"Oh, don't you worry about that, it was a pretty small ceremony," Haylin says, smiling warmly. "Emily's good, she's back in San Myshuno. Haven't had a chance to go back home yet. I'm surprised to see you back here. I thought you had big plans?"

"Ah, yeah. They're in progress! Just paused, for now, while I'm here. I heard the hospital here needed help, and I needed to come back to look into something, anyway, but I'll be back at it once those situations are resolved."

Haylin frowns at that. "The hospital needed some help? So you've downgraded yourself to just an everyday GP?" The last words are teasing.

She laughs, "Well, sometimes you just have to set aside your ambitions for a little while to help out your hometown, I suppose. Given the lack of any results from all the tests they've been running they could certainly use someone who's done a lot of work on vaccinations against infectious diseases. Anyway, I still volunteer at the free clinics wherever I happen to be staying, so I'm not entirely out of practice in that area." 

"It's really good to hear that you've still got that drive to help. You're smart enough you could've gotten a very cushy pharmaceutical job."

She makes a face, "Ugh, no. You know how I feel about that kind of exploitation." She shakes her head, "I learned enough about what goes on behind the scenes in those corporations while growing up to never want to go near them." 

Haylin's eyes narrow a bit. "You have no idea. We were working away one day, and then the next we were told it had been shuttered up. Couldn't believe it. Other sections of the lab got to stay open, and let me tell you, it wasn't any of the beneficial research areas."

"So, the kind of stuff my parents work on, then," she concludes, wry. 

Haylin rolls her eyes. "Your parents were always first to get the grants, and I think we both know why." She gives Erin a side-hug. "Thank god you turned out better than that."

Hug. "It helped that I had some good role models to balance out the dubious ones." 

"Don't flatter me too much, my head's big enough," Haylin laughs. "Enough about that, tell me about your research! How's that going?"

Cati slips into a seat near them. "Ignore me, sorry, felt really fucking awkward sitting at the bar alone."

"Oh god, sorry Cati, I just got caught up." She smiles at Haylin, "Cati's the friend I mentioned, we went to high school together. Cati, this is Doctor Haylin Cooper, one of my parents' colleagues, she mentored me in university." 

“Hey.” Cati waves a little. 

“Hi.” Haylin smiles warmly.

“Trade embarrassing stories about teenaged Erin back and forth?”

"Oh no," she buries her face in her hands, "What have I done." 

Haylin rubs her hands together, cackling. “Cati, you and I are going to be best friends.”

Cati grins at Erin. “I’m gonna tell her about Caine’s 16th birthday party.”

"Cati, we took a solemn vow never to speak of that!" 

“I made no such vow. Or, I crossed my fingers behind my back.”

“Well, now I have to know!”

She sighs a little dramatically, "Go on, then, ruin my reputation as the model student. If I even had that," she adds with a snort, "You might have heard other stories, it's not as though I stopped drinking when I moved to San Myshuno." 

“Oh, I’m not gonna scold you, red wine is about the only thing I have to look forward at night!” Haylin laughs. 

“She got drunk, well, we all did, but then she disappeared about...1am? We assumed she’d gone home, she’s the mum friend, the responsible one. We woke up next day to tapping on the living room window, and there was Erin, twigs in her hair, dirt all over her face. She’d fallen asleep in a bush.”