by TheTimeTrust
In the exercise room in the basement level of MBL Consulting's apartment complex, Kristofer "Chance" Schanz completed one hundred push-ups with his right arm before switching to his left for another hundred. After this, he would use some of the other new exercise equipment to warm up before his daily morning jog and swim.
The repetitive nature of exercise often lended itself to boredom, and boredom tended to created a vacuum that often led to thought and consideration. Chance was now thinking about how strange it had been when the team returned to the apartment building the night before. He shrugged it off as side-effects of the Castle of Crossed Destinies, which was strange like that and liable to leave a lasting mark on all of them.
Even stranger, though, was the state of his apartment when he returned to it. It was a complete mess. The floor was covered with stain spots here and there, not to mention a nasty burn mark in the corner. The small kitchen was devoid of both cutlery and food, except for a few pieces of food that looked months' past due (these he threw into a bag without looking at them too closely and tossed them outside with the rest of the trash).
The room that was in the worst state, though, was his bedroom. It looked like nothing more than an old storage room. The bed was completely unkempt with old sheets that appeared to be moth-eaten, and it was covered with trash. Little nicknacks and doodads, of the type one might find lying around on the street, seemed to be everywhere. There was a strange little rock collection on the dresser that seemed to be the only thing in the whole apartment in some semblance of order.
It took more than two hours that night for Kristofer to gather everything into a few boxes and toss them out with the rest of the trash, and then do some light vacuuming before replacing the soiled sheets from the linen supply closet elsewhere on the first floor. And it took a while to find a good set of clothes to set out and wear the next day; his closet seemed to have none of the new clothes he had bought after first arriving in La Perdita, but only the ones left there by the previous tenant. By the time he got to bed, he was all the more exhausted.
That was no excuse for sleeping in the next day, though, and getting a head start. So he returned to his usual routine of morning exercises, a daily ritual for the cleansing of mind and body, before getting back to work.
The state of his apartment had been strange, though. One possible explanation was that perhaps someone had been playing a practical joke on Chance. Maybe Sam Dawson had one of his friends set it up for him during the team's absence. Or perhaps Kit Piper had arranged this in order to make an ironic statement about Kristofer's cleanliness. Who knew? And who cared, anyway? All he could think about at this point was meeting Shirley Francis this afternoon for their daily lovemaking. And he knew it was time to finally tell Mick Harrison what was going on between him and Shirley. It just wouldn't be fair to his fellow teammate to keep it secret any longer. It was more than an affair. He and Shirley were in love.
Kristofer stopped his push-ups and took a deep breath, smiling as he thought about her. He reached into his pocket and held out the ring he'd been carrying with him for three weeks now. Perhaps today would be the day he would finally ask her to marry him.