June [23-26?] 1895 — outside the Wizengamot courtroom

Kaatjie had started to become sullen, whenever she had to go to the Wizengamot — people were rehashing details of her life, talking about her, talking about Mama, talking about her father, talking about her uncle. It was all very boring. No one had bothered to ask her what she thought, yet. Everyone was saying that the trial would probably wrap on the thirtieth, and Kaatjie was starting to think they might get through this whole thing without anyone talking to her.

Her uncle was scheduled to take the stand on Friday. Kaatjie kept trying to make eye contact with him, noticing the familiar set of his jaw, the way he sometimes looked at her slyly like they were in on the same joke. She missed him. She missed her cousins. She was desperately curious about her Dempsey family, about having grandparents, about having a father — but Uncle Klaas had quietly mailed her a Dutch children's book by Carl Schaller, because he knew that she liked them.

Her father was a mystery, and some of the things people said about him were contradictory. So instead of sulking in her chair in the next break in testimony, Kaat went outside, to the hall, on a quest. The man was shorter than her father or her uncle, with a confident air and pretty blue eyes. "You're his friend?" she asked abruptly, having caught up to him in the hall — Kaat was feeling every bit like this was an executed ambush.

Daffodil Grimstone Dean Hudson

  

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set by Bee!!

This whole thing was one emotional whirlwind that Dean really wasn't sure how to feel about. Even though he'd managed to write a useful reference and keep any and all personal thoughts to a strictly (and hopefully) objective point of view, it didn't help him sort through his own thought process any better. So he was mostly just forced to sit in the back of the courtroom, keep an impassive expression and listen in to any foreign languages he could understand, just for his own interest. His Dutch had come along well enough, he could understand mostly what was being spoken and had a good head to remember words he wasn't sure of to look up later. It didn't seem strictly necessary, but he was listening nevertheless.

He wasn't able to be in the courtroom for all of what had gone on so far, but his reference had been read today and it was an easy jot down to the courtrooms from his office so he could be available for any follow up questions. It was an interesting conversation to be had with his immediate supervisor, but nobody really got to argue with the Wizengamot. By the time a recess was called, Dean needed a little fresh air (though he was used to stuffy ministry dealings) and still wasn't sure how to act around any of the Dempseys so he'd made an excuse and slipped out the back.

Rolling his shoulders to ease out some of the tension, he didn't make it very far when a little voice caught his direct attention. He'd seen Miss Kaatjie in the courtroom, was inherently curious, but was supposed to be largely staying out of it, so had just observed thus far. He wasn't going to ignore her question though. "Yeah, for a long time now." Almost as long as she'd been alive, in all honestly.

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His friend for a long time. Obviously Mr. Dean Hudson knew her father better than Kaatjie did, but that maybe even meant that he knew Don Juan better than her mother had. That was &mash; weird. Other than the Dempsey family, it felt strange to think of people knowing her father, because Kaatjie was not used to thinking of her father as a real person.

"What you said," she said. She folded her arms over her chest; never mind the Wizengamot, this was her interrogation. "Is it true?"

  

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set by Bee!!

Dean really wasn't sure what Miss Spaans was looking for here, but she had a directness about her that he could appreciate. Clearly today had been a lot for her and at least she was allowed to be visibly affected by it. It was murky waters for him, but he could figure it out. "More or less. I was supposed to make him look good, but I'm also not a liar." He figured she might appreciate a straightforward answer to her direct question.

"How are you holding up today?" He asked in Dutch, thinking he may as well ask. Everyone seemed so focused on what to do with Kaatjie, that he wondered when was the last time someone bothered to check in with her.

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   Kaatjie Dempsey

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Hm. The version of her father that Mr. Hudson had described had seemed kind; Kaatjie was vaguely relieved that the man considered it the truth. Her interrogation was interrupted by the sound of her native tongue. "You speak Dutch?" Kaatjie replied, with an incredulous smile on her face. It was way less popular here than stupid French was.

  

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set by Bee!!

"I'm a translator for the Ministry," he explained, keeping in kind. His Dutch was a little clumsy still; he was still learning some of the more smaller details, how to get the r sounds right and some other pronunciations, but it wasn't the hardest language he'd ever learned. "I learned it recently, so it's a work in progress." He chuckled.

Dean noticed that in her surprise, she didn't answer his question so he tried again, "Big day though, what did you think?" He hoped that knowing not a lot of people around them spoke the language, might get her to open up a little, but he didn't expect much. It was a strange line he walked, a near perfect stranger, oddly connected, but at a distance, almost anonymously. He wouldn't press the issue, but he did genuinely want to know.

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"You sound all right for it being new," Kaatjie said, smiling at him. He'd asked the question again. She pursed her lips before trying an answer.

"Nobody's actually asked me that lately," she said. The Pendergasts asked sometimes, but — no one in court seemed to care where she wanted to go. "I sort of wish that I could live with both. Is that strange?"

Kaatjie was old enough to know that it was naive.

  

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set by Bee!!

Smiling at the compliment, Dean had always been of the opinion that conversing with native speakers was the best way to practice a language and so he was pleased to hear it wasn't that bad.

Her answer didn't surprise him as much as he thought it would. Actually it made perfect sense, so he said as much. "There's nothing wrong with that. You've grown up with your uncle and his family, your family, but getting to know your paternal family probably is something natural to want." Dean had grown up knowing so much of his extended family that he was used to having a wide net. This was similar, though he knew not the same, was there really ever too many people to love a child?

"Perhaps you should mention it," Dean's chance to say something was up, but he supposed he could mention it to Don Juan. Whenever this topic came up, it was often carefully avoided, so he wasn't sure how to bring it up, but he could try. "Having two sides to a family might be difficult, but surely not impossible." It was sort of like when you got married, you gained in-laws to also spend time with.

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