Participants:
| Scene Title | Under Wing |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Shortly after her reaction to dying, Gillian was tucked under the wing of the safehouse's mother hen. |
| Date | July 2, 2009 |
Fourth Floor Safehouse, Gillian's Apartment
Bad things happen to good people— and not so good people.
Since the moment she stopped screaming, very little in the way of sound came out of Gillian's mouth again for the rest of the night. A few quiet whimpers and depressed sobs, but no more screams, no words. Any attempt to question her on what happened got met with silence. Though multiple people may have stopped into the room to check on her, one red haired girl she met getting onto an elevator stayed with her almost the entire night. The apartment bed had more than enough room for two, and even when she first fell asleep, her hand didn't release the girl's arm. A few times in the night she woke up crying again. Luckily the tears were just tears— her power might have been focused in another direction right then. Specifically attempting to mess up the weather. It at least sprinkled in the area most the night, even if the thunder didn't rip through the air again.
With the sun up, maybe things will be different. While she slept the rain stopped, weather settling into normal patterns. Eyes open. No sudden teary gasps, but there's a shifting as she sits up, reddened eyes squinting as she looks around.
Despite the constant worry of being drugged by the power she accidentally gave Gillian in the first place, Delilah has stayed the entire night with her; the first bout of screaming that had torn through the building was quick to alert her, and being a mere three rooms down the hall cleaning- it took all of perhaps ten seconds for the younger woman to speed off. They'll have to fix the chain lock at some point.
When it was clear that Gillian would not be getting any better soon, Delilah took it on herself to stay; getting the poor girl to try and rest was a whole task in itself, and when she finally did, her hand was still clutching onto Dee. In the end, the redhead sat up much of the night, watchful for any more trouble and only falling asleep in the latest hours. For this reason, she is still asleep on one side of Gillian when the dark-haired girl actually sits up and looks around. It's a light sleep- enough that when Gillian moves around, the freckled face in the pillow nearby gives off a muffled noise. Hmh?
It takes a few moments before Gillian's memory clicks into place. Her entire expression is more than tired and moving into depression, her reddened eyes settle on the young woman. "Delilah," she says after a moment, voice still hoarse from the lack of moisture. More tears than she had water to handle. The elevator comes into the forfront of her memory, the electric discharge that shut it down and trapped them together briefly— and the ability she picked up.
A startled hand goes up to her eyes, still damp with tears, and she starts to move away from the young woman. "Um— hi."
The only thing missing off of Dee seems to be her shoes- even her socks are still on her feet. She must have really just plopped right down on the bed there. When Gillian's voice reaches her ears, Delilah blinks her eyes open, promptly turning over and leaning on her elbows, blearily looking up at Gillian where she sits beside her. One hand lifts up to brush bent red hair from her face. Bedhead. "Jill-" Well, close enough.
"-hi." Comes an actual reply, before Dee does sit up, searching mentally for a question. "Morning, then- did you sleep?"
"I— yeah, I slept," Gillian says softly, touching her hair and her forehead. Headaches aren't something she's been used to lately, but for the moment, her head pounds. Residue of what happened, possibly, but… "I— I'm okay, I just…" The words break off, a slow inhale following. The hand held up to her forehead shakes slightly, her legs shiver, shoulders quaking. The tears start to reappear in her eyes, collecting on her eyelashes. Any make up she might have been wearing has long been washed away. "Sorry."
Delilah knows all too well that Gillian is really not okay, so just saying it does very little to change the look of concern on her face. When Gillian starts to quiver up again, the redhead sitting beside her puts an arm behind her shoulders, hand resting on Gillian's further arm. "You're not okay if you're just going to freeze up again." True. "Here, sit up on this." The arm moves away from her shoulders to tug up the pillow to stand it against the headboard.
It takes a moment, but Gillian rubs a hand over her face and then slowly shifts. Her movements are sluggish, unenthusiastic. Even lethargic in nature. She has to force each movement. Once against the headboard, her eyes close and she takes in slow breaths. Breath that shakes unsteadily. "Have you ever— wondered what it'd feel like to die? Have a couple old friends who would… write poetry about it. They got it fucking wrong."
After she makes sure Gillian is going to be able to sit back perfectly fine, Dee shifts her feet out of the bunched covers at the end of the bed. She pauses after freeing one leg and shifting the other as if to stand- so she has to twist her torso just slightly to look at Gillian when she speaks again in that unsteady manner.
"I can't say that I have…" Definitely not a very Delilah thing to think about! "Got it …wrong?" Pardon, but say what?
"I died," Gillian explains shakily, voice quiet as her eyes open to stare blindly across the room. Nothing comes into focus. But for someone who died, she's breathing fine— "I felt it. It was… fuck. I had a piece of me out to… try and find something out. A clone. And then it… I died. The piece of me that was there and I felt it." Living through the experience of death might well be unique to most people. Finally she blinks a few times and tries to focus on something else. A movie— the elevator. Perfect memory brings back the perfect memory of all of that pain. And everything that happened before. Those tears fall with her blinks. "You and Cat are friends, so I'm guessing you've… joined the cause, huh?" Talking about someone else might make it hurt less.
Delilah doesn't seem to understand until the word 'clone', where she suddenly sits up again and looks over as if the other woman just told her she had cancer or something. Eyes a bit wide, lips ajar. "Oh, gosh-" There aren't really many words in this case, either. Dee shifts closer again, hand moving to rest on Gillian's shoulder. "-oh. So that's what happened?"
And on the last- "…You could say that." For the first time this morning, Lilah does flash a tiny smile with her lips. She is not sure how much Gillian is into the loop, and so leaves it at what can be assumed.
A slow nod answers the question— that's what happened. Gillian doesn't seem to be keen on going into further details on it, at the moment, but she does murmur softly, "I'm going to have to talk to… to Helena." From the way her breath shakes, it's up there with many things she may not want to do, but might well be determined to do it. "I'm glad— even if we just briefly met… Seemed like a good kid." From the quiet rasp of her voice, she may not be thinking the use of kid would be insulting at the moment. She is younger by about four years, but not really THAT much. "Too bad I didn't know how to get into this place when I visited back then— we wouldn't have had to have quite as awkward broken elevator conversation."
"If I knew you were one of those friends, I would have walked you right up." Dee's reaction to anyone using 'kid' in her presence is usually one of ire, but right now all that the word gets is a tightening of her lips. "I told myself I'd call Cat in the morning, last night- but I can try Helena instead- or both, really. They'd probably both show up anyway, huh."
"But that can wait a little- I really think you should get your bearings and relax, maybe even get something to eat, to settle yourself." Because you're not dead! "I'm not going to sit back if you suddenly decide that you might have to see someone right away, so don't try it." Delilah leans across Gillian's legs to pick up a cellphone from the nightstand, her demeanor generally seeming not unlike a mother hen.
"Yeah— sometimes they're attached at the hip," Gillian murmurs tiredly, voice just as dragging as her movements had been. Depression over dying isn't easy to get over right now, and her one defense against it can't be done while laying on a bed. It'd break if she went into iron form. "You don't have to call them now," she adds on. "What I have to tell 'em won't change in a few hours… And telling them now won't make any more difference than telling them tonight."
There's a quiet sigh, a few more tears which she wipes away— the tears don't seem to be sticky, at least. "Something to drink would be nice— and food too."
The cellphone gets tucked into the pocket on the side of Delilah's dress, and the redhead swings her legs back over the edge of the bed, watching Gillian over her shoulder. "Drink like Orange Juice drink, or drink like something that will give you a buzz? It's early, but I've seen people drink beer with their waffles…" Just asking! "Ah, yeah- how do waffles sound?" Delilah's version of 'waffles' is far more elaborate than butter on a toasted square, though.
"Drink as in water," Gillian says with a smile actually showing up on her face. It's not wide, but at least it's there. Dimples start to peek out on her cheeks too. "A buzz would be nice, but— I think I'm dehydrated." Comes from crying as much as she had, and just waking up in the morning. Regular water would work best right now. "Waffles sound fucking amazing right now. And some kind of fruity syrup would be great too."
"I'll do you one better and use actual fruit." Delilah smiles when she sees the one on Gillian's face. She habitually finds her flats with her toes, standing up and leaning to the side to tug on the shoes properly. "If I can take care of a five and ten year old, I can take care of you." She laughs, the sound still sleepy as she glances back.
Dee then turns to leave the room; she comes back a minute or so later after checking over the hall outside and fetching Gillian a glass of water. As she hands this over, Dee regrows a smile just for her. "Here. Sip, don't drink it like you're drowning. You need any tylenol, or…?" Any sort of medication?
A mother hen. Once Gillian'd thought she was a good kid, and now she can see in more ways that she suspected that she'd been right. The minute or so it takes to get the glass of water leaves her alone to rub at her face with the sheet of the bed, wiping away some of the tears, dryed and otherwise. Her head still pounds, perhaps hinted by the way she's touching one of her temples even as she hands over the water. "Yeah," she says with a small laugh.
"Tylenol would be good. So you take care of kids? Siblings or something? I never really did any of that stuff even as a part time job— my siblings… I didn't really take good care of them." They'd only been a handful of years younger, Jenny'd been the more responsible one, and she'd been far too rebellious to be much help in that department.
"Until recently, I was sometimes the only person able to watch my cousins…" Delilah leaves only partially this time, flicking on the light in the bathroom attached to the end of the bedroom, where she is still visible while she gets into the cabinet. "After I moved out, my aunt was able to get a better job and move out of the trailer park too. Now the older one of those two can watch the younger. They've gotten quite self-sufficient now that I'm not there to 'boss them around'." As Joshua would say, anyway. Not that he was ever there.
After fishing out some medication for Gillian, Delilah comes back with it, perching on that side of the bed and waiting for her to take the pills, hand out. "I miss mothering them, but obviously my caretaking days aren't quite over, hm?"
While she's fishing out the medication, Gillian's taken a few sips of water, no drowning gulps! And listens to what she's saying. There's nothing speedy about her movements, her eyes focus on something in the distance more than like she's looking at something, but she seems to be listening from the nods, the small smiles. When the medication arrives, she stuffs two in her mouth and swallows them down with more sips.
"Seem to got a handle on it, yeah." And right now she really needed it. Losing Gabriel, having things said spark doubts in another relationship, and dying… she needed something that could be considered comforting. "I barely remember last night after— after it started. But I think I saw you… Thanks."
That gets a short nod of confirmation, though Dee does pause right after. "Yeah. I came- er. Came when I heard you scream." Delilah lifts her hand, idly rubbing at her cheekbone. "I- that reminds me. I need to fix your lock. I broke it." She frowns almost comically, glancing at the door and lifting herself from the edge of the bed again. "I'm glad that you fell asleep, though. I thought you never would."
Broken lock? Gillian actually glances over and has to laugh a bit. Not a humor filled one, but at least it's a laugh. "I'll pay for it. Only had the chain down cause I didn't want to get distracted while it was— I didn't expect him to just show up and…" Kill her. Without even a chance to defend herself. Without even a pause of hesitation. And maybe, just maybe, he didn't even know she'd been a clone at all. "That real fruit waffle sounds delicious. Think I'm going to… take a shower and change my clothes and then… well. Waffle."
"No need. We have accounts specifically for repairs. It'll cost me a couple dollars out of that, at most." Delilah lifts her hand and makes a sort of wave-off motion. "Don't think about anything, Gillian… Just get yourself cleaned up a bit, okay?" A shower and change of clothes sounds like a rather good idea, really- Delilah might sneak over into one of the empty rooms herself, though she will certainly lay out some clothes for Gillian if there are none ready, and probably be back in time to already have started breakfast. Delilah- now available at the speed of light.
"Thanks, Delilah," Gillian says, taking some time to slug her way off the bed, finishing off the glass of water, and slouch toward the bathroom. There's another delay before she stops to open the dresser drawer and pull out some comfy clothes. Sweat pants and a loose t-shirt seem to be on the menu for today. None of her clothes got removed before she got placed in bed either, so there's that to wash off. It could be worse, though. She could be washing off layers of psychoactive secretions. If Dee is available at the speed of light, she's even slower than normal.
[OOC] Delilah imagines her all "Waffle waffle waffle :3" like …badger badger.
[OOC] Delilah says, "Waffle waffle waffle waffle whipped-cream whipped-cream, ohhhhh its a strraaaaawberry~"
[OOC] Gillian dies. XD
[OOC] Gillian says, "Yeeees."