The Warmth Of The Company

Participants:

abby_icon.gif jessica_icon.gif

Scene Title The Warmth Of The Company
Synopsis Jessica saves Abigail, proving she's not all that bad. Niki takes the back seat for most of it. Proof that the woman's not all bad. Not at all.
Date January 28, 2009

Jessica's Super Sekrit Hideout.


Break and enter. Never in her life could Abigail imagine she'd be doing that. But it's either that or freeze to death. She's pretty sure that she's about to do that soon. But a big rock later, a familiar window up a fire escape and the Healer is into her former jail cell. If someone calls the cops, she doesn't care at this point. They'll find a popsicle healer. Throught eh bedroom door, into the main room, look for a phone. Success, hopefully and if there is, soon enough Niki's phone is ringing and not giving up.

Niki's phone is answered within just a few rings, the blonde on the other end picking up. "Hello." It's fairly late; she's a bit tired.

"N..need j..j..Jessica" She's stopped shivering but that doesn't stop her teeth from chattering, or sounding like she's been dragged through hell. "Hypo..hypothermia. Where she k..kept m..me. fasssst please"

There's a shift in the vocal tone. Jessica. "I'm on my way. Get in the tub. Start warm water running. Leave the drain open." It'll warm her, and with the drain open, she won't drown. "Talk to me." the other way to keep her awake and aware, as she makes a run for her car.

"Bridge out. Take.. take the land r..route" jessica can hear Abby making her way through the apartment. "T..t..turning heat up k..kay. Sorry" Becaase you know, extra heating bill. Soon enough the younger blonde is in the bathroom, portable phone in hand. "V..v..v..Volkens dead. killed him. Helena.. caught. I fell in the the the r..river" She has the mental capacity to put the phone on speaker at the last moment instead of carrying it in with her.

The batteries on a cell phone don't have enough juice to do more than shock her mildly if she did. But it would kill the phone and that would be inconvenient. Shit. If she fell in the river, she needs to be at a hospital. "Are you hurt beyond the cold?" Jessica asks, as she drives quickly in that direction.

"Toes.. hand, hand's cut. Ju.. just need to get warm. I c..can fix rest" There's clothing being taken off, sounds of wet fabric hitting the ground and the change in the sound of the water as it hits her instead of the bathtub.

Jessica nods. "Keep talking to me. Anything at all. Tell me about your first boyfriend." Something she'll have to use her brain for to keep it running. She keeps at it, though. Getting Abby's core temperature back up is gonna be the hard part, and the tub is only going to help the legs.

"No boy.. boyfriend Jesssssica" She still stutters and the warm water makes her groan, not in a good fashion. "Baptist. Parents. Fuck it hurts" But Abigail stays in, keeps moving. "Never g..gona get w..warm. S..sor..ry I broke in."

Jessica looks at the clock. Ten more minutes. "Don't worry about that." She steps a little more on the gas. "Then tell me about anything. Tell me about the town you grew up in."

"Can I sittt down? In t..t..the show..wer? oh fuck it hurts Niki. Lismore. Outside of it. B..big house. My my g..great grandp..parents made it. P..paretns st..still there"

Jessica groans. "Yes. You're supposed to be in the TUB, Abby. Not the shower." That shower is going to do jack and shit to get her temperature up fast. She needs immersion, not splatter. "Where's Lismore?" Almost there.

"s..sorry" The sounds change, the gush of water instead of the shower spray, full force as possible. "L..Louisiana…. middle. Lots.. lots of rivers. All..alligators. Big church. White church with a bell at the top. There's.. there's a corner store, and.. a hardware store… and lumber.. lumber store. I liked the lumber store. Climbing the w..wood"

If she were less than the professional she is, she would be teasing Abby about "climbing the wood". But not right now. "You managed to ditch your accent." Almost there. She moves to pull up outside. "Just hold on another few minutes, Abby."

It's there. she's just not saying the words that would make it audible and it takes too much effort to say a lot of anything. But it gets a laugh out of her, weak, but a laugh. 'Didn't die. Did…didn't die J..jes..sica. N..not gonna d..die fromm this"

She stops outside. "No, you're not." She hurries into the building, and now the sound of her coming through the place might be heard. She gets to the apartment door, unlocking and opening it, and she starts immediately for the bathroom.

"Yo..you're noisy. Kn..know that? F..for a ki..killer, you're ..noisy" She's in the tub, sitting on her ass in a ball. t-shirt and underwear on, everything else in the middle as the water fills, the overflow valve ready to take care of any excess water. Her arms wrapped around her legs, knee's close to chest, shaking violently. Better to be shaking than not.

Jessica comes in, speaking normally now rather than the phone. "That's because I'm not trying to be quiet. SHIT. She still has the clothes that were drenched in icy river water. New plan. Jessica reaches in, and shuts off the water. "Get stripped, fast." she says, looking to Abby. Unless Abby complies…pretty much immediately…she's going to get her attire literally ripped off her with super strength.

'Good.. goood point" As she works her shirt off, trying to keep herself from being exposed, arm held across her chest, same goes for her underwear everything soon joining the pile on the floor and looking up. She's be blushing if her body wasn't trying to keep all the blood in the center of her body. "n..now"

Except that there might be blushing, because the instant after she tells Abby to do so, SHE is doing the same. Right now, body-to-body is going to be the fastest way of getting Abby warm. Jessica strips. And not in the sexy money-making way, either.

Faintest pink on her cheeks as the healer averts her eyes. "H…heavens" She knows what the woman is going to do. Ordinarily she'd be balking but right now, she just wants to be warm.

Naked Jessica moves over to scoop up Naked Abby and heads immediately bedwards, at a fast pace. The instant they get there, she yanks back the covers, puts Abby under, and gets under the covers herself. The covers are yanked up to their necks, and she gives Abby the best full-body hug she can, wrapping arms and lets both about the wet rat of a healer.

It's like popping a quarter into one of those beds at cheap hotels and making them vibrate. That's very much what it is here and abby's surely, right this moment not complaining. "Th..thank you" She has enough sense to laugh. "F..first person n..naked in a in a bed with me"

Jessica smirks a bit. "Don't get used to it. This is a special circumstance." Abby is about the only person in the world she would actually do this for. But for the healer, yes, she'll do it.

'W..won't. Pro..promise" This harvest moon occurrence is hopefully not about to happen again. Stars shall never align such a way again if Abigail has a say in it. 'If.. if I fall assleep, it's it's okay. I sh..should be asleep, what I did. B..but I nee..need to get to s..safe house. Heal. you can't you can't turn in t..the place you b..bring me. H..home Sec h..has Alexander. I n..need to heal others"

Jessica nods. "Once you wake, we'll talk about it." She promises. Of course, she didn't promise she'd DO it. She just promised they'd talk about it. "Right now, you need to be warm, and you need sleep." With Jessica hanging around her, she'll be able to notice if there's any weirdness with Abby's breathing, and one of those hugging arms has her palm up to Abby's chest intentionally, so she can check her heart rate.

"Once I wake. Th..thank you Jessica. Niki" Because she's sure she'd be dead as a duck if she hadn't known about this place. Things happen for a reason. The shaking doesn't stop for a long while, even though not long after she stops talking, the healer succumbs to sleeping. There's a time to rest, and this is now the time. At least, she knows, that she won't be dead, though there's the chance of Home Sec still getting their hands on her.

Jessica isn't about to hand Abby over to Homeland Security. Jessica is, as always, out for Jessica. But she'll wait there. She doesn't trust shock to not set in. So she waits. At best, she'll doze lightly, waiting until the morning.

Morning comes, early enough. No stopping hearts, no erratic breaths. no sniffing dogs, or crack dealers trying to get in through a broken window. Body temperature's eventually even out to where they should be thanks to other bodies, blankets and the safe house's thermostat set to "volcano". The dead sleep of someone who did what she did, Abigail shifts beneath the blankets as consciousness comes swimming right up and niggling at her.

Jessica's dozing. The slight shift doesn't stir her; as time passed through the night, she relaxed more and more.

Very naked, both of them. But for a reason. Abigail blinks, staring up at the ceiling for a few minutes before she starts moving, testing her limbs, the sore, the hurts. Her palm, hands and toes are hard to feel. Her legs from hitting water. Myriads of bruises all over her. Her chest is heavy, an indicator of a cold for sure if not something more like pneumonia. How much water had she swallowed? "Jessica"

Jessica does wake, after that. "Abby." She unwraps from around the healer, and looks to her with concern. "How are you?"

"Like I went swimming in the river" come smart ass reply. "Coffee. I feel like like I need about.. five pots of coffee. And to have clothes on" She smiles though, at the ceiling and then to Jessica.

Jessica replies "What you had on would be soaked still. I'll loan you some of my things." They'll fit horribly, but it beats being naked. "I'll go get some coffee started." She slides out of the bed and starts to dress.

'Thank you" No stuttering, but when Jessica's off the bed, the sheet is surreptitiously snaked around Abigail, used as a cover. The lights barely hitting the window, everything still bleak and washed. "Thank you Niki, too."

Jessica gets dressed. "She says thank you." Jessica answers. She's keeping the reins right now, if only because Niki would get all flustered, and Abby needs practicality right now. "Coffee coming right up." She doesn't bother with socks or shoes yet. She nods to her dresser and closet. "Grab whatever you like." And she leaves the healer with privacy to dress.

layers! That's done after Abby sits for a few minutes. Get a reign on herself, say a prayer and heal. Get rid of frostbite , the gash on her palm, all her little aches till she's like new again. The dresser raided for generic pieces of clothing so she can get out of the room, two pairs of sock, hands pulled up into the sleeves and a elastic found to pull her hair back into a messy bun and trudge out the door into the hall as she compiles a mental list of what she has to do, where to go.

It takes about ten minutes to start getting some coffee ready. By that point, Abby's gotten herself to the dressed state. She looks at Abby, offering the cup. "Caffeine. Roll with it."

"Caffeine" is gratefully taken, perching up on a counter, knees back up and balancing the cup on her knees. "Bridge broke. Lasers, lightening. Volkens dead. I killed him with gods gift a bunch of us, I think, fell into the water when the bridge gave, others.. Homeland Security was there. I'm sorry. All i could think of was this place and I didn't have a key and I remembered where it was and broke a window to get in. You were.. about the only safe person I could think to call, that wasn't already hurt or … swimming"

Jessica frowns. "Wonderful. This is going to be a huge mess. All right…what do you want me to do?" Again, not agreeing that she WILL do it. Just saying that she might.

"I need to get to a safe house. Or close to one and just be dropped off. There will be people hurt and I gotta take care of things" Abby inhales deeply of the steaming liquid. "Teo's missing. Somewhere out in the water, he was on a boat. I need, my stuff, from my apartment too. But if Homeland has Alexander, then they'll have my apartment and I can't go there. In case they come looking for me. I don't know whether Chinatown apartment is compromised. That's under my fake ID. But, I'm going to stay away from that for a week or so"

Jessica nods. "All right." she offers. "You tell me where you need to get, and I'll get you there. But I would recommend staying really low on all this, Abby."

'Define low" Abby questions. "I can't go back to the Bronx apartment. My name is the only one on the new lease and under Stephanie Tarkin. My boss can help me. There's other people to go to, I can disappear completely, if I need to. But I can't. I need to try and.. fuck Jessica. Fuck, everything" Abby closes her eyes tight. "fuck" spoken softly.

Jessica frowns. "You don't have to." she points out. "But you're going to, one way or the other. I can't help you too much, Abby. I just don't know enough about the situation. So unless you're going to bring me into that, there's not much I can do."

"And if I tell you, it becomes company information Jessica. I saw the way you looked at Ben. He's not Phoenix by the way" Abigail unfolds, feet dancing over the side of the counter. "I don't know too much either. I've started deliberately asking not to be told, so no one can get from me stuff that will hurt others. Ignorance, in my case, is bliss Jessica." There's a sigh, no more swearing. "Ferryman safe house. I need to go to one. They'll be getting the hurt people and they can shuffle me to where I need to be" She looks over at Jessica. "And.. I go back to moving into Chinatown and work, and carry on like everything is normal. That should work shouldn't it? Act as if nothing happened, and … if they come?"

Jessica looks back. "All right. Tell me where you need to go, and I'll get you there. And no, it's not going to go back to normal." she says, seriously. "But I can't help you without information, Abby. I don't know what to do for you. If we were rooming, I'd be there to keep you safe. But without that, and without knowing where you are or who you're with…there's very little I can actually do."

'As it stands right now Jessica.. I don't HAVE a roommate. Teo moved out, and he's.. probably dead.. at the bottom of an ocean. Alexander's in the hands of homesec. Once you get into their hands, you don't get back out. I have a cat, and I have a bird, and.. I just killed a person and there's lots of hurt people after last night." She's not angry, she's just mentally exhausted. "Just, for now… the ferryman safe house. Jessica, you helping me, is probably a really big violation of the Company. You said even taking me like you did was a big no no."

Jessica points out "I got back out. And I'm honestly not overly concerned about their rules at the moment." Someone is still a little bitter over the whole arrest situation.

'You had the company to help you get back out. Al.. Al's got nothing" Abby points right back. "Just, the safe house for right now. and the necessities from the apartment. Other people, are more important right now than… where i'm going to live" The coffee's cooled down enough she can sip at it. "Sleep, more sleep, but I'll do that at the safe house"

Jessica nods. She isn't going to press. "Then let's get your things together, and let's go." she suggests. Back to all business.


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January 28th: Where Are Your Loyalties?
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January 28th: The Perfect Image Of Peace
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