Sebastien Struck

prologue: act i

act one

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act i: a beginning

a few months before the beginning of 'Alette'

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She pressed down on the doorbell, hearing it ring inside the large family home as she waited patiently on the porch steps.

It was a familiar house, one she had frequented all throughout her childhood and well into the present time.

She stepped back, a reasonable distance away from the door as it swung open and she was face to face with one of her best friends.

"Hi Jo," Tai's grinning face came into view.

She matched the grin, teeth and all, "Tai, hey," he moved back to let her step inside, his hand giving her shoulder a squeeze.

"You drove?" he asked, peeking outside, not spotting her car.

She shook her head as she kicked off her shoes, grateful that his house was warm because she had certainly not dressed for how cool the weather had gotten.

"Got a ride from someone," she told him, holding out a bag for him to take, "Thanks for letting me borrow this, we just finished up the project."

He grabbed the bag that housed one of his cameras, "Of course! How was it?"

She gave him a non-committal shrug, "Fine, I suppose, as good as a group project can get."

He shook his head, fighting off another grin at his overachieving, and extremely intelligent best friend, knowing that her nonchalance was just a charade.

That no academic work Josephine Jennings submitted was ever just fine.

She rolled her eyes, pinching his side before she glanced over his shoulder to the muffled voices coming from the sitting room.

"Company?" She had seen the cars on the driveway, so she knew he hadn't been alone, but he hadn't mentioned anything when she asked him to drop by.

He nodded, "Some of my friends from work," he told her.

She raised a brow, "And I won't be a bother?" she hadn't intended on intruding on their time.

He gave her a consoling pat on the arm, "Oh Jo, you're always a bother."

Josephine rolled her eyes, unable to hide her smile, "Ha ha," she delivered as dryly as she could, "How do you manage to be so funny?"

He shot her another classic Tai smile, throwing his arm around her shoulder because he knew it would annoy her, "Let's go Doc, I'll introduce you to the troops."

She very half-heartedly tried to shove his arm off her shoulder as he led her to the living room; though she wasn't necessarily nervous meeting new people, she did want to cast a good first impression on Tai's new friends and coworkers.

While she supposed, it didn't really matter what they thought of her, she did know that Tai liked them, and he liked his workplace and so inevitably, their paths would cross at some point if he continued to work there.

Which it seemed as though he would, considering the company was a tattoo parlour and some kind of other mysterious enterprise that let him use his legal smarts whilst he made his way through law school.

It was an odd mix, but she didn't care to pry, knowing fully well that it had to be some kind of sensitive work or else Tai would have clued her in already.