Snoopy Come Home

Participants:

emily_icon.gif julie_icon.gif

Scene Title Snoopy Come Home
Synopsis Emily makes the walk of shame after disappearing without a trace.
Date December 15, 2018

Elmhurst

Julie and Emily's apartment


They'd started the return drive before dawn at Emily's request. The hope was she could slip in at home and have enough time to assess before facing Julie. Being out of contact for four days, not being at home, cell out of service … for someone who'd insisted on signing up for GhostNet immediately to help better keep in touch with each other and the world around them, Emily already knows the lack of contact is inexcusable.

So maybe that's why she's still not practiced a cover story, not really, even up to the moment she slides her key into the lock just after sunrise. Her crutches are held in her other hand, and it still is beyond belief that she doesn't need them. She could have just left them behind, but she couldn't bring herself to. The front door is pushed open slowly after unlocking it, Emily slipping in as quickly and quietly as possible. Her crutches are laid against the wall, checked for balance, and then slowly let go of as she turns to look across the apartment and judge its state.

There's a slam from Julie’s room, or more aptly a crash. The rapid thump of feet on hardwood floors comes next, followed by the crash of her bedroom door slamming open. Julie skids on socked feet and pauses only long enough to see Emily standing beside her crutches. Julie has her phone in a death grip in her hands, her eyes are red and puffy, face flushed.

Where the fuck have you been!?” Julie screams, looking both relieved and furious in the same breath. “I've— been calling for fucking days! I called the MPs, I fucking— borrowed a car to drive around to— to— what the fuck!?

Her wide eyes rapidly assess the lack of injury on Emily, the lack of dirt on her face, no duct tape on her wrists. No sign of trauma. No sign of abuse. No sign of illness. No excuse.

Emily flinches as she hears the immediate movement, one hand holding up before her as she tries to prepare any words. Any at all. Seeing Julie practically come pinwheeling out of the bedroom stops her short, though there probably was no stopping her cousin to begin with. Hands still held up before her, a sound escapes Emily as she starts to explain where she's been, cut off by the rest of the yelling.

The clock in the kitchen reads 7:24 AM, and Emily's realizing the weight of guilt for worrying Julie is only going to get worse the longer the day goes on. I'd been worried about calling this early. Waking her up. God, that was fucking stupid of me. She doesn't look like she's slept at all.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." She takes a step forward, another aborted sentence fragment barely escaping her. There's not even the slightest wobble after she moves away from the wall, no signs of her needing any support at all. She's practically cringing regardless. "I didn't have any time — I, fuck, I didn't know I'd be gone. I didn't know until too late. Julie, I'm so fucking sorry."

You didn't have any time!?” Julie shouts back, closing the distance to Emily quickly. “I have to be at the hospital in twenty minutes and I haven't slept since yesterday morning!” There's resentment, fury, and concern fighting for dominance behind her eyes. “And you don't have any time!?”

Spitting mad, Julie grabs Emily by the shoulders with an uncomfortable firmness. “Where were you? Who were you with?” Desperation joins the other emotions jockeying for supremacy. There's tears in her eyes, streaming down her cheeks, dribbling off her chin. “I thought you were dead.”

"I thought I'd be back," Emily apologizes, her brow knitting. Her hands come up to hold onto Julie's in an attempt to calm her down. "By morning at the latest." Eyes close for a moment as she fights to keep her nerve from being shaken.

"Jersey." she forcefully says, instead of breaking down into another apology. "I didn't have any signal because I got dragged to the middle of fucking nowhere in Jersey. Someone I met said they knew a healer and—" Well, she's not dead, because she's here, even if she feels like dying at seeing how upset Julie is. "I was with her the whole time. With Berlin. I'd met her at the library before and she'd…" Emily shifts her weight under Julie's grip, posture starting to crumple. She momentarily loses the fight in trying to explain, becoming more preoccupied with how to go about fixing this.

"I'm sorry," she repeats, failing to lift her voice to a normal conversational level. "God, Julie, I'm sorry. I never meant to—"

Berlin?” Julie’s brows furrow, eyes narrowed, “Berlin Beckett?” Apparently she knew exactly who Emily was talking about. “Why the fuck was Berlin Beckett in New Fucking Jersey? She’s Wolfhound, she lives in Rochester which is six hours away!” Breathing in sharply, Julie’s eyes are red around the edges, new tears welling up in them. That she’s mad is obvious, but that she’s relieved Emily is okay is also there. They are complex tears.

“Why— ” Julie suddenly cuts herself off, looking Emily up and down, pupils widening and then narrowing unnaturally. “Is she? Is that what her ability is? Can she help you?” Then, exasperatedly, “Did she help you?

"She—" Emily's so caught off guard by Julie being on the nose any attempt at misdirection goes flying out the window. She catches the quick scan and in a moment of apparent bravery steps back from Julie. Looking down at her feet, she goes through the simple motion of rocking on her heels, and then comes back down without losing her balance. When she glances back up, brushing her hair from her face, she looks uncertain, but certainly not unsteady.

"Yeah," she whispers incredulously. "Yeah, she helped me. Jules, I don't—" A glance back at the crutches, and then with a giddy shrug and shake of her head she looks back to her cousin. "I don't need 'em anymore." After a beat, she confesses with the blanched expression of someone who's been blindsided, "I don't know what the fuck I'm going to do." Emily's never been a blind-faith sort of person. This wasn't something she thought to be real, or possible, until it happened.

“You’re going to the hospital for tests,” Julie flatly asserts, “because she’s not registered as a healer and we have no idea of the long-term repercussions of her modifying your fucking genetics!” It isn’t that she’s mad, it’s that Julie is now flat-out afraid. Her face flushes red and she steps forward to grab Emily by the shoulders.

“Do you know why Sasha has to take those injections? Why he’s registered SLC-E but he never uses his ability?” Julie’s fingers pinch into Emily’s shoulders. “Because his ability hurts people. He can seal a wound, close a cut, but it disfigures people. Emily, you let someone — unsupervised — tamper with your genetic code. You don’t have a broken arm or a bullet wound, you have a genetic disorder. Emily, this is serious.”

Then, hotly, Julie asks. “Was your idiot father behind this?”

Her brow starts to furrow as she looks down at her hands, something seizing inside of her as she mentally walks herself through going out the door with Julie to the hospital. The thought of tests that would follow. No. she recoils with every fiber of her being. No, she was supposed to be fine now, she wasn't supposed to have to—

"I was going to have—" Emily starts to defend herself, looking up, but stops short. Her intent doesn't matter. Lene didn't go first. It's a hollow statement to try and make as a result.

"Yeah, it is serious." She echoes, the statement void of discernable emotion. Serious. Reckless. Already done, at any rate.

She only shakes her head at Julie's question, any other response currently caught under a conflux of emotions that play out on her face. Irritation for assuming, relief she'd apparently not called him to know for sure, guilt because there's no one to blame this on but herself. "It… no," she manages.

"Julie, there could be something, but what if this is it? I feel better than I ever remember being. Better than I knew could be possible. I woke up this morning and I didn't hurt and—" she didn't think she could stand for this to be temporary. Emily blinks hard, trying to cut the sudden sting in them. She looks away and then back.

"I don't know if it's an ability or something else she used. It sounded like whatever it is — it moves between people." She shakes her head ever so slightly. "They called it a Conduit. There's a black one and a white one." Emily shakes her head, almost pleading, "Julie, maybe everything will be fine."

“Would you mind filing this amendment for me, dear?”

Julie stares at Emily, her expression flattening and lips parting in wordless expression of uncertainty. “What,” is a whisper. “What did you say?”

Turning in his chair, Doctor Jean-Martin Luis slips a few files into a manilla folder and hands them across the desk to a young blonde girl waiting patiently nearby. Julie takes the folder, turning it over to look at the name printed across the tab at the top: N. LEROUX. Blue eyes flick up expectantly to Luis.

“A recent acquisition from the Retriever teams,” Luis explains, taking a moment to scoot in his desk chair over to Julie. “We believe she possesses a necrotizing and also rejuvenative ability similar to those originally possessed by Kazimir Volken and Abigail Beauchamp.” He takes the file from her, and Julie leans in to look over his shoulder, chin atop his head.

Luis flips the file open, revealing a document describing flesh necrotizing with a black and white photograph of a dark handprint seared into human flesh. “We can’t be certain if this is the same as the so-called Conduits Beauchamp and Volken possessed,” Luis closes the file and looks up at Julie as she steps back, “but what if it was? Wouldn’t that be fascinating?”

Conduit?” Julie asks with a shaky voice, struck motionless by recollection.

There were times Emily wished she had already manifested. Specifically, times she wished she knew where exactly it was Julie went when she disappeared into her thoughts, weighed down by something Emily would never know or understand. She blinks twice, hesitant at just why Julie seems so off-guard about the term.

"Yeah," she confirms as casually as she can, trying to pass for nonchalant. "That's just what they called it. I'm sure it was just…"

Before she fully trails off, she takes a half-step in toward Julie, her hands lifting up to hers again. "Jules, what's wrong?"

“Nothing,” is a lie and Emily knows it. “It’s— nothing.” The anger in Julie’s voice begins to fade, blue eyes fixed squarely on Emily and she takes a sharp step in and wraps her arms around her cousin and pulls her into a ferociously tight embrace. Burying her face in Emily’s shoulder, Julie lets out a frustrated noise and shakes her head slowly.

“If you ever scare me like that again,” Julie whispers against Emily’s shoulder, “I’m going to lock you in a plastic bubble forever.” She can’t pull herself away, and Emily can feel how heavy Julie feels against her, fatigue both physical and emotional having taken its toll on her. “You’re all I’ve got.” Where Sasha falls in that goes unsaid.

Emily would press for more of an explanation, but the hug cuts her short. She places a hand on the back of Julie's head, holding onto her just as firmly and closing her eyes. "Come on, at least make it one of those giant inflatable hamster balls instead." she deflects softly, swaying into the hug, her hand moving to rub Julie's back reassuringly instead. Her eyes are distant when they open again, staring off at a fixed point. "I love you too, Julie." she murmurs.

"You sure you can't call off work?"

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