...And Consequences

Participants:

colette_icon.gif fox_icon.gif kaylee2_icon.gif odessa_icon.gif tasha_icon.gif

Scene Title …And Consequences
Synopsis Tamara is brought to the clinic at Gun Hill to be cared for by the resident physician.
Date June 14, 2010

Gun Hill


"Help!"

A hoarse scream cuts through the evening air, the fear-stricken voice of Colette Nichols resounding off of the redbrick facade of Gun Hill Apartments from the sidewalk outside. With the sun sunken down to the western horizon, the burning orange glow in the partly overcast skies shines bright and hot through the humid evening.

"Help, please! Help!"

The air inside of the apartment building is stifling thanks to the humidity and thanks in no small part to the lack of air conditioners and fans at Gun Hill. If there's something this building lacks, its preparedness for the summer— and also furniture. Outside is hardly any better, with a lack of breeze and a thickly humid and warm day precipitated by the standing water in much of the city and the light rain they fell during the afternoon.

"Someone help!"

Outside on the sidwalk, Colette Nichols is crouched down on the concrete with a blonde young woman cradled in her arms. Blood dapples the front of Tamara Brooks' shirt, runs red down the front of her face and beneath her nose where it originates. Her wavy blonde hair spills down across Colette's arms and lap, and the half-blind girl cradling Tamara in her arms chokes out strangled noises of emotion and fear in the same breaths that she calls out for help.

Across the street, a single black SUV with tinted windows observes the event. While the Linderman Group representatives watching Gun Hill were ordered to watch for suspicious activity, they were only ordered to come to aid if it looked as though there was an iminent attack on the building itself. While this small tragedy is indeed harrowing for Colette, it hardly warrants their intervention.

Help will be on the way.

Hopefully.

It only takes a glance out of her apartment window, before Kaylee is running out of her apartment, leaving Missy rather confused behind her, on the second floor and hurrying down the stairs. Her blonde hair bounces behind her in a ponytail as she hurries down, her boots thumping loudly on the stairs. Wearing a Harley t-shirt and jeans, her right arm wrapped from wrist to elbow.

As she hits the door, she ignores the flare of pain that goes up her arms as her right hand slaps the door open. "Colette! What happened?" She gasps out seeing Tamara laying there in dark haired girls arm. "What… what happened to Tamara?" Dropping to her knees next to Colette, Kaylee looks at the Photokinetic with wide eyes, checking to make sure she's okay as well.

Unfortunately, Colette and Tasha's apartment is on the fourth floor, which is where Tasha is doing dishes. The sound of the faucet keeps her from hearing the first cries for help, but when she pushes it off, she catches the muffled sound from the street below. She frowns, opening the window to hear better and peer down — what she sees has her tearing from the kitchen to the door that leads to the fire escape — going through the hallway to the stairs or the elevator will take too long.

Her hand is already pulling out her cell phone without too much thought for a moment — 9-1-1 is not always the wisest choice for Evolved, and she's not sure what Tamara's status is — Registered or not, and is that Tamara? From four flights up she's not sure. Juggling cell and fire-escape ladders, however, means one is going to give way. Luckily for Tasha it's the cell phone, rather than the ladder, and the phone goes clattering to the sidewalk below. "Colette!" she cries out when she's about halfway down, chancing glances to the girls below between watching her hurrying feet to make sure she doesn't trip or fall on the way down.

The last bit of ladder stops a few feet above the sidewalk, and Tasha has to jump, falling to her knees and wincing as her sprained wrist hits the concrete, but she's up and clamoring over to Colette. "What happened — do you want us to call 9-1-1 or … or … Raith or Eileen…?" she gasps, searching for her fallen phone.

Fox is using a roller to paint an interior wall beside a second-floor window when she hears a voice outside, and pauses her painting to peek her head out to see what the commotion is. Her eyes widen upon spotting Colette and the bload-soaked girl in her arms. "Colette!", she calls out, "I'll be right down!" She drops the paint roller; it lands on a drop-cloth, and she races down the stairs in bare feet to reach the ground floor, and darts outside, quickly reaching Colette and Kaylee, wondering what she can do to help.

Kaylee, Fox and Tasha are far more than Colette ever expected as an immediate response, though that Tasha has to even be present for this situation is something Colette seems troubled to even consider. Choking back tearful sobs, there's little that Colette can do other than cradle the limp and motionless blonde to her chest, wiping a shaky hand at the blood that stains her mouth nose and chin with one hand, staring up with wide-eyed confusion at Kaylee and Tasha, head shaking slowly.

"Don't— don't call anyone, oh— oh God don't call anyone. We— she— I don't know what happened she just— she collapsed. I— I don't know if she's— I— " choking back what might be a sob were she not so afraid of looking helplessly emotional, Colette clenches her eyes shut and looks up pleadingly to the three gathered around her for help.

"I don't know— I— " Colette's voice cracks, "she needs help." Jaw trembling and arms tightly wrapped around the blonde she cradles, it's obvious that Colette needs direction and instruction. Typically she's fine to act as some sort of surrogate leader for the rag-tag group here, but right now she is simply and plainly in a panic and doing it on the side of the street in broad daylight in the Bronx.

At least she hasn't turned invisible or anything a different color yet.

"Let's get her to the clinic then," Fox says, referring of course to the one inside the Gun Hill apartment building. "Quickly. Then we can clean her up, and maybe think of someone to call for help," she adds. "We'll just attract attention out here." She grimaces at the blood, but doesn't seem too fazed by it.

The sight of blood and Colette with Tamara in her arms is painfully close to the vision Tasha had on Thursday and has yet to tell a soul — she had thought to warn Colette but hadn't found the right time. Now, it's clear Tamara is not a threat to anyone at the moment — Tasha can find the compassion to help, even if the blonde is something she fears.

The 12-year-old mentioning the clinic has Tasha shaking her head at her own inability to think — they have a doctor here. "O-okay," Tasha agrees with Fox. Where are the men when you need them? She reaches to slip her good arm beneath Tamara's shoulder, assuming that Kaylee or Colette will get the other side. "I st-still think we should call Raith or Eileen," she murmurs to Colette. "Fox, can you grab my phone over there?" She nods to the phone that's miraculously still in one piece on the sidewalk — whether it works or not is another matter.

"Okay… okay." A hand presses to Kaylee's forehead as she tries to think. "Yeah… let's get in inside before people start calling in police." She glances around, eyes resting on the SUV for a moment before she moves to stand, a hand on Colette's shoulder briefly in comfort. Despite the massive amount of stitches she may very well pull, Kaylee moves to the other side of Tamara, relieving Colette of the burden whether she wants it or not.

You got her this far. Let us get her the rest of the way. Comes the telepath's mental voice.

"Go warn Odessa we're coming, Colette." Kaylee grits out as she works to reposition the body, ignoring the painful burn of her injured arm. "Fox hold the door for us."

Trying not to sob in front of a group of people she has to look strong for on a regular basis and also out of a very urgent sense of pride, Colette watches with wide-eyed nervousness when Tamara's limp frame is lifted up from her lap by Kaylee and Tasha, and Colette's subtle nod of recognition to Kaylee's psychic urging comes with a noisy swallow. Fox, for all her youth, is precocious enough to have a legitimate plan that makes sense— so simple even a child could have imagined it— and also brilliant in its simplicity: Take the injured person to the doctor.

Once Tamara's weight is shifted off of her lap, Colette stares up apologetically to Tasha, her head shaking slowly in disbelief and also in some subconscious denial of what is actually happening right now. If ever there were a time she'd have welcomed Magnes' ability to safely float things along, now is what Colette wants it most.

Pulling herself up to her feet, Colette's boots scuff on the concrete and her hands wipe Tamara's blood across the white of her tanktop before she starts to take shaky steps away from the trio helping her, past her dirtbike and the toolbox on the stairs, then up towards the front of the apartment building. Colette lets herself inside hastily, knowing that Fox will be the one to hold the door for them, and makes her hasty approach to the stairwell descending into Gun Hill's basement.

Colette's booted feet thunder down the stairs to the door at the bottom, hammering a closed fist on the side of the door. "D— Doctor— uh— Doctor…" now isn't really a time to be terrible at names. "Odessa!" Colette shouts thorugh the door. Her earlier screaming from the front steps for help may not have reached Odessa, if she's even home, but the pounding on the door and repeated calling of her name— hopefully does.

"Odessa!"

Fox turns and follows after Colette, at least as far as the front door to the apartment building, reaching out to catch it before it swings shut (getting a smudge of white paint on it in the process). She pulls it the rest of the way open and holds it there, glad to be able to help in some small way at least.

Tasha normally has no problem with blood, but seeing Colette with that white shirt stained red, though it's Tamara's blood and not hers, makes her tremble and grow pale. She reaches under Tamara's leg so that she holds the blonde under one shoulder and one knee, glancing to see that Kaylee, injured as she is, can do the same. Injured as they both are, though Tasha only bears a sprained wrist.

As they follow the others a little more slowly and painstakingly into the apartment building, some blood drips from Tamara's nose onto Tasha's hand curled around the precog's knee, and Tasha chokes back a sob and a shudder that threatens to drop the unconscious blonde — but somehow she doesn't. Somehow she finds the strength to carry Tamara with Kaylee into Odessa's clinic.

Teeth are gritted, Kaylee moves along with Tasha, the sight of blood doesn't affect the taller woman. She's seen enough of it, that is doesn't bother her, what bothers her is that it's Tamara. As they move into the building she hazards a glance to the unconscious seer, brows furrowing with worry. The back of her eyes burn as tears threaten. "You're gonna be okay, Tamara." The words spoken more to calm her and the woman carrying the limp form.

"Okay.. careful." The telepath murmurs as she starts down the stairs, each step painstakingly slow. Each step is taken sideways, toe inching out til she finds the edge and then down.

Fortunately for Colette, Odessa happens to be working on organising a new influx of supplies in the clinic, rather than her original plans for the evening of a pint of Haagen-Dazs and a romance film with her faithful feline at her side. When the door opens, the blonde looks slightly owly, her eyes wide with confusion and a small amount of surprise.

"Colette? What's the-" Odessa tips her head to peer around the frantic teenager to see the bundle of Tamara being carried between Kaylee and Tasha. She turns her attention back to Colette and nods once, her game face on. "Bring her in. Set her on the table. Tell me what happened. Everything that happened."

Pulling her blonde layers back into a ponytail, Odessa immediately moves to the sink and starts washing up from her fingers, suds coming clear up to her elbows.

Shakily moving in to the clinic, Colette bumps into the wall by the door, not focusing on where she's moving so much as watching where Tamara is moving. Sniffling noisily, she wipes the heels of her palms against her eyes, trying to dry them while staying out of the path of the two carrying Tamara in. Colette's attention settles back on Odessa only when she realizes she's the only person who knows what happened and how to tell it.

What did happen may not be exactly easy to explain.

"I— I think she pushed her ability too hard…" Colette shakily murmurs, "she— she showed up while I was finishing putting the— " Colette sniffles again, noisily, then wipes her bare arm across her eyes, smudged marks of blood across her brow and the bridge of her nose from the motion, little red fingerprints from trying to dry her eyes with bloodied hands.

"She— she was bein' really— really lucid for me. I— I dunno she— it's hard for her to focus, I— I've pushed myself too far before too and I— " Colette motions to her blinded eye obliquely. "She— T— Tamara was just talking to me, t— then she just— she just started bleeding and fell over." Covering her mouth with one hand, Colette shakes her head as she watches Tamara be carried in.

"I— I should've known she— I— I'm so sorry. I don't— I— I didn't want— " hiccuping back a sob, Colette turns her back to the scene, trying to collect herself as much as possible, but largely failing. This was already hard on her, now with Tamara's blackout it is compounded even more so.

Fox slips into the building, letting the heavy front door slam shut of its own accord, and bounds down the stairs after those carrying Tamara. She pauses at the clinic's entrance beside and slightly behind Colette, fully expecting to be told to leave any moment, but she's frozen due to seeing her friend in such distress, and hesitantly reaches a hand around the small of Colette's back, forgetting about the still-drying paint on her palms. "You should sit down," she suggests, and with that she tries to nudge the older girl toward the bed nearest the one that Tamara is going to be occupying.

The stairs are difficult to maneuver, with no hands free to clutch bannisters and Tasha's balance thrown off by the weight of Tamara shared between herself and Kaylee, but finally they make it into the clinic and toward the exam table Odessa gestures at. Lifting her onto the table gets a wince from Tasha as her sprained wrist protests, but as soon as she is free of Tamara she backs up until she bumps into a wall, staring at the woman on the table. She lifts her hand to wipe her wet eyes, using the back to keep from spreading the blood across her own face, before her gaze seeks Colette.

Turning she moves closer to Colette, touching her hand lightly. "Sh-she'll be okay," she whispers — even if a part of her, a very secret and very dark part of her, wonders if it would be better for Colette if Tamara wasn't better. Has the future already changed, if what she saw was a precognitive vision? Had they somehow changed the path already? Or is this just one step that brings them further down that road to that day she saw that feels too similar to this one?

As they lay Tamara on the table, Kaylee slides her arms free, the bandage already showing hints of red. It's ignored by the telepath, she doesn't even look at it to check, her eyes are solely on Odessa. A hand stays on the unconscious woman's arm for the moment.

"What do you need? Do you need any help, I guess I should ask." The taller blonde offering herself up to assist the doctor, even as she backs out of the way. Her eyes stray over to Colette's back on the other side of the table, concern touching her features, but she doesn't go to her friend, letting Tasha do that.

"Calm down," Odessa orders Colette not as gently as she could have. She dries her hands with paper towels before snapping on a pair of deep purple gloves. She turns to where Tamara's been set on an old, padded examination table and studies the girl for a moment. There's a flicker of recognition. They shared a moment in Moab of all places when the girl was sneaking about and seemed as though she knew the woman was watching her. Very strange girl.

With a wave of the doctor's hand, it's as if Tamara's been placed in a state of suspended animation. "That's better," Odessa murmurs. "What I need right now," she tells Kaylee, "is to make sure I have an understanding of what's happened to our girl here. She overextended her ability, began to bleed from the nose, and collapsed? Is that correct?"

"Y— yeah…" Colette shakily offers to Odessa, looking over to Tasha with a nervous smile, fingers lacing with the other teen's before she finally looks back at Fox and offers a hesitant smile. It's hard to recognize when someone so much younger tan her actually has a fairly solid recommendation on what to make. Colette might make a correlation between herself and practically anyone else in the Ferry, but right now a mixture of advice and anxiety is clouding those more cognizent thoughts.

Not quite venturing any closer to Tamara, Colette instead aims for one of the weathered old wooden chairs nearby to the bed and settles down to sit, tugging Tasha's hand as she does to guide the other teen into the seat next to it. Mismatched eyes look across the office to Kaylee, nervously pleading apology.

I'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorry is a psychic echo that is perhaps a bit overeager to be relayed to Kaylee, resoundingly echoing in the blonde telepath's mind clearly. Colette's never been good at both censoring herself mentally or offering up her thoughts discretely, ask Matt Parkman.

"She just— that— that's pretty much what happened. I— I don't know if this— if this's happened 'fore." Mumbling as she speaks, Colette squeezes Tasha's hand tighter, needily. "She— I don't know… M— Maybe once before but I— I wasn't there when it happened."

Fox walks around the chair that Colette takes, so as to stay out of Odessa's way, but she also takes the opportunity to place her hands on the distressed girl's shoulders and gently kneads them, as her mother used to do for her, feeling otherwise helpless as far as finding a way to calm her down. She gathers that more is happening here than she can fully comprehend, what with her only recently being immersed in the world of the evolved, but she doesn't ask questions, knowing that doing so would be to invite being booted out. Instead she nervously chews her lower lip while quietly observing Odessa and trying to soothe Colette.

Tugged by Colette, Tasha sits beside her and takes her hand into her lap, wrapping both hands around hers, interlacing their fingers, Tamara's blood sticky and dry now on both of their hands. "Are you sure you don't want me to call Eileen or Raith or someone? or … or your dad?" she whispers to Colette, squeezing that hand gently again before looking back at Odessa. "I … she's a precog, if that makes any difference," she offers, not sure if Odessa knows the young woman's power at all.

At the questions, Kaylee glances in Colette's direction since she's the one that was with Tamara last. She finds herself assaulted by the teen's mental screaming, flinching and closing her eyes. Both of her hands lift in a gesture that clearly says calm down. "Shhh… You're fine, Colette. She will be fine." Answering out loud, which might seem odd for those that don't know her well.

Kaylee still keeps where she is though, watching and waiting. Fox's actions, get an amused look from the telepath. Slowly, she backs up till her back touches the wall. She nods to Tasha and elaborates further to the best of her knowledge. "Tamara's head is constantly filled with various… streams of time." Or that's how she understands it. Eyes drift to Colette again. "So I guess she was trying to hold it all back." There is almost a question in that statement.

"Who would know?" Odessa asks, brows hiked up toward her bangs, expectant look fixed on Colette. Though that look shifts to Tasha when she explains that her new patient is a pre-cog. Well that suddenly makes a bit more sense.

It's a subtle shift as Tamara's chest begins to rise and fall again when Odessa passes a hand over her prone form. She begins checking the girl's pulse, and pulls back her eyelids gently to check her pupils. She nods absently to herself as she listens to Kaylee's explanation and starts to fit the information together with the physical condition. "All right. Everybody out. If there's someone who can provide me with more answers, get them down here, get them on speaker phone, whatever. Until then, your presence here isn't going to accomplish anything other than making yourselves all more nervous." The doctor turns her gaze to each of the girls gathered around in turn.

The gaze is paused on Kaylee, a purple-gloved finger pointed in her direction. "Find Doyle. Tell him what's going on and let him know I may need him to go on a supply run. Call Francois or Eileen, whomever you get in touch with first. Let them know they're effectively on-call. Understood?"

Slouched back against her chair and some of that knotted tension eased away by Fox, Colette seems just a little bit less on edge than she was when she came down into the room. While she may not appreciate the smudging of white paint on her scarred shoulders, the tension-relieving shoulder-rub is welcomed. However that Eileen and Francois might be called in is just what she didn't want to hear. "A— alright," is sheepishly offered in response by Colette as she looks from Odessa to Tasha, her brows lifted and eyes still reddened from the crying she'd done both before and after Tamara's fall onto the sidewalk.

As Colette starts to rise from her seat, a bit too shell-shocked from everything to protest being kicked out of the clinic, her mismatched stare levels on Kaylee with brows raised in worry. "K— Kaylee can… can I borrow your phone? I— I gotta' call my dad…" there's a nervousness in that notion, of telling Judah Demsky about what happened here and what condition Tamara is in.

Looking back to Tasha, Colette squeezes the brunette's hand tighter, and she's going to need the moral support to handle that particular meeting with a level head. But even as she's standing, Colette's slouched posture is only slowly pulled away from Fox, and the teen turns to look down and over at the younger girl, offering a thankful smile.

"T— thanks, Fox…" Colette offers with a hushed voice, teeth pressing into her lower lip to restrain a smile before she looks back to Odessa. "My— my dad might be coming down here he— he helps take care of her. I— um, I— I'll let you know if he shows up before just coming down and— and getting in the way…"

It's only when Colette pulls away that Fox realizes something, and grimaces. "Oh no, I got paint on your clothes…I'm sorry," she says, glancing down to her palms. She walks around the chair and makes her way to the clinic's door, pausing there to give one last glance to Tamara before slipping out.

When Colette rises, Tasha follows suit, not letting go of the hand she holds, both giving and taking reassurance in kind. Her eyes dart to Kaylee to see if the other girl has the tasks, since her most important one, in her mind, is to help Colette through this. "It'll be okay. You didn't do anything, Colette," she whispers, feeling the guilt emanating off the other.

"Come on, let's go call and get you cleaned up," she says, tugging the other toward the door. "We're in 404 if you need us for anything, Doctor," she tells Odessa as she leads Colette toward the steps.

A short nod and Kaylee's good hand is lifted to gives the doctor a sloppy salute. Using a foot to push away from the wall as she firmly, "Yes, ma'am. You know how to get a hold of me if you need anything else."

The telepath starts to turn and leave, but Colette's question makes her pause, brows lifting slight. "Um.. yeah. I can get Doyle to hand over his for a call Dr. Price wants done." Her hand slides into her pocket and pulls out her iPhone, offering it over. "Just… return it when your done… I… am hoping to get a call." A flash of an image slips into Colette's head, one of the pastor, a small nervous smile plays on her lips.

Phone handed over, Kaylee moves for the stairs. Her boots making a loud hurried clomping sound as she hurries up the stairs in search of the puppet man.

"She's going to be fine," Odessa thinks to assure Colette, even as she's gesturing for the gaggle of girls to get the hell out. "I will make sure of it." Somewhat unceremoniously, she turns her back on them all, expecting that each one knows what they need to do - aside from get out.

With everything that's happened over the last few days, less than a week has suddenly felt like almost a month. The strain of everything that's happened to Colette, the Ferrymen, Gilliam, Joseph, everything and now Tamara is just too much. Breathing out a slow, shuddering breath when Fox leaves the room, Colette turns her attention to Kaylee with a wearily apologetic smile and then leans her weight against Tasha, eyes halfway closed and throat tight in a swallow.

Thank you, is for Kaylee, louder than it really should be but most pshychics who've known her said she has mental subwoofers; Kaylee's used to it by now, knowing Colette as long as she has. There's nothing quite as openly spoken in thanks to Tasha, just more pleading then anything, a hope to be able to get upstairs so that she can break down in front of only one person and not a whole crowd of people and the doctor that she's started to admire the tenacity of.

Colette pauses in the doorway of the office, looking back at Tamara on the table, then sucks in a sharp breath and squeezes Tasha's hand tighter before being led out of the room and into the stairwell out of the basement. While everyone has told Colette that she didn't do this and that it isn't her fault, there's a nagging part of her, an emotional scab that the Nightmare Man peeled back months ago that believes otherwise — and perhaps correctly — that this is all her fault.

She just doesn't know why.


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