Jennie absently stroked the fabric of the couch, thinking hard. So far, they hadn't been abused too badly in this War, with one or two exceptions (Maureen and Jamie, to be precise, and they would be brought back into the fold in due time). But as the Leader of The Pack (for the third time, thank you, and couldn't anyone else run the Pack for once?) she felt the need to do something else.
Right now, though, she'd just paint her toenails.
Amy wandered in clutching her water bottle, stepping carefully over a sleeping GT, and stopped cold when she saw what Jennie was doing. "Jennie? Why are you painting your toenails orange?"
Jennie stuck out one foot and wiggled her toes. "Isn't it pretty?"
Amy tried to make sense of that statement, failed, and took a long swig from her bottle. "I didn't realize you liked orange," she muttered, sitting down next to Jennie.
GT opened one eye halfway, grunted, and went back to sleep.
"I've been thinking," said Jennie. She started putting a second coat of the sparkly, bright orange polish on her toes. "I know that Dianne DeSha is a Merc..."
"She's the Grand High Poopah," Amy added with a slight hiccup.
"That's Poobah." Jennie sniffed, her eyes narrowing. "Amy? Are you drinking?" She grabbed the water bottle and took a swig, spitting it out explosively. "Ick! Amy, that's straight gin!"
"Yummy, ain't it?" Amy giggled. "There is a little lime in there, too. Vitamin C."
"But you don't drink, Amy..." Jennie's voice trailed off. This was War, after all, and no one in the Pack seemed to be behaving like they usually did. And every time she tried to make sense of any NatPack behaviour, it just gave her a really nasty headache.
Writing it off as some kind of War-Shock disease, Jennie continued. "Anyway, she's a Merc. But don' t you think that Dianne is really, deep down, a NatPacker?"
"Quite probably," said GT, sitting up and scaring both Jennie and Amy half to death. She wrapped her arms around her legs and leant her chin on her knees. "Didn't you tell me she bounced when you met her in Wisconsin?"
Jennie nodded emphatically. "Definitely bounced. And she has that pretty strawberry-blonde hair, and smiles exactly like me, and looks a little like me. She's NatPack, whether she admits it or not."
"Well, she won't defect," Amy said glumly. "She's buried her Pack tendencies so deep that they might never escape."
"That's fine. Not a problem." GT smiled. "We will just have to make her an honourary member of the Pack."
"Like Susan! And Tara!" squealed Jennie, delighted. "What should her honourary title be?"
The three NatPackers thought for a moment, interrupted only by Amy's occasional hiccup, until Jennie drew herself up into full Head of the NatPack height.
"I declare Dianne DeSha to be the Separated at Birth NatPacker," Jennie intoned solemnly. Amy and GT nodded in agreement.
"Now, we just have to tell her," Amy said. She took a long drink from her water bottle, as if to prepare herself.
"Maybe I can make her something orange as a welcome gift," Jennie said thoughtfully.
GT flopped back down onto the floor and went back to sleep.