There's a staircase leading up to some rooms, and down that staircase descends a young woman, looking tired, but cautiously optimistic. Her pale pink dress, looking rather formal by Earth standards, looks like she must have slept in it.

A hunky humanoid stork just opening a door to what seems like a lovely beach by a notably colorshifting ocean, waves her over.

  "Gail! Are you doing any better?"

"Yeah, Khaid, it's okay," she confirms with a somewhat shaky smile, accepting a wing being comfortingly swung around her shoulders. "I have eaten tubs of ice cream from four different universes, if that doesn't fix me then I don't know what will."

  "I mean..." he glances between the door and the woman, but nods when she rolls her eyes. "Sorry, I know."

Gail seems satisfied by the apology.

  "Me and the crew were just heading out, but we can stay if you..." He's apparently not sure how to finish the sentence, so he shrugs and smiles, even as she shakes her head.

"I'm going to be fine. Gonna head out soon myself, you can go." She presses her forehead against his shoulder. "Thanks for the other night, I know I was being dramatic."

  "You were not, c'mon."

A hug and some back and forth of highlights from the alleged drama follow, leaving both laughing before the stork steps out to the beach and Gail turns back, scanning the patrons. A few seem to recognize her and greet her with nods, but although she returns them, she only stops when her eyes land on Ramona.

"One of those tropical rose cocoas from the other day, please," she says to the bar as she leans against, well, the bar next to the purple-haired stranger. "I haven't met you yet," she points out. "You feeling social?"

Ramona is feeling social! That's what happens not long after she orders a double!

"Sure, nice to meet you. I'm Ramona. I'm not exactly sure where I am or what this place is, but I've decided just to go with it and see what happens!"

Ramona specializes in helping other people with their exciting life problems, but tends not to have many of her own. She can see trouble coming a long way off and makes the safe choice to avoid it. This works! A little too well! She's in the mood to make some slightly questionable choices and come back from her holiday break with her own dramatic tales for once.

Gail is not a questionable choice! She's just here to procrastinate going out into her own world again.

"Gail," she introduces herself. "You want spoilers about the place or are you enjoying piecing it together from context clues?"

"How much trouble can I get into if I make wrong assumptions? I don't want to end up dead or trapped in horrible suffering or permanently stupider or otherwise less capable than I started, and I don't want to cause any of that to happen to anyone else. I would definitely take spoilers if they will save me from anything like that!"

She hums, amused. "I suppose someone could invite you back to a world that's like that without telling you? The bar feels generally benevolent, but I'm not sure what it means for its choice of patrons."

"Sounds like you think I won't get into too much trouble purely by accident, then. Good!"

Ramona takes a swig.

"So... what's your story? I overheard a tiny bit when you were talking to your friend before, but was trying not to eavesdrop too much."

"Oh. Uh." Telling sad relationship stories in bars feels like it calls for something stronger than space cocoa, aesthetically, but she promised herself not to drink on a broken heart. "You up for stressed out strangers whining about their breakups in a bar? Even a really cool bar? 'cause you don't have to be."

Ramona decides not to mention, yet, that she's a relationship therapist. She'd rather keep her options open. When she's in therapy-mode, she mostly just listens and gently nudges in helpful directions. She doesn't get to tell her own story in response, or give too much advice, or decide the story is boring and change the subject.

"Definitely. I have heard a surprising number of sad breakup stories, but never one from a person who's on hugging terms with a big, buff talking stork."

"Your call!" She chuckles, if weakly. "So, my door, my Milliways door, was the door to my family home. Where I was going for a Christmas dinner. Where we were going for a Christmas dinner, my girlfriend and me. Except then we found out about the Multiverse, and she has less obligations than me," or is less neurotic about them, at any rate, "so now she's being a space pirate in another world, which I think is a great choice for her and the kind of choice that made me date her in the first place, and I'm here, procrastinating walking out into a family Christmas and explaining how we managed to break up within the fifteen minutes between texting them that we're getting gas and arriving."

She's genuinely trying to stay calm, she would do the same in Evelyn's shoes, but her words per minute definitely increased between the beginning and the end of the story.

A Milliways door must be... the door that someone opens to get into this place, which must be Milliways? So Ramona's Milliways door was the door into the Five Point. Makes sense. And apparently time just stops when you go to Milliways? So when Gail finally leaves this place she'll be walking straight into family Christmas, alone. Rough.

"So, wait... your girlfriend just left you to go be a space pirate? How does this work? Will you ever see her again? Did she even think about how this would affect you? What the hell!"

Ramona is enjoying being indignant on Gail's behalf. Also, Ramona wonders if she wants to be a space pirate, or if asking about that would be kind of rude to her new friend. She can always look into it later, maybe?

"Oh? No, nononono, it's not like—it's not like she walked in here and immediately dumped me for the multiverse, we've been here for like two weeks," and she's trying not to think about the bill, "and we talked about it, did one last date and everything."

She takes a deep breath to slow down and realizes there might be some missing context.

"There's no guarantee you will ever get another door. I don't think a relationship in which I took this chance away from her gets a better ending than two weeks of amazing time-dilated sex and a bittersweet goodbye under exploding stars."

"Oh, that's a way better ending than I realized. I am retroactively not mad at her after all! Mostly."

"Why didn't you just go with her? Space piracy not for you?"

Gail seems relieved not to have to further defend her ex's honor.

"I mean, I don't know if space piracy necessarily, we may have settled for something else if we were immigrating together, but I'm not opposed," she clarifies. "Maybe when my little sister grows up. If the bar doesn't deem me too un-," not too uncool, no one likes self-deprecation, "-spontaneous to have me over again."

She takes a wistful but determined sip of the cocoa.

"Wait, is it spontaneity that gets you a Milliways door? That checks out. I was probably at lifetime peak spontaneity when I stumbled through my door. I was feeling cranky about how --"

maybe don't say clients?

"-- everyone I know seems to have more excitement in their lives than I do, and I wanted to change that. And here I am!"

"Do you think the door appeared for you or for your girlfriend? Seems kind of like maybe Milliways wanted to deliver her a life of interstellar swashbuckling, and you just got swept along for the ride?"

"Pff, I was not actually suggesting it as a theory, but—hm, I guess you must have some minimum, what was it, openness to experience, to even go ahead and use the door once it appears? I can't imagine not to, at least once you figure out the time thing, but."

Would she, on her own, have used it for long enough to find out the time is stopped? Eve was kind of her one weird trick for doing less than perfectly responsible things, is she going to have to worry about not getting enough excitement in her life now?

"Oh, obviously for her," and she only sounds a little jealous, "but I'm not letting that stop me."

She's letting other things stop her instead. Oh well.

What is stopping you, Ramona almost asks, is it your sense of duty about your younger sister?

But that's a therapy question. Asking therapy questions is not how you get interesting things to happen to you.

"So, what are all the multiverse options? What else did your girlfriend have to choose from, besides flying a skull and crossbones from her spaceship? I'm looking for an adventure myself, as it turns out."

"So first of all, anything can be space, it's impressive really. Pirates, cowboys, missionaries, wizards—magic is annoying because a lot of it is very cool, but just going to the world is usually not enough to get it yourself and that's just sad. There was, like, a magic archaeology place that seemed cool. There's some pretty haorrible dystopias if you wanna fix one or die trying, not my thing, but you do you I guess. I'm kind of surprised people go back to these."

In the half an hour Ramona has known her, Gail hasn't proven herself particularly excitable and she's still not, but she clearly thinks all of these options are at the very least pretty neat. And, to be honest, she's enjoying getting to be someone's interdimensional—not even guide, but receptionist. Welcome to Milliways, please hold for adventure.

"What's your vibe? We've partied with quite a few people here, happy to introduce you."

What is Ramona's vibe?

Ramona doesn't have a vibe. Having a vibe is for people who participate. Ramona's outside, observing.

She could just make something up and claim that now she's a space circus performer, but it probably won't work if it's not rooted in something Ramona-ish?

"What do you have in the way of... I dunno... detectives or spies or undercover agents? I'm good at observing and figuring things out, but I'd like to be active about it."

"Oh—wait, no, I did meet someone who was recruiting for her spy network, but the reason she was recruiting was because the spies kept getting assassinated. Undercover, undercover..." Suddenly, she chuckles to herself.

"Yeah, I'll pass on actually dying."

"...What? Do you have an idea?"

"No, no, I just—" She snorts again, then shakes her head. "There's a fiction trope in my world where someone brings a person who's decidedly not their partner to a family event and pretends they are dating, usually to make the family shut up about them being single. And I thought an interdimensional version of that would be funny." Her primary emotion still appears to be genuine amusement. "That's not really an adventure, though."

"Oh! We have that trope in my world too! It's always pretty contrived -- like, the protagonist is going to a wedding and their ex will be there and they can't stand to show up single. So it really is a con game, like the protagonist and the pretend partner have to work hard to fool everyone else."

Ramona laughs at the ridiculousness of it.

"You maaaay be underestimating what constitutes an adventure for me. Just thinking about walking into an event under an assumed identity seems pretty thrilling, actually?"

She thinks a moment longer.

"Is this about you and your family Christmas? How is the situation different if you show up with a girlfriend vs. alone? What's at stake?"

Is it your grandmother's will, saying that you get ten million dollars if you're in a happy, stable relationship this Christmas, and what's my cut, Ramona doesn't ask.

"As a teenager I made a pact with the prince of Canada, our close family friend who comes to all family events, that I would marry him if we're both still single when we're 28," she deadpans, but soon rolls her eyes at her own attempt at humor.

"Nah, mostly I just don't want to have to explain where my girlfriend went. Which. I could just say there was an emergency, but I have been kind of dodging the details of the relationship for a while, after not admitting to it for an even longer while, so I think they might stage an intervention if I pull something like that." Plus this idea is kind of delightful and would definitely make her Christmas better. Actually... "Plus this idea is kind of delightful and would definitely make my Christmas better. ...it's also a terrible reason to world hop – the time thing only works while you're in the bar – to be clear. I'm still mostly joking."

It's also a terrible reason to world hop considering you might not get a door back, but she mentioned that before, so it's not too dishonest not to point it out again.

"It would be a great way to hone those improv-slash-undercover skills."

Ramona didn't overlook the risk of not getting a door back. She just doesn't... care? Oh, that's interesting, psychologically. Why doesn't she care? That's pretty weird. Is she really that disconnected from meaning in her own world? Maybe it's because she doesn't really believe yet that there's a serious risk this is a one-way trip? Maybe it's because the idea of taking a risk feels more like really living? Maybe she should stop navel-gazing and participate in this conversation?

"I don't mind losing some time, I've got a couple of weeks off. I think I'd kind of prefer not to spend a week in another universe and then come back and find that a thousand years passed in my world. Is that a thing that might happen?"

"And also, will anyone in your family be terribly hurt if they found out that we were faking it? I don't want to play a joke that causes anyone serious pain."

"Aw, this is the kind of thing they would worry about. They'd like you," she says fondly, then hums. "No, I think they'd be worried about why I did that, but I don't think more worried in total than if I show up alone? And actually you can probably corroborate the multiverse story if it ends up being necessary, which would help."

"I haven't talked to people much about the time thing, but I haven't run into a thousand years kind of situation?" And she really wants to stop here even though it's kind of evil, but she imagines Robin gently talking her into telling the truth and skips all the way to a somewhat resigned: "I have ever heard of a couple years passing, though. Not often? I think? But I have."

Ramona does in fact have safeguards in place in case she just vanishes one day. It's standard for normal Earth therapists to have a special professional will that allows another licensed professional to crack into their records and contact all of their clients and arrange for continuity of care if the main therapist is hit by a bus or something. When Ramona started working with aliens and even visiting their dimensions, she realized the chances of getting cut off from Earth had gone up quite a bit, so she took some precautions. She started informing her clients in the first session that if she vanishes one day, it's probably an interdimensional accident rather than intentional client abandonment, and that she's sorry for activating their childhood attachment injuries if that happens, but it's not personal! She also made sure that a trusted alien friend could make some referrals.

Ramona feels a little guilty because in this case, she's not going to another dimension to serve a client and then getting accidentally trapped there by surprise, she's going on a personal adventure knowing full well what the consequences might be.

And then she remembers countless speeches she's given in the therapy room, gently pointing out to clients that they also deserve good things.

Sigh. It's not like thinking about it more is changing the outcome, here. The decision was made as soon as Ramona found out about the opportunity. All she's doing now is rationalizing.

"You know what? Let's do it!"

"What do I need to know?"

Gail beams.

She's excited about this, not just relieved but genuinely excited. It's like the time—it's like the countless times she fell in love with Eve, when they just went and did things and somehow they turned out fine.

And she didn't usually let her family and this kind of things mix, but—it won't, not really, not if this goes well, and either way it's still better than explaining.

"Uh, your name's Evelyn and everything else is kind of a blank slate? I haven't really been talking about you. About her." She considers. "We've been dating for... I told them a couple months. It has been longer, but I guess you can just act based on the couple months version."

"...they are more than chill about the lesbian thing to be clear," she clarifies, realizing the likely conclusion one might draw from the pieces of information she dropped. "I just wasn't ready for introductions."

Because everyone loves the Lenahans, the actual Lenahans, and she wanted Eve to love her instead.

"Does anything terrible happen if I'm affectionate? Like, if I touch your hair or suddenly kiss you or something? Because that's how I'd ordinarily be, but I don't want to startle you or upset you."

Initially this gets a mischievous grin, but it soon gets eclipsed by a blush as Gail considers full implications of the question.

"Yeah, no, that makes sense. Sorry," she manages to reduce her grin by a solid fifteen percent. "It should be fine. I might blush. ...we can probably get away without kissing if you prefer, I don't think I seem like the kind of person who's into PDA, to them." Beat. "But it's also like half the fun of fake girlfriend scenarios, so. Your call."

Gail's blush makes Ramona want to kiss her, just to see her get even more flustered, but she'll wait and let the anticipation build a bit more first.

"I don't think getting away without kissing is really in the spirit of the thing we're trying to do. Do you?"

She settles on a mix of blushing and mischievous as a compromise.

"Might be prudent to get the first kiss out of the way before we're out there. To avoid displays such the one you have just witnessed."

Wow! Ramona is impressed with Gail!

She leans in so their faces are just a few inches apart, touches Gail's jawline with her fingertips, but doesn't actually kiss her yet.

"Hey, don't underestimate me," she says softly, tilting her head as she slips off the bar stool and steps closer, just centimetres away from pressing up against Ramona.

The kiss she presses to Ramona's lips is shy but curious as she parts her lips slightly and leans into it. Now that's a fun thing to have happened even if they don't go through with the rest of it.

Zing.

Ramona pulls back a little as the kiss ends, but keeps her face close, drops one more light kiss on the end of Gail's nose, and smiles.

Somehow, during the kiss, whatever reservations she had about this nutty plan melted away.

Gail appears to have used up whatever reserves of not being flustered about the situation she had; she takes a deep breath and chuckles.

"So, this part's not gonna be a problem I guess?" she points out lightly, although she does sit back on her barstool.

"I guess not!" Ramona laughs too.

"So... now what? Do we just... go? Is there anything else you need to do first?"

"And, double checking -- you don't want to go to great lengths to memorize a bunch of shared answers so that we won't get caught? I mean, we sort of have arbitrary time to prepare, here, if we want to. There's no reason I know that we can't just go and actually date for three months here at Milliways and then show up to your family gathering with a bunch of true stories to tell about our actual relationship. But I'm getting the impression it'd be more fun to treat this as an improv exercise?"

"It would be the responsible thing to do, wouldn't it." Sigh. "As responsible as this scenario can get, anyway. Um, I can work with either, improv seems fun and honestly less stressful in some ways? So if you prefer that one, I would love to use that as an excuse to do it." She chuckles to herself like she can't believe this is what she's doing with her life. "Maybe I can just give you a crash course on my familysona."

It takes Ramona a moment to guess what a 'familysona' is but then it clicks into place: Gail code-switches at home. Well, so do most people.

"Yeah! Tell me about that. Who's Gail in the family context?"

Not that Ramona has much sense of who Gail is anyway but maybe hearing her describe the contrast will actually tell her about the baseline Gail, too. 

...hm, yeah, she must have picked that one up from Robin.

"It's not that different? More like—a subset of regular ol' me? Or me desaturated, maybe?" She hopes, because the person she's in the family context is kind of hopelessly boring. But, well, someone has to.  "I'm a programmer. I'm... the kind of person who starts describing themselves with their job and then gets stuck." Dark chuckle. "A bit of a loner? I'm not actually, but they connect with people really—intensely, and I don't, so by contrast that's my reputation. And I try to keep the social circles separate from them anyway, so that works out. ...sorry, this is not that relevant. Hm..."

"Okay, so they think of you as kind of introverted and maybe awkward and they haven't really met most of your friends or partners or whatever?"

"So this is great, they have no idea what your type is! Will this even be a challenge?"

Ramona is deliberately tempting fate because she's afraid her adventure will be too easy if she doesn't.

"Yeah, and they're not even judgemental or anything, at least not intentionally. ...well, they could be about some political stuff I guess. Like, compassionately judgemental in a way that comes off kinda condescending?" Shrug. "Anyway. Shall we go before you find out too much?" She raises an eyebrow.

"Sure!" 

Ramona tosses back the end of her drink and stands up. She stretches a little bit to get the kinks out after sitting, and realizes her heart is beating a little bit fast. She takes a breath.

"Let's go!"