"I'll meet you back at the apartment," Jeane said once Cal's shift was over, leaning over to kiss him briefly before leaving.

Cal turned his attention to Khalid, dumping his apron off somewhere after getting the few tips he'd gotten out of there. "What do you need?"

"I need to know exactly how far you're willing to go for Jeane," Khalid replied frankly. Best to get straight to the point. "You and I both know that anything I'm able to do to change your genetics is only going to be a band-aid, so to speak. So I need to know if I should even try, or if I have to tell Jeane to figure something else out."

Cal was quiet for a few moments. Even a temporary fix was better than nothing, and might give them more time to explore other options. While he knew it was likely he'd end up Auphe at some point, he still didn't like the thought of it happening.

"Depends," he said after a moment. "How long are we talking? Days or years?"

"Hard to tell," Khalid replied carefully. "You know better than I do how ridiculously unpredictable the Auphe are. If I had to hazard a guess, I would say maybe a handful of years."

Years. Years were good. And even if it was only one year, it was still some time. Who knew, maybe Jeane would come up with some wild crazy idea and make it work. Because with her, one never knew.

After a few more moments, he nodded. He'd be willing to go through with that. Because he was not resigned to just turn Auphe some day, not if he could help it.

"I can't guarantee it will last years," Khalid warned. They both knew that if there was one thing the Auphe were good at, it was destroying everything in their way. "It might, but I can't promise it." She was quiet for a moment. "But for a little while, it will be possible for Jeane to get what she wants."

"How sure are you that it'll work?" Because that was the big problem. If he went through with this and gave Jeane what she wanted, he wanted to be really damn sure the kid wouldn't have any Auphe genes. At all.

"Caliban, there are only three things I can't touch," Khalid replied. "Time, death, and free will. Anything else is fair game." She paused for a moment, thinking. "There's no real telling how fast it will wear off, but I can most likely isolate the right genetic material and strip the Auphe out of it."

"Most likely," Cal said blandly, looking at her. Most likely wasn't good enough. If he was going to do this, he'd need to know for sure, not mostly, not good enough. For sure. 100%. No Auphe left. Because Auphe genes were extremely stubborn and if even a little was left...

"I don't dare strip it out of you entirely, Cal," Khalid said. "Not only will it hurt like a bitch, regardless, but something would still have to be done with it and I don't know what will be left of you afterwards. The best I can do is isolate what you would need and just strip that." And even that was just a temporary fix, she knew. Everything was just going to be a temporary fix.

Cal nodded after a moment. Okay. He could work with that. Even if it was only for a while, at least it would give Jeane what she wanted.

"Okay," he agreed quietly, looking at her.

Khalid nodded, but paused when her phone went off. That was unusual, hardly anyone ever called her unless it was for a job. She looked a bit wary when she saw Robin's name on the display.

"You go home and talk it over with Jeane," she said, distracted. "I think I need to head back."

Cal nodded and slipped off to go back to Jeane's apartment. They did have to talk now apparently. But god he hated these talks.

Robin barely waited for her to pick up. "Khalid, where are you?" he asked, still sounding a little bit shellshocked and a little bit confused.

Because, seriously, crossing a djinn with a peri? He wasn't sure if it was the worst idea ever or just freaking amazing.

"I stopped by the bar to have a bit of a chat with Cal," Khalid replied. "What's going on?" Because it certainly didn't sound like things were normal at home.

"It's-- it's-- oh you just have to get back here." Because there was no good way to explain with words what had happened. Especially not in a way that she'd believe.

Well, that didn't sound good. Hanging up (because teleporting herself around while it was on confused the poor thing into crashing), she popped herself home. The first thing she noticed when she got home was that she was not the only djinn in the house, and her first thought was that Alexander's magic must have come in. But the bottle that had been made for him was sitting on the shelf as always, which was strange.

"Robin?" she called. "Ishiah?"

"Up here," Robin called. He was standing in Alexander's room, leaning against a wall while Ishiah hovered over the boy, speaking quietly to him. Both of them had wings at the moment.

Khalid went upstairs to see what was going on and stopped in the doorway. She could see two peris in front of her, but when she reached out with her senses, she felt a peri and a djinn.

"This doesn't make any sense," she said softly, not wanting to startle Ishiah or Alexander.

"You're telling me?" Robin said quietly. "I came home to this." He waved a hand vaguely at the two. "Ish didn't warn me, either."

After a moment, Khalid quietly went into the room, over to the two peris.

"What's going on?" she asked softly.

"Teaching him how to put them back so people don't notice," Ishiah said quietly. "He got a little upset earlier, and this happened." He looked up at Khalid briefly, shifting Alexander so he could groom the boy's feathers more easily.

"Let me guess, he got upset, so this happened, which made him more upset, so something probably broke or exploded or something similar?" Khalid asked. She wanted to pick up her son and cuddle him, but she could wait until Ishiah was finished.

Ishiah nodded, gently folding back Alexander's wings. "That's about it. He seems okay now. He just hasn't figure out how to vanish them again yet."

"That's alright," Khalid said, picking Alexander up gently. The boy cuddled close to her. "We can keep him home for a little while." Softly, she murmured soothingly to the boy in old Arabic.

Ishiah nodded and checked once more to make sure Alexander wasn't going to start molting before he gave Khalid some time with him. Alexander would learn quickly how to show them as he liked, which was only somewhat comforting.