Jeremy arrives at 6:30 on the dot, wearing jeans but he's gone to a bit of effort for Saturday family dinner with a new foster kid, and he's wearing a button-down shirt and gelled his hair. He's tall and looks healthy and very fit, and he nods to Iomedae without looking at any part of her body other than her eyes, and then crouches to hug Lily, who runs into his arms shrieking with joy. He ruffles her hair. "Hey there, munchkin. How's things?" 

"M'nawa mush'n! M'a meeewaid." 

Jeremy laughs and scoops her up. "My bad. Hey there, little mermaid. What's for dinner - smells like fancy cooking in here, who kidnapped Mom and replaced her with a creepy Stepford Wives double?" 

She knew a few of those words. She does not speak.

She's clearly nervous - no wonder, she just got here - and she's apparently very religious and probably has hang-ups about boys. Jeremy is going to continue being friendly and harmless and smiling at her or addressing her when it would be notable to avoid it but be clearly not paying her close attention.

He heads to the kitchen with Lily on his hip like a baby monkey. He cracks the oven open to get a deeper sniff of the now-baking ratatouille, grins, and does not try to make a joke about religious girls being great cooks come together because wow they are not on joking terms like that yet and he's not twelve. He offers to set the table and pretends to be very confused about where the plates and cutlery are, so that Lily will shriek with laughter and call him a sillyhead and point it out.

It's not until he asks Lily about her day, and she bursts out with a "PWAZE GOD N'CO'SO!" and happy dance that he - well, bursts out laughing first and hugs Lily, and then glances politely at Iomedae because there's an obvious place where that came from. "Did you like Costco, then?"

"When God triumph over all there will be Costco everywhere, in Heaven and Hell too."

"Okay, I gotta say, I would not want to be hiring manager for the Costco in Hell, that sounds like the worst job." 

"We fix Hell first. ...still probably bad because the people there bad. But lots less bad."

Jeremy had DIFFERENT EXPECTATIONS about the probably-super-traumatized super religious foster kid! He - does not catch Evelyn's eye and make a 'what even???' face because that's really rude and he's still not twelve. 

"Well, that's certainly ambitious," he says, because it's also probably super rude to make a weird joke about it that probably won't even come together right anyway. 

"If you were in Hell probably you think I pretty not-ambitious, not trying hard enough, spend half day building Lego towers."

"- I mean, sure, I bet being in Hell is rough on your ability to empathize with other people and hold them to reasonable standards. Also probably a lot of people in Hell are dicks because of the whole, like, they got sent to Hell for a reason thing. Which obviously still really sucks, but.  You seem like you're probably trying pretty hard by, like, normal people standards." 

....Evelyn as a general rule tries not to step on Jeremy having conversations with foster kids, he's had a lot of practice and isn't actually stupid and sometimes it works better, having a person closer to the foster child's age and, well, authority level, addressing them in a way that isn't trying meticulously hard to be supportive and empathetic.

She's still tense. 

She does not seem upset at all. "If I trying to fix Hell, I not impress the devils with my trying pretty hard, and the people in Hell not wrong to ask - did it work are we free - not 'is Iomedae trying pretty hard normal person standards'."

"- Yeah, that's fair. Just, it'd suck if you never managed to do any of the cool stuff you want to do with your life because you never took a break and burned out before you were twenty." 

Iomedae is unfamiliar with the concepts referenced there! She will look mildly skeptical. "It would suck," she agrees, after a little while.

Jeremy was warned that Iomedae is still learning English, he just isn't going to talk to her like she's five and feel like a patronizing idiot. 

"There's - a thing where most people, if they don't take breaks, especially if the thing they're doing is really hard, will - get really sad and tired and find it harder and harder to do any things? There's also a thing where no one things it'll happen to them until it does." Shrug. "Maybe you're just superhuman, but I don't think anyone should go around assuming they're superhuman." 

"I am pretty sad and tired but I think it because I no allowed work and earn money and they took my family sword and I have to stay months before the law decide what do about Martin. Doing less make me sad and tired. Doing more make me less sad....more tired, but better tired."

"...Yeah, that sucks. I'm sorry our criminal justice system is a mess. What were you doing before this?" 

"I pick fruits and vegetables. It is hot and the work is hard but the money is good and the people love God and I very happy."

"That does sound - nice, actually, I did a job last summer planting trees and it was really satisfying. But, I mean, did you have a plan to get from picking fruit to fixing Hell? Seems like it's rough to get from here to there when you're in foster care, but it'd also be rough if your starting place is picking fruit. ...The money really isn't that good." 

"Pretty good pay! I save five dollar every day. My plan was learn Spanish and English and then find holy orders fighting great evils so I can become strongest holy warrior ever. Save money for armor and miracles to keep me safe."

"Well, now you're learning English and you've got Evelyn's computer with Wikipedia on it. We could Google holy orders. Is that, like, the Knights Templar sort of thing? I don't know if they exist anymore." He will not ask who exactly claims they'll sell you miracles. It sounds like a scam. 

"I can look holy orders now but I not earning any money, I not allowed to earn any money for years, and they took my sword. I kind of angry Martin for make everything horrible even though it not his fault I took him to get help, he have warned me not to."

"I feel like you've got loads of valid reasons to be mad at Martin! But - fair, I guess. I think it's better here but I obviously would, and it sucks that you can't make any money. Mom let me work when I was fifteen, I'm guessing that's either a foster kid thing or because you're undocumented?"

He twists over his shoulder to look at Evelyn. "Can't you pay her? That's just, like, an allowance. Give her five dollars an hour to keep Lily occupied for a bit and you can lounge around in the bath reading romance novels like the Queen of Sheba." 

"It's because I no papers," she confirms. "I should also have worked for free before this, only I did not know it was illegal for people to pay me. If I had been knowing that I guess I would have tried live on holiness only like great holy people do."