listen we can be boring and just take this to mean “always been” as in post the archon quests OR we can make a bunch of headcanons instead such as:
1) they all meet up so much it feels like they’ve been doing it forever
2) these two were just fucking pretending they don’t know each other throughout the entire archon quest
3) alhaitham was being pedantic with “at the akademia” and despite being personal friends they fully separate their working selves and consider each other strangers in work matters
4) they’ve been meeting up as part of the friend group for forever but never actually talked to each other until this moment making it Extra Awkward™️
and literally so many more like the pathways this has opened up in my brain ughhh
seeing somebody else call it the ‘freedom au’ has confirmed to me that it is in fact hilarious thank you.
anyways. to answer your question, the safehouse would definitely be somewhere in like montana or wyoming. maybe even in yellowstone if daisy got SUPER illegal with it. just somewhere remote and far from the institute (which is in manhattan in this au because my friend thinks its the most evil area in new york)
also montana/wyoming kinda match the level of ‘this shit breathtaking’ as the scottish highlands imho
okay wait you HAVE to watch this, it's the bit before the ch2 beach party thing, holy crap i love gundham so MUCH he's hilarious, the actor did such a good job with portraying him oh my god look at how dramatic he is, and look at kaz's reactions omg please😭😭