I'm Ragged But I'm Right [Reida, Alastair]

Reida would have liked it if she wasn't readying a welcome home dinner like she was a stay at home mom, generally speaking. It brought back memories she didn't always like to think about, and she'd be lying if she said she hadn't needed to lean a little bit on the bottle to get her through it. But given the situation that Alastair was coming back home from, she also knew it was entirely worth the effort.

She'd read all the reports from Africa, of course. She knew exactly how bad things were over there, and as much as it had made her blood boil not to go, she knew it wouldn't have been good for her to see all that. So she'd sent Jones instead, and she was back here, handling her people out there.

Maybe she oughta consider a promotion, given the work she'd been doing lately, but for now that wasn't really what was on her mind. She'd already set out a nice feast for the two of them, and now there wasn't much else to do except wait for him to get home.

Alastair had been loathed to leave Vastime in the state that it was in, with Hollows still cropping up with alarming frequency around the mysterious hole that had appeared in the city. But his role as an Administrator meant that he could not spend all of his days as a grunt on the frontlines anymore. Was he bitter about the change? Not particularly, as it was certainly a path towards him doing more widespread good, but his desire to protect innocent lives was no different now than when that was all he had.

But there was certainly one distinct benefit to his return to the City of Lights, someone that set his mind just a little more at ease. It was forward of him to think like that, really, and she would likely chastise him for it if he said so to her face, but he was a simple man really. His intentions had been all too crystal clear since they had met, though honour had bid him persevere, so perhaps she might forgive him a little bit of honesty.

A knock at the door, his own door, before he went for the key to let himself in. A little courtesy for Reida's sake, as he hardly wished to burst in there and take her completely by surprise, and then he was across the threshold. The smell of fresh food was enough to lift his mood from the weariness of days past, and, for the chef, he dared to offer a smile. Narrow, as always, but a smile nonetheless as he parked his suitcase by the door to the bedroom and headed further inside to greet her properly.

"Nice to see ya, darlin'."

Setting the apron she'd been wearing off to the side, Reida made her way over to Alastair with small smile of her own, greeting him with a warm embrace rather than anything more forward. He looked tired, and she knew plenty well that sometimes a hug was the best thing you could ever ask for.

"Made all y'er favorites. Wanna talk about what happened over there?"

Obviously, she knew he might decline that offer, and that was exactly why she'd asked. Alastair wasn't quite so jaded as she was, and she knew something like the state of Vastime might have been a bit more grim for someone with his optimism. Whether that meant he wanted to get his feelings on the matter out, or put his mind on more pleasant things, well that was his prerogative.

A dash of colour returned to Alastair's weary visage as she greeted him, a second dose as her arms wrapped around him and he responded with the same in kind - though she might not see it. He was happy enough to just hold her for a moment or two and she knew that all too well.

"I was not sure you would be here when I returned. But I am glad you are."

He squeezed just a little harder before releasing and letting them converse properly rather than just pinning her into his chest. Work was, naturally, the first point of conversation and one that he had little qualms about discussing. They were their own best support groups, after all. Not that Alastair was any more deeply troubled by this event than he had any others in the past few years.

"It is hardly pleasant dinner conversation, but I can make an exception for you. We were able to make some headway in efforts to curtail the sudden surge in Hollow activity but it was not without a cost. The Vastimian capital is in ruins, and refugees fleeing the conflict will be spilling out across the world soon enough. I cannot help but wonder if we could have done more."

"You kiddin'? I'd never let ya come home without a warm meal."

The talk of what happened in Vastime was about as bad as Reida would have expected, and her expression darkened a touch as the conversation turned toward it. Not that she was opposed to it, or she wouldn't have asked, but it wasn't exactly hard to imagine why something like that would hit a bit close to home for a woman like her.

"That bad, huh... I'd read it was rough from Jones' reports, but hearin' it aloud's a little worse. Don't think there's much else we coulda done, considering what happened, so we oughta try and think about what we can do now."

She'd been thinking of that for a while, even if it was frankly wildly outside her actual professional area of expertise. Reida worked in subterfuge, after all, nothing that had to do with support.

Reida's response was, naturally, thoughtful. It did give him hope that she was trying to practice what she preached, of course, but that was not something that he even needed to state aloud. For how deeply she had once been lost in the past, the woman he held before him now had already vastly changed. It would hardly be fair of him to linger on past actions now, so he pushed them from his mind.

"You are right, of course, though it is not quite so simple. What comes next has the potential to redefine the position of the Vandenreich on a global scale. The Grandmaster's response will shape how so many people see us, even in the aftermath of the Kurosaki incident."

He paused, not because he wanted to be needlessly dramatic but because there was no small amount of uncertainty for what might come from this. Big-picture thinking opened up a lot of possibilities to consider.

"But that is not the conversation for empty bellies. More than anything else, dear, I would hate to be the reason why our dinner went cold."

Finally, Alastair allowed himself a smirk of amusement. Squeezing onto Reida's waist before going to spin her around so that she might guide him to the food. She had made his favourites, after all, and military rations did usually pale in comparison.