Participants:
Scene Title | Those With Faith |
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Synopsis | And those with doubt. Delilah and Gillian settle in back at the Safehouse after the raid. |
Date | July 24, 2009 |
Village Renaissance Building, Fourth Floor Safehouse
The floors here on the fourth level of the Village Renaissance Building at 14 East 4th Street are of polished grey marble and the smooth walls are painted a cream color. Four corridors with four apartments each are found here, with stairwells at the front and back and elevators centrally placed in each corridor. The elevators have buttons for the first three floors visible, and control panels requiring both key and keycard to open.
The apartment doors, made from sturdy pine, are operated by keycards only on this floor. Like the second and third floors, they're numbered 401-416.
But that's where the similarity ends. This floor isn't for rental to the general public. It's a place reserved for temporary stays by whomever the person who lives on the top floor chooses to give sanctuary.
It's a safehouse of the Ferrymen, operated by a member of Phoenix, using the cover of musician's eccentricities to explain away the motley crew of folks who might come and go if anyone should ask.
A long coat wrapped around her to cover up the pieces of her clothes that got nuked into non-existance, Gillian's led to her room with the close attention of a younger, but taller, red head. No manhandling from her anymore. For the most part she's quiet the whole long trip back to the Village Renaissance. There's no more tears running down her cheeks from her eyes, at the very least, but occasionally she tremors slightly, curling into the coat. It isn't til they get back to the fourth floor and toward her apartment that she starts to animate.
Opening the door with a key retrieved earlier in the trip home (since carring keys and cards on a illegal raid would be a bad idea), pushing the door open to see a cat sitting nearby. Big, orange and fluffy, the cat looks like a mini-tiger with pale stripes, tail swishing back and forth. A few meows erupt, making demands, before the cat tries to move forward and accost ankles.
"Back off, Chandra," she says tiredly, nudging at the cat with said ankle. "Do you— do you need to go back to your own apartment?" she asks as she glances at the girl behind her. The one who just killed someone, and saw people killed in rather gruesome ways.
Delilah has been at Gillian's side since the moment she pulled the other young woman back so that the events on the roof would be free to carry forward. It is no mystery that she knows Gillian is upset about a million things- one of the biggest being that kind young man in the wheelchair- Peter, someone said. Dee is still attached at the hip when they get to the building, and she even follows the augmentor upstairs.
Yes, she saw some very horrible things tonight- did one horrible thing herself, which hangs over her shoulders like a cloak now. Was that the right thing? She has been trying to convince herself that it really was. He was going to do some bad things.
Finding a hooded sweatshirt after finding out that Gillian has her old power back was thankfully not hard, and the thin fabric is enough to keep any possible leaks on Delilah's side from seeping through. Her nervousness is evident, but hopefully not enough that she constantly is leaking that toxic muck. As they enter the apartment, the redhead stoops to help shoo the cat away, for possibly his sake as much as theirs. "I don't need to, no." Not quite the answer Gillian may have been looking for, but one that answers nonetheless.
Even with the emotional turmoil, Gillian's able to keep her energy knotted up in the back of her head for the most part. It helps that she has very little energy left. Everything that she'd done this evening had drained her personal reserves in ways nothing less than a lot of sleep would fix. There's enough energy to keep her concious and moving, but not enough to glow and pour energy like a nuclear core leak. Why did the clone bring him upstairs? Why did Edward shoot him now? Why didn't he shoot her? He'd wanted her dead once, so why not on the roof after she got made powerless?
"Okay… There's— water and some juice in the fridge, and I need to feed Chandra and…" Keep busy. As she gestures around about all the things she needs to do, her knees quake a little, and she's forced to grab onto the taller girl with her other hand and correct herself.
"I also need to clean up and… I know I healed, but there's a lot of blood on me." Dried as it may be. A nudge against the cat makes him shift to the side, before he switches to Dee's ankles. "I guess you can come in for a bit, if you— want."
Rather than take much of Gillian's words to heart- juice, cat food, blah, blah- Delilah takes Gillian by the arms to support her even after she is held onto. "No, Gillian." The redhead hooks at least one arm under hers. "You only need to worry about getting cleaned up and getting some sleep." And now, it is obvious why she followed all the way here. To once again try and take care of things. "You're weak as a kitten yourself, you know."
"I think Chandra would protest to that," Gillian says quietly as she kicks the door closed behind them so they can move further inside. "Yeah, I know I need some sleep. I just wish I knew that— that everything was okay. That everyone…" There's a shake of her head, hair spilling around. All the explosions that ripped apart her body until it healed left her hair relatively untouched. Miracle! Or maybe part of the regeneration power. Her body hair also came back. "Are you okay?" she asks as she starts to shift in the direction of the bathroom. That's where the cleaning begins.
"I won't let him starve." Dee can feed a cat, no fretting. "Everything is okay. We stopped him. We stopped them, didn't we?" She says softly, making sure that Gillian is steady on her feet before at least walking with her towards the bathroom. "I'm sure that whatever happened- we can find out later." It isn't like everything is disappearing after a day's sleep. "I'm afraid of what happened to my friends too, Gillian- but if we don't tend to ourselves first, we'll wish we had. I'm okay. I'm a bit sore from all the adrenaline, and my mind is in a million places- but- I'm okay." Just to reiterate, she gives the older girl's arm a gentle squeeze.
There's a slow nod, a quiet husky murmur under her breath. Gillian doesn't know what happened to everyone, and there's a lot of people in that group that meant a lot to her. Brian— many of him on the roof had melted. Peter'd been shot in the chest and fell four stories. Gabriel's body should have been gotten out of the place, but it's hard to know. Colette fell down an elevator.
And it was all her fault. She's been spending the last few hours trying to remember if he asked for her to augment him, or if she augmented him accidentally. It makes a difference. "I'm glad you're okay. My mind's kind of in a million places too— and I thought it'd be easier when I got my old power back."
Delilah puts her arm around the back of Gillian's shoulders, the other hand resting on the shoulder nearer. "And if you're blaming yourself for anything that happened in there, up here-" A finger pokes gently at her dark hair, at her head. Delilah knows the hints, and takes an educated guess that makes a bullseye. "-don't." Because it's not- Gillian did only what she was destined to. There is no blame to take.
If it was destiny, then destiny needs to fuck off. Gillian's sick of playing all these stupid games cause fate or destiny decided something should happen. Even if fate and destiny would be the only way that she could justify her sister's death. "All I did was… make things worse. Yeah, we stopped Arthur, we stopped Pinehearst, but I don't even know if… I just hope that by some miracle almost everyone who went with us will recover," she finally says, moving toward the bathroom and shrugging off the coat. There's enough of her clothes left to cover the important bits, but blacked along the edge of the holes, there's many of them. Blood, burning. "Peter seemed to recognize everyone, didn't he? I know you don't really know him— the guy in the wheelchair— he didn't seem confused at all."
"The phoenix hope, can wing her way through the desert skies, and still defying fortune's spite; revive from ashes and rise." Delilah recites. "We will recover. And be better." She follows along still, picking up the coat to at least toss it over a chair. And as for the holes and shredded clothes- it is not as if what is there is a mystery, but Dee looks concerned at the sheer amount of marks and blood on her under the lights. "He did, I suppose. Maybe he just knew what was going on… I'm not sure."
"I'm not a very good phoenix," Gillian admits quietly as she starts to pick off her top. It's obvious from the start that her tattoos are going to need some serious reconstruction. There's a clock on her upper arm that's been mangled, broken, part of the tribal rose on her wrist is gone. A sun on her back has been bisected… There's going to be a lot of touching up, as if her skin healed clean, forgetting to fix the tattoos. Looks like it didn't get engrained like her hair. "The night that I died and you found me— I went to Pinehearst to see him. He seemed brainwashed at the time, like he was… like he didn't remember things. And he said things that… I don't know what to think, now. Either he was brainwashed and snapped out of it, or got fixed, or he was lying."
Delilah listens closely, standing with her shoulder to the door in order to at least be considerate. But, she can't help but steal a look to see if there is any damage still there, and it is now that she does take a quick note of the mangled tattoos. "I dunno what happened. But maybe regardless he had a plan. He sounded like he did. Maybe he had to pretend this entire time, who knows…" The wheelchair was real, though.
"And maybe now I'll never know what his plan was exactly," Gillian says in the quiet rasp. As she shifts her leg to try to get her pants off, what's left of them, a red biohazard symbol can be seen on the inside of her thigh. That one's mostly untouched. "Pretend…" That kind of pretending had been cruel. But… There's really only so much she can say. The poor girl doesn't know much about him. And if the clone sent a message up to her to protect Helena for him… "I think I can handle the bath on my own, if you're okay with standing outside and waiting." She didn't seem to mind stripping halfway in front of her, though.
Like previously thought- nothing that she hasn't seen before- save for any of it being attached to Gillian. At least she does turn away after the spotting of the little biohazard symbol, leaning on the doorframe with her back to the bathroom. "He must have had a reason. I guess all we can have is faith in that fact."
She clears her throat when Gillian says the last bit, and its clear that she is hoping that nothing was meant by the following around. "Yeah, I just wanted to make sure you didn't give out. I'll wait up for you. If you need anything-" It hangs. Just ask, is implied, as Dee glances inside to make sure of the presence of towels, soap, et cetera before pulling the door shut gently behind her, which leaves her alone on the other side.
"A reason…" Gillian repeats in that husky voice, before nodding a bit. It doesn't completely help, because either way that moment had hurt her, and she could have forgiven him for saying it if he had been brainwashed. If he lied on his own… What if it wasn't a lie?
A glance at the mirror makes her shake her head. In some ways it was easier to accept him being brainwashed. "Thank you, Delilah," she manages as the door closes, leaning against the sink for a long moment, looking at the marred tattoos, the broken clock on her arm. There's going to need to be a lot of repairing. Backing away, she strips off the rest of her clothes, slowly, and turns on the warm water after making sure she has a towel.
Rain, tears, grime, burn residue, blood… all of it washes away and down the drain. If only everything cleaned up as well. After a while, the water shuts off. After a few minutes, she opens the door part way, wearing only a towel. "Can you grab me a shirt that isn't falling apart?"
Oh, look, guess what? Delilah is sitting beside the outside of the door, a pile of soft, clean clothes in her lap. A shirt, clothe pants, underthings- which she immediately offers up when Gillian opens the bathroom door again, a pleasant little smile on the redhead's face.
"You sure telepathy isn't one of your abilities?" Gillian asks, taking the pile and pulling it inside. She doesn't close the door all the way as she dresses. It allows her to talk as she does, though she's mostly hidden from sight. "Brian's talked me into helping out at the Lighthouse when he manages to get it reopened. Do you know anything about it? It's an orphanage, for Evolved." If Brian made it out okay… she knows he did. He had to. "You might be good at helping out there sometimes. Once or twice a week or something."
"I'm sure. I just- habit." The younger girl reddens a little bit. Nature. A good nature. Delilah offers a slightly bigger smile to the air. "I went there sometimes. Was at the opening of it too. I'd probably still be stopping by, but-" Way ahead of you, Gillyweed!
"For such a big city, it's still such a small world sometimes," Gillian comments softly as she pulls on the shirt, stepping out and leaving the steamed over mirror to air out. The good thing about the apartment here, it does have hot water. Some of her last apartments-crash places were lucky to have water. "You're good at this kind of thing, so— it'll be good to have you around." She's not. But she's going to try.
"Are you looking to learn from someone?" Dee jokes and sits up before standing, a smile and a laugh coming out of her. But of course, she does tone it down to ask- "Are you feeling a bit better?"
"Somewhat," Gillian says quietly, painfully aware of the knot in the back of her head, the way that memories that had been so clear a few hours ago are slipping away through her fingers. A blessing and a curse. "I'll feel better when— fuck, when we know what the hell happened to everyone." Not knowing is one of the hardest things of all sometimes. "And after I get some sleep. Maybe you can show me when you have time to visit, though."
"Look at it this way- if there were something so serious that we needed to be told- someone would have by now. I had that much faith." That even goes for poor Helena. They will fix her. It is one of those things that she just feels is right. Delilah lifts her hand to put it to Gillian's arm again, in a purely comforting gesture. "When it all boils down, I do just live a floor below. Beside Abby and Leo, no less." See? This is the best place for Gillian to be. Those below, Cat and everyone above- Friends! You're swimming in them. "Now, I'd say it's time for at least a damn good nap, hm?"
"Yeah— it's time for sleep," Gillian admits, though there's no sign of her dimpled smile yet. Maybe later. She's amazed at how good spirited the girl can remain after everything that's happened. "I'll see you later," she says, before moving to collapse on the end of her bed. Still damp, but she's going to collapse. And probably sleep like that.