Victory is Ours!

Who: Skye and Amy
Where: Redbird house
When: Late morning

Amy was sipping tea with Ms. Redbird at her kitchen table with her blue rain boots crossed under the table, she was excited, she was on the right track, she knew it. She just had to get her hands on the old iron works records, do a little nosing around. "Mom's doing real great in Arizona," she said. "Communing with the good vibrations of the universe and stuff she wants me to come down and visit her for Thanksgiving, you know? It'll give Daddy a break."

She liked the inside of the Redbird house, it was cozy. All soft and old school. It was kinda like her old house if her old house had carpet.

Skye's Aunt Darcie nodded. "Well you just tell that woman that a postcard doesn't cut it and I want to know everything. Arizona's a beautiful country and I want pictures, too - oh, there's my cell. Hold on, I'll be right back." She stood up, smiling, and went to the living room, pulling her cellphone from her pocket along the way.

Skye, on the other hand, was just walking in. She knocked the snow off her shoes and set them beside the register, and hung up her coat in the closet. Making sure her backpack wasn't sitting where someone could trip over it, she walked in.

And blinked at Amy. "Oh! Um. Hello." For a moment she wanted to make sure she walked into the right house, but since she could hear her aunt in the kitchen murmuring to someone or something, Skye figured it was okay.

Amy blinked back at the young lady who had walked in, well she wasn't that much younger than Amy, probably in high school. Ms. Redbird's niece lived with her, didn't she, the adopted one? What was her name? She looked a little startled to see Amy in the house, she hadn't lived with the Redbirds when Amy went to school with Nicolas. Poor Nicolas, Amy was probably one of the most easily distracted lab partners in the history of secondary school. Chemistry had never been her best subject to start with, she was more of a doer than a write-everything-downer, but the two of them had slogged through eventually. At least they had never blown anything up.

"Hello," Amy grinned at her, holding out one hand. "How do you do? Skye isn't it? My name's Amy."

"Uh, yes. I'm Skye." She wasn't sure about what to do about a stranger in the house that obviously knew her aunt, but didn't know her, and she didn't know in return. Especially when her aunt wasn't in the room to give her a hint about what to do. "How are you?" Stilted, uncomfortable conversation for the win!

Amy smiled. Ah, to be young and awkward. "Fabulous, banged my ankle a little bit," she gestured vaguely under the table. "But other than that, the birds are singing, the sky is blue and your aunt makes a fine cup of tea. I don't think we really got to meet each other before. I'm a friend of Nicolas,' from back when the two of us were in high school."

Nothing for really but to be as friendly as possible, "School just let out?" Amy took a sip of tea to give the poor girl a moment to think, she was aware a lot of people found her to be a little too... enthusiastic when they first got to know her.

"Um. Yes. It just let out." Skye said, agreeably, after a very quick glance at the clock. No sense in letting people know she'd skipped the last half of the last period, right? Right. "I'm sorry to hear about your ankle." Oh, god, you make conversation like you just got back from stabbing someone. Nice. Try and be a little bloody enthusiastic, Skye. "So, you know my aunt, then?" Or at least intelligent. Try to be one or the other.

"Yeah, I came over here a lot to study with Nick, meeting your aunt was part of the deal I suppose," no point in mentioning that she hadn't wanted to take her lab partner to her own house because her parent's were doing the whole 'why won't you believe me?' thing. "I came over to ask if I could borrow a book of your uncle's, I'm pretty sure he had it at least." Amy could hardly keep her excitement in, it looked like she'd have to discretely contract out some of the work (her welding skills were nonexistent) and she didn't understand some of the terms Fassbender used, but she had come too far to give up now. She had seen the little hints of things in Fassbender's journal he had talked about making a coffin "with practiced will," and well, if her own will wasn't 'practiced' enough she'd go find someone who's will was. "We were just having a little chat before I went and rifled through your attic," she joked.

Skye gave Amy a look that was a cross between puzzled and amused. "Does our insulation bother you? Or don't you have any of your own? Because you can get the new stuff at the hardware store - you don't have to steal ours."

Amy giggled, she was in too good of a mood not to, she was close, she could feel it, "No, I'm looking for an old book- thing. Just some papers from old Cleveland Iron, stuff to do with back when the mine was all shiny bright " She wasn't actually sure what form exactly 'the papers' would take, only that as far as old records from Cleveland Iron went Mr. Redbird had a whole lot of the old files, if he didn't no one else would. "I was just waiting for your aunt's lunch break so she could show me around the boxes, but you know your aunt."

"Yeah. You could be waiting for a while. She doesn't really take breaks so much as eats between frantically hectic moments. It's a good thing she works from home mostly or she'd be a skeleton." Skye said wryly, slightly more comfortable now. "If there's a crazy book thing that you want it'd probably be in the basement, not the attic. There's nothing up there but insulation and, like, wiring. As important as both of those are."

"Oh," Amy shrugs, "Basement it is then." She tries to peer around the door frame to see Ms. Redbird, but that's a no-go. Amy's got miles to go before she sleeps. "Do you want to show me then? I don't want to disturb your aunt, she looks pretty busy."

"Yeeeah, I guess so. That stuff's not mine, so just let me ask Aunt Darcie." Skye offered, and pulled one of her binders from her backpack. On a spare sheet of looseleaf she scribbled something down, and then went into the kitchen with it. Skye intended on showing it to her aunt, rather than disturb her by talking.

And Skye came back. "Yeah, it's okay. Basement's this way..."

"Excellent, I've always loved basements," Amy grinned at Skye, limping along politely behind her. "And attics. And out of the way closets. There's always such lovely things there, I used to love playing with my grandfather's old ties, they were from the seventies. You've never seen such patterns and colors used in conjunction. Sorry," she said a little self-consciously, fiddling with the hem of her sweater. "I tend to get kind of rambly, hit people with a verbal downpour as it were."

She made an explanatory whooshing sound with helpful hand motions.

"You're aunt's used to me going on, if I start to get irritated just hush me," she said pleasantly. "I'm used to it by now." She couldn't help gushing sometimes. Her Dad had always said 'tone down the sunshine sweetheart.' It was like the Gustufson family motto.

Skye headed for the basement door and opened it, letting her Aunt's cat out of there. It looked faintly disgruntled (like cats to look in general) and walked by the both of them with the usual cat expression of distain for the pitiful humans that graced it's life. Skye ignored it back and flicked on the basement light.

The basement itself was basically concrete, with a million boxes against one wall, some wide open bits, a washing machine and dryer next to a large deep-freeze, and a heater and water heater, respectively. There wasn't much down there, and the bare bulb's light made the place look fairly menacing.

Amy waved at the cat before following Skye down, the place was pretty bare, except for the basic basement type appliances, she skipped down the stairs as fast as she could with her injury and without running over the back of Skye. She faced the million box wall with her hands on her waist and nodded. "Thanks Skye! Its got to be here," it had to be, there wasn't anywhere else to look. There were a quite a lot of boxes. But she'd just go through them as best as she could.

"I think my cousin labeled these," Skye said dryly, gesturing to the permanent black marker marks on some of the boxes. The majority were entitled 'Stuff', 'More Stuff', and various derivitives there of. "You might be looking for a while..."

Yeah, they did have a hint of Nick's dry humor. Her shoulders slumped a little, "I think this might be a bigger job than I thought." She made one quick motion toward a box and peeked in, "Well, this one is full of baby clothes, so its not this one." She looked over her shoulder quickly, "Do you have time to help me explore the boxes?"

Skye nodded. "Sure. What are you looking for?"

Amy bit her lip and tried to remember all of the scanty description she had found in the diary, "Well, its a bunch of papers. Its blueprints of a box," well, that was close enough for government work, a coffin was a sort of box, it had four sides, a top and a bottom. "They should all be loose leaf, in an old folder, or portfolio or something, I'm not quite sure, but the papers are kind of old, if that's any help."

"Of a box." Skye said slowly, blinking at Amy. Because boxes needed blueprints. Right. "Oookay. Well. I'll start on this side," she offered, pointing, "if you want to start over there."

Amy saluted sharply, "Okey Dokey." She rolled up her sleeves and got to work on the boxes. It was like going through history, a family's whole life. She tried not to touch too much, the baby clothes, the kids clothes, the school papers with the carefully scrawled Nick Redbird on the top. Ms. Redbird trusted her enough to let her go through their things, it wouldn't be right not to be careful with them. When she was done with each box she carefully set it to the left of her.

After there was a box mountain taller than her sitting down and the two of them were meeting in the middle, she called over to the other side of the basement, "Having any luck over there?"

"I found three old file-folders and a recipe book from the sixties..." Skye said, digging through the dusty things. She'd have to wash her clothes after this - the white shirt was turning distinctly grey. "And a set of Lord of the Rings books."

"I found Nick complete educational career and a bunch of baby clothes," she looked at the two boxes left standing between them. "Well, at least we know its one of two choices. Shall I take left and you take right?"

"If you want to check the file folders..." Skye offered, and she started digging around in one of the two boxes, and coming up empty. Well, she found a bunch of old VHS tapes... "Ooo, ninja turtles cartoons..." And Skye pushed that one aside to examine the other box. "Why do you want blueprints for a box? I mean, a box isn't that hard to build."

"Its a special box, a fancy box," that was one way of putting it. She opened the final box and looked down at the folders marked Cleveland Mining. Flipping up through the folders with her fingertips, she finally got to the bottom, where there was a big leather folder, hardbound, old. "Aha! Victory is ours!"

She pulled it out carefully and flipped it open. There it was, pages and pages of diagrams, arrows, neat cursive writing. The neat straight lines of the coffin and swirls of writing in some language she didn't know. "This is it!"

"...that's a heck of a box." Skye said mildly. "Very fancy."

"It's for my baby brother," Amy said absently, she reached out and gave Skye a quick little shoulder hug. "Hurrah. Thank you for your help Skye."

"You're welcome? Not that I did much." Skye pointed out, deciding that she really, really didn't want to know what was going on. That box was shaped too much like a coffin for her to want to know. "Ask my aunt if you want to keep them, I guess."

"I go do that right now!" Amy had been excited, and hadn't really been thinking about her ankle, when she stood suddenly she wobbled a little, but quickly regrouped. "Thanks! You're the best!" She wobbled up the stairs whistling to herself.