Participants:
| Scene Title | She Just Wanted to Help |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Sometimes being a good Samaritan doesn't pay off, and Delia Ryans suffers from her relation to her father… |
| Date | May 10, 2010 |
Double doors burst open, wheels squeak and a man's voice carries down the crowded halls past sick and injured spilling over from waiting rooms. "White male, John Doe, mid twenties! Blunt force trauma to the head, severe frostbite to hands and face, unresponsive when we picked him up! No idea how long he's been out!" Wheeling the gurney in from the hall, a fatigued looking paramedic intructs the stretched thin hospital staff of the patient's condition.
Laid out on the gurney is a motionless man in his twenties, eyes shut and face blackened from the kiss of frostbite. When the orderlies begin pulling the gurney away from the EMT, he slouches forward, resting his gloved hands on his knees and just stands there in the hall, breathing heavy with shoulders rising and falling from labored breaths.
Through the doorway and visible for only a moment as the doors swing shut, his partner waits with uniformed NYPD officers, explaining the situation in which they found the young man. Admittedly, the weakly breathing man on that gurney should be dead, should've succumed to his injuries where Peter Petrelli and Johann found him laying on the side of the road two blocks from the hospital.
The small scar beside Peter's left ear and the blackened of his fingertips hidden by his gloves is the price he paid for saving the young man's life. Scars born of the twisted healing power he'd taken from Sasha Kozlow. Faltering, Peter's brows twitch, his knees buckle, and in front of a group of seven refugees from the weather occupying benches in the middle of the halls, Peter Petrelli collapses.
It's the first thing Delia Ryans sees when she emerges from the room just a few steps behind where he stands, watching him lay a gloved hand on the wall to try and keep himself up. People shouldn't go for as long as he has without sleep.
Everyone else is just staring, no one is lending a hand.
It's perhaps the fact that everyone's staring that has the young redhead getting angry. "Don't just stand there! Someone grab him a chair!" When no one moves, she grabs one of the empty wheelchairs and pushes it behind the staggering man. She locks the wheels into place and then rushes around to take him by the arms and ease him into it.
The man she's helping looks fatigued, something she's able to help, she's not actually authorized to take on much more than traffic control and minor injuries. "Hey Mister.. uhhh.. Petrelli, just relax here a bit. I'll get you a blanket."
Like him, she looks plenty tired. She's been picking up shifts left and right, like most of the staff, she's been on a 24 hour rotation and then some. There's too much work and not enough helping hands to get much done. Turning, she heads toward one of the medical carts and pulls a thermal blanket out of the bottom, then she returns and covers him with it. "Lemme wheel you to the staff bay. You can grab a couple zee's there, 'kay?"
Let his paperwork wait, it's much more dangerous to have someone who's falling down out trying to save lives.
Having tried in vain to collect himself after being seated in the wheelchair, it's only when Delia returns and draped the blanket over him and begins wheeling that Peter makes a response. There's a kiss of breath that hisses out of his mouth against his dark red scarf, then a look of confusion in his eyes as his hands grip the arms of the wheelchair and legs seem to reflexively kick. When they move, when he realizes that he isn't paralyzed again, there's a slow, shuddering breath that escapes from him.
Wide, brown eyes flick left and right, and Peter's turning to look up at the redhead wheeling him down the corridor. "I— I'm fine…" he protests against the dark circles and sunken quality of his eyes. The tremor in his right hand is hidden by gloved fingers clutching at the arm of the wheelchair again.
"Fine isn't really the word for what you are, Mister." Delia mutters close to his ear as she pushes him along the hallway toward the ER staff room. There, they have a few beds set up for the clinical staff to take short rests on between trauma's. The entire hospital has been on Dr. Aster status since the blizzard got worse, in a word, it's bad. "They're going to take you right off rotation if you don't take a quick breather. You can't just stumble around the halls like that… you should know better."
She's lecturing him? Damn right she is.
"Just take a fifteen or thirty. They got other people working search and rescue, they're not going to miss one body." Out there, they might, but staff wise? They're not. Maybe.
"Usually I wait for the second date before I let a woman boss me around," Peter wearily jokes, managing something of a half-hearted laugh as he looks up over his shoulder to Delia. Considering his gloves for a moment, he hesitates on taking them off and instead draws the blanket off of his lap, wrapping it over one arm before pushing up slowly and carefully from the wheelchair.
He's quiet, for a moment, just taking in the relative silence of the room and the flickering hum of the lighting before he tries to speak again. "I should know better," he admits, and it's not just to the commentary of his current worn-down condition, "you're right." Throwing the blanket down onto the cot, Peter carefully eases himself down onto the edge, then hunches forward and rests his arms over his knees. "What's your n— "
The door bursts open with the slap of a palm, and a broad-shouldered and thick-necked man dressed in an EMTs uniforn offers a blue-eyed stare to Delia. Peter nearly rises to sit up straight, and the look he offers the grizzled looking man is one of familiarity, but also something more confused. "Ryans?" He looks from Peter to Delia, "You mind giving me a hand with something? I've been waiting like twenty minutes, it'll be real quick."
It's an odd request, and an unfamiliar EMT, but with all of the chaos unfamiliar faces aren't unusual. His winter jacket, still zipped up partway, is hiding his nametag. Peter tenses just a little, and offers him a subtle nod of his head, but it's a wordless greeting.
"Ah ha ha…" Delia goes along with the joke, though her voice is of a monotonous sort, she's got a weary little smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. "Yer a bit old, aren't ya?" That was her joke back to him, after all, he's tired and probably looking a million years older than he actually is.
She locks the wheels of the chair in place before Peter kicks out of it and once he's at the bed, she quickly flips the levers back and folds the chair. They'll be needing it at the triage desk, along with any others that she finds along the way. But then the door bursts open and interrupts that train of thought.
Looking toward the unfamiliar EMT, Delia offers a small smile and a nod. "Yeah, sure…" She's here to help, after all. She starts out in a jog to follow the man. "Hope it's not something I'll get in trouble for." She looks up to the blue eyed man with a tired looking smile and slows when she's finally crossed the room and reached his side.
"Nah, you're not in any trouble. Somebody else is, but not you." There's a toothy smile from the burly EMT before he offers a wary look to Peter, and the tired paramedic just offers a silent, somewhat sheepish wave to Delia while watching the other, larger man rest a hand on her shoulder and let her vacate the room first. The two share a look, but it's a wordlessly tense one, before the tall paramedic shuts the door with a click and offers a look to Delia.
"I just need help with something out at the truck, be real quick, cross my heart." There's a flick of fingers across the paramedic's chest as he starts to tread black, booted feet down the hall, then turns at the waist in his long stride and looks back over his shoulder to Delia. "C'mon, I just wanna' get back out on the road…" his smile grows a bit wider, "don't worry your head none."
Nodding quickly, Delia grabs a heavy coat from near the ambulance bay doors and she throws it on. Her hands are bare, but she's only going to be out there a few minutes, it can't hurt… too much. Glancing back toward the Unit Secretary's desk, she gives the woman a wave and she heads out after the EMT. It's the constant reassurance that has the girl looking quizzically up at him. "It's okay, really…"
Giving him a grin, she tucks her hands into the pockets of the oversized coat and hunches against the oncoming cold. There's two sliding doors between the young redhead and the blistering cold, she's not looking forward to stepping out there, she hasn't been outside in days. Not even to take a breath of fresh air. "Tell you the truth, it'd be great to be out there with you guys. Maybe… except for the cold."
"You think so?" he offers back over his shoulder with a grin, "Yeah, it's pretty crazy out there. Never know what you're gonna' run yourself into, you know?" on his way out to the ambulance bay, the paramedic shoulders though a door, holding it open for Delia and letting her walk ahead of him. It's surprisingly quiet out here, though given how many ambulances are out and on the street — as best as they can be — at the moment it's not surprising. One lone ambulance rests backed up only halfway into the bay, doors wide open and the sleet coming down from the dark clouds overhead pelting off of its roof.
When Delia moves out past him, he takes a quick step in behind her and makes no noise before she feels the sharp smack of something metal striking the back of her head, causing blossoming spots of light in her vision and immediate disorientation that accompanies blinding pain as she strikes the freezing cold concrete floor.
Pistol in hand, the paramedic calls out, "Frankie! Fuck man do I have to do fucking everything?" The hit should have knocked her out, should've sent what is now just a swimming near unconscious mind totally into the dark. But there's two things that this man hasn't accounted for today; one of them is that Delia is a Ryans, and the Ryans family never goes down without a fight.
The other, well— he'll find out soon enough.
Tunnel vision, it's what the text books say happens when you're about to black out. It's a strange sensation and Delia turns her head to look at the EMT, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. She can't seem to make her mouth move to speak, Why?
She's so tired, she just wants to sleep but something inside of her screams to get up, a voice that she listens to. Daddy? Daddy, I can't make my arms move… Ever so slowly, her eyes drift partially closed and she's left with the vision of the large man's shoes. Daddy, I'm so tired… please just five more minutes… I don't want to go to school today. Her breathing slows, the tunnel toward the man's shoes just grows a little dimmer but the lights don't get turned out. Not yet.
"Frankie what the f— " it's with a gnash of teeth that the gun-toting man in EMT's clothing cuts off his call for his partner's help. Turning towards where Delia has been laid out on the concrete floor, he grabs her by the wrist, hoists her body up and slings that arm around his shoulders. Dragging her towards the van, there's a scowl on his face, toothy as it is. "You know," he mumbles to her, breathing heavily as he drags her weight towards the back of the ambulance, "your old man's a big fuckin' pain in my ass for making me do this you know? This ain't nothing personal, it's just business. I'm sure you'll un'nerstand."
Walking backwards up into the back of the ambulance, the mercenary hauls Delia up inside, letting her feet clunk on the way up and in. She's laid down on the floor of the ambulance, pistol trained down at her as a fuzzily close muzzle hovering somewhere between both eyes. "Frankie I sweat to christ if you're asleep again I will break your fucking— "
When the mercenary turns around, his wide-eyes stare listlessly as the arterial red dappled across the windshield. Brows twitch in confusion, but it's the dark, slinking frame perched between the seats like a panther hunched down on a high rock that has his eyes growing wide in confusion. "Oh fuck me."
Her smile is the same red.
A Ryans never goes down without a fight. You couldn't really ask anyone that and get the same answer, though there are a select few that know exactly why that is. Maybe it is a little bit physical, maybe it is a little bit blood, maybe it is just that from an early age they had taught themselves to be persistent. Huruma knows firsthand the tenacity of the clan.
She also knows Trouble when she smells it on the air.
Coiled mere feet from the fake technician, Huruma's knuckles knead one set of slippery red fingers against the crest of the passenger seat. Between either of those black pleather chairs, the woman is tensed like a monstrous spider- legs and arms and fingers- boring eyes and shining teeth. Frankie, the accomplice, is torn open in the driver's seat, what is left of his neck dribbling down the edge of the ambulance wheel and into a pile on his cold lap. His blood seems dvided between soaking the glass and soaking the front of the dark woman's coat. A reverberation touches the air, her lungs filling, exhaling in a boisterous purr.
"…Will you walk into m'parlour?" Said the Spider to the Fly.
A spray of blood that hits the floor in front of her colors Delia's black and white world, like the pink coat in Schindler's List. Hey Dad… Dad… Remember that time we saw that picture in the store? With the little boy giving the little girl that tulip? This color is the same color of red. Pretty neat, huh? The voice in her head is silent now, the void filled by an ache in her heart as she realizes that her life may be over.
Hi Huruma, did you just eat that guy? For real? The curiosity fills her entire being, she doesn't seem surprised. Perhaps the knock on her head is the reason. It's her voice that gives her away. Slowly, the color of the blood spreads and Delia's world takes on dull colors. Damn it's cold outside, I think my face is freezing to the floor…
Moments like this make the world seem to go in slow motion, make everything seem to happen in staccato like someone had turned on a strobe light. That very unfortunate mercenary feels his weight shift to his back foot, right arm lifting up the heavy barrel of his handgun towards the predator hunched over the seat backs.
Breath sucks in followed by a single heartbeat.
Gloved fingers twitch against the smoothed gunmetal trigger, blue eyes grow wide and pupils shrink to pin-prick points, adrenaline boils up through thick veins, one hand trembles like a scared child, jaws muscles go slack and the throat works to vocalize something that might be the beginning of a scream as that one breath is exhaled.
Then his heart beats for a second time.
Everything afterward is a blue of motion and sounds, six rapid-fire reports of the handgun fired in close proximity, muzzle flash brightening the dark interior of the ambulance, punching holes in the windshield and seats. When a black mass leaps from the seats and lands atop his body like a striking viper leaping from coiled readiness, the mercenary trips over Delia's prone form, tumbles back out of the ambulance with her atop him.
His head strikes the concrete after the fall, gun goes flying from limp fingers and spins across the floor before whacking against a metal pole that goes from floor to ceiling. His arms give a spastic twitch, blood darkens the cold concrete behind the back of his head, and the hunched figure atop him has fingers curled into the thermal fabric of his winter jacket.
It won't be long before someone responds to the sound of gunshots.
The ache in Delia's heart subsides for a flutter of a moment, replaced strikingly by a molten droplet of something new and fresh- fear replaced with a hot courage- but only that single drop. Do with it what you will.
The frigid winter outside stings at bared skin when Huruma strikes and sends both predator and prey back out of the ass-end of the weighty truck. She does not need to influence him into his deathful fright. It seems that presence was more than enough to not only make him aim terribly- but also become so disoriented that it is the span of seconds before he feels the back of his skull tearing asunder on the frozen cement. The dark woman's face contorts, nostrils flaring and lips curling back to allow an audible snarl to filter out. Bitterness in the lack of a fight finds her long fingers latching onto the man's forehead, pulling back and slamming the fissure of his skull into the ground.
When she rises, it is quick and fluid; Huruma's spine is towards Delia, until her head and shoulders twist slowly around to consider the picture laid before her. The pistons of Huruma's heels push her back towards the ambulance, long arms reaching out to shift the redheaded young woman onto her right side. The girl will feel a slight wash of concocted relief around her shoulders, like a warm blanket.
"Your father an'I are going t'ave words." Huruma's voice is like a hummingbird's wings in Delia's ear.
It's like a hug from mom, that blanket of emotional warmth gives Delia's heart a little flutter of relief. She blinks slowly, indicating that she's heard the fearsome giant but she still doesn't say much. Dad… Dad… Huruma saved me, did you see it? I think she ate someone. When her eyes open again, after the third blink, her world has turned technicolor again. The vibrant colors clouded only by the soft cloud of her own breath.
"Huuuu — Huruuuma?" she whimpers, her head is simply pounding. The swelling on the back of her head where the metal hit her is a bit alarming, the skin is a bit broken but the blood has already frozen in her hair. "Why?" she mules, her voice barely above a whisper. "I just wanted to help.."
At this degree of nearness, the smell of mixed blood and of some strange perfume on Huruma's coat is telltale; her voice is like a velvet curtain, drawing slow and heavy. "You will. But no'today. Sssh…" Delia is hushed, and Huruma's palm can be felt gingerly tracing the arc of her skull and forehead. Once Huruma is fairly certain that there will be no bleeding out, her hand moves once more to lie over the girl's cheek, the sides of her fingers leaving lines of red.
"Until next time, jana." And then her hand is gone, and so is her shadow.
Which is timely, given the crash of the doors opening out into the ambulance bay. Two uniformed police officers, flashlight under pistol step out into the hangar. There's confusion evident in their eyes when they see the EMT laying battered on the floor, blood pooled out behind his cracked skull while the other officer notes the gun discarded by his side. There's a hiss of breath in shock and a moment of pause, right up until Delia is seen sprawled out in the back of the truck.
One officer tucks away his flashlight and hustles over to the ambulance while the other tucks her light away and reaches up to click on the walkie at her shoulder, hunching against the cold with shoulders rolled forward. "This is Piper, I've got people down in response to the shots fired at St.Luke's, how soon can you get someone over here?" Gun lowered, the female officer moves with a slow gait over to where her partner is, looking down at the prone body of the EMT, then up to Delia in the back of the ambulance.
«No ETA on response, weather's got all our choppers grounded, soon as we know a clear road out we'll have someone out there.» The officer nods, though it's with a shake of her head in the same motion, moving to climb up into the ambulance, spotting the spray of gore over the windshield and the eviscerated man sitting in the driver's seat.
"Oh— sweet God what— " her eyes are wide, dark brown circles staring unblinkingly at the sight before her. Holes in the windshield, panicked spray of bullets, nothing makes sense. She takes a knee by Delia's side, looking her over, then reaches up shakily to the radio at her shoulder.
"This is Piper, you're going to— call DHS. I think we— I don't even know." It's the most honest answer she can give.
Still not moving except for the shivers that are taking over her body, Delia watches the officer make her call. "…I just… I just wanted to help.." she murmurs softly, at least one of the victims is still alive. The pounding in her brain is only aleviated when she closes her eyes, she's so tired, sleep seems like such a welcome response to the knock on the head.
Moving her hand, she tries to pick herself up off the metal floor of the ambulance. It's so cold, the frigid temperatures outside making her hands turn white as soon as they touch the metal. At least she can still feel them, that's what she told the man the other night, right?
The huff of breath that comes from Delia's lips is hot unlike the icy sting of the air that's breathed in moments afterward. She's shaking violently and barely able to pick herself up. Just need to get warm…
"Take it easy— take it easy…" Officer Piper states in a firm, though slightly shaken up tone of voice, laying a gloved hand down on Delia's shoulder. Her brown eyes take in the gore at the fore of the ambulance, then settle back down on Delia, rising up enough to open up one of the sliding drawers in the back of the ambulance and remove the silvery thermal blanket from within. It's unfurled, wrapping out around the redhead's shoulders, and in the background, Piper's partner can be heard chattering on his radio.
"Just calm down and relax, you've hit your head pretty bad," Piper notes with a glance to the dark, wet spot in the back of Delia's hair, "just relax. We're going to get you inside, we're going to get you inside— you're safe." Though when officer Piper says that, her brown eyes settle on the gore smear again, and her throat tightens. Is whatever animal that did that still here?
No, no it's not. But it will be back, and it will want an explanation.
So will the lion of the Ryans family that will arrive on the heels of this.
They'll all get what they want.
All in due time.