Work Text:
Early in the week, Meredith is forced to remember the world exists when Gregor announces that the lab is out of something. Meredith is working on rebuilding the Anomalous Energy Enhancer — the fact that it had done so much to contain Gregor's shapeshifter apprentice has her feeling significantly vindicated, though the one time she brought it up, Gregor's boyfriend had made increasingly-frantic throat cutting gestures at her.
But she's been staring at the paper in front of her for a good half hour or so, not thinking so much as lost in the complete absence of thought that accompanies the wrong kind of puzzle, and so she volunteers to go to the market.
Gregor, who is over at the other lab table, deep in the guts of some new experiment of the weaponizable variety — at least, judging by the spikes — turns the blowtorch off and pushes up his goggles to give her a dubious look.
"You never go out," he says.
"Well," says Meredith, who cannot deny that this is indeed a true thing about herself; what is the point of going outside, when it does not hold the key to her experiments? "Today I am."
"Fine," Gregor says, pulling his goggles back down. Or, rather, Ballister does. He has been quite firm about his name being Ballister, rather than Gregor, and Meredith is working on making it stick. She has it written in the flyleaf of her lab notebook, where she keeps the really important things: GREGOR = BALLISTER.
Meredith hunts for a smaller pad of paper, more appropriate to writing than drawing out plans, and then for the pen, which had disappeared from her hands sometime between choosing to go to the market and looking for the paper. She finds it tucked behind her ear — a very smart hiding place! — and then realizes she's forgotten what Ballister had complained they were out of.
"Gregor," she says, because it makes him scowl. "What was that you said?"
His expression gets a little more dubious, but he sighs and repeats, "Coffee."
Ah, coffee. The fuel of any mad scientist worth her salt. No wonder Meredith has been so scattered this morning.
"Right," she says, writing COFFEE in careful blue block letters, and keeps hold of it in her hand as she walks out the door, so it can’t disappear like the pen. "I will be back with sweet, sweet coffee!"
Their lab is located close to the old market. The new market is mainly in the same spot, but has grown a bit, given that the square is significantly larger now, since a good chunk of the surrounding buildings had burned down or been smashed to bits. Ah, construction. It never ends.
The cobblestones have been replaced in some parts of the street, giving a slightly lumpy but visually appealing walking experience. The stone hadn't seemed to come from the same quarry, and it's slightly blue instead of gray. Meredith imagines that the new stones are the scales of a dragon — or perhaps of a fish, given their color. More appropriate to water.
Arguing with herself about this keeps her from dwelling on the block she's run into with her device, and it gets her to the spice merchant.
Rosalind had appeared a decade or so ago, and had changed Meredith's world with her importation of coffee. Meredith had first encountered it studying magic outside of the city, and thought very seriously about leaving entirely once it was no longer available. But Rosalind — dear, dear Rosalind — had solved that for her. Meredith thinks the man running the booth with her is either her husband or her brother, but never felt the pressing need to ask. The quality goods are more than enough.
From fruit to beans, beans to coffee, coffee to stomach, stomach to brain and — voila! A new idea. An excellent trade.
Meredith buys a cup to go along with the beans themselves, and feels her brain stop pinging around quite so much. It allows her to notice more of the world around her on the way back, and she discovers that a little cat is dogging her steps.
Meredith, watching the clouds and thinking about lightning — which might just be the key element she's been missing, given how much of it Ballister said his apprentice was throwing off — still only notices because it gets close enough that she has to be careful about where she puts her feet.
"Hello," she says, bending down. She reaches out, but doesn't try to pet the bristling thing, merely offers her hand. She always has liked cats, though she’s been too allergic and too married to her experiments to consider getting one for herself.
The cat must like her back, though, because it bumps its nose against her fist and then trots along behind her. It's such a pretty thing — so russet that it's almost pink.
"Are you coming in with me?" Meredith asks, when they're almost to the door of the lab.
The cat sniffs, and scampers off.
So that's a no, then.
Well.
Meredith has never been opposed to strays.
Two weeks later, Meredith's project is going much better. She's identified a possible point of failure in the device: understanding its interactions with a real magic user have gone a long way in learning its failure points, and how it actually works. She thinks that she can make it more efficient, given enough time and prototypes.
And certain kittens.
The conspiracy message boards love Nimona. Now that things have calmed down and she's vanished without a trace, they're left with a new pin in the metaphorical corkboard — although Meredith has seen some literal ones — which is smack-dab in the middle of some validated theories about the Institution and its long-term goals.
They don't talk about her often, but they have identified the legend of the shapeshifter that Gloreth fought. And there's been an upswing in pink animal avatars from new users — of whom there are surprisingly many. Vindication, thy maiden name is conspiracy.
Although perhaps the whole situation had been much more frightening to someone who actually paid attention. Meredith had been busy working.
Meredith does not mention it to Ballister, because if he really wants to he can access the boards himself. But Ballister does not talk about Nimona. Neither does his boyfriend, who hangs around in the lab often enough that Meredith has begun conscripting him to hold things as she assembles her first — well, second — prototype. It's nice to have a spare pair of hands around.
"So what did you do before this?" she asks, making conversation as he settles the newest piece into place, and he stares at her.
Ah, right. He'd been one of the heroes. And not of the science variety, either.
"I'm thinking about taking up a new path in life," he says, dodging the question, and Ballister snorts from across the lab.
"In mad science?" Meredith asks, somewhat hopefully. It'd be nice to have a more permanent apprentice.
"Ah, no," Ballister's boyfriend says. "I don't quite have the temperament for it. No, I'm thinking of teaching. The local schools certainly need the help."
"Hm. Well, good luck with that," Meredith says, sincerely — her own brush with the educational field had been brief for good reasons — and turns back to the prototype. It’s now glowing a faintly more vibrant green than the first had, indicating a slightly different degree of sensitivity to the ambient magic field around them. Exactly as she hoped it would be.
"Thanks," Ballister's boyfriend says, and limps back towards the courtyard he likes to sit in to watch the people go by.
"Meredith, do you like board games?" Ballister asks as they're leaving for the day. Ballister’s boyfriend smiles encouragingly from where he’s hovering with his coat. He’s nodding emphatically, which is strange, because the question clearly wasn’t directed to him.
"What kind of board games? Like Apology or Bewilder?"
"Like World Domination," Ballister's boyfriend says, having stopped nodding.
"Ooh," Meredith says. "Yes, I do indeed."
"Then,” Ballister says, “would you like to come play a round with us on the weekend?"
Meredith blinks, and takes stock of herself. She doesn't really believe in things like 'weekends.' Saturday and Sunday are just days she can get started on the next week's work. And there's so much of it to do! She's in a stage of the project where the thought of it makes her giddy, rather than stressed. Although most stages of the project are that stage.
But it has been a while since she stopped working on the enhancer. She's got five prototypes assembled, each tuned to a different frequency, with a different shade of mostly-green to show for it. One is — interestingly! unexpectedly! concerningly! — pink.
"I would," she says.
"Then we'll see you at the lair tomorrow at eleven," Ballister says, and writes the address of a piece of paper that he hands to her very carefully. He does like his dramatic villainous flairs.
"Sure," Meredith says, and watches them walk home together. They're not quite holding hands, as Ballister's boyfriend is still getting used to the cane that has replaced his crutch, but they're walking in sync. They look happy, and Meredith smiles.
Then she goes back to test prototype number four — the pink one — another time, because she doesn't like the humming sound that it makes.
When she locks up for the night, she finds what she thinks must be the same cat from before outside. It yawns, showing off tiny needle-sharp teeth, and follows Meredith home. "I hope you like tuna," she says, finding a tin in the very back of her cupboards, along with her previously-missing can opener.
"No," says the cat, who is now a teenager with an interesting haircut. All the better to express opinions with, Meredith supposes. "I like pizza."
"Hmm," Meredith says, and looks in the fridge. "Well, I think right now it's tuna or nothing.”
"Fine," the girl says, and eats the tuna with her mouth open. Her teeth are still jagged like shells. She bares them at Meredith as she does, and says “So I see you’ve cast your lot in with Ballister Blackheart now that he’s no longer the menace of the kingdom.”
"He's quite fine," Meredith says, "except that he misses you."
"Humph," the girl says, and flits out the open window.
She'll be back, Meredith thinks, and makes a note to buy more pizza. It goes right in the middle of her whiteboard, and she even finds the red pen to draw a little angry cat face, so she remembers why.
World Domination is fun. Weekends are, Meredith thinks, okay sometimes.
Although she and Ballister are familiar with the game, his boyfriend learns quickly, shuffling the surprisingly-new cards and acting as banker. Some of the pieces seem a little scorched, but that just means that they have two dogs — normal Scottie, and post-mad science Scottie.
She learns quickly that Ballister and his boyfriend have channeled much of their previous enmity into this activity, as they focus on destroying each other across the board. It lets Meredith build up quite a reserve of money, and a fair amount of blockading properties, which neither of them notice until too late. She isn’t able to establish control of the board, but she can stop them from doing so, and that’s a win in and of itself.
She takes her win with a little less than good grace — all three of them are remarkably childish players, and the game threatens to devolve into chaos more than once — but gets an invitation to come back soon.
On her way out, Meredith has to hold the door open so that a red squirrel can scamper in. She really hopes that it’s the shapeshifter, here for a heartwarming reunion, because otherwise getting it out of the lair is going to be a nightmare.
Oh well. Her prototypes await!
The squirrel really was Nimona, it turns out, because the next day she starts showing up at the new lab, which is its own kind of challenge. She loves when things blow up — which Meredith’s pink-colored prototype unfortunately provides an excellent demonstration of — but emphatically does not like being asked to take an active role in testing them.
She’s less helpful than Ballister’s boyfriend, because she won’t hold things when asked. Sharks, as she gravely points out, do not have fingers. But she makes Ballister smile.
Meredith watches her scribble notes on her own upcoming, and somewhat deadly, project — but that’s Ballister’s responsibility to manage. It’s Meredith’s to encourage a healthy and enthusiastic understanding of the scientific method.
The explosion that decimates one of their lab tables does, at least, point Meredith in a new direction with the four remaining prototypes. With Nimona around, she’s making progress much more quickly. Though she's careful about not mentioning this out loud. (Ballister has so many hushed and emphatic conversations with Meredith on the importance of not asking Nimona to participate, or doing anything more than relying on her ambient presence, that Meredith has added it to her notebook’s flyleaf.) She has, quite possibly, invented a new field of science that people will have to take seriously eventually, though her primary concern is just that it’ll be usable.
“So, Nimona,” Meredith says, turning the lab lights off as another weekend rolls around to their doorstep. Quite possibly it is the following one, but that doesn’t seem quite right. “Do you like board games?”