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It's been about a week for Cal since he was last here, which is the second-longest period of time he's gone without finding a Door since he moved to his new world. He's been okay with that, though - after the conversations he had during that bartending session, he needed the breather.

He's glad enough to take this Door when he finds it, though, and is soon at a table with his usual raktajino.

[OOC: Please ping/PM before tagging; I haven't the brain space for a full-blown EP. Thanks!]

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He's on his way back from the bar when he spots Cal, and Sam changes direction to pass by his table.

"Hey, Cal. How's it going?"

Cal gives him a smile.

"Hey, Sam! I'm pretty good. I haven't seen you in a while." That's something that tends to be worth mentioning in Milliways. The way things work around here, after all, their last conversation could have been yesterday for Sam.

"I get the impression time goes a lot faster around here than it does for us," Sam observes. "But yeah, it's been a while for me too."

He lifts his coffee cup in a half-salute.

"But good, you said?"

"It does for me, too," Cal says. Not that he watches the calendar here as closely as he could. (He hasn't even noticed yet that he missed X's birthday.)

"Have a seat," he adds, gesturing to a chair at his table. "Yeah. I've been doing volunteer work at the shelter where I got Penny. I like it. It's nice to have something to do." He hadn't realized how much he'd needed that. The sense that he's doing something constructive is another step toward feeling truly at home in the world he still thinks of as new, and is only just beginning to sometimes think of as his.

Sam grins.

"First you adopt one, then you start working with them..."

Cal laughs. This isn't the first time he's heard that line of logic.

"I have a one-dog household," he says. "That's it."

He isn't bothered by little superstitions like famous last words.

"Uh-huh."

It looks like Sam isn't entirely sure whether he should buy this or not.

"If you say so."

"I say so," Cal says, firm but amused.

And if the shelter only dealt with dogs, that might even mean something.

"Okay then."

He takes a sip of coffee, then gives Cal a bland look over the cup.

"Guess you'll just have to keep getting your extra puppy fix at the shelter."

Cal rolls his eyes good-naturedly.

"Shouldn't be a problem," he says. "So how've you been?"

Sam shrugs.

"Same old, same old, pretty much."

"With the investigating?" Cal asks.

Though presumably not the demonic possession. One would hope that would not be something Sam personally encounters a lot.

One would hope, and yet.

"Yeah."

Sam takes another sip of coffee.

"Still not that exciting?" Cal guesses dryly.

He kind of thinks perhaps it's the opposite. He's already figured out that there's more to Sam than is allowed to meet the eye.

"Sometimes it gets a little too exciting," Sam admits. "There was a girl who'd gone missing in the latest job -- she's okay now, though."

"That's good," Cal says. "Happy endings are nice when you can get 'em." And rarer in some worlds than in others, he knows.

"You're right about that."

"I thought it was supposed to be this perfect fantasy."

"It wasn’t. It was just a wish. I wished for Mom to live. And Mom never died, we never went hunting, and you and me just never... you know."

He sounds a little grim, for some reason.

Cal glances at him.

"You know something weird," he says after a moment, "is they're easier to come by on my new world than they were before. On the old one. Things just - work out better, a lot of the time. I don't know why."

"Sounds to me like that's a sign you picked a good world," Sam replies.

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