Robbin

50. Homecoming

Robbin's alive, she repeated to herself as she stared up at the cloudy blue sky, lit by an Earthly sun. She lie on the park grass, unmindful of the children who came dangerously close to mistaking her head for a soccer ball.

Her necklace had picked the same park she had appeared to the last time.

How odd she must have looked, in Song's dirty dress and Jake's plain jacket. Robbin's alive, it really did happen, Carynthia really exists. She half expected her necklace to send her back right then and there, but she suspected she owed her parents a visit before venturing right back to where she had gone, absent from their lives entirely.

She tried to reassure herself with this thought as she forced her legs to lift her up and trudge down the road to her house: I earned my place; I made a difference somewhere, whether it was under false pretenses or not. If she told her parents that, maybe they would forgive her for having run away to another world for nearly three weeks, right?

As she stared up at her father's face, once she was done knocking, she thought, well, maybe not. In that second, she thought that maybe she preferred Robbin's praise to being back home. She swallowed. She had to face her parents sometime. Her sister too.

"Laura! Sarah! Get down here!" her father bellowed wildly. There they were, all three staring at her with eyes more critical than the most sour cave dweller. Telling them where she had been was more challenging than winning over the most cynical nomad. She couldn't just tell them that her necklace would help to formulate their future.

Lord, if Gran could see her now. She tried to refrain from giggling in front of them. "No need to panic, I'm not going to run off again," she assured.

Her mother looked as if she was about to spit right in her face. "Is that so?" She folded her arms.

"For christ's sakes, we had missing person's posters all over town, Terra! How do you expect us to react?!" Her father's brown eyes, which were always so warm, merely looked cold now. She noticed the bags under them.

"Now, I know this looks bad, but—" Well, what was she going to tell them: that she had saved a young man's life... that she had fallen in love with a world they had not raised her under... that she couldn't control it anyway? She decided to go with the basics. "I was with Robbin." No, she berated herself, no, that wasn't what she was supposed to say! "I mean—I mean, I was with some friends... from school."

Her witty sister had already raised her eyebrows, however. Heck, why did she have to mention him by name? "So you expect us to believe that for three weeks you were off stealing rich people's gold with Robin Hood and his merry band of thieves?"

Terra slapped her forehead.

"Robbin...? Is that a boy's name?!" her father demanded.

"What are you wearing?" her mother snapped.

"No, it's not a boy at all," it was a nomad, "and don't you know grunge is the new fashion?" She looked up, hopeful that they might soften up at the subject change, but they didn't. At least she hadn't mentioned Jake, there was no mistaking that for a girl's name.

And thus began their lecture, starting with Laura, who finally expressed her grief for Gran, (haleluja) and ending with her father's soothing words, which finally entreated her to step inside instead of run far, far away.

a/n: Going back home isn't always easy...