being kind of mysterious the other time there? I hope nothing went wrong after that. I was thinking about calling you so many times in the past few hours, but I just thought I'd wait for a call from you just in case you know. You can never really tell with these things, at least not with this one."
"Heyy, slow down, Sadie," began Luna, "wow, I can't believe I'm the one saying that for a change."
"Sorry...I was getting a bit nervous..." began Sadie before she seemed to check herself for some reason. "...you know because...I want to know how this game went and everything. I was the one who sent you on it an everything. It wouldn't be nice for me not to check on how the whole thing goes."
Luna smiled. "Of course. Yeah. That's totally understandable. Feel free to ramble anytime you feel like...not that there'll be other situations to make you nervous any time soon, I mean not that there won't, but I will...umm..."
"I think it’s my turn to say the slow down thing," said Sadie. Luna could hear the girl chuckling as she said it.
"Yes," said Luna, already feeling her face heat up. "Umm...but well, I umm, I should probably answer those questions first and then tell you what I called you to say."
"Oh, you can tell me that first. Those questions can wait a bit," said Sadie," I'm sure your time is a bit limited now anyway. No need to waste it for too long. Fire away. What did you want to say?"
"No, it’s okay, I do have a time, and I think I can answer those questions in some pretty good detail in a minute actually, but you did remind me that this particular message is a little bit more on the urgent side."
"Yeah, so go ahead, spit it out before you choke on it," said Sadie. Luna took a deep breath, calming herself for a second before she had to go ahead and pop the big question.
"I. Umm...are you free right now?" asked Luna.
"Uh...what?" asked Sadie, sounding understandably confused and Luna realized that she'd started from completely the wrong angle here. She really wasn't very good at the whole making conversation thing.
"What I umm...meant to say is..umm, would it be okay if I like came over there in a few minutes, well actually umm...." Luna trailed off as she checked her watch, the GPS on her phone and did some very quick mental maths. "Ten minutes. That would be ten minutes."
"WHAAT?"
"Sorry, you're probably busy," began Luna immediately, backtracking as she took in Sadie's tone. Clearly, she was much too busy and did not want to bother with Luna at the moment.
"Noooo," said Sadie, probably realizing what her response had just sounded like. "I was just surprised. Sorry. Does this mean that you're like back already? Did you go back home? Are you at the airport? Do you need me to come pick you up? What's going on? Sorry in advance for all the questions, but this has thrown me for a bit of a loop here."
"No worries," said Luna, smile suddenly returning to her face much larger and much goofier than she probably wanted, but she didn't care right now. "I umm...yeah I'm back, I'm on my way from the airport actually, I kind of wanted to stop by your place first, talk this out and then go surprise my parents cause I am back a bit earlier than we initially anticipated."
"OH WOW," said Sadie and Luna almost had to take the phone away from her ear to avoid going temporarily deaf. " First of all, yes, I am so totally free, please come over here like right now, second of all, I'm so glad to hear you're back so early. Wow. I am trying to process this right now. I want to ask like half a million questions right now, but I'm gonna wait till you make it here, so I think I'll hang up now and go get ready."
"Get ready?" questioned Luna.
"I am literally the only one in the house, and you're coming from such a long trip, I need to at least find something for us to drink," began Sadie, "don't worry about it. Just come right in, I'll leave the front door unlocked."
"Okay, bye," said Luna as Sadie, sounding more excited than Luna had ever seen her friend shouted a bye. There was the sound of someone jumping off a bed before the line went dead.
Luna clutched the phone in her hand for a second longer, taking a deep breath. That had gone a lot better than she had allowed herself to believe which means she was going to finally get to unload all of this for a moment. It probably wasn't going to be terribly fair to unload everything on Sadie, and she definitely wasn't going to do that, but maybe Sadie could at least help her figure out some of the things currently plaguing her and make sense of half the things Luna knew she just didn't have the social intelligence required to actually figure out. In general, having a second opinion on this, one that wouldn't be biased like her parents was going to be a very important thing to figuring out the jumble of emotions she had surrounding this whole thing. These thoughts carried her all the way to Sadie's house, and she was stepping out, doing her best to drag out all her bags with her.
The driver was quick to leave, peeling out of the driveway almost before she'd managed to get her bags in some semblance of an order. She wondered for a second if they were going to cause some sort of complication. She had forgotten to mention that she had her luggage on her, although she had mentioned she was coming straight from the airport. Sadie would make that connection, wouldn't she? She didn't really get too long to worry about that however because the door not too far away had opened and Sadie was already charging out of the house.
For a brief second Luna wondered if someone had broken into the house and Sadie was running out in fear of her life. Or worse if maybe Sadie was running out to chase her away having second thoughts. All of that barely had time to process however as the girl in question was clearly a sporting a brilliant smile on her face and within about ten seconds had latched herself around Luna like an anaconda attempting to suffocate its prey. Luna would be lying if she said she'd ever though that had been a possibility. Sure, they'd hugged before, but Luna didn't think they were good enough friends for Sadie to do her flying hug greeting that Luna had witnessed several times before. The fact that Luna considered Sadie a good enough friend but thought Sadie didn't see her that way was completely beside the point there.
It took her a second longer to realize that she'd spent so long trying to figure out why Sadie was even hugging her or whether it was normal that she'd completely forgotten to hug her back so now she was startled back into reality as Sadie seemed to pull away a little too quickly, a somewhat guilty look on her face.
"Sorry, I know you're not the biggest fan of hugging and all," she began. "I just...it’s good to see you."
Luna smiled. Maybe there were somehow at the hugging stage of things after all. She was also strangely starting to miss the warmth that said hug had created. She didn't utter a word, this time wrapping herself around Sadie.
"I definitely don't mind a hug, especially from my best friend," said Luna, the title slipping out without her even noticing. Sadie seemed to tense ever so slightly at it, but her arms were snaking around Luna before Luna could pull away and start apologizing about it. Instead, Luna settled for pulling her arms just a little bit tighter around her friend. "I missed you too."
They stayed that were for maybe a second longer than you were normally supposed to under the circumstance, but Luna wasn't complaining. After the days of being in a place that might as well have been another country, interacting with strangers every day, sinking into this embrace with someone so familiar just felt relaxing on a level Sadie didn't even believe relaxation was capable of achieving.
Maybe it was because she just hadn't allowed herself the time to think about something other than heist, but Luna hadn't realized just how much she had been missing home until now she was finally here. The smile on her face was ridiculous once Sadie finally released her from the hug and pulled away, although she still stood a bit closer than she normally might have.
"So... are you going to finally give me a proper answer to that question?" began Sadie, raising an eyebrow.
"Hmm...to which question are you referring?" asked Luna, honestly trying to decide which one Sadie would want an answer for most out of the twenty or so that she had fired at Luna on the phone.
"Oh, for the..." began Sadie, "fine. I'll just ask it again. How are you doing? Like really? You didn't seem fully capable of answering that one other time you called either. So...one final time just in case you forgot again. How are you?"
"Good," began Luna, automatically settling into the standard response she was a little too used to giving out. Sadie already seemed to be frowning at her answer so Luna let herself take a breath, letting all her mixed feelings about the past few days come to the surface and answered as honestly as she could manage.
"I really am good," she started," maybe not great. I genuinely don't know how to feel about a couple of things sometimes, but I think overall...especially now that I'm finally home, and with you...I... Am definitely good." Luna nodded a couple of times at the end of it, a much for herself as it were for Sadie.
"That's good. That's umm..." began Sadie, before she suddenly slapped a hand on her forehead and nearly screamed. "OH NO. I am so bad at this. Oh, my goodness. You must think I am the absolute worst. Oh dear. This is very embarrassing."
"Sadie, what are you going on about?" asked Luna, confused once again about where this going. In the span of a few hours, she was finding her friend to have a lot more drama in her than she'd previously thought otherwise. Not that it was exactly a bad development. In fact, she thought it was adorable.... Luna’s train of thought derailed as if it had just run headfirst into a mountain. Where on Earth had [i[that[/i] come from?
"I completely forgot to invite you inside, and here I am grilling you about everything out in the driveway, and all your bags are just scattered around you and everything. Oh my goodness. I am the absolute worst host. I am so sorry for keeping you standing here for so long. You must be tired. I know you're way too polite to tell me to just invite you in already. I am so sorry. Come inside. We'll sit down and get something to drink. Then we can have this talk."
"Oh, it’s totally fine," said Luna, moving forward out of some sort of impulse to pat Sadie on her shoulder. "You're good. I completely forgot we were just standing in the driveway too. I would like to take you up on that offer of sitting down and getting something to drink though. This is going to be a bit of a long story if I'm going to be answering all of your questions.
Sadie beamed. "Come on, lemme help you with some of those." On that note, she proceeded to immediately grab almost all of Luna's bags and lug them towards the door. Grabbing the remaining ones before Sadie could somehow figure out a way to grab those too, Luna followed her to the door. With some tactical bag swinging, the two of them managed to get the door open without putting the bags down and they were soon being dumped rather unceremoniously on the floor as Sadie explained that they might as well leave them there given that Luna would have to lug them back out to take them to her house anyway.
Once the bags had been dealt with, Sadie directed Luna to the large fluffy couch and proceeded to disappear inside the house with the promise of drinks to come. Luna sank into the soft cushions with a sigh that came out a bit louder than she'd intended it to be. Making herself comfortable, she waited as Sadie brought a pair of glasses over, handing one to Luna as she sat down.
"I was going to use a tray, but then I thought, it’s only the two of us, so that would be a waste," began Sadie, probably about to start off on of the many rambles she seemed to be fond of taking off on recently.
"It's fine," said Luna, taking the glass with a whispered thank you. "Like you said, it’s just the two of us."
Sadie smiled. "Yeah. So... now that I'm no longer being a terrible host, why don't we return to that conversation we were having out there?"
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