The redhead leaves, giving Cillian Quinn too sharp of a smile as he passes.

Frey, meanwhile, tenses. The hands on his shoulders are heavy and unfamiliar. He sucks in a sharp breath and nares his teeth; a dog ready to bite.

The voice gives him pause. Frey doesn't even register what Balder Schwartz says.

Frey doesn't answer when Bakder sits, orders, speak to him. Frey sits there with wide eyes and a flat expression. His eyes roam over the other. Muscles. New scars. Fists are clenched tight in his lap.

"You." It's stilted, angry. Gritted out between his teeth. "Are dead"

Sudden, fat tears start in the corner of his eyes, drip down cheeks.

"You were dead"

Balder wants a beer in celebration. Frey ends up choking back a sob, drawing attention. He surges from his seat, cutlery clattering, and rounds the table to give his older brother a hug.

"I thought you were dead!" Repeated in disbelief. He squeezes Balder like he might vanish into thin air.

Balder Schwartz had had weeks to have it sink in that his family was alive. Frey was only just learning it now. While Rocket had summoned him as proof, no one had ever been that clear on why he was being relocated so suddenly. Even if Frey was Kantonian, belonged to Rocket in a different way, he wasn't in Rocket. It was too risky to let him know very many details.

So Frey just needed a few minutes to let that sink in, to sniffle it out. Then he was wiping his eyes on the back of his arm and sitting back. He still stuck close- like Balder might vanish again if he took his eyes off him for even a second. He does give a small nod in assurance.

Frey suddenly feels like he's four years old again. Balder had been the only one who was ever able to coax him to eat as a kid. For a while their parents had been worried he would grow up sickly or had something worse wrong with him; it was no wonder he grew up so scrawny, even if now Frey could out-eat most people triple his size.

"The last we heard you were off fighting, then you never came back." It wasn't so much that no one had told them Balder was dead. Just, without any info, they had assumed after a while. "You got bigger." Balder had always seemed larger than life in Frey's eyes, He had not just loved his older brother but also looked up to him, used him as a role model.

"The last thing we heard was you went to fight." Frey repeated. Nothing else after. Frey wasn't dumb. He knew that in Kanto they just didn't learn certain things. Also, their parents had most likely shielded them from some stuff... war was hard in a lot of ways. Didn't want to make it even harder emotionally.

Picking up a fork, he picked at his pancakes again. They were cold now. That was okay- he was hungry. A sigh as he stuffed a bite in his mouth, chewed slowly. Maybe Frey was the worst one to have brought out. Freya would have probably been all over Balder Schwartz. Frey had always been the more reserved one; some people even said he was cold. Right now, he wished he was more like his sister or even their mom. Then he couldn't feel so weird about wanting to just hug his older brother and stick to him like glue.

"I'm glad you're okay." Is what he finally settled on, wanting his brother to know he did care, even if he was bad at it.

The pancakes he made short work of; between the two of them, they could probably run this place out of business if they brought out the eggs and bacon.

"Mom and Dad kind of do the same stuff as before. I guess we know what dad's real job is now. Oh, and mom got really into, uh, model cars? The house is filled with them. She started buying cheap ones and giving them like kids around town when she finished them. I think she just likes building them." He was happy it gave her something to do. "Freya got scouted by Kanto's Official Water Polo team! She's really good! Best in the Region! I'm still doing competitive swimming and diving. They had plans for both of us to do international, but Kanto hasn't been invited to stuff outside the Region." The equivalent of whatever the Olympics were in this universe.

He pushed his fork around the syrup on the plate.

"What have you been doing?"