[img]https://i.imgur.com/aHWHQEs.png[/img]

[code]The Webb Family Coffee House [/code]

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"Wait, so does that make you my grandmother?" Charlie half joked, turning to look at Neko with a smile. The other woman didn't even look old enough to have a twenty two year old kid, nevermind be a grandmother. It just made the whole situation baffling. Her mum had been at least forty... Actually, Charlie didn't know her actual age. Definitely not seventeen. "Mum's an artist. Pretty well known in Europe, actually... Not that you'd find her now cause her work is under someone else's name. She was smart too, like everyone else's Eleanors it seems." 

Charlie's 'new mum' in a very weird sense. She'd always expected if she had another mum it'd be from her dad remarrying, and even then... But her actual mum being replaced? Yeah, no. "It kinda always felt like she was a bit out of reach cause of it... She was just so talented, yknow? Like a proper artistic type." Charlie shrugged. "She was a good mum. I wouldn't be here if she wasn't."

Saying that tugged at something in Charlie's chest, the niggling feeling that she wasn't being honest with herself. She pushed that feeling down. Eleanor [i]had[/i] been a good mum... When she was around. 

Any thoughts about that quickly went away when the whole table was offered pie, which was fucking weird cause who bought food for strangers? Then she was offered sympathy from a guy who looked like a cowboy, like what the hell. She was experiencing way too much culture shock at once to do anything but smile at both of them, refusing the pie.

More people talked about their Eleanors.

Some of the others said could match her mum. Eleanor could be Charlie's mum and someone else's partner, or ex, or best friend. She'd certainly been in and out of Charlie's life enough. But she couldn't be a doctor... and her and Neko's Eleanors definitely didn't line up. There was no way she could be Charlie's mum and also Neko's 17 year old daughter. But they'd both had literal family members replaced. 

It just didn't make any sense. What, was she some kind of magical being who could be multiple people at once then just disappeared? Nah, that was ridiculous. Magic wasn't real. Maybe some weird drug was being tested on them... But how? Just thinking about it was making her already throbbing head hurt more.

Charlie squinted as Jasmine started talking. Another European, nice, but there was something oddly familiar about her. Far as Charlie was aware she didn't know any black Germans... Well she didn't know any Germans at all. Maybe a few patients, but none who'd been in hospital long enough for her to remember their faces. Weird.

Then she started rambling about being Germany's star football player (sure, cause woman's football was watched as much as mens), and it clicked. 

"Wait!" Charlie interrupted, clapping her hands together in sudden realisation. "I knew you looked familiar! You're that girl who threw the world cup for Germany! My Columbian neighbour was celebrating for weeks, guess I gotta thank you for all the free desserts I got? You got some sense of humour saying you were a star player... I mean, you certainly were a star in your own way."

Charlie snorted, expression unwaveringly friendly as if everything she said was in good jest.

She'd only been a teen when that match was on, so she was more forced into watching it for 'dad-daughter' bonding than actually wanting to. She had very little interest in football, especially a different countries team, but... The way Jasmine was lying out her ass from the get go was annoying. Charlie had been around to way too many people like her, catty and stuck up - there were enough in her work place, both patients and members of staff. It was easy for her to keep calm and act friendly, but she wasn't going to tolerate it. 

"Course it doesn't make sense. But this whole situation never made sense. Isn't that why we're all here?" Charlie shrugged. "I ain't gonna freak out about it. And some of them could line up. Maybe there's, I dunno, three Eleanor Blacks."

Her mum being on the German team for football was far fetched... but being imprisoned was a bit less so. For all Charlie knew she did spend a stint in prison, cause she hardly contacted her the past few years. Would certainly explain things...

And then Jen was getting to the important information, including some lovely stuff about the Black family's history. No wonder her mum didn't talk about her family and didn't want Charlie to meet them. They were racists. 

Really made her feel comfortable being in a completely different country and small strange town. Racist probably family members. Great.

Charlie held up her hands. "I may be a relative but I ain't making that meeting. Something tells me," namely the fact they were former plantation owners, "that that's best handled by one of you white people." 

She didn't really want to deal with that. 

"But I do agree with talking to her. Best to go to the one most likely to give us answers."

Charlie also scrutinised the map, though it didn't make loads of sense to her - map reading was not a skill she had, and she had absolute no sense of direction. The markings were clear enough... Including a weird skull that Neko pointed to.

"Yeah, what's the skull?"