Participants:
| Scene Title | Incidental Alignment |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | A morning meeting is interrupted, and not just by Calvin fucking Sheridan. |
| Date | July 6, 2011 |
A Cafe
The orange and pinks of sunrise streak the horizon, making the river look as though it's been set on fire. Water that's usually black acts like a giant disco ball, sending flashes of light against the gray-white of the building. The appearance of the sun as it breaks through the barrier and makes its slow climb into the sky sets whatever it touches on fire, turning the surrounding cityscape into a figurative inferno. It's pretty and not appreciated enough, at least by the young woman perched lightly on one of the high cafe stools. The coffee in her tall, thin mug sends a curl of steam into the air that dissipates only a few inches from the rim. The plate in front of her holds the remnants of a dollop of jelly and crumbs from an english muffin, toasted from the looks of them.
She left home before the sun rose, the mask firmly placed over her nose and mouth, almost a part of her anatomy when she's indoors. Right now, she's outside, in the fresh air and not feeling like a Japanese anime artist's version of a yankee ganster. So the mask is left down and allowed to mingle with the likes of her crucifix and the skinny knit scarf she has coiled around her neck. It's not worn for comfort as much as trying in vain to be at least a little fashionable. In this instance, she doesn't quite fail.
The rest of her ensemble is simple and bordering on what used to be called BoHo chic. Jeans that are so old the soft material has worn away from her knees, and grown threaded and bare in other places, extend past the ankle and wrinkles near the bottoms of her shoes. A shirt that's been pieced together using a mish-mash of other garments including one well loved and nearly see through t-shirt overlays a brightly colored camisole that peeks through. It's used as the base and has been painted in her own unique style, stick figures and swirls. Sleeves of stretchy lace cover her pale arms and later on in the day it's conceivable that she might have a damask pattern burned into her skin, if she stays out long enough. For now, Delia can imagine herself looking absolutely radiant in the morning light.
The morning is a nice enough time to be moving through the city, with the damp heat of summer only on the rise rather than completely charged up. She walks in shoes sensible enough to travel blocks upon blocks of distance through the city as required, because although Benji does have the benefit of a legitimate (more or less) Registration card and no outstanding warrants against her (fake) name, she doesn't have a lot of money. It would be something visible if she didn't already constantly look assembled with only skin and bones, or if simply getting by were not something she were used to, consideration given to where she comes from.
In jeans that cling skinny to legs and a soft, thin and long sweater of bold and thick black and white stripes that ring horizontal around torso and arms, she moves passed the cafe for the door, only breaking her stride when she catches the sight of Delia through the window and almost getting shoulder-checked by a passing courier in the process who, despite the hour, curses colourfully without slowing down. Still, she waves, and skips a step up the door, a darting rabbit seeking refuge in a warren.
"Hello." This part is always a little awkward, never quite convinced that those of the present have the relevant familiarity for things like hugging on greeting, something that comes far too naturally for Benji to Delia where she is from, and inevitably hovers instead in a sort of limbo.
A creature of habit, Delia does get up and wrap her arms around Benji, nearly swallowing the more willowy of the two in a hug. There's no kiss on the cheek, instead Delia pulls back and turns her head so that her breath doesn't touch her 'daughter's' pale skin. She does receive a smile, though, and unable to resist, the redhead pulls her into another hug which ends up being just as short before pulling back with a quiet apology. Then she points to the mask around her neck and lifts one shoulder in a shrug. "I don't want you to become a carrier," not that she knows exactly who or what Benji's been around since she last saw her. "It probably would have been easier to just find you when I was asleep but I wanted— needed— to see you.
"I'm sorry," she begins quickly, "the last time I talked to you… I told you that Nick wasn't sick. He is." There's a slight furrow to Delia's eyebrows and she seems somehow older than when Benji saw her last, perhaps just more tired. "I looked for you to try to tell you but I was just so worried and things started happening."
Looking down, Delia lifts her pant leg up to show off the bottom of her ankle bracelet and then flicks her gaze back to her own reflection in Benji's pale blue eyes. "I'm sorry," she repeats, it seems to be a pattern in the young woman's life. Always ready with an apology for something or other. "I was going to try to leave but they have my friend Tania, so I can't. I won't."
The first hug is returned a little flimsily, and the second in earnest, as if Benji perhaps needed a warm up. It's a nice seague, in any event, to bad news both new and old, her gaze settling finally on the ankle bracelet as she moves to sit down, the toes of her boots en pointe once on the stool. "Tania," she repeats, as if trying to summon up who that is and why Delia would care, but she does know the name, and has dreamed about that name. It's evident, at least, that the young woman being taken was not in the grand scheme of things.
But then again, Delia never went to Eltingville, either, because Calvin never told her to.
"One of us can probably try and look out for you. JJ works with the military, even if he isn't on Staten Island, but maybe he could— do something. Ingrid has Department connections too, and Kincaid is in the media." She drags her stare off the ankle bracelet but doesn't make it much further than falling her attention on her hands against the edge of the table. "If you think staying there is right, I mean."
"I can take care of myself, I think. I don't want to be a bother, I know you're all so busy." Delia's words are spoken a little sheepishly, hanging her head in guilt rather than looking at her progeny. Adjusting herself on the tall stoll, she picks up her napkin and twists it between her fingers into a point. Flaring out the edges, she stands it in front of her, making it look a little like a white Christmas tree. She's stalling, the visible strain on her features as she risks a glance to the other woman here and there, taking in dark curls and the smattering of freckles across nose and cheeks. So much like her own. "Benji, I did something awful— "
Desperate for approval, she places both hands on the table and leans forward just a little to hush her voice. Apparently it's a confession that's not for other ears. "It didn't start out that way… I found a family with the flu and I brought them to Jaiden's. I've been taking care of them." She closes her eyes and presses her lips together tightly, possibly to keep from bursting. "The Martells, they're nice people. The boys, they're too small to die. It didn't start out awful but— but I'm so angry. For what they're doing to Tania and her brother, for what they're doing to Mister Logan— Because they're trying to find the Ferry and what they did."
Taking a deep breath, she raises her chin defiantly, as she does to her father whenever she's readying herself for a scolding. "I'm doing the same thing to the soldiers. I stopped wearing my mask around the Martells and I don't wear it inside the walls. Sometimes… sometimes I don't change my clothes right away when I come home."
Sympathy and worry for the stories coming out of Delia's face gradually grows brittle, icing over. The lean that Delia gives towards her as confession is hushedly given is mirrored in lean back, briefly deaf to the sounds of the cafe until a sharp hiss from the coffee machine several feet away sharply jerk Benji back to reality, finding herself breathing a little tighter and higher. The clatter and clang of the public space is, at that stage, too loud, the bell ringing to admit another paying customer and the sounds of the kitchen heating and serving breakfast to go and to stay, and down to the cacophony of teaspoons ringing off the ceramic rims of teacups and coffee mugs and saucers.
They're having a conversation about a plague, one not so unlike something Benji scribbled in the margins at some unknown hour during her brief Ferry imprisonment, and yet worse somehow. Or rather— they were. The first syllable that comes out is a whine, mostly just a, "How— ?"
And then she breaks away from the table and the tall chairs, the one nearest her almost teetering when her hip bumps into it, ultimately staying as she makes for the door. Out into the growing warm of the summery morning, the growingly busy street and sidewalk, all frustration and anger that is, for once, more hot than cold.
"Because it's never fair…" Delia murmurs, not looking at Benji anymore. Instead she stares out the window at the climbing sun, until green blotches invade her sight and render her unable to see clearly. So she doesn't have to witness the bristle and callousness taking over what she knows as a shy and charming personality.
There's a jingle of a bell and when the spots begin to fade, the redhead actually sees the empty spot left by Benji. A swift glance out the window determines the direction the other woman is traveling and she makes a break for it, just as fast as the initial escape. It's not long before her long legs carry her just a few paces behind the Ferry member. "I'm sorry.." she says again, reaching for her arm to grip at the elbow. Something to try to turn the other woman around. "I know— I know that no one deserves to die like that but there's some that deserve it less. I shouldn't have had to give Mala a last romp through an imaginary playground. I shouldn't have to do the same for Jamie and Mitch, but I will because they're not the ones who should be sick."
She doesn't mention Benji's father, it's still too close to home.
"I know what I did, what I'm doing is wrong," she continues slowly. "I don't know how to even start undoing it, I can't stop taking care of them and I can't stay away from Eltingville. I'm scared if anyone finds out, they'll find the Martells and kill them."
As conflict is already extant, it hardly makes sense at this point for even more to be on its way. But sometimes things have to get worse in the process of — getting worse. To get even more.
Worse.
Today further conflict arrives in the form of Calvin Sheridan. Clear of eye and dapper of suit, he's on his way up the sidewalk with his cell phone out and his attention just lifting from the screen to mark the unfamiliar cafe sign suspended overhead.
His eyes find Benji on the way up instead, and fix there all glassily off-guard and tense, same as an alley cat who's just rounded a corner on a (pretenaturally pretty) pit bull.
Ups.
His phone slides the rest've the way out of his hand into his pocket on a delay.
There is no violent wrench away from Delia's grip, Benji next to physically incapable of doing so but only with certain people, and Delia is one of them. Her shoulder goes up in shying away, jaw fixed, and she is listening only because she has to due to proximity, and unable to just willfully ignore it. "And all the people that did this, all the soldiers, they're non-Evolved? All of them? The families they go home to, do they deserve to get sick?" Now with the yank, stepping away just firmly enough that Delia's hold on her arm will slip away and it's quite publicly obvious that there's an argument happening on the sidewalk.
"They only put those ankle trackers on Evolved, and that's wrong. The sickness only spreads to non-Evolved, and that's evil." And speak of the devil.
Quite literally. Whatever conclusion Benji was going to fumingly arrive at stalls itself as her gaze inevitably tracks to familiar figure come around the corner, taking an instinctive step back and left over anger directed in simple focus.
"They don't go home to families," Delia manages, turning her head away once again. "They go to the brothel." Which is where she meets them. Not for anything unsavory, of course, but to do their laundry when that business is either over or in process.
Her arm drops from its position stuck in the air after Benji yanks herself out of Delia's grip and her fingers curling into a fist. "It used to only spread to evo— " but the words are cut off when she spies a set of dreadlocks that she's seen once before. They were angry with her then and left her in the dark. Cornflower blue eyes sweep over the rest of the man in his dapper suit and she takes a step back, her other hand going to her throat to find the mask. Not that it would help disguise her much.
Disconcertion is all too ready to roll itself over into less innocent calculation once Calvin's eyes have had a chance to check glittery quick from Benji to Delia. The pull of an arm, a fist made, the looks on their faces. The way they both take a step back.
It isn't hard at all to see him gauging distance in addition to everything else. Because Benji's retreat gives him precious inches to wedge into, and in that space his right hand is more on top of things than the rest of him in steering itself automatically to support as he finishes out his approach.
To support Delia, that is. Around he region of her shoulder. Or side.
Or waist.
His brows knit just so once he's there, or almost there, should she do the intelligent thing and slip away from his grasp. "What's going on?"
The first instinct would be to grab Delia and start on a brisk and haughty pace down the road, hair a-flip. Petty(?) fury that is only building when Delia doesn't, you know, immediately agree with her has Benji fixed fast on the sidewalk instead, hands clenched into knots at her sides and instant adrenaline that inks automatic fear into anger has a blush quick to rise beneath freckles. Delia doesn't have much room to slip away, should she be about to or in the process of doing so.
A two-handed, open palmed push slaps itself against Calvin's chest in a shove that levers Benji back a few steps on the rebound, as startling for herself as much as it would be for anyone else. "Everything is your fault." That's what's going on, Calvin!
Delia sails backward, staggering a few paces before collecting herself to stand with her feet shoulder width apart. Both hands now form to fists and her jaw clenches, not in fear but in rage that eclipses Benji's. A tight, trembling breath in through the nose is sounded by an embarrassing little whistle that would normally mortify the redhead.
"You!" An announcement to his presence that carries almost as much venom as Benji's accusation. Then Delia launches herself at the man, raising her fist to bring it down on his shoulder. Not the most strategic place if she were picking a fight, which she is, but effective enough to make her intentions toward him known. "I believed you! You lied to me! You… you… jerk!"
The punch is feeble at best, had she ever paid attention to any of the training that people had tried to bestow, she might have made something of a mark. As it is, the laughable attempt wouldn't even get her out of a wet paper bag. "Nick almost died! Why would you— " Then she stops and backs up, staring at Benji. The color creeps to her cheeks and she lowers her head, finally agreeing whole heartedly. "No, no… you have to undo it. Please." It's almost an after thought.
Oh.
My.
Had he not seen similar flashes of — violent temper from the artist formerly known as Jasmine Calvin might be more surprised than he is.
Which isn't to say that he isn't surprised. Because he is. Just, you know. Less than he'd like to be. A state of disorientation rather than utter disbelief.
It's enough for him to be taken off guard, though — he catches the brunt of Benji's shove without deflection or diversion and has to catch himself with a step back or so. And then a toothy, uneasy sort've half — chuckle. Because — Benji just shoved him. And he isn't quite sure what to do with the bone and knuckle fist he's tempered reflexively to pay him back with.
Irritation doesn't really start to cement in until Delia's taken a whack at him too, bouncing a blow off his shoulder that he has to steel himself not to react to with more than a look. "I suppose," he says, finally, composed, without opening his mouth much, the way people speak when they're worried something terrible might claw out if it's given room to, "your ineffectual bitchiness comes from both sides, then."
Hn, is a soft noise from Benji when Delia joins in on the fray. The "fray". A hand goes out to clasp gently around the woman's wrist, but only for a few moments, retracting back as if remembering herself and remembering that she is still mad at her would-be-parent, but still — she doesn't want to see retaliation should the redhead push her luck. Which is a little hypocritical, but.
"And to whom," it takes a special kind of anger to be able to say whom in the middle of trading snark on the open street, "should I assign the genocidal psychopath genes?" Pale eyes darting off towards the fist Calvin's reflexively drawn, and though pretty much most physical altercations end in her losing, save for brief periods of childhood where biting was an acceptable strategy, it doesn't have her backing off especially beyond those few steps she'd bounced back on before. "He can't undo it," and this is to Delia, even if blazing ice water stare doesn't shift back to her, "and he won't undo it."
She's not as proper, soft spoken, or even as well put together as Benji. Delia doesn't have any sort of retort that wouldn't further irritate the lanky man, blame in on her Irish roots. Settling on brushing a coil of hair behind one ear, she keeps silent for the moment. It's a trait she's not readily known for.
Like Benji, her eyes don't stray from Calvin for longer than it takes to blink. Finally, she takes another breath inward, this time to calm herself. A hand goes to the mask around her neck, cupping it like it provides some sort of extra security and her features soften. Anger dissapates to an expression of despair and she twitches her head, stopping it from a full shake. "Why? Why wouldn't you undo it if you could?"
It's early in the morning to be discussing genocidal philosophy, isn't it? Dawn light blazes bright off the tawny orange of his mane and his eyes are filtered a colorless, sallow yellow by the same earthy glow.
He's becoming thicker-skinned, when it comes to being called these kinds of things. Pyschopathic and genocidal and otherwise insane. But it phases him still such that he isn't blinking as much or fidgeting the way he tends to, restless energy boiled away from the bone to leave him staring flatly between them. Already apathetic to whatever end he'd plotted to achieve by coming here.
"Why should I?"
Benji folds long arms across her chest, as if to contain the same emotions that had powered along her exeunt from the cafe, the shove to Calvin's chest. This time, she doesn't say anything, just steers a very sharp and expectant stare towards Delia. She can see that Delia has changed her mind. Forgiveness is inevitable, olive branches a dime a dozen for Benji should the receiver be willing to do so, but it doesn't come yet. A head tilt, as if to ask, is that argument good enough for you? Despite that Delia stands there with her tracking device and kidnapped friends and fugitive family members, Benji seems confident enough to at least silently enquire if biological warfare is a decent enough tactic.
"Because."
The answer seems simple at first. A single word. It doesn't get much simpler than that. Only the reason gets a little more complicated than that. "I can only imagine what it is you came from but this flu… it can't be the answer to all the problems that happen because of what we did or didn't do now."
Delia's hands dip into her pockets and one shoulder rises up as her head ducks down self consciously. "I got angry too, I understand, really but the people that are suffering the most don't deserve to be." Swallowing, she lifts her gaze back up to Calvin's face and knits her eyebrows together worriedly. "There's little kids that are dying because of this flu and people that don't hate us for what we are. The ones that are responsible for things like…" Her foot slides out to show off her latest and greatest accessory to him and just as quickly she hides it again. "They're not the ones that are going to die. They've got enough power and money to keep it from happening to them. So the ones that do… they're the ones that could have changed it all."
"Right. Except — the ones who could have changed it all… didn't," the hand that he made into a fist earlier catches itself up into an illustrative point instead, which he lingers on, "and 'little kids' grow up into uneducated voters and genocidal fuckheads like m'self."
Ssoooo. Calvin lifts his brows, tolerantly disinterested, apparently, and joins his hands together before him. All the way condescending, as opposed to the usual not-quite.
"Sometimes you have thin the flock before you can reach the shepherd. Nothing from you?"
The last is partnered with a look more directly at Benji. "I'm sure you can do better than taking a swipe at my sanity."
There's a point during Delia's monologue— which sounds too familiar for comfort— where Benji observes the sky rather than the other dreamwalker or metallokinetic, as if wishing to be somewhere where this isn't happening. Back home, maybe. Or an hour ago.
Feeling more than seeing and hearing Calvin's attention back on her, she drops a placid stare back down towards him, arms unwinding from where they'd locked tightly around her to fall slack at her sides. "It's really an excellent coping mechanism, your delusion that you think you're changing the world. Or the belief that dreams aren't particularly inspiring. I'm sure your mother, while not particularly proud, would find you very interesting. Now, would you do yourself the courtesy of staying away from mine or expect to never sleep soundly again. Sleep deprivation is a form of torture but I guarantee you will prefer it.
"You haven't seen what I can do. You haven't come near it." There is something slightly diminishing about venomous threats on a sidewalk in bright golden sun up, a van rattling its way down the street and birds in the trees.
"Benji," Delia says sternly, placing her hands on her hips and giving the slightly older woman a hard stare. Calvin gets a quick glance before she moves in between them and faces her daughter, fixing her with a hard stare. Her voice now, comes out in a whisper. "I don't know how I raised you but I'm sure it wasn't to torture people or threaten them with it. Now you should apologize because I'm pretty sure that you're not too old to take over my knee."
Then she raises her chin again and spins on her heel toward Calvin. "What she said," she begins, raising her index finger to point at Calvin with a slight waggle. "What she said, only double. I might not be good at what I do yet but I learned from someone whose done some pretty bad things."
"No more or less interested than she would be in 'this,'" says Calvin, who gestures vaguely about the process of Delia claiming mothership rights over her older-than-her transgender daughter from the future. He is unhappy. He usually is, but these days it's writing itself in permanent lines around his eyes and the rankle of his nose.
"Torture a disabled man as you like," he tells — mainly Benji, according to the veer and settle of his unholy stare, "but do so knowing that he has never raised a hand against you."
Half a beat later, his haughtier, "May I go?" is directed at both of them.
"If you go near Delia again," Benji. Clarifies. Repeats, only with names, just in case it didn't take the first time and a terrible miscommunication happens, like that Benji would unleash nightmare hell for no reason. She likes having reasons, anyway. This is said with the same ice-edged steely certainty as before, only briefly shaken by Delia attempting to sound like a different incarnation of herself. It doesn't quite get the response it might have done, should she have been the proper age, the proper— Delia. Tension beneath stripy clad shoulders and her hands don't unhook themselves from the fists they've made.
At both of them. On the darting tail of haughtiness, she responds with, "I think you're finished, yes."
So the threat of corporal punishment was an empty one. Still, Calvin is disabled? Delia's eyes sweep over him, searching for some kind of infirmaty that he might have reason to make such claims. Finding none, at least none to validate the allegation that he's differently-abled, she slides her gaze toward Benji again only to drop it just as quickly.
The younger woman withdraws, digging her hands a little further into her pockets and turning her head toward an overhead wire and the pigeons it has balanced all over it. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she imagines that there's someone else watching them. Through said pigeons.
Her attention can only be diverted so long, if only because Calvin and Benji are much more interesting. But he's being summarily dismissed and the manner in which Benji makes the delivery has Delia smiling with pride. "I'm so proud of you," she ekes, pulling one hand out to touch on the back of the raven curls. "I hope, someday, I can live up to your example."
Oh. Is that the only condition there is that'll get him tortured?
Calvin looks like he might wager a correction in here, given the conflict in his own recollection of the types of events likely to lead to him waking up sweat soaked and sick in the middle of the night.
He doesn't. Just yet. But it's enough to make him linger while his ego and his temper consort behind closed doors. He's still watching them, too. Both of them.
And accusations of mental deficiency aside, he looks to be fairly aware. Aware, even. Capital A. Like there are things to be read into discomfort and disagreement and praise and touch.
Somewhere around the last is when he finally turns silently to go.
And somewhere three steps further along than that he turns on his heel to wind his way back. A clear advance upon them both, rather than a last word in edgewise or a forgotten request. He's coming, he's coming, he's coming.
"It's just," he's saying, "When you say 'again,'" he continues, "I feel like our current incidental alignment is exempt."
Her resolve isn't holding for much longer. There's a timer on it, and as Calvin turns away, it seems maybe safe to let go of it and Delia can probably hear the shakiness her breathing takes on. Then, a small twitch away from Delia's hand accompanied by a more resolute step, opening her mouth to say something just as the metallokinetic ahead appears to change his mind, which is possibly what the brat teenager at the corner watching at sniper-range what appears to be a good ol' New York altercation (there's even queers in it) is hoping for. Benji is paying little more mind than the man up ahead and the not-parent just at her side whom she keeps steering away from in squirming disappointment and spite.
Her heel almost slips down the curb when she startles a step back — not to move backwards into open traffic or anything, but simply laying space down where Calvin is reclaiming it. Her hand seeks Delia's impulsively, in bright opposition to the flinch away just a few seconds ago, taking her with.
"I wouldn't," is almost cheery — forcibly so, slathered over the waver in her voice that is more prominent when she adds, to Delia, "Let's go."
It stings. When Benji flinches and moves away from her hand, she grabs a slow fist full of air as she lowers her it again, down to her side. Not that she can blame the woman, their meeting hasn't gone well at all, through no fault of Benji's. The hurt that passes over Delia's features is quick, almost as quick as Calvin's changed mind and when he starts making his way back, she face him for just a split second.
What is it about Deckards that gives her the heebie jeebies.
The steely grip that locks Benji's hand with her own is a little stronger than usual, perhaps because she is afraid. Not that she would admit it. White knuckles tremble as Delia retreats as many steps as metallokinetic takes. She has no bravado to show off, she's used up all of her reserves. She remembers though, the few seconds before when Benji was repulsed by her touch and she lets go. Giving the woman a small apologetic smile. She does, however, keep walking in the same direction as her would be daughter. Away from Calvin.
It's enough. To see that they're afraid. Calvin's point's been made without him ever having had to voice a threat, leaving him to look the better man. In his own mind, anyway. In his nice suit and his nice shoes. Someone has to think so.
"Wouldn't what? Do something unchivalrous?"
He's paused quick enough, invitation for suggestions lifting high at his brows simultaneously devoid of any expectation of an answer. Assuming they don't pause to acknowledge him, he's left to study their retreat in higher definition, conspicuously alone to their awkward pairing.
"Maybe next time she has you alone and she's on you about some decision you've made, you can ask her about what she gets up to in the dead of night," he has to raise his voice, for their benefit and for the benefit of that younger fellow watching down the street, "When there's no one to know."
Though they aren't clutching hands, Benji does move alongside Delia, arms folding and keeping close, near brushing elbows as they hoof it away. She does last words better in dreams — most things, actually, including the art of threats without words — or from high places, and is content to retreat, feeling danger at her back whether Calvin is merely making a point or not. Tension clutches up her spine and sets her shoulders, and releasing a sigh by the time they've cleared a corner and disappeared out of Calvin's scrutiny, his voice bouncing off the faces of the buildings as the morning traffic continues to hike up.
This isn't cue for Benji to slow. She doesn't, as restless as something caged, and the waking world is a little like that. All kinds of trappings.
Calvin's words cause Delia to turn her head to look over her shoulder at him. She's not so much taller than Benji that she can look down at her but the squinted, blue slits that are her eyes, slide practically into their corners in order to get an inconspicuous glimpse of the other woman. She's better than Nick at that.
"Whatever it is," she mumbles in retort, clearly not loud enough for either Calvin or their spectator to hear, "it's not murder."
Delia, in direct contrast to Benji, cannot keep up the quick pace. After a block or two, when Calvin is well out of sight but obviously not out of mind, she slows and bends at the waist, gripping her knee to support herself. Her breathing is heavy, much too heavy and too tired for someone as young as she is. It's obvious that even with a half a year separating her from her little incident, she still hasn't fully recovered. Stamina that used to allow her to run for miles is slow to creep back to its original state and too fast to disappear when she needs it most.
But he's is out of sight and doesn't seem to be pursuing, Delia feels safe enough that she doesn't have to walk until that stitch in her side becomes a cramp or the heaviness that she feels in her chest becomes a tight wheeze or something worse. "You can go on if you like…" she huffs, collapsing onto the side of a building and sliding down until her tailbone hits the concrete sidewalk. "I just— need to rest."
And she does, like a vagrant, closing her eyes and allowing her head to fall forward. Not asleep but still escaped.