Participants:
| Scene Title | Displacement |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | A call for healing turns out to be for someone who both is and isn't Helena Dean. Abby and Cat come in with the assist so Deckard doesn't turn tail and in the silence that follows talk turns to the other brand of possession they're both dealing with. |
| Date | October 12, 2009 |
There is nothing entirely spectacular for Saint Joseph's. Its old Architecture somehow managed to withstand the bomb and other damage that has been done over the years. The front entrance is sadly blocked due to fallen debris, as well as other things done since The Bomb happened, as such everyone known to enter through the red doors in the back. Despite Damage to the front, it still manages to look like a quaint little stone church in the middle of broken homes and overgrown wild life. A last marker for those entering the Rookery. A Samaritan station for those within.
The inside holds a warm feeling, cracked window panes add to the chill one might feel here, but there are several rows of pews, with the Altar raised up in the center along the great back wall of the sanctuary, with the raised Pulpit off to the side and flanked by the baptismal font on the other. Old iconography still hangs here and there, as a chipped statue of Christ looks on from the western wall.
What was once the fellowship hall, as small as it was, has been turned into a small area filled with cots, so people can sleep, and east here if they want some food from the tiny kitchen. The church offices have been turned into a make shift nurses station, seeing to only minor injuries, where as the head Pastor's office remains just that, and a little more. Yes, this is where the current pastor also lives.
All in all it is a lot contained in a small space-but it stands here for its mission. To help and affect the lives of those still on Staten Island.
Monday afternoon darkens into Monday evening, and those present at the church even prior to Cat's arrival have somehow managed to get the wound out of Helena - or notHelena's shoulder. She's lost a lot of blood though, and the management of her wound is iffy at best. She's been lain down in Scotch's bed, pale and in pain, but otherwise alert when she hasn't drifted into unconsciousness.
Whatever path it might have taken, Deckard was contacted and asked to come lay the hands down. Somewhere along the line it was also suggested that a transfusion was in order, and the person who seemed best suited to make the assist was Abby.
Deckard is the first to arrive. He's even in a suit and overcoat — the former in in infinitely better condition than the latter, which plays host to all manner worn and mussed wool in addition to a pair of bullet holes that have marred subtle through the front of the right shoulder and blown out tattered through the back. The tie knotted at his throat is striped blue; the suit itself is a light, ashy shade of grey.
Either someone's let him in or he eventually found his way in on his own, but he cuts a reasonably familiar (and gaunt) figure in the doorway of the room Marina's been laid out in for several seconds before he actually creaks on in.
Marina's open, and she struggles to sit up. When she sees the man as he steps inward, she leans back again in relief. "Thank you, Deckard." she says. "Just…thank you for coming. Did someone - did anyone tell you about what's going on?"
"Someone's been shot," answered with little more than a reticent shrug of the more threadbare of his shoulders, Flint presses on in a loose half-circle towards the foot of her bed. She knows who he is. Maybe that's not incredibly suspicious in itself — his gangling countenance lends itself pretty easily to accurate description — but he manages to look a little uneasy in the sideways inspection he favors her with anyway. "Apparently it's you."
Marina swallows, closing her eyes. "I'm Helena." she says. "One of Norman's people - a guy called Doc, he body switched me, and Humanis First has my body." She looks up at him then, to see the expression on his face, how he responds to that.
"Hello?" Abigail's voice echoes through the hall and into the room that Healer and healer are sequestered in. Abigail's body follows her voice not long after carrying a sports bag over one shoulder and cooler in her other hand. "Helena? Pastor McCoy?" Neither are present which makes the blonde - yes Deckard she went back to blonde, with the platinum blonde highlights - surprised. There's Flint and some black woman who's.. Body switched? She caught only the last part. But she certainly looks like who she was called in to practice her fledgling trade on. "Flint?"
Incredulousness and skepticism both find familiar pathways to follow through the lines etched in over Deckard's brow and in fuzzy kind around the slant of his mouth. He looks much the same as he did last time she saw him when he turns to look her over more completely, long face defined by hollows as much as it is the hard-angled edges of his skull.
The story is weighed, flopped over damp and limp in his head, then weighed again. And juuust when he looks like he might be shifting the set of his overlarge feet to walk himself right back out the door, Abigail's encroach calls his full attention back around in that direction anyway.
"Hey," is his return greeting, flatly distracted enough that his scruffy head realigns itself with Marina once Abby's actually appeared. "Have you heard anything about Helena being in a new body? …And can I ask if watermelon really does taste better now?"
Marina rolls her eyes in exasperation. "I don't know a lot about you." she indicates Deckard, "But I can tell you that I once spent the night at Abby's and we had porkchops with pineapple and a teriyaki glaze and her buddy Aaron came over and we sang Abba and he made us feel kind of happy in a weird high sort of way. Abby can verify it's what happened." She ignores the watermelon query, of course. "Abby? I know it's whack, but I swear, I'm Helena Dean."
"Flint!" The duffle bag is dropped and a hand fly's out to smack his arm. "Heavens" There's a furrowing of brows before Abigail treads forward, scowling. "I cannot believe you said that to her" Helena in another body. Strange to see the woman so… black but, stranger things have happened. That and really, only Helena and aaron knew about that. "What does Kain Zarek call us?" More of a secondary security question really, but Abigail, unlike Flint, is ready to wade in there.
"I brought blood, I was told that you needed it. Helena or no, I'm not a real EMT yet, but, Megan's been helping me practice and I can get you set up" Like she got Flint set up a few weeks back. She's not going to ask if Deckards going to heal or not. She's learned her lesson.
From elsewhere in the building, having heard people arriving, Cat heads into the room where Helena's transferred spirit is inhabiting Marina. She notes the presence of Deckard and Abby perfunctorily, moving the phone from her ear briefly to do so. "Thanks for coming," she offers to the not married couple, followed by a backup for the stricken leader. "That's Helena," Cat asserts. "We went all through the identity verifying thing earlier. If she's fake, well, that woman gets the Oscar."
Then she's meandering away again, talking to someone on the other end of that phone. "Thank you, Eileen," she offers. That call ends, and another is made.
"Well why not? I helped you save the world, remember?" Irritation roughs abrasive through his already coarse voice and knits hard at his brow, surly ill-humor looming black in his eyes. But Abigail has swatted him once already, and he falls back into broody silence while she steps forth to do her thing and he's left to look over his shoulder at Cat.
Who is definitely Cat. An apology is probably in order. Probably. He forces himself to focus on…the blood bag.
"He called me Barbie. I don't remember what he called you, though." Helena admits. She looks back at Deckard, her mouth quirking in a distinctly Helena way. It doesn't belong on that face.
Good enough for Abby, and the vouching from Cat. "Hey Cat" Fashioning a rest for the bags of blood, getting Helena's arm all squared away, swabbed clean and threading needle and catheter in with soothing and cooing words. First try even. In short order, there's red fluid that is trickling in through tubing and eventually into a vein.
Now that Abby's here and bustling, Deckard's as much a part of the room's background as any of the furniture. Save maybe for the fact that he meanders restlessly in and out of easy view of the bed, hands tucked deep into the pockets of his coat and attention elsewhere until the bag's up, her arm is situated and he draws up to a dragging halt at his waifu's shoulder.
Marina is docile enough when Abby sticks her, unable to resist smiling faintly at her clucking and cooing. She even feels better about sitting up. "The blood loss wouldn't have been so bad," she explains to them both, "Except Marina's ability is superspeed and it makes her heart beat faster. So when I ran away, I lost more."
"Oh. Like Fe-" She cuts off the name partway through, smoothing tape in place to anchor the rig. Decakrds presence at her back is felt more than seen, though she looks up and over to the tall man made taller by the fact that she's crouching. "Fifteen minutes for that, then i'll hang the second one, stick around enough for that. See if you need more" A second bag of yellowish is draped too, hanging what the medical folks with the ferry told her to. What would get Helena back on her feet fast as possibly.
Just like Felix.
In any case, Deckard didn't walk off when he had the opportunity, and he's close enough now that he can hold his hand out for Helena to take. There's nothing blunt or curt about the extension, but there's no real softness to it either. His hand is there, open, palm down and fingers splayed for her to hang onto as she sees fit.
Marina's eyes flick briefly to Abby, and she murmurs a heartfelt thanks before she turns her gaze up to Deckard. Her own hand - dark, with long fingers, slips into his. She stares at it a moment, disturbed.
SHe'll let Deckard do his thing now, latex gloves pulled off and trash picked up so that she's not littering Scotch's floor. "I'll be back" She's going to go see if there's orange juice or any cookies, food of any kind that will help with getting Helena back on her feet. She pauses long enough to squeeze Flint's shoulder, a soft "you got the hang of it" before she disappears through a door.
Regenerative warmth is familiar where the movement of dark skin at her brain's behest is not. It's also instantaneous, creeping outward at the slightest brush of her hand to his warmer one.
Abby's encouragement upon exeunt is endured with flat affect indicative of mild embarrassment or disinterest or something else awkward and undefined in the glance he eventually casts after her retreating back. Meanwhile, torn muscle fiber threads itself back into wet cords of coarse tissue, which have an unsettling way of pulling at the ragged edges of the entry wound until that starts to mend over as well.
Marina lets out a sigh of relief as the warmth envelopes her and the pain begins to wash away. Now there's only the vague uncomfortableness of the needle pumping blood into her, and she looks up at Deckard with dark eyes. "What's it like?" she asks quietly. "Carrying that inside you?"
Chilly gaze having fixed vaguely up on some non-existent point of interest between the far wall and the ceiling, it takes Deckard a beat to realize he's been asked a question, and a beat longer than that to turn his baffled attention back down onto Marina. Helena. Whatever. Brow hooded and jaw at a hazy set somewhere between absently laid back and ready to go on the defensive, he has to give her yet another scraping inspection before he winds his way around to an answer.
"I dunno," is inevitable. After that's had time to settle, he hazards a marginally more in depth: "Kind of nice."
"Do you think it's that way for the other one?" she asks, her expression turning troubled. She doesn't think it is. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to pester you. If you need to lay down, or have something to drink…I don't think they have any Rockstar though…but maybe coffee?"
"I think you should stay away from the other one," is as murky an answer as his first one, and approximately as slow in coming. As healing heat kneads itself out of deeper tissue and closer to the surface, he shakes his head vaguely against apologies for pestering and the offer of Schroedinger's coffee. "I'm fine."
"I think I should too." the woman who is not Helena and yet somehow is admits, "But there are some problems with that. I want to understand what is going on. I don't know if what's inside of him is turning him into Kazimir Volken, or making him similar."
"I dunno." This is probably one of the less truthful things he's said thus far, marked with a shift of his focus back onto the wall. Maybe he knows but doesn't really know. More likely is that it's an uncomfortable subject, as the heat around the fading bullet wound mounts into a muggy rush that's very nearly uncomfortable on its way to finishing out with a hurry that isn't reflected in the unfathomable blank of his expression.
"Either way…"
"Yeah." Whatever the ending of his sentence was. She offers a faint smile. "Thank you, Flint." She starts to rise, remembers she's connected to the bloodflow, and sighs, sinking back down. "I'm gonna sleep a little." she decides. "Could you let Abby know for when she comes to unplug me?"
"Mmm," says Flint, which is a more assholeish way to say 'You're welcome,' than he probably intends. The lax curl of his bony fingers draws away from her own, taking the last whiff of comfortable sensation with it so that all is left is the bed and the needle. And him standing there like a fence post in a suit and coat. He doesn't linger for long.
Lingering unease draws him away once the foggy buzz around the corners of his vision has faded, and he's pacing off for the door with a muttered, "I'll let her know."