Chapter Text
AVA: I’m a theoretical physicist.
CASPAR: Congratulations.
AVA: I would like to know how one of the particular equations in my head led me here.
CASPAR: Led you here?
AVA: How about you finish making me that BLT and we have a nice chat.
CASPAR: ...Okay.
Caspar had a headache.
The physicist hadn’t bothered with names. The minute the notebook had come out of her bag, little things like ‘names’ or ‘basic human decency’ had become superfluous to the Mission. Caspar wasn’t entirely sure what the Mission was, but at the moment it seemed to consist of increasingly complicated questions about the diner and its operation, interspersed with snide commentary about his intelligence, habits, and personal hygiene.
Caspar wasn’t dumb, he knew that, but it was quickly becoming apparent that this woman was thinking with a few more dimensions than the average human had access to. It was also becoming apparent that she was appalled something like the diner had ended up in the charge of someone with such little understanding of—well, in her eyes—just about anything.
“Have you noticed any anomalies within the walls of the diner itself, either in motion or while stationary, that seem indicative of a glitch, breakdown, or inconsistency in the mundane image it otherwise presents?”
It was the fact that her pencil didn’t stop even when she was speaking that was starting to get to him. Was she copying down her question as she said it? Or had she learned to split her brain in two, one half carrying out one train of thought on paper, while the other half led his interrogation?
“Especially any that seem to recur with some level of consistency?” she added.
Caspar coughed, giving himself time to think. Anomalies. The whole diner was an anomaly, but that wasn’t what she was asking. Did the Mucklewains count? They’d been quiet since the notebook had emerged, resorting to soft, unobtrusive instrumentals in what Caspar assumed was an attempt to protect themselves.
He couldn’t blame them. He didn’t particularly want to be involved either.
“Do you understand—”
“Yes,” he snapped. “Give me a second, not all of us are working at warp speed up here.”
She rolled her eyes impatiently, pencil scribbling away. He hadn’t even answered the question yet, what the hell was she writing?
Maybe it was part of the facade. Maybe she was just doodling behind that cover. Maybe she was just writing ‘fuck this guy’ over and over again in some weird intimidation tactic.
Her patience ran out again. “Dude—”
“Oh my god,” he hissed. “Just let me think. Anomalies. The whole thing is a fucking anomaly.”
“Yes,” she said slowly, as if speaking to a small child. “But I’m asking about anomalies within the anomaly. Is there anything about how this place presents itself, anything about the interior, that does not match up with its image as a diner? Anything that seems… impossible?”
Caspar rubbed a hand over his face. He wondered if it was possible to be allergic to a sound, because the unending scrape of her pencil against the page seemed to be bypassing his ears and digging straight into his aching head.
He wished Leif were back. Why the hell had he needed to go to Princeton anyway?
The physicist’s eyes were on him again, prodding, impatient.
“I don’t know,” he grumbled. “It’s… it’s all impossible, I don’t know.”
He knew he had an answer. He’d worked countless shifts, he had to have an answer, but she’d been at it for hours, and his brain felt like a wrung-out washcloth.
The physicist let out an impatient huff. The pencil scratched.
“Pst!” Effie hissed. “The parmesan cheese.”
“Oh, right,” he agreed wearily. “Yeah, the parmesan cheese disappears at random, that’s not normal for a diner. Or for… cheese…”
For one blessed moment, it was quiet.
Caspar looked up. The physicist had stopped writing, pencil poised, sharp eyes flicking between him and the radio.
“Is that a two way radio?” she demanded.
Caspar snorted. “You could say that.”
“Who was just talking to you?”
He gestured to the radio, too worn out to do the introductions. “Guys?”
“Well,” Zebulon said awkwardly, “we, uh… didn’t want to interrupt… my name is Zebulon Mucklewain, and this is my wife, Effie.”
“Hey there.”
The physicist studied the radio critically, before returning to Caspar, eyebrow raised in an implied question.
He sighed. “They’re… they’re a couple of baptists from the 1920s. No, I don’t know how that works.”
The pencil was scribbling again.
Goddammit.
“Are they always broadcasting?” the physicist inquired without looking up, “or is it just when you land? Is it only when you land on Earth? What is the furthest you’ve been from Earth while still picking up their signal?”
Caspar took off his glasses and rested his head on the table, the cool surface soothing against his forehead.
“They’re always broadcasting,” he said into the table, eyes scrunched shut. “Doesn’t matter where we are, or when we are. They live in Toadsuck, Arkansas in 1925, and they keep trying to tell aliens about Jesus. It makes about as much sense as anything else around here.”
Scribbling.
His head ached.
Finally, blessedly, the door jingled, and Caspar turned his head to see the slightly blurry figure of Leif stepping inside.
“Hey,” Leif greeted, shooting Caspar what was probably a concerned look. “Uh. What’s going on?”
The scribbling paused again as the physicist turned to appraise Leif. “Aha. The cook, right?”
“That’s me,” Leif agreed.
Caspar pulled himself upright, returned his glasses to his face, and regarded Leif dully. “We have a visiting academic,” Caspar informed him, gesturing to her. “And she has… a lot of questions. How was Princeton?”
“Fine,” Leif replied, clearly searching Caspar’s face for some kind of clue. “Uh. What kind of questions?”
Caspar waved him off. “I told her about the diner. She has… follow ups.”
Leif considered Caspar for a beat longer, before giving a little shrug. “Sure,” he agreed. “I can see that. I’m Leif.”
“Dr. Ava Maddox,” the physicist said serenely. “Any chance you have more of a background in science than your buddy here?”
“Hey,” Caspar muttered, unsure why it stung. He didn’t have a background in science, but in the mouth of Dr. Ava Maddox it was practically defamation of character.
Leif’s face had taken on the guarded, impassive look it always did when someone brought up his past. “I’ve been known to dabble.”
“As in, he fixes the microwave when it breaks,” Caspar corrected. “Sorry we’re not a traveling band of astrophysicists or neuro-xeno-pharmacologists or whatever, we literally just run a diner.”
Dr. Ava Maddox shot him a withering look. “For someone who claims to spend all his time joyriding in the most ridiculous sci-fi contraption in existence, you have no respect for the ‘sci’ element of that equation. Have you never once wondered how the hell this thing works?”
“Yes,” Caspar said flatly. “And then I realized I’d essentially been kidnapped and would probably never make it home again, so excuse me if I miss the wonder of the moment.”
Dr. Ava Maddox was unimpressed. “Tell me about the parmesan.”
Caspar stood. “Nope. No, now that Leif’s back, I’m tapping out. Leif, you’ve had your time off, I’m taking mine. I’ll be in the back if anyone needs me, and there’s no reason for you to need me, so just don’t.”
“Caspar,” Effie scolded, but he ignored her, shooting Leif a dark look before fleeing into the back.
Dr. Ava Maddox’s eyes zeroed in on Leif. “So. Leef, was it?”
“Leif,” Leif corrected half-heartedly, dropping into Caspar’s seat.
She grinned, pointed and sharklike. “Let’s talk about the cheese.”