After about half a minute there's the sound of running feet and a girl answers the door, still decelerating and a little out of breath. She's vaguely familiar from the halls of Lakeview High.

...she squints, perhaps finding Rebecca similarly familiar, perhaps just finding her confusing. "Um, hello?"

"Nicky Capri's family want to kidnap me and take my baby."

"...well that sounds like a problem," she says, stepping back. "Come in."

Turning away from the door, she calls out, "Mother! We've got a refugee!"

Rebecca comes in, drops her duffel bag and sloughs her backpack by the door, and then collapses on the nearest sittable surface.

Rosy closes the door behind her. The nearest sittable surface is a leather bench in the foyer with several people's shoes tucked under it.

"Can I get you, like, a glass of water or anything...? You look like you've been having a time."

"Mrs. Capri came over and talked to my parents and my parents are now acting really really weird by which I mean bewilderingly nonchalant about how I'm supposed to go to the Capri place for a month and lay an egg. I would love a glass of water."

"I see. I'll get you your water."

Off she goes down the hall in her socks with their pattern of penguins wearing bowties.

Rebecca hugs her knees, insofar as she presently can, though she's not that far along so it's still pretty doable.

It's a nice house. Not terribly spooky now that she's inside it. Wood-paneled walls, bright warm lights that are soft rather than glaring.

A woman in a black T-shirt with a faded band logo comes tromping down the glossy wooden stairs. She doesn't look like she belongs in this classy wood-paneled house. She looks like she belongs on a college campus somewhere, or maybe writing a novel at the back of a coffee shop. Her brown hair is half falling out of a messy bun. She does, however, strongly resemble the girl in the penguin socks.

She nods agreeably at Rebecca. "Refugee, huh? And what do you need refuge from?"

"The Capris."

And she's back with the glass of water.

"Egg," she says succinctly as she passes the older woman. "Hi Mom." She fetches up at Rebecca's shoe bench. "Here you go."

"Ah," she says, enlightenment dawning. "Well. Would you like to sit somewhere more comfortable while you tell me all about it? Or is the bench just fine?"

"- wherever is convenient is okay?" She chugs the water; she had to walk all the way here. She gets up and looks for an appropriate place to put it.

Penguin Socks holds out her hand for it. "Do you want some more?"

"In a little while maybe. Thank you."

"Let's at least move to the sitting room." She nods to a doorway just a few feet down the hall.

(She smiles a you're-welcome sort of smile.)

Rebecca goes and has a plop in the sitting room.

"So, uh, I fooled around with Nicky Capri, which I already know was so stupid and you don't have to tell me, but like - then after I'd gotten through telling my parents, who predictably hate everything about it at that point, I told him I was pregnant, and I'm Catholic so I'm keeping it, do you want to be on the birth certificate or anything, whose last name - and then he was like, oh, has to be a Capri for sure, we'll take it in, and I was like, uh, no, my baby, mine, and he like, rolled his eyes at me? And then... Mrs. Capri came over and... talked to my parents, I was there but not really involved in the conversation for some reason. And she was like, so, this is a very special pregnancy, Nicky's baby is going to be laid in a lovely egg in the next couple of months and develop the rest of the way before hatching from there, obviously since that's such an irregularity we'll have to have Rebecca over as our guest for the majority of April when we can expect the bundle of joy, who will be one of us, you won't need to worry about child support - and my parents are like, nodding? Like any of that is normal?" She shivers.

"Yikes."

The presumable Mrs. Blake nods along to this explanation, frowning slightly.

"So," she says. "I certainly can help you. But it's going to be a little politically delicate to pull off, and I can't make a habit of doing politically delicate things just out of the goodness of my heart even when the goodness of my heart is thoroughly convinced. This world just sucks too much for that to be a good idea. So what I want to know is: how big a favour are you willing to owe us for this? What are your constraints and obligations?"

"- to hell with my constraints and obligations, if you want me to dress in a maid outfit and sleep on your kitchen floor and polish your silverware all day I'll do it if I can keep my baby!"

She nods like this is a totally reasonable and proportionate thing to say. "All right then, welcome to the family, you can consider yourself under our protection and we'll work out the details later. Your parents aren't legally allowed to know magic exists, that's probably why the Capris went straight to messing with their heads about it, though it could also just be because the Capris are like that. You're allowed to know because you're having a magical child. —right, we should all introduce ourselves. I'm Ishtar Blake and that's my daughter Rosy."

(Lil wave.)

"I think we were maybe in the same Earth Science section."

"You definitely look familiar but I'll be at it all day if I try to remember your name."