[For Wyatt] Valentine's Day

Hair twisted in a loose knot with a pencil through it, Kitty pored over a notebook filled with what must've looked like arcane sigils to someone unfamiliar with her personal shorthand. In fact, it was the first iteration of a security/surveillance drone design. Between sips of coffee, she flipped the pencil in her hand to erase one assemblage and then flipped it again to sketch in another. One she immediately saw wouldn't work.

"Fudge."

She set down her coffee cup, absently poured more from the carafe, flipped the page and then started over. The severe materials limitations made paper refinements essential, but she seriously hated doing it.

Is she hadn't already been to at least one version of hell, she'd have said she was living it.

Valentine's Day in a hotel designed for lovers, decorated by her manic partner on the Welcoming Committee so that it looked like aftermath of a glitterpunk war, everyone she'd ever loved--including her very first Valentine, her dad--as good as dead to her, and chicken with heart-shaped waffles for breakfast, without a lab to distract herself?

Yeah. She'd rather be in Limbo.