Jason starts to figure things out

Jason's entire drive home is done on mental autopilot. What the hell had happened back there, with Kaylee? He plays around with his wedding band, sure he now has a duplicate. The one Kaylee had given him had clear scratches around it, and he had quickly realized that it had been kicked around the garbage disposal. He puts it in his cup holder, deciding to keep this new ring he found instead since it's scratch free and looks nearly identical.

Finally he pulls up in the drive way and goes in. The moment the door opens he's met with shouting. "Don't fuckin' worry about it, Mom! The homework isn't due until Friday!" his youngest daughter, Dina says. Tensions around the house had been high, lately. Well, throughout the last couple years of Dina's teenager-hood. The moment she turned 18 things got worse, with her deciding that being a legal adult meant she got to do whatever she wanted.

"But don't you think it would be better to get started on it now?" Jason's wife, Willow, pleads. As a teacher, this was the kind of thing she would often argue with her kids about. While she knew that students so often procrastinated, it was so outside her nature that she can't really wrap her head around it. Jason comes in and sets his things down, silently walking into his room to change, ignored by his family. He can hear the shouting just fine across the house. He wishes that his oldest, Aubrey were here. She was always a good mediator. At the same time he's glad Steven isn't here since he'd probably make it worse. He changes slowly, hoping it'll die down before _he _has to go out and be the mediator.

No sign of stopping, he reenters the living room and says, "Hi guys, I'm home. Maybe you two could give your vocal chords a break and..." he realizes that no one is listening to him. He realizes this, because Willow is actively shouting over his words. He rubs his cheek, too used to their fighting to be more than a little irritated. "Would you two just calm down?" he asks, more to himself and too softly for them to be able to hear.

It's like he turned a switch off, the way the two women immediately stopped shouting. Their expressions change to one of neutrality, then joy when they finally notice him. "Oh good, you're home," Willow says with a smile, looking on the husband she's loved for nearly 30 years.

"Wait, hang on, you two were just fighting. What just... what changed?"

His daughter shrugs. "Got tired of fighting, I guess. Anyway, can we have dinner now?" She goes to the table, not waiting for a reply.

"Yeah, Honey, it's no big deal, let's go eat," Willow says reassuringly and leads him to the table.

Jason is confused but goes along with what the two women want. First Kaylee was acting strangely, now these two. Just a weird day? He's suspicious that it seems to be things that he wants that are so odd, or at least things he prefers. He takes a plate and serves himself dinner. "So how was school today Dina?" he asks before following it up with her least favorite question in the world, "did you learn anything?"

Dina rolls her eyes. "Of course I did, Dad, it's school." Which is one of her stock responses. But she really had. For a class at the end of the year, she'd actually learned quite a bit. Things she wished she had before AP exams came up, even.

"Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean." But he decides not to press or give her a hard time. "How about you, dear, did _you_ learn anything in school?" he asks his wife. Again, his standard joke question that he always found funny. ('Get it, because she works in a school?' he might follow up with if no one responds. And yes, they always got it the first time.)

"Actually, yes. I was kind of embarrassed not to know already, but I learned something about Victor Hugo today from one of my students. Did you know that he had sex with hundreds of women per year?" This is the first time she ever had an answer to this question. Most of the time, whether she did or not, she didn't give it any thought.

"Woah," says Dina, actually impressed.

"Don't you go taking after Victor Hugo. Well, maybe the writing classic novels thing. How's your novel going anyway?" Jason asks. The conversation continues on from there, settling into their regular family dynamic, and delightfully calm for the evening.