Two Pickpockets, One Night.

[Lindsay Jacobs] The unassuming little bit of a thing has made her way through Grant, collecting the bits of something she's hidden away here and there that one wouldn't do to be found with on one's person. Everything is safely stashed in the backpack now, and she's ready to head back to Lake View, and the sweet deal that she stumbled into last night.

After a hot dog, though. She can't get enough of those hot dogs.

This is what finds her standing in line at a cart, playing with the end of a braided pigtail with one hand, the other curled protectively over a strap of her backpack.

[Rain] This false start to Spring in the city is not making Rain hopeful that the Midwestern chill would ever lift, that Chicago would rise above the snow and the freezing rain, and the salted streets, that there would be some sort of epiphany, some sort of breaking through, not unlike the dawn through the half light of the prime, not unlike awakening, that it would surge forth and sudden be... something. She didn't know. She just knew it hadn't happened yet, and tomorrow was April.

April, and the forcast was snow.

The Gaian girl called Imogen round about mid-afternoon, all pleases and respectful tones, a little worried. Perhaps even mildly concerned. She explained the letter she'd received from the newly appointed liaison, and that the only person she knew to whom the word liaison would naturally cleave, the only one who could shoulder in naturally, bear it up with confidence, that would be Dr. Slaughter herself, bent to serious wiles as she was. Of course Rain didn't say it this way, no. She stammered through it with a measure of embarassment as to her naivete, and an apology or three.

But she's well enough, now, to offer to buy the Doctor coffee for her time. She's certain enough in herself -- which is a transitioned thing, a transcendence -- to stand quietly aside while Imogen reads, to not fidget or tap her hands at the margins of the paper sleeve around the paper cup that kept her coffee in and the cold mostly out. There's a measure of grace coming forward, to temper that pervasive good will.

But impatience, yes, for she is still young. Rain's eyebrow lifts, curious, waiting for some sort of reaction she might spy in the more established, more collected, more everything kinswoman who had once told her that kins with guns were, she can't quite remember, something about likely to get dead.

Get killed.

Imogen's grammar was better than all that.

And where might this exchange be taking place? At a picnic bench, not far from the water, not entirely hemmed in by the bush-hedge that was starting to come back to life. Starting, but not yet fully committed to the task. Barely awake.

[Imogen] It is a warm day, though cloudy. It has brought out the denizens of Chicago, eager to take part in the beginning of spring, their jackets open. There was even one hardy sole dressed in khaki shorts and flip-flops, determinedly ignoring the chill that seeps into his bones.

Imogen is dressed in charcoal grey slacks, a pair of respectable pumps. Her black leather jacket is open over a perfectly white and pressed blouse. Her hair is brilliant against the grey sky, her skin an unearthly pale, as if she were porcelain rather than flesh or blood. She can feel Rain's gaze on her, searching for any hint of a reaction in the doctor's impassive expression. She finds little, merely the move of her eyes from one side of the page to the other, then back again. Her eyelashes are copper. Red-tinted, the irides of her eyes are dark unfathomable blue.

Her coffee cup is on the seat of the bench, but neither woman is sitting.

When she is done, she looks up, passing the paper back. "What did yeh want to know," she asks.

[Lindsay Jacobs] Well, don't they look nice. She could use a couple of bucks... walking around money. She eyes the women while waiting, looking for open bags or other so easily breached security.

[Rain] Rain is wearing dark jeans, paired with a pale pink button down blouse. A plain white cami peeks out just above the top buttoned loop. Her coat is the same brown coat they've all seen all winter. She owns one, and while what's underneath it may change to fit her employment opportunities, she hasn't found cause to replace her coat. Yet. But soon it'll be warm enough to trade it in on something lighter.

Her messenger bag is resting on the table beside her. It's not currently looped over her body, it's freed. Close enough to be within arm's reach, though, so any snagging up of bags would have to be done quickly.

She's wearing sneakers, too. Just in case this goes toward giving chase or anything silly like that.

"I'm not sure I understand it, 'sall. She says she speaks for me to our Cousins. Can't I just go to Roman, or Kora all the same? I trust them to speak for me. I don't know her at all," she says, her brow furrowing somewhat as she lifts her chin to indicate the letter.

[Imogen] Imogen's jacket is open, making it harder for her to feel the tug of her pockets. Her handbag, however, is looped up over her shoulder, caught between her arm and her body. It is clasped shut as well - not an easy target.

"Roman's yer tribal elder, is he not?" she asks. When the answer is received - it is yes, of course - she says. After this, there is a pause. Imogen, for whatever reason, frowns - it is barely a line between her eyebrows, but a frown nonetheless. She picks up her coffee cup, lifting it to her lips. Takes a deep swallow.

"This isn't t'subvert that," she says finally, almost abruptly, as if a decision was made. "If yeh're comfortable making a statement to yer tribal elder, and yeh feel the problem will be solved that way, then by all means, continue to use it.

"But if yeh can't, or perhaps it involves half-bloods of multiple tribes -" that is when her shoulder moves, slightly, a hint of movement.

"S'when you can go t'her and she can bring it forward."

[Rain] This seems to answer Rain's question, somewhat. Enough to drop the worried touch from her expression. Imogen shrugs, barely, and Rain echoes it, broadens that to a little sigh.

"So it's more that we can take things to her, and less that we have to?" Hopeful. Rain understood her place in the pecking order pretty well (at the bottom, thank you), but adding layers of red tape and titles above her confused the once-Lost kin.

It is fair to say that she is no hawkishly watching her bag, right now. She sips at her coffee, nods a bit as if she's thinking a thing through and arriving at decision of her own, as well.

[Lindsay Jacobs] She abandons her quest for a hot dog, edging closer to the two women with her eye on the messenger bag. It could be nothing, but then the backpack would have turned out to be a gold mine.

What they're saying should make her take pause, but she's not paying enough attention the conversation in favor of trying to determine what might be in the bag. Their attention is focused on the words though, and she counts on this to work in her favor as she moves closer to the table, hand snaking out to the strap of the bag.

[dex+stealth]

Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 7, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6) [WP]

[Imogen] (per+alertness)

Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 5, 5, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Rain] [Per + Alert]

Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 3, 5, 6, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Imogen] (go ahead and post again, Ange!)

[Lindsay Jacobs] Her fingers catch the strap and it tugs off the table, slung over her shoulder as she continues on her way. She holds the bag in front of her as she walks, so that it isn't just flapping obviously at her side. Her steps speed up just a touch, and she makes her way around the corner to find a quiet place to investigate her new acquisition.

[Rain] The backpack would have been a mighty score, indeed. Not so with this Gaian's personal effects. There's a folder, heavy bound, but it's filled with a sheaf of paper, leaves that bear out only sheet music from a local company's repertoire, if she gets that far. There's a wallet, and it is distended, gorged, but the contents are singles, and fives, and far, far too many coins.

But Rain carries more cash that most might -- she doesn't have an credit card, or atm card. There's about $80 in very small bills and coins.

Her scarf is bundled up in there. A cellphone slipped into one of the pockets. There's no ipod, or laptop, or other gadgetry. A note book and a pen slipped into its spiral binding.

And a light firearm. Which may give her a little bit of pause.

to†Imogen, Lindsay Jacobs

[Lindsay Jacobs] Time to go. She breaks into a jog, putting as much distance between the bag and it's former owner as possible.

[Rain] [Per + Alert: I'm gonna say with any successes I realize my stuff's gone... cuz it was right there...]

Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 5, 5, 5, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Rain] She's been quite wrapped up in their conversation, or just generally oblivious, it seems. Rain happens to reach back, to set her coffee down beside her messenger bag when --

-- the Unicorn starts, steps back from the table and abruptly shifts her attention from Imogen to the noticeable absence of her stuff. Rain, being pretty daft today about her surroundings, glances around the table, under the table, wasting precious time.

"Did you see where my bag went?" she asks, not yet quite alarmed, perhaps allowing for the possibility that some silly Theurge awakened it and it walked off on its own. No, that seems less than likely. Her brow knits and she glances out around the park for anyone looking suspicious, or maybe for her bag running along on its own.

[Imogen] Imogen shakes her head slightly. "This," she gestures toward the paper briefly, "sounds like 'help', not encumbrance. Bit o' fancy worded 'help', t'be sure. But yeh can go to either. And if yeh can't get -" her voice cuts off, merely as Rain turns her head and Imogen's own eyes drop to the empty table. Normally a perceptive person (though clearly, not when it matters), she does at least recall that the bag had been there.

"Had it there, didn't yeh just?" she asks, almost rhetorically as her gaze moves away from Rain to scan the park's population, then glancing briefly toward the buildings - they're near one of the museums.

[Rain] Had it there, didn't yeh just?

"Yeah." The word is low-voiced, rolled at the back of her throat, almost guttural that way. Almost echoing the feral things that run silently in her blood.

But there's really only so much she can do about it. If the knapsack had really run off, turned a corner and continued onward blessed by broken line of sight, all the Gaian could do was feel baleful for a moment, and then frustrated, and then lift her hands upward in a brief moment of why the hell me. There was no recourse in this setup, however much she may have wanted it.

"Damn," she says, and the sound rolls hard against her teeth.

Then a twist, a wry bit of bemoaning mixed in with a smirk. "Y' wanna do me a favor, and be the one to tell Roman I lost my phone?" It's jest; Rain can do that much herself. And it wasn't lost, it was stolen, not that the finer points matter.

[Lindsay Jacobs] [Linds is going to feel SO BAD when she realizes Rain is kin! :( Thanks for the scene, ladies. I have to run out for a bit.]

[Rain] [Worse when she meets Last Watch *teases* Thanks for the play, Ange. Have a good evening!]

[Lindsay Jacobs] [Good point! :0 !! Thanks!]

[Imogen] Imogen's gaze continues scanning the crowd, a line forming in her brow, annoyance flickering across her face.

Rain's question comes just as she is deciding it is pointless. They cannot merely walk through the crowd to find the thief. They haven't even the faintest idea where the thief came from or where they went.

The annoyance deepens, then clears as Imogen turns to refocus on Rain. "D'yeh know yer provider?"

[Rain] [Sorry for the delay! I'm working on a post now! Work called :( ]

to†Imogen, Lurky Durky, Michael Carroll

[Rain] "No," Rain says, brows knitting again and she reached up to scrub her heel against her forehead. "Um, it's one of those pay as you go types, and it's the end of the month so it's almost out of minutes, but it's got people's numbers in it. Maybe they'll just trash it, and not start calling around the Nation..."

Heh. Because wouldn't that just be lovely. Rain exhales again, trying to let go of the frustration that's building again.

"At least they didn't take my coffee," she says. Looking for a silver lining. At least she'd already eaten lunch. At least it wasn't her turn to buy groceries.

[Imogen] The kinswoman's mouth twitches - a symptom of her dry humour. "Didn't label any o' them 'Tribal Elder' or 'Sept Liaison' did yeh?"

[Rain] Dead pan. "Do I look like I'm itchin' ta get thrashed?"

[Imogen] She doesn't miss a beat. "I hear it's a pastime fer some."

The kinswoman slides her purse off her arm, undoing the clasp to retrieve a cigarette case from within its depths. She thumbs it open, retrieving a zippo and lights up, easily. She exhales her first breath, turning her head away before turning back.

"C'mon," she says, without any further adieu. "I'll buy yeh dinner."

[Seth Cohen] In a city like this, large gatherings draw pickpockets and con artists right out of the woodwork. Not that there's a lot of woodwork, but there are a lot of criminals. One of them slips expertly past a small crowd of pedestrians not ten feet from the kinwomen. A wide grin splits his face as his dark eyes find Imogen. He raises a gloved hand high above his head in greeting. "Hey, it's you!"

He dodges his way around a heavyset sight-seer, giving the tourist and friendly pat on the lower back as they pass. A friendly pat that nets him a wallet, which quickly disappears up the sleeve of his old fatigue jacket. A moment later he is standing at the bench, still smiling wildly. "Crazy out here today, ain't it?"

[Rain] Imogen hears it's a pastime. Rain snorts a little and steps to the side to bin her coffee cup. She makes a reflexive grab for the bag that is no longer where she left it -- pickpockets and con artists, indeed -- and has to stop herself, willfully, from grinding her teeth.

This is the point where she'd be slipping its strap over her head. But no, idle hands instead smooth over her jeans until her thumbs find purchase on either belt loops or pockets. But they don't still there for long before her hands move onward, upward, into the pockets of her brown coat.

Rain eyes the approaching friendly with a little bit of wariness, which would be understandable if he knew what she'd just gone through or if she knew what he'd just done. Maybe she was psychic, all-knowing, all-seeing, and that's why she didn't trust him immediately.

A welcoming smile slowly blooms. So, we'll go with "she's just having a bad day."

Rain glances between Seth and Dr. Slaughter, and then answered Imogen's offer first, with a softer tone and clear gratitude. "Thanks. I'd appreciate it."

[Imogen] Imogen turns her head slightly as someone shouts out "hey, it's you", her gaze narrowing immediately.

He says it is crazy and Rain smiles, pleasantly. Imogen for her part arches an eyebrow, "Didn't take a bag from 'ere just now, did you?"

How's that for welcoming.

[Seth Cohen] Rain smiles and he immediately turns on the charm with a bright grin, broad wink, and a quick "Hey, how you doin'?".

Then Imogen breaks the moment by suggesting he may have stolen a purse. He actually seems offended, his smile turning into a hurt expression. "No? Why would you even think that? I am a professional, Doctor. If I had lifted a bag from here, I wouldn't hang around to chat with the mark. Jeez..."

[Rain] Seth's expression turns wounded, perhaps playfully so. Rain rolls an unamused sound at the back of her throat.

"Well if any of your professional affiliates do show up with this Mark's stuff, I'd appreciate getting it back. Ain't much, but it's mine. Or were mine. Until about ten minutes ago."

Yes, how's that for greetings?

"Otherwise, I'm fine, thanks," she says, recovering her friendlier mood, partly. "Yourself?"

[Imogen] She raises a hand to ward off his injured pride, "I'm just checkin'," she says, before turning her attention between the two of them. "Ha' you two met?"

[Seth Cohen] "No, I don't think we have. Name's Seth..." He steps forward, his smile resurfacing as he extends a hand to the younger of the kinwomen. "Me and the Doctor are very close, I'm surprised she hasn't introduced us sooner. Was there anything important in your bag, sweetheart?"

[Imogen] Me and the doctor are very close, I'm surprised she hasn't introduced us sooner - "That's sarcasm," the kinswoman interjects, lifting her cigarette back to her lips, inhaling deeply on the filter.

[Hunter] [THAT WAS AN AWFUL QUICK INTERJECTION DOC]

[Rain] "Hi Seth," she says, and Rain withdraws a hand from her pocket to shake his. She's not too skeptical for this, just now. Not yet. Give her years and she may get there. "I'm Rain. Though I s'pose I've answered to sweetheart in the past..."

This last is an attempt at something lighter, a bit of breaking wryness that lets her intrinsic warmth and good will begin to filter back into the evening. Her handshake is firm, solid, and shortlived. Just long enough for him to notice the calluses -- maybe -- on her fingers.

"Maybe not important by anyone else's standards, but I wouldn't mind my music back. Mine. Heh. It's really the company's." A little pause. There's something else, obviously, and that worry is painted across her features, but Rain isn't about to up and tell them the bandit made off with her gun.

No.

That would be admitted to carrying it, concealed, without any sort of permit or documentation.

[Seth Cohen] Imogen objects to his assertion of their familiarity. Seth smirks, keeping his eyes on Rain as he speaks. "That's just the way she pals around, don't pay it any mind. As far as your stuff goes, I'll look into it. Between the pawn shops and the fences it's a lot of ground to cover though. Can't make any promises. Why don't you give me your phone number and I'll call ya if anything turns up?"

[Rain] Now that... was just not funny.

"Because they took my phone?" Irritation bristles in her voice again, muted, made mild by her gentler-than-most disposition. It fades rather quickly. "But, um, thanks. I appreciate it."

[Imogen] Imogen glances at Rain, her gaze even in the face of the Gaian Kin's irritation. Her dark gaze moves to Seth. Compared to both - an irritated, somewhat stressed kinswoman and a rather jocular kinsman, she is cool, restrained.

"Gi' me a call if yeh find anything," she says. "I'll pass it on t'Rain."

[Adara Mires] She was walking in the park, heading toward the museum. The weather was nice, not warm but one can't have everything can't they? She was dressed in flat soled boots, jeans, a tank top under a hooide and a light jacket. Her medium lenght auburn hair was let loose, falling over and past her shoulders.

Her meerald eyes found two familiar figure, well one was familair, the oher one she has seen once but haven't fogotten about her. She rarely forget anything after all. She head in their direction, a warm smile on her face.

"Good evening Rain, Doctor Slaughter"She say in a friendly tone, thn tilted her head at Seth "And to you as well"

[Seth Cohen] Imogens suggestion causes a slight shift in his demeanor, just a hint of exasperation makes itself visible on his face for a moment. Dark eyes shift from the doctor to Rain as he poses another thought. "Ooooor...you could just give me your address?"

Again that smile surfaces, his posture returns to that of an overconfident young man. He practically oozes forced charm from his pores as he leans casually against the bench. "See, if you do that and I come up with the purse, I could just drop it on by. And ya know, this city's kinda rough. I could check in on ya, just make sure you're..."

A thought suddenly occurs to Seth, freezing his pick-up in its tracks. "Wait..." Again he turns his attention to Imogen. "She's not...ya know..."

His mime skills need work, but by the wild gesturing he seems to be asking if Rain is Kin, like himself and Imogen. Or if she wants to dance. It could really be either one.

[Imogen] Imogen's eyebrow arches upward and she allows Seth to go on quite a bit longer than is necessary, one edge of her mouth twisting up.

Finally, she says, "She is."

[Rain] It's Seth's lucky day, maybe. Rain is kin and, by matter of fact, she does like to dance. Either way his charades can be interpreted, the answer remains the same.

It curls her mouth up into a pert smile, something genuinely warm, honestly accepting. A bit of her own truer temperment showing through. The Unicorn can't stay angry for too long, and Seth's charm -- because she reads it as this, charm, not wanton manipulation (which it may be!) -- is eroding the veneer of agitation she'd worn when he arrived.

Rain glances over to Imogen, to see if she shares the amsuement, this little inkling of mirth. Imogen tolerates it, which is like approval. Really.

"That's quite kind of you, Seth, but my ... roommates, see, they're not much for company they've'n't met." Her voice is honeyed, Southern-sweet and slow. She can roll those consonants together and make sense of them, mostly. And she can smile, boy can Rain smile when she has a mind to.

"Hey, Adara," she says to the Galliard that joins them. The Rage that follows her in doesn't prick along Rain's skin quite as keenly as before. She weathers it better. Stands slightly straighter, but doesn't back away.

[Rain] [Alright, guys, I hate to do this, but I just got hit with a horrid headache. (I am closing one eye to type this, since it seems to help... I need to bow out, gracefully and quickly. Would it be easier on you for me to write Rain out somehow...

... or just let you guys assume her into the background, and then away at a convenient interval? VOTE!]

to†Adara Mires, Hunter, Imogen, Monika Kyzlikova, Seth Cohen

[Seth Cohen] "Son of a bitch. It's so fuckin' hard to get laid in this town. Everywhere you go, it's 'Oh, I'm claimed' or 'Oh, I get furry' or 'Get your hand off my tit'. I thought Chicago would be way more fun than this." Adara makes her prescence known, though the brush of her Rage actually does it before her words. Seth immediately falls silent, very likely praying that she didn't hear the "furry" part.

[Adara Mires] Her smile grows as she stop near Rain. Closer to Rain than the other two. Simply because she knew the Gaian better than she lnew the other two. "How hae you been Rain? It's been a while" Again. She never seem ot be able to see the busy kin constantly, but it was fine. Gir; had her life to live and she seemed to be doing well, that's all that matters

"How have you been Doctor?" She ask the oldr woman

Then she grin at Seth "Really? It's that hard? From what I heard it's quite easy. Maybe you don't look in the right places" She shrugh "Or maybe you need to work on your approach"She smile to him, she was teasing the unknown man.

[Imogen] (I can have Imogen take Rain away when she leaves - should be about half an hour. GO!)

to†Adara Mires, Hunter, Monika Kyzlikova, Rain, Seth Cohen

[Rain] [You are my hero, Mei. *takes offer, runs!* Thank you all for the scene! I hope to catch you guys again soon. *hugs* *disappears*]

to†Adara Mires, Hunter, Imogen, Monika Kyzlikova, Seth Cohen

[Imogen] Imogen answers Adara mildly, "I'm well," she says. "Yourself?"

A glance at Seth and his sudden silence. A turn of her attention toward the Garou. "Find yerself a place to stay alright?" she asks.

[Seth Cohen] He clears his throat at Adaras comment, his eyes are now fixed firmly to the ground. "Just seems like all the sexiest girls are tied up in some bullshit..."

[Adara Mires] She smiled at Imogen "I'm doing pretty well thank you. And I"m staying at the Brotherhood for now. My best friend is my roomate, I've been asked to look after the place. And since you're here, I was wondering if you'd mind taking some time to meet with me to talk about a few things. It shouldn't take too long, but I know you're respected and pratical. I'd like your opinion on something"

She ask the woman, her tone firendly and quite polite. Not submissive or anything, but she respect the woman she barely knew.

SHe grin at Seth "Tell me about it."

[Imogen] A line forms between her brow, brief and transient. A muscle moves in her jaw.

A glance at her watch. "I've got t'get on," a brief glance at Rain, who has been promised a meal, "ha' my number do you?" Adara does. "Gi' me a call tomorrow, and I'll find some time t'get wi' yeh, alright?"

[Adara Mires] She nod "I do. I'll call you" She exchange some small talk with Rain then smiled and wave at the young woman

"Have a good night you two" She watch them go for a while before her attention turn to Seth

[Seth Cohen] "Actually, I've got to go ahead and split myself. There's money to be made in this park, and it's not over here. Nice meetin' ya." With that, he slips off into the crowd, fading from view with practiced ease.

[Imogen] Imogen and Rain head off in the opposite direction.

(sorry folks, I'm nodding off here. Thanks for the RP! Goodnight!)

Sounds of Silence Gala

(the rest of this scene is in email and I am far too lazy to go get it)

[Michael Carroll] He leans against a low wall near the heater, his back to the city and his arms across his chest. Imogen speaks of her home, or at least her place of presumable birth, and Michael nods. Another icy blast of pre-Spring wind cuts across the balcony, causing a ripple of goosebumps across the Irishmans light flesh. Though he does not flinch from the cold, he does grimace a bit. The glowing cherry of Imogens cigarette draws his gaze; when he speaks, it is to the smoking bit of tobacco.

"Killarneys just over ten thousand strong. Suppose we're th' country mice in this story." The sound of the wind is punctuated by the noises of traffic from below, then overpowered by a thunderous round of applause from inside the ballroom. "Someone must've won some sort o' humanitarian award in there. Or they're congratulating themselves on ruling the city. How long have y' been here in Chicago, Doctor?"

[Imogen] Her mouth twists, pulling the cigarette free from her lips to turn her head and exhale smoke out toward the city. "I doubt I count as one anymore," she says. Country mouse. There are symptoms of that, ones he can see, ones he can hear. Her poise, and her accent. She does not quite have Queen's English, but it's not the Cornwall brogue either. "It's been almost twenty years."

He asks how long she's been in Chicago. Her gaze moves slightly toward him, sidelong, gaze narrowing slightly. "Eight years," she answers. "Give 'r take. We playing twenty questions, then?"

[Michael Carroll] He chuckles, his eyes moving to the glass doors they recently passed through. He watches the crowd inside as he speaks. "Don't worry, Doctor, I'm still honorin' m' promise. I don't intend t' dig too deeply. And, if it makes y' feel better, y' can feel free t' ask a few questions yourself."

The music begins once more, the stringed quartet playing a happy tune that encourages goodwill and conversation from the partygoers. They break into small groups, smiling and shaking hands and always unaware of the monster standing right outside. "I only ask because out o' all the Nation I've met here, you're among those who've been here th' longest. And you're sharp as a tack, I don't have t' dig deep t' know that much. Have y' ever found it strange that so many with such strong breeding are drawn t' this city? It's everywhere we look."

[Imogen] She cuts him a glance. "Half-bloods can't sense breedin'," she says. "So it's not foremost on m'mind. As fer why it might be tha' folks flock, I imagine it's the idiosyncrasy o' the city." Her mouth twists as she moves her cigarette back to her lips.

"It calls to the dispossessed."

A beat. "And as far as I know, there is no one here who has been 'ere as long as I ha'." The words are flat, even and carefully pronounced.

[Michael Carroll] Her answer is curt. They usually are. He shrugs in response, turning his head to look down at the busy streets below. "Maybe I'm just overthinkin' it. But it seems t' me that there's more goin' on, somethin' bigger about this city. Things are done differently here than anywhere else I've been. Sure t' be fair I haven't been many places, but Chicago..."

A quick burst of steams pours from his lips as he sighs in exasperation. The flask reappears from his coat pocket, another nip to ward off the cold. "We've always been enamoured with our hierarchies, but here it's like some sort o' social experiment that's blown itself way out o' proportion. There are offices for everything except literacy and wipin' our own asses."

[Imogen] She shakes her head slightly, "I wouldn't know about that. Not particularly involved in the Sept, am I? That said, the Grand Elder is a Glass Walker. S'not like they're unknown fer their love o' bureaucracy don't they just?"

She lifts her cigarette back to her lips.

[Michael Carroll] "Y' might not be involved in the Sept, but you've been here a long time and there are more stories told about you than half the True I've met in this city." Another quiet chuckle is briefly muffled by a quick pull from the steel flask. "And y' seem t' have a pretty good handle on the political practices o' the Glass Walkers."

He extends the flask towards her, just on the off chance she's decided a bit of whiskey would go nicely with the conversation. "I don't mean t' blow smoke up your ass, there's just alot o' wind in a flask o' the Creature."

[Imogen] She shakes her head slightly, once again refusing the flask. "If they tell stories about me," she says, picking up her wine glass, lifting it and draining it, "I'm sure it is not about my solicitude and willingness t'involve myself in the Nation's business."

Her mouth twists in a smirk, "Besides, sayin' that a Glass Walker loves bureaucracy is like saying a Fianna loves uisce beatha. S'hardly a revelation."

[Michael Carroll] The chuckle becomes a good-natured laugh. It is a joyful sound, one that only a half-drunk Fianna can produce in this sort of cold weather. Like many of his brethern, Michael seems to feel emotion at a slightly higher volume than most. The flask is sampled once more then disappears into his coat. "Well said, Doctor. Are y' certain I can't entice y' to join me in a bit o' bar-hopping? This party will go on just fine without the likes o' us darkening their doorstep."

[Imogen] She shakes her head slightly, moving away from the heater to the standing cigarette disposal in the far corner, flicking the cancer-stick into the receptacle.

"I don't drink wi' full bloods," her shoes click softly against the concrete as she walks back, adjusting her wrap around her arms and shoulder, picking up her empty glass.

She wears a delicate stainless steel watch on her wrist and she glances at it briefly. "Yeh should get started, if yeh want to go. It's about th'time the bars fill up."

[Michael Carroll] A single brow arches sharply at her first statement. He watches as she begins preparing to make an exit, a small, sly grin on his face. His cheeks are flushed from a combination of drink and cold, the red hue spreading slowly to cover every inch of his closely shaved head. "Well, y' can't blame a fella for tryin', can y'? You're actually pretty good company for someone who doesn't want t' be."

[Imogen] "That's the whisky," she retorts. "Clouds yer judgement. C'mon then. Yeh'd best head out while yeh can still walk."

[Michael Carroll] A good-natured wink accompanies the smirk that follows. "O' all th' things you've said t' me, that might be the most insulting. Y' greatly underestimate my drinking skills, Doctor." He pushes himself away from the wall, one hand coming up to slip loose his bowtie. The collar is next, and in an instant he is transformed from well dressed man-about-town to half-drunk reveler. He walks very deliberately towards the doors, casting a glance over his shoulder. "See? Didn't stumble once."

He pulls open one of the glass doors and steps back, giving a slight bow as he gestures Imogen through. "After you, Doctor Slaughter."

[Imogen] Her shoes pound the cleared pathway along the lakeshore, her breath coming shallow but steadily, lifting her ribcage, contracting it, causing a faint steam of breath with each exhale, which she has no chance to see.

The temperature has dropped to rather colder than spring-like of late, but it does not keep her from this - her torture. For whatever reason Imogen runs, for health, for adrenaline, she does it full-throttle, until her breath is ragged and burning in her lungs, until her muscles tremble with exertion. High quality work out material wicks the sweat from her skin, the cold air does the rest for her exposed flesh.

She has earphones in her ears - music or perhaps Einstein's Theory of Relativity playing in her ears.

[Kora] The Bradford pear trees lining the riverwalk are in bud; some - those that get the most sun - are already in bloom. Covered in bright, white, sturdy flowers. There are daffodils naturalized in the little copses of trees are bristling with early color, and the tulips planted in tended rows in the stone planters near the fountain are peaking up through the soil, but not yet in bloom.

Still, it's cold - cold enough to snow. There's that promise in the air, metallic - and the people drawn out of their apartments and condos to bask in the late afternoon spring sun are driven in as soon as dusk gathers in the shadows and the wind rises from the lake.

Most of them. The street vendors are open later, flanking Millennium park, the fountain square. There's a sausage vendor - the sort who stir fries peppers and onions to go with the Italian sausage he serves up by the pound - still open, though he's dismantling his umbrella, hoping to unload the last of his cooked sausages for whatever he can get for them.

She buys two, with the works, and a large bag of Salt and Vinegar potato chips. He thinks he should offer her a hand, or a discount, or ask why a woman that pregnant is alone in the park at this hour, eating dinner from a street cart. Then he offers her a drink as a bonus and she picks chocolate milk and the light gleams across the surface of her eyes and he can feel the animal in her. Thinks better of whatever he was going to say, and does not even ask when she's due.

She carries the brown paper bag - translucent with grease from the sausages, onions and peppers - in one hand, the milk in the other, and finds a picnic table near the lake's edge. It's dark and cold, and the lake seems limitness from here. Kora sits on the top of the picnic table, her boots on the seat, and unpacks her meal. It's nothing like running, every step feels heavy.

From a distance, Imogen is unlikely to recognize her until she shakes off the hood of her jacket. Fair hair catches the light as it uncoils around her neck. She looks up, eyes narrowed against the glare of the path lights, watching the jogging kinswoman with the unerring precision of a wolf.

[Rain] After a late night in the Brotherhood and the subsequent trip across town to return to the stout Cabrini church, Rain had precious little time to sleep before morning broke and wriggled her fingers through the bright places in grimy window panes, through the fainter colors in the stained glass. Monday began all too abruptly, sweeping in with a crispness unbecoming of Spring. She was up and moving before she had time to grouse about the cold, barely stopping in the kitchen to make something hot to drink and a little bowl of instant oatmeal before stomping off into the morning to catch her ritual assortment of buses that brought her into the city.

Moreover, of late, she'd been going into town without her guitar. Last Watch knew little of the why, save that money and food kept finding its way into the kitchen, stocked away in the pantry and coolers or tucked into an envelope and secured to the aging fridge with a very strong magnet. The Gaian songbird was scarce, and not because of whatever was hunting the Kinfolk or the company that Kora's people kept.

She was busy. There is light, still, in the sky, painting it with exalted pastels, framing the clouds in last gleaming edges that will dim to pewter, dull to an orange-dark in the reflected light of the city all too soon. The sky dims to lilac, to indigo, to night.

Rain walks with her hands in her coat pockets and her chin tipped up. She does not look like a thing afraid of what may linger at the water's edge, or behind the sausage vendor's cart, or at the margins of the park where it meets the metropolis that engulfs it, buries it in city-noise and people. She's watching the slip of a moon, already transited most of the way across the heavens, wasting away, waning. This path will bring her past Kora's table, across Imogen's running route. It's incidental, but a simple fact.

They will convene. For now there is solitude; soon there will be company. Nothing lasts for too long in this Windy City.

[Imogen] The chill, the time of night, makes this a rather barren place. She's not seen anyone for a while, and the heavily pregnant woman in the distance gets little more than a passing glance, at least until Imogen is close enough to recognize the Fenrir Jarl.

At this point in her pregnancy, Kora must feel like she will be pregnant forever. The memories of her swift litheness, the visceral power of her body, more shadow than tangible. The sight of someone else performing a task of which she is currently incapable, bringing a sense of disconnect as she can only look at a movement of muscle and joint and feel precisely how her body cannot do that anymore.

She slows some distance from the picnic table, is walking by the time she reaches it, plucking a water bottle from its mesh container strapped to her body.

"Dinner, is it?" she asks, her voice breathless about the edges.

[Fiona] [*descends*]

to†Imogen

[Maddox] [kinfolk, prepare to surrender your undergarments to me: char + perf]

[Kora] She dreams of running; all fours, the ground under her feet, her pack arrayed around her, their song rising against the vast, impenetrable dark. She wakes with the remembered scent of blood in her mouth, the pulse of adrenaline in her veins sending her from sleep to waking in an eyeblink. The kid - restless, restless with her dreams, restless in her body - moves, will not settle, and she rises and paces, arms crossed, silent through the corridors of the old church as if that movement - walking, two-legs, one body - might somehow soothe her need to run.

The steadiness of her gaze on Imogen as she runs is - sharp, shearing, though the hunger there is lost in the shadows. At least the moon is small tonight, a sliver, its song long and quiet in the back of the beat of her heart.

By the time Imogen is that close, Kora's broken off the look, started to unpack her meal from the brown paper bag. The scent of the sausage and peppers is distinct, savory in the cold air.

"Mid-evening snack," returns the Fenrir, wry as she flattens the paper bag to serve as a placemat. The sausages of overloaded with peppers and onions, and the extra valu! bag of chips crickles in her hands as she opens it. The sharp scent of vinegar fills the air when the foil bag gives way. " - of champions, mind. I suppose since you're out jogging I won't be able to tempt you with a chip or twelve."

[Maddox] There is a shadow in residence at The Brotherhood of Thieves. It is slight, and for the most part, it stays out of sight, taking whatever bed happens to be free for now. More often than not, this means the door to room 4 is closed at night. The Coltranes have met this shadow, of course. It has flirted shamelessly with the scarred blonde woman, in full view of her husband no less. It hasn't claimed a spot for itself, though, and it comes and it goes.

Tonight, it's out, sitting on a bench facing the darkened lake. It is a slight beast in human form, tall and lanky, with dark disheveled hair and eyes hidden behind sunglasses for now. Maddox Cartwright, so far still an unknown to most of Chicago's Garou population, sits with his acoustic nestled in his lap, fingers flying across the strings. If it were earlier in the night, with the western sky still light with the freshly set sun, the melody would be slow, mournful, melancholy.

The tune he plays is light and free, fingers deft despite the chill. Somewhere nearby, the elder of a tribe and a pure bred kinswoman meet. Somewhere else near is a songbird, walking alone. And on the bench is a shadow, the dull bright cherry of the cigarette held between his lips the only light. He draws them with his melody, draws the humans but it's not for them that he plays.

Without missing a beat, his head turns toward the Child of Gaia. There's no breeding to call out to his senses and let him know what she is. Even so, the shadows of his face shift, and if Rain happens to look his way, the guitarist is smiling around that cigarette.

[Imogen] Imogen's mouth twists slightly as she takes a deep swallow from the bottle. "If I thought yeh smoked," she says, "I might ask yeh for a cigarette. I don't think I can stand judgement on a few crisps."

She leans forward, one hand lifting to her face to push loosened strands of hair back, tucking them back behind her ear as she turns the bag slightly so she can read the flavour.

"However," she says, pushing it back as she straightens, "I can't abide what yeh Americans call salt 'nd vinegar. You're on yer own."

She can hear a guitar playing, a quiet, light tune and she turns her head slightly to the sound.

[Rain] The sound of music in the park slows her steps. Soon Rain's chin has tipped down again and she is rooted to her place, off center of the path, hands in her pockets still and eyes unwaveringly open. An accutely tuned ear does not need to cast about for the source of the melody, no, she knows from where it emanates. Her feet may be rooted, but her gaze is cast toward that source, her shoulders turned toward him.

So it is that she doesn't quite make it to the table where Kora and Imogen are gathered, not yet. And it's possible that the guitarist catches her looking his way, with a note of appreciation on her features, something less admiring and fawning than the average fangirl. Rain, in turn, offers him a small smile, a little lift of her chin, a show of some sort of imagined solidarity.

She does not approach. Her blood is silent as to her Tribal ties. There's a moment, then, when they take each other's measure. A moment of exchanged smiles. Rain stands where she is and looks not at him while he plays, but across the distance to something unseen. She takes a moment to listen, and soon, he can imagine, she'll pick up with her walking again.

[Hunter] Where there is food there is a gnawer. The smells of sausages waft through the air of grant park and out of one of the bushes stalks a wolf. It doesn't look like any normal wolf, it looks like a man in fact.

Hunter Matthews turns his head left and right before green eyes settle on the Fenrir in Fianna clothing and the Queen of the Vikings. Then he sees the food. It's this that makes him grin and it's this that makes him wander over more than anything else. Or at least that's what he would claim if questioned.

Boots touch down heavily on grass and path and grassy path until he's entering their little bubble. Somewhere there is music drifting along like the soundtrack to a lovers dream. Hunter fucking hates romcoms.

"Sup Kora, Imogen."

A beat.

"I see ya' have food."

[Maddox] Soon she'll pick up on her walking again, yes. Maybe. Possibly perhaps. They watch each other, Garou and Kin, not fully aware of what rather than whom they are looking at. There's Rage, of course, some vague sense of menace emanating from the man on the bench, playing the beautiful tune, but it's as insignificant as a candleflame compared to the gathering over yonder. This is nothing the Child can't handle.

They smile to each other. She's too far off for him to read her expression all that well, and it's dark, and he's wearing sunglasses. He doesn't need to see the exact features of the girl's face, anyway. Still grinning, the rougishness faded in the twilight, and still playing, he tips his head at her, tilts it back. Come closer, my sweet. She may not see the gesture, looking away at something far off as she is, and Maddox doesn't let his attention drift for very long. Eventually he turns his head back to face straight ahead, and tips his chin up. One might imagine that his eyes are closed behind his sunglasses. One would be correct.

[Fiona] The landscape's a lot like one of those hidden pictures images where there are a number of - get ready for a revelation - hidden objects within the landscape. The landscape could be perfectly serviceable: a park - a path; an evening sky, shading bright into dark; it could be benches, and trashcans, an abandoned water fountain with rust pooling at its base like a relic of some barbaric sacrifice [city funds]. But then! The closer look reveals: well, fairies, wings folded, cruel-faced, laughing, if this hidden pictures book belongs to Fiona Rogers, age six, which it doesn't, because she isn't aged six anymore, hasn't been for practically a whole decade, but it could reveal other things: clocks, thieves, whatever. Werewolves. Werewolf kin. Grant Park: thrown into sudden relief - the man playing gorgeousness froma guitar, smoking and smiling at the woman walking with her hands in her coats pockets, Unicorn-blooded, feet drawing her closer to a woman whose carriage tells stories of savage, poetic monsters, whose carriage is a queen's and whose hair is a torch, to a woman who's heavy, who's a stoppered jar of transformation contained, denied, and there's Hunter, hungry, grinning - and yeah, these people.

They're hidden pictures, see? They aren't what they seem.

And here's another -

Girl. Teenager, young, youthful, very, with a coat that has sleeves just an inch too long, that's just a little too big, just a little too awkward. Dark jeans that're dirty at the knees, grass-stained on the butt. Werewolf, though whatever rage she's got is well-buried, well-hidden, which is a good thing because it's a school night, because it's Monday, because homework was due and not done, because, because they tease, they do, and earlier she was sitting on the school bus with her skinny legs hauled up to her chest, determinedly reading her book while Someone poked her arm, again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again, snickering when she didn't know how to react, moving on to tweaking her hair, and she'd looked over her shoulder, known who it was, KNOWN, but they didn't stop, and sometimes telling yourself that seriously you can totally turn into a monster and KILL people is not the comfort one might imagine.

Which is all to say, Fiona Rogers decided not to go home, decided to go to the Docks, was there upset, decided to bus to the park, and now it's late, and she's "walking" -- wandering in a line that sort've heard about what "straight" means once upon a time -- with her head down, squinting at the book in her hands, trying to read before the twilight's entirely gone, reading by path light, by shadow, reading:

'Oh, I'm a dangerous criminal, I am,' said the Dwarf cheerfully. 'But that's a long story. Meantime, I was wondering if perhaps you were going to ask me to breakfast? You've no idea what an appetite it gives one, being executed.'

But blood tells. Blood tells! Blood up and YELLS.

Fiona does sneak little glances up now and then, mostly gauging the light and the pathlight, more and more hunched over Prince Caspian, and her gaze snags across Imogen and Kora -- then skitters (! noise!) over to - a sound. There's a sound - it's - a pretty? - and - no, that was soundtrack, that was - maybe it's the fairy people because it is twilight and that is when they come out maybe maybe oh please maybe and that must be Slaughter and she is a queen so of course they would play by her oh god oh god do I look okay -

And she is so distracted by her speculation on the origin of guitar music that she walks

smack

into Rain. Unless evasive maneuver is immediately accomplished.

[Kora] "The street vendors don't carry Pringles," the Skald returns, pulling back the bag of chips as Imogen dismisses all American iterations of salt and vinegar. Maybe a bit mournful. "And he was out of barbeque." Which is the closest flavor to Bacon Double Cheeseburger she can imagine. Maybe if you took a bag of cheese and sour cream and crushed it up with a bag of barbeque it would begin to approach the taste bud nirvana of bacon double cheeseburger Pringles to the pregnant Garou's warped, twisted taste buds.

The foil crinkles with every movement of the bag, and the scent of the damn things - mixed with the deeper, heavier smell of the sausages - is particularly sharp in the cold air. Kora's sitting forward on the picnic table, enough that it looks like she's turning on the fulcrum of her stomach somehow. Each movement is made more awkward by her stomach too. She cannot bend forward, not far, cannot see her feet, cannot (it seems) ever ease the tension in her lower back and lower abdomen.

She cuts a glance over her shoulder, following the direction of Imogen's glance with the music in the air. Dark eyes touch on Rain, then Maddox, lingering on the former rather than the latter. She turns back as Hunter approaches, offering the Bone Gnawer a faint curl of her generous mouth by way of greeting, then holding out the bag of chips by way of offer. "Italian sausages. That dude with the yellow and red stripped umbrella by the fountain makes the best around here. Got an extra if you're hungry."

[Starla] It isn't coincidence that brings her to the picnic table, just a secret dalliance with one of the other vendors that had taken one of Roman's kin away from Kora's side in search of a certain craving for coffee. Starla had kept a pace behind the Jarl's heels, accompany her for no other reason that to not be alone in the church. A mumbled exchange saw the dusky-skinned kin off in search of that a warm beverage; the quest complete, the journey home was wrought with - no excitement.

A warm mist curls around the dark crown of hair that sweeps down her shoulders, twisted and plaited, two loose braids meet at the points of her hips. She wrinkles her nose, savoring the sweet, aroma of hazelnut and chocolate coffee that mingles together in the large white Styrofoam cup, warming the palm of her right hand through the thin cotton glove.

Starla arched an eyebrow, pale green eyes skimming over the small gathering of faces that collect around the Jarl. First to Imogen, and then straying to Hunter before she finally pulls them back to the Jarl. Music wafts in the air, she tilts her head away trying to listen for it, to understand the melody, but it's appreciation is lost on her. She wasn't as musically-inclined as others.

[Kora] "What the hell's wrong with American salt, anyway?" Kora continues, dark eyes swinging back to Imogen. "Or with American vinegar?"

[Imogen] "Hunter," Imogen returns the greeting as she stretches, a small muscle at a time, her movements subtle. When he asks about the food, the doctor's mouth quirks slightly. "Bone Gnawer, aren't you?" she asks.

Kora demands a question - Imogen's smirk lingers as she turns her head. "S'not an insult t'yer entire nation," she remarks, placidly, for once meaning nation with a small 'n'. "Yeh just can't be expected to get th'balance right."

Starla is nearby now, in sight. Imogen's gaze flicks there, before lifting her chin toward the younger woman, pointing her out to Kora.

[Rain] They have been admonished to be alert, to be mindful, to be wary, to be watchful and Rain has listened, more or less, in the way that children and young adults listen, more or less, when told to do things that they already do, but this time with some urgency, with some immediacy, with some pressing Something hanging over their heads that was (imagined to) not (be) there before. She is not entirely lost to the music man's song, not ready to hie and and away with this pied piper, no. She sees the teenager approaching, just in time.

No! Not just in time. Just a moment later than just in time. In time enough to not fall over when the redhead wanders, straight line or otherwise, into the left half of her back. Rain turns a bit, gets an arm out in front of her, either to steady the girl or herself should they fall. Or to something. Something. Surely she had some sort of plan that wasn't base and instinctual reaction. Right? (Maybe.)

"Oh, hey, are you okay there?" she says, and maybe her voice reaches the table, or the bench, filtering into the awareness of someone beyond this entangled duo. It's possible, see, because they are all close enough to hear the dulcet strums of an accoustic guitar and that is neither so loud nor so throaty as to carry for far. And her voice is warm, it has a note of rising above, of carrying: she carries, more and further than they might suppose: endures. It does not die out easily into the night.

She doesn't say with sharpness watch where you're going. No. Rain looks the girl over, making sure she's alright, pats her on the arm once as she steps away. No harm done.

[Hunter] "If I'm hungry." He repeats back to her with a scoff and reaches his hand for some of the goodies. Crunch. "I'm always fuckin' hungry." Which is probably not the right thing to say becomes Imogen has this to offer:

Bone Gnawer, aren't you?

And now he has no defence. He can't claim tribe-ism or oppression by those who think they are better because he just walked right into that stereotype. All he can do is give her a flat look, but with raised eyebrows like: Ha Ha very clever Imogen.

He's not very clever about these things.

Eyes follow the gazes and the point and he spots Starla. The kin gets a warm smile and a beckoning wave: come have a sausage!

"So," he says to Imogen and Kora. "Did ya' fill Imogen here on the fuckin' joyous occasion that was the meetin'? I'd hate for her to fuckin' miss out on all the fun."

[Starla] Starla's greeting is more verbal, friendlier to Imogen as she finds it easier to meet the smaller woman's eyes than she would Kora's or Hunter's. "Evenin', Doc Slaughter." The mid-western twang rumbles around her words, rolls off the tongue in a merrier drawl when she spoke.

She wasn't quite sure what the topic of conversation was revolving around, something about being a Gnawer and food, which pulls her eyes to Hunter again. A warm smile begets a broader grin from the Gaian kin, the freckles dancing across her skin on her left cheek and the bridge of her nose, scrunching it up cutely. She lifts her free hand to offer a small wave to the Gnawer, "Hey" as she's maneuvering around them to the empty half of the picnic table.

The coffee is set down, Starla turns with her back facing the edge, dropping her hands back to cover over the table's wooden surface and leans back, pushing herself up as she hops up to sit on it. The coffee retrieved; Starla's eyes widening slightly as Imogen is asked the question of the hour.

[Kora] "You know Starla, yeah?" Kora to Imogen, as the latter lifts her chin mildly toward Roman's cousin, pointing her out as she returns with coffee. To Hunter, too. There's a general tilt to the introduction. It's encompassing like that.

Nevermind that this isn't her territory, nevermind that this isn't a feasting hall, nevermind that they're on a park bench on a cold spring night and all she has are sausages, crisps and chocolate milk rather than mead and great haunches of meat turning on the fire: she'll share what's there. There's an instinctive grace to that that's larger than the place or position. Hunter grabs a handful of chips, and Kora holds out her chocolate milk a half-second later. Like it was a greeting cup, for fuck's sake.

Like Thorngrim Ghostsinger's giant paws were ghosting over her long, slender fingers. (Less than slender; she's retaining water.)

A glance back there, the collision between Rain and Fiona. A quick, close glance over her shoulder, a level look that is not alarmed, followed by a lift of the bag of chips by way of salute to Rain and Fiona.

"Naw," Kora returns to Hunter. "Too busy debating the finer points of crisp manufacturing. You heard about that though, yeah Doc? GE summoned the kin and tribe leaders, invited everyone to air out their grievances then - " A quiet, subtle snort. "Fucking - " Here, her mouth flattens, twists the rest of whatever she might've said next away. " - meetings. So damn much talk."

[Fiona] Fiona is not complicated. Fiona is no literary nymphet, adored by HH and other such suspects. Fiona mystifies noone except perhaps people who actually know her. Fiona, running into Rain, who saves her own balance and lends a steadying hand to the younger girl, makes a hiccup-gasp of surprise, and drops her book. The warm voice and the warm hand do something to assuage the anxiety that fills her eyes, the shy, kneejerk worry, chased by a sharper pang (but the fairyland door will leave now [if it's there] and the elfguitarist'll vanish [if he's really an elf]), and then a cautious smile. Her forehead crinkles up, eyebrows arcing, "Uhm. I. Uhm, yes. I'm - gosh, just so fucking stupid, I'm sorry, it's just," and she stoops down to collect her book, which is when tragedy strikes. The pages: they're bent. They're smooshed! The corners are folded quite noticeably in a way any booklover would just cringe at. The dust jacket is

[ominous music]

[a chord of doom]

ripped. "Oh no," Fiona murmurs, wretched, "Oh no, oh no oh no oh no oh no," and she pulls her turtle neck (she was wearing a turtle neck under that coat) up over her nose, to muffle the, "Oh no oh no." She gives Rain a look full of travesty, the utmost, utterly forgetting she doesn't even know Rain. "Do you think it can be fixed?"

[Maddox] Rain is right to be cautious. Something delivish and dangerous lurks the streets of Chicago. Of course, there's always something devilish and dangerous prowling this city's streets. One might suspect the guitarist on the bench is one such creature. After all, none present has seen him before. That doesn't mean he's a complete unknown. Two of his auspice know his name, one of them the elder in this city, and a third knows of him, thanks to a chance encounter in a hotel hallway. He's been sighted in The Brotherhood, but so far hasn't gone out of his way to impress himself upon the citizens of Chicago. There are those who know that he hasn't danced the spiral.

The kinswoman notices the girl coming toward her a moment too late. Maddox notices her a moment after that, when the sound of bodies colliding catches his attention. His playing stops abruptly, and he turns to look over his shoulder at the girls on the path.

And he laughs. The sound is slightly higher pitched than one might expect, but not piercing. It could be annoying to the right (or wrong) ear. Probably is. That's just Maddox all over. He doesn't start playing again, but rises, and shifts his guitar to rest against his back. With one hand he pulls the cigarette from his lips to blow a plume of smoke into the night air. The other removes his sunglasses, pushes them up his face to displace his hair in all directions before finding a natural spot to perch.

"Well well," he says, amused. One hand flicks ash from the cigarette, the other disappears into the pocket of a dark colored blazer. There's also a hooded sweatshirt, and jeans, and trainers. Keeping his pace leisurely slow, he wanders in the direction of Rain and Fiona. His eyes, visible now, are dark, intense, and focused for the moment. "Good evening, little birds. What have we got here?" He speaks with a touch of some muddled, faded accent that almost lends an air of sophistication to the skinny man. He looks at the book in Fiona's hands, his eyes go too wide. The hand removes from his blazer pocket to press to his chest, and he gasps audibly. "What did you do?" He holds out his hand for the tome. "Let's have a look then. Assess the damage."

[Izzy Montoya] Ah yes. The meetings. The stupid fuckin meeting. When Izzy stalked out, it wasn't far - it was to the nearest dive bar where she knows the bartender, where she proceeded to drink half the men under the table, and picking a likeable enough victim out of those that remained standing to follow home. This could possibly be the infamous 'walk of shame' of the day after - if she had an ounce of shame in her. It could be, but it's not, as that was hours ago and she's already put in a full day of work, and then some.

What it is, is a stop for a quick meal and coffee, because she's fuckin' hungry and needs caffeine and the park is one of the few areas she can get both AND nicotine all at the same time.

That she's here at the same time as the Jarl and company? Pure coincidence. Still, it happens that she has a cup of coffee - hot and black, just like... well, never you mind - in one hand, and a sausage in the other as she heads toward the picnic tables.

To her credit, she doesn't stop when she sees who is gathered there. She does have a feeling there will be some sort of... discussion... about what she had to say last night, though. Perhaps, in some way, it's like a bandaid. Rip it off, get it over with, quickly. No such thoughts show in her carefully guarded expression, however. There is simply recognition. That's all.

[Rain] There is a way that wolves know each other, they can scent it in each other, they can see something that kin cannot. Whatever Fiona is, it does not unnerve Rain to be near to her, tangled up for a moment in her; where others might bristle at even the quiet Rage suddenly at their backs, the songbird doesn't seem to notice it. Not at first. And then in only subtle ways. Fiona's wolf is subdued, in comparison to those at the table over yonder.

But now there are two unfamiliar wolves clustered around the kinswoman of Unicorn, and she unknowing of it in this very moment. There is sharp laughter -- sharp but not shrill; high but not piercing -- and deep worry. Rain rests a hand on the girl's shoulder, smiles warmly.

"Bent pages can be smoothed. Just place it under something heavy, y'know?" she suggests, and there's a warmth to her tone that makes it read as genuine, as open, bereft of ill-will or deception. Honest. Maddox takes up the tome, scolding the girl in the process and Rain's mouth thins a bit.

"She feels bad enough," the Gaian says, still unaware that she's standing up for (or up to) True. "You'd best help if you're going to rile her up like that," she says, weariness and some sort of protectiveness for the younger girl stepping in where her manners might have better bridged that gap.

Even still, even unknowing, some part of her twigs to the convergence here. Her hands go back into her pockets when she next has the chance; innately she separates herself a bit from them. The gold charm at her throat is buried beneath layers of cloth just now; still silent her blood offers them no suggestions. There is a glance, stolen, toward the table where the Queen of Vikings dines with pages and Knights from other Families.

[Imogen] "Starla," Imogen greets the other, neatly answering Kora's question as to whether or not the two of have met without saying a word.

Hunter's sarcastic - you are so damn clever - look in Imogen's direction is merely met by arched eyebrows that could likely be translated to a resounding affirmative. Why yes, she is that clever.

The subject moves on and rather quickly. Hunter asks if Kora has filled Imogen in. Kora offers an statement, an opinion.

"Don't worry," she assures Hunter, "I've been t'meetings before. I'm familiar wi' their dynamic." A flick of her glance toward Kora. "I heard a bit about it; Kinfolk Liaison, Sept Liaison." A faint smirk of her mouth, "More o' the same, though I imagine I'm one o' the only ones still about t'recall." Meetings in Hill House. Mary Alice at the centre, a packmate of the Grand Elder's - whose name she has forgotten - in the back as a representative.

A beat. She picks up her water, tipping it back to fill her mouth. Swallows. "Then they want a kinfolk to 'lead them all', I take it."

[Starla] "We've met - Hunter's a real White Knight when it comes to rescuing and protecting damsels." There is a playful jest in the tone of her voice, kept light as the conversation starts to grow heavy with the discussion of last night's meeting. Starla nods to Imogen behind her coffee cup, smiling, "Imogen."

The Gaian kin had fallen asleep through most of it, only to wake up and find out that Danicka had been placed in an esteemed title position that now made the renowned mate of that Shadow Lord dude, the voice of Chicago's kin. It plays across her thoughts as if she were swimming through murky water, cautious to even drop a passing comment on it.

Air passes through her nose in a noisy snerk, mouth occupied by the flimsy plastic lid of her coffee cup, sitting precariously from the hot beverage as she tried not to scald her tongue. Starla winces; the corners of her eyes crinkling up as she lowers the cup, the sugary liquid burned her tongue, the back of her mouth and throat as it warmed a path down into her stomach.

"That Danicka lady was crowned a liaison of the kinfolk, git's to sit in on moots and whatnots, be a mouth piece for the kin." She interjects at random, mouth flattening into that same thin-lipped frown she wore when she witnessed it last night. "Some guy named Matthieu gets to pucker up wit' Amy's alliance buddies."

Somewhere in the distance, Rain is making new friends, she has become a magnet for a pair of Fianna. Their shapes and motions slide along her peripheral, become the focal point of Starla's attention for several seconds as she watches the quiet display of their actions, unable to make out words that might form - just reads the faint lines of body language. She tucks her swings her legs back and forth, perched on the table, taking another swig at the scorching hot coffee, wincing.

[Maddox] A breath after she soothes the younger girl, the captivating young woman who he thinks might have some deeper appreciation for his playing than some silly, empty-headed thing, scolds. Maddox takes the book, but before he can fully look over the pages, he turns his head. Dark eyes bore into her face, and he does nothing to hide the way they travel down and back up again. He grins around his cigarette, probably because of that lewd glance, maybe for her moxie. "Shhhhhh..." he says, holding a finger up to his lips, and continues in a stage whisper, "what d'you think I'm doing, luv?"

And then he turns away. His focus shifts to the book in his hands. Fingertips slide over the bent pages, his expression thoughtful. Taking hold of the pages, he lets the book hang from his grasp before bracing the spine with his other hand. The pages get bent back, carefully, the touch gentler than Rain might imagine. There's still a kink when he's done, still a slight crease, but time spent closed should set that straight over time.

"That takes care of that," he says, and flips through the book. A brow rises briefly, lowers again, and he looks for signs of official looking stamps or little pockets for library check-out cards. Flicking his gaze to Fiona, he asks, "Is this borrowed?"

[Hunter] "Oh good," he says slyly to Imogen. "Just makin' sure we're all fuckin' equals in misery."

He slips this comment in somewhere though he says it quiet enough that he's not intruding on the flow of the conversation. Nearby there's a kinfolk and she's sitting on a picnic table. Apparently he's real White Knight and while that might make another Garou puff up with pride it just makes Hunter scowl, though there's a certain amusement in the expression.

This description of him obviously isn't a new one.

Silence for the rest of it, until Starla is done explaining and there's a rumble from the back of his throat, a slight bristling of Rage at the comments.

"Didn't say nuthin' at the time, was half fallin' a fuckin' sleep when it all came out. I dunno about this kinfolk at the fuckin' moot crap though. I mean the Gee Eee is the god damn Gee Eee so what does my opinion matter?"

He snorts.

"Just don't know about it s'all. Don't know what the need is."

[Fiona] Elves are cruel. Not in Tolkien: the elves in Tolkien are noble and just and beautiful. They're not real. Fiona's not stupid. She totally gets that (although she is also prepared to discuss matters in their language, should they ever decide to become real). Elves are cruel in all the stories. Maddox's muddled accent does not escape clarity when Fiona listens to it, and she pegs him as a man from a place where a fairy might well decide to pretend to be human. Fiona is standing with the book in her hand like it's a piece of the spear that got Jesus and she's a Catholic like it's some kind of broken holy relic like if she moves it'll dissolve like she's made out of fire and the book's spun of cotton candy and that's not going to last at all. For a second: her eyes go blank. Wide, unblinking. She is considering who she will run down and play a game with for the ability to scent out the true form of strangers at twilight. It'd be useful. Why didn't she think of it before?

And while she's considering this, back of her mind consideration, like an itch, her throat is filling up with despair, is closing with saliva, and she swallows, actually flinching at the what did you do, murmuring, "It's broken. Do you, uhm. Do you really think, do," and her eyes go bright luminous. She's not crying, mind, but the possibility is there. If she blinks, water'll gather in the corner of her eyes. "Do you, uhm, do you think smoothing it will," and she holds the book out to Maddox, shaking from adrenaline and (contained) despair. She is a teenager; these things are dramatic. "That just smoothing it will work?"

When the book's been taken, she starts biting on her pinkynail, although she offers Rain a quick smile, while watching what Maddox is doing like a vicious hungry-for-mice hawk: "It's, it's okay. Boys are always mean and kind of like - uhm they are. They're kind of - what are you doing that doesn't look okay that looks - "

Then he's handing the book back and she stares at it. The dust jacket is still ripped, but, but, but hey, that's not too bad. " - thanks, London."

[Fiona] ooc: Erk! Wait. *adds*

"And uhm." Her shoulders round with guilt. "Yes. It's my brother's."

[Rain] There's something almost magical about having a true teenager in their midst (little does Rain know), whose adept twist at melodrama has nothing to do with Rage (except when it does) and is bent more toward the immediacy of everything in those fragile years. Rain was probably like that, once, somewhere between the ages of twelve and whenever-the-fuck-it-was that she left home.

That year. When she was the same age her brother had been. When it held a certain sort of symmetry. When she'd had enough, and enough means, and a good enough excuse and there'd been an open road. Before she'd been Found, and broken, and remolded. Before she'd been Unicorn's or anyone else's. So maybe it's that she sees a slip of something so profoundly normal in Fiona's hysteria, and in the cruel-kind way that Maddox both toys with it and remedies it, that floods Rain's expression with amusement, twines it around her resident warmth, gentles whatever borderline concern she might have had to be unwittingly amongst wolves in the dusky hours of twilight.

"I've got some tape in my bag," Rain says, offering out the suggestion with a raise of her eyebrow and a little motion that would lead to pulling her hand out of her pocket should Fiona show interest. "I'm almost always fixing my sheet music," she admits, easily, as if it were one of those things that just happened of its own accord, through no misuse or malady. A little shrug.

If desired, this little bit of clear-bodied tape is produced and proferred to the penitent teen.

For Maddox, then, a side-slipped smile, a faint cousin of a smirk, at the way that his eyes travel (but not quite self-possessed enough to bespeak some worldly wisdom, just comprehension, the subtle challenge of a thing that does not expect in any way to be chased: innocence [folly]). "Nice trick," she tells him. For the way he handled the book, or the teen, or maybe even his guitar, which she eyes, now, with a similar appreciation to the way he looked her up and then down again.

There is a measure of approval in her eyes when they meet his, briefly -- another sign that she does not yet know him for what he is.

[Kora] Starla's comment about Hunter protecting damsels earns the kinswoman a longer look; direct and dark-eyed, the unblinking, unbending sort. The sort that recalls the wolf she is, underneath, makes unrevealing reflective pools of her eyes. It's steady, watchful, judgment withheld but the sharpness of it so immediate as to be immanent.

When Izzy approaches, her own sausage in hand, the detective receives a subtle lift of a chin from the heavily pregnant Skald. Just a greeting. Whatever she's dreading appears to be overshadowed by other issues.

"If I have to hear about the concerns of my tribe's kin from the mouth of a poncy, long-winded Silver Fang - " Her nostrils flare with an exhaled breath and she shakes her gleaming head. The empty hood of her seatshirt moves across her spine, half-driven by the slow-uncoiling weight of her hair. "I will eat a fucking hat and then kick someone's goddamned ass."

A glance back at Imogen, then. "We nominated you for the position. Grand Elder picked the Shadow Lord's mate. She's got this batshit chick as her sidekick, too. Doc, I've been here how long, and the only time I've seen that woman was in the fucking underworld." Here, she breathes out. "Monty - tried to work with them last year, remember? Undermined him at every turn. I've got no clue what the next step is, but for fuck's sake, Doc. They wanna make squandrons of attack-kin, or some shit. As if they were Black Eagle.

"The Sept needs more than a Shadow Lord and her batshit sidekick leading the kin."

[Izzy Montoya] Hunter doesn't get it, and Izzy's close enough to the conversation by this point to have heard what they are discussing, and hear who was appointed. She snorts. Which is what got her into trouble last night.

The need. That's what he doesn't get. "Power." She stops, and takes a swallow of toohot coffee and grimaces as it scalds her tongue, then takes another swig anyway.

"Control. She finally got what she fuckin wanted when she headed this shit up before. She just waited till some crazy bitch fucked up bad enough to get to weasel her way in and take control."

No secret that Izzy has very little use for Shadowlords - and since she's not fucking either of them, she has no use for them at all. A simple woman, our Izzy, at the core.

She nods to Kora, and comes to a stop near the table, setting her cup down, so that she can take a bite of her sausage. She was there before. She saw what happened - and that they let the crazy-bitch take any part? She snorts again. "I shoulda shot that bitch when I had the chance."

She might be kidding.

Likely - not so much.

(scene sort of fizzled there from my end. went to bed!)

Curiosity Killed the Cat (in progress)

[Nash] The grocery stores in this neighborhood are not the dimly-lit corner stores that provide nothing but the bare essentials necessary to sustain life. There are aisles upon aisles devoted to vitamin supplements, to magazines in a variety of languages, to wine that costs more than ten dollars a bottle. This is not the sort of place one typically wants to go when one is covered in blood and suffering the lingering aftereffects of a concussion, but it's the latter that has him thinking this is remotely a good idea anyway.

On a Saturday afternoon, the place is packed. If he had come in the pneumatic front doors earlier, perhaps one of the sales clerks or cashiers would have noticed him earlier. Any other patrons in the store would have, faster, as well, but group mentality and the blinders that human beings require in order to go on about their business in crowds gives him some leeway at first.

Then he ends up in the aisles, separated from the main drag of onlookers, and people start noticing. They notice, but for the most part, they do nothing. A lot of them have children, and usher them away from the long-haired man in the leather jacket. There's blood staining the strands of his hair, his eyes look like a raccoon's, and he's holding his right arm against his body as if he'll lash out at anyone who comes near it.

One brave soul asks him if he's alright. The response he comes up with sends that woman scuttling at a pretty quick clip, and he goes back to fumbling gauze and antibiotic ointment off the shelf.

[Slaughter] "You're leaving blood on the floor." An accented voice comes from Nash's right, the same direction from which the previous woman had spoken on her errand of mercy. The tones could not be more different.

She is on his right, then, the slight woman of red hair and a rather unflappable disposition, for once dressed in jeans and a sweater made of some pleasant, expensive woven material. Angora, perhaps. Maybe Alpaca.

Her eyebrow arches as she looks at him critically, her gaze flicking down then up again.

"Yeh going to make it out the door?"

[Nash] "Made it in here, didn't I?"

He asks, as though this is as much of a joke as anything else. The man walks through life as though it's all mighty fucking hilarious, as though just being alive is mighty fucking hilarious, and though last night clearly didn't go as well as even the most pessimistic of Kinfolk would have thought it to have, he's still alive.

Of course, he smells like wood smoke and despite the cursory wash job he did he still has traces of fetid water on the hems of his jeans, so Imogen isn't exactly coming out of left field with her question.

Though bleary, he seems aware of his surroundings and mentally present enough to reply to her questions with smart-assed retorts.

"Lemme ask you something," he says, wavering slightly as he shifts to the left to grab a box of sterile pads. He's holding everything in his left hand, as though the idea of a hand basket or a cart hadn't occurred to him. She may very well think he's about to ask something sarcastic, but that isn't what comes out of his mouth next. "They sell needle and thread in these fancy-ass stores? I really would hate to leave more blood on the floor than I have to."

The elderly man who shuffles into the head of the aisle and hears that isn't convinced. He shuffles away again.

[Slaughter] Her lips thin as she looks at him - the question is not a hard one. Nor even a complicated one. It is a yes or no answer, or maybe even an 'I don't know' answer.

Still, a pause.

"I have a suture kit in the car," she says finally, half-resigned. "Give me those, I'll take them through cash." Imogen has a basket over her arm, within it a variety of fruit, some bread and eggs.

[Nash] "What?"

He doesn't give up the small cache of supplies in his left hand. A brief glance at her reveals the lack of thorough comprehension as it tugs at his brow and squints his bruised eyes. Nash isn't the sharpest tool in the shed on his good days anyway, but his quick wit and the speed at which it leaves his mouth tends to obscure this fact. Multiple blows to the head isn't helping him.

"Don't have health insurance, Doc," he tells her. It's probably supposed to be funny.

At some point he realizes he can't grab the antibacterial soap from the shelf with all of the other stuff he already has on hand, and with more resignation than Imogen had displayed in offering to help him, reaches across his own body and turns slightly to dump the white-and-blue boxes in her hand basket to free up his hand.

[Slaughter] "Don't worry," she retorts to his half-hearted joke, "I like to keep up my practice on the living from time to time. Consider it a fair trade."

One hopes she is joking. One imagines Nash may be too injured and bleary to care.

"Here, give it me," she says, as he takes down the antibacterial soap as well. "Yeh look a mess and yeh're drawing attention. Go -" a pause as she undoes the clasp to her handbag and removes a set of car keys - "sit in my car and try not to bleed on the upholstery. It's the Aston Martin. I'll get what yeh need."

[Nash] If she's not joking, he is in no state of mind to tell the difference; Nash laughs, the sound hoarse and ending in a brief coughing fit that he stifles with the crook of his left elbow.

An instruction to give her the soap, followed by the rationale, and Nash flicks his eyebrows in slow consent, an unspoken Alright that has him handing her the bottle of orange liquid rather than depositing it in the basket that's already half his supplies.

When her car keys come out, he squints. Her key would probably cost more to replace than his entire truck. The only instruction is not to bleed on the upholstery, and he doesn't have some cute remark about how much she trusts him.

It has nothing to do with trust. The fact that he managed to drive his stick-shift truck all the way back from Rogers Park either means he's more stubborn than he looks, or he's a goddamn idiot, but regardless, he is in no shape to do it again with a strange vehicle.

"Alcohol," he remembers, with a jingle of keys rather than a snap of his fingers. "Forgot alcohol."

He doesn't specify if he means the breed meant for imbibing or the breed meant for dousing filthy wounds, but he starts off anyway, walking a remarkably straight line up until the point that he's nearly hit by a heavyset woman with an overloaded cart.

"Jesus, lady," he says, loud enough to be heard from several yards away as he keeps moving, "learn how to drive!"

It's a wonder no one calls security.

[Slaughter] Alcohol, he remembers.

"I'll get," she repeats deliberately, slowly as if he were mentally incompetent, "what you need. Go."

She had begun to turn back when he had the altercation with the heavy woman with her heavy cart. At the sound of his rather over-loud voice, she turns, and takes a few steps forward, watching him as he plods his way toward then through the front doors.

Then she returns to the first aid section.

--

A little later the driver's side door opens to the Aston Martin, Imogen pushing back her seat to drop her grocery bags into the back. There are two of them, one of her food, the other for his wounds.

She gets into the driver's seat, pulling the door shut firmly behind her and holds out her hand for her keys.

"Where d'yeh live?" she asks.

[Nash] At the moment, he exists in a tenuous state between being recognized as a mentally competent adult and being declared mentally incompetent. Were he intoxicated, or were he still actively bleeding from head trauma, were he incapable of recognizing Imogen or where he is, he could be forced into accepting medical care by whoever stumbled upon him first.

He's out of it enough that he doesn't bristle or offer up a retort to her deliberate, slow speech. Perhaps he doesn't hear her. She doesn't see him again, at least, until she makes it out to the car.

When the driver's-side door opens he starts awake, his left hand moving as though it's going to retrieve something from beneath his jacket before he sees who it is. Recognition has him drawing a heavy breath before relaxing, and once Imogen is seated, he deposits the keys in her hand.

Where does he live.

"Six North Summit Street, Fairhope Alabama," he says, as if she's reached an automated response system rather than a human being. After a heartbeat he realizes she doesn't want his home address. "Oh, here." This strikes him as briefly entertaining. "Sorry Doc, I'm stayin' at the Marriott on East Randolph. Shit."

[Slaughter] He answers with a street address which, for her, is nonsense. "And in Chicago?" she asks with elaborate patience, before Nash clarifies.

He finds it entertaining, and she lifts an eyebrow in his direction. Her studied regard has more meaning than it might in someone else. She looks at his heartbeat beneath his jawline, at the colour of his skin, if he is diaphoretic or not. She looks at the rhythm of his breathing and if his lips are blue.

"Alright," she says, fitting her keys into the ignition. The engine roars when it starts. "We'll go there."

She backs the car out of its parking spot and points it toward the exit. Music plays softly on the speakers. Something classical - Bach's Goldberg Variations.

She does not ask him yet what or how or why. Silence reigns in the car again.

[Nash] Even if he hadn't gone to the hospital, Nash had the common sense and foresight necessary to recognize that if he didn't do something to treat the wound that Imogen still has not laid eyes on, he was going to be worse off than he is now. A quick visual assessment, made easier by the fact that after his self-amused speech he leaned back against the passenger seat and closed his eyes, reveals what she likely already knew.

His respirations are shallow and slow but unlabored and even. The normally swarthy man has gone pale but not blue, and both eyes are bruised from intracranial pressure rather than his typical brand of sleep deprivation. He left for Rogers Park at sunset last night, and given how he smells, he did not come straight back to town. If he was going to die from a head injury, it would have happened already. That isn't what will kill him, although it's bad enough that he'll be out of commission for several more days as he recovers.

Infection from whatever had necessitated his raiding the first aid section of the grocery store hasn't set in yet, but that's what could kill him.

He's awfully calm about it, considering.

"What about you?" he asks, eyes still closed, apropos of nothing and after they've already gone several blocks.

[Slaughter] She lifts an eyebrow, turning her head to glance at him for a brief moment before returning her gaze to the road. They whizz past buildings and streetlamps, storefronts both darkened and well-lit. There are people on the sidewalks heading from one bar to the next or from the bar to home or - well. Whatever, really.

"What do you mean, what about me?" she asks.

[Nash] "You ain't from around here, neither."

His voice is still strong. It had been in the store, strong enough to give strangers the impression that he has a viable and visible temper, but he isn't decompensating or lapsing into unconsciousness now that they're in the car and out of sight.

"Where're you from?"

[Slaughter] "What was yer first hint," she answers in a tone of vague amusement.

"England," she answers, before elaborating it to: "Cornwall."

[Nash] "Huh," he says. "I woulda guessed New Hampshire."

He sounds as amused as she does--that is to say, vaguely. Unless she returns fire, offers up another question or a retort for him to respond to, he falls asleep. His instructions were not terribly specific, yet there is not a great distance Imogen can go on East Randolph before she runs into the Marriott.

It's not a very nice motel, either, which helps narrow it down considerably without having to endure talking to Nash to figure out which one it is.

[Slaughter] "Bite yer tongue." Fired back.

Perhaps he does, and what follows is that he dozes off.

When he wakes, she has parked the car near the front door of the rundown hotel and Imogen is removing her seatbelt. She casts him a glance, appraisingly for a beat before she says: "I'm going to assume yeh can get out of the car." With that, she gets out with an apparent ease and virility he might envy. The idea, right now, of painlessness must be an impossible dream. Beyond his scope; pain like this often feels like it might last forever.

She retrieves one of the two grocery bags in the back and shuts her door, waiting for him to close his own before locking the car with a chirp of the alarm.

[Nash] The gliding of the car to a stop doesn't wake him up, or the removal of the keys from the engine, or the clicking of the seatbelt. For someone who looks as though he doesn't sleep very much, he sleeps deeply enough when he does that it might be concerning if he also doesn't have notable parental scarring.

He wakes up when Imogen speaks.

It is not a smooth awakening, either, but a jerking like he had when she opened the door to get in, as though Nash was surprised to have found he'd dropped off in the first place. She's going to assume he can get out of the car.

"We shall see," he says, blinking heavily. Though he's on the passenger side, he does not try to open the door with his right hand. It stays protectively pressed to his stomach, and he fumbles the handle with his left hand.

Getting out was harder than getting in; the Aston Martin is lower to the ground than his Ranger. He stumbles a bit, catching himself on the frame of the car rather than the door, then claps it shut so the medical examiner can lock it.

He doesn't try to take the bag from her. It's enough for him to lead the way up the concrete exterior stairs to the first-floor motel room, his boots clanging against the steps two at a time. When they get to room 204, which has the Do Not Disturb tag clipped to the handle, he pulls a key card out of his interior jacket pocket, briefly revealing his shoulder holster, and opens the door.

"After you," he says, holding the door open with his backside.

The room inside is deceptively neat for a place without room service, left in the care of a bachelor. Both beds are neatly made, there are no clothes left strewn on the floor or over the furniture, and the bathroom isn't a disaster area.

Will wonders never cease.

[Slaughter] She had watched him as he exited her car. She has awareness of him while they walk toward the stairs and she walks just a half second behind him up the steps. Imogen is not the type given to bouts of caring or sympathy. However, there is a sense that were he to stumble, or fall, he would find her hands supporting him up, getting him back on his feet.

But while he walks, she touches him not at all.

Inside the room, her eyes flick over its appointments and then touches on the open door of the surprisingly clean bathroom. A lift of her chin indicates it. "I'll get yeh to sit in there," she says. Though he had not asked, it would appear he was going to get her assistance with whatever wounds he might have.

[Nash] Once the slight kinswoman is inside, Nash casts a shadow-eyed glance down the walkway outside the room before stepping aside to let the door fall shut. It hits him in the flank, and he eases it shut the rest of the way as though the door is the one requiring assistance and not the operator. A quiet click sounds once the electronic lock is engaged, the Do Not Disturb sign rattling beyond their sight.

"Oh will you?" he asks, as if following a script he has not committed to heart, and shrugs out of his jacket. The trouble is not with his shoulder, although once the jacket comes off Imogen can see the light-colored button-down shirt he'd had on yesterday is stained dark rust-red on the left shoulder, near his neck. His hair, clumped together in places from blood that had been loathe to wash out with bottled water, conceals the fact that he's still bleeding slowly from a wound on his scalp.

His right forearm is where the bulk of the blood is. She can see the edge of what appears to be paper towel sticking out of his unbuttoned sleeve. Not a clean inch of space remains on the once-white fiber, but the bleeding appears to have slowed.

Jacket off, he tosses it in the general direction of a desk chair. It lands several feet off-target, hitting the ground with a heavy thump, and he flicks his eyebrows in a shrug before continuing into the bathroom. It's as large as some people's closets, with a coffin for a shower and the toilet wedged between it and the vanity.

He slaps the lid of the commode closed and drops himself down onto it. It puts his injured right arm near the shower rather than the flat surface by the sink, and he stares at the arrangement for a few seconds as though something isn't quite right.

"Well, shit," is his verdict.

[Slaughter] She removes her jacket while he throws his toward a chair and misses, rolls up the sleeves of her sweater to free her forearms. She is removing a wrapped suture kit from the bag when he curses, and she glances up to see the logistical problem his injury presents.

"Alright," she says after a beat. "Why don't yeh sit on the floor and prop yer arm up on the side o' the tub, then."

A brief glance toward it - then she leans down to remove her shoes, peeling off her stockings. It will make sense later - when she has to crouch in the tub for the right angle to suture his arm.

[Nash] "This is why you get paid the big bucks, huh?" he asks.

A younger man might have just dropped himself onto the floor without a moment's hesitation. Nash is hardly ancient; while gray whiskers have infiltrated his facial hair, the hair atop his head retains its pigmentation, and he's spry enough to think breaking into an abandoned house after dark is a worthwhile use of his time.

If he'd caused himself minor injury during that process, it's overshadowed by the other problems he has at the moment.

Using his left arm for a ballast, Nash eases himself down onto the bare tile floor, heels of his boots scuffing a few times before he lands with a thud. When he rests his arm on the edge of the tub, he doesn't lie it flat, but lets it rest on his elbow with his hand in a supine swoon. The paper towel juts out, and he eyes it for a moment before sighing and reaching over to wrench the thing free.

He flinches when it tears at the coagulated blood hidden beneath his sleeve, but doesn't make any noise. The waste bin is outside the bathroom. Nash frowns, then lets the beyond-soiled paper towel drop on the lid.

[Slaughter] She starts to speak when he tears the papertowel off, but by then, it is too late. She grimaces faintly as she enters the bathroom bag and suture kit in hand. They are put down on the tiled floor as she steps into the bathtub sinking to a crouch to take his arm. Her hands are cool and firm as she gently turns the forearm so she can see wound, pushing back the sleeve of his shirt.

"Was this from last night?" she asks as she watches carefully for the flow of blood. She does not expect any pulsing jets, but she confirms it anyway.

[Nash] It likely looks worse than it actually is, but when she applies pressure to his arm he sucks in a breath through his nostrils and grits his teeth. Though the rest of him is still relatively warm, the extremity and skin of his right arm have gone cool from blood loss; his fingernails are pale but not blue, and the skin itself is too drenched in blood to read much from it.

Nash rests heavily on his elbow to keep from leaning backward and forcing the doctor to contend with hardware as she works. As she pushes back his sleeve, he watches, as though to do otherwise would imply he's squeamish.

What he brought home with him is a puncture wound--a bite, to be more precise, though not from a dog or any other four-legged animal in the canine family. It would be identifiable as a rodent's nip were it smaller, but the bite itself is several inches in length and has both an entrance and an exit wound that come in laterally. The possibility of one or both long bones being fractured isn't out of the question, but if they are, they aren't visibly deformed.

He got lucky: no arteries or tendons were severed, but it bleeds dark deoxygenated blood, and heavily now that he's torn off the makeshift bandage.

As she inspects the wound, he says, "Yeah. Fella didn't like me snooping around his place, I guess."

[Slaughter] "Here," she takes his hand in her's and puts it to the opposite elbow, tightening his grip over the brachial artery, "Hold there."

Blood is dripping down his elevated arm, running around the edge of his wrist to drip on the floor. "I hope you're not fond of that shirt," she says as she tears open a packet of gauze pressing it back to the wound. "I believe I'll be cutting it off."

[Nash] Considering his reputation for being difficult, Imogen doesn't find him a terribly argumentative or combative patient. Blame it on the head injury; he presses his thumb where she instructs him to, and the oozing from his wrist slows. Without the paper towel, though, or the pressure from him pressing his wrist to his midsection, there is now a pattering rhythm from the blood hitting the tile.

He hauls another breath in through his nostrils when she presses the gauze onto the wound, and when she speaks of the fate of his shirt, he laughs.

"Imogen," he says, the way he would call anyone else darlin' or sweetheart or some other nickname she'd already told him was not at all appreciated, "I think I can handle takin' off my own shirt."

[Slaughter] "Nash," Imogen says echoing much of his tone as she straightens up, "When yeh remove the shirt, you will have to take that sleeve," a point toward the one pushed up past his elbow at the moment, "over that wrist." The same finger indicates the wrist. "Currently, the blood is being slowed by the fact that the wound is above yehr heart, because you have your hand on an artery and I have my hand on gauze on the wound.

"None o' these are possible while yeh struggle t'get out of the shirt. Yeh will cause yerself more pain, cause yerself to lose more blood, all very unnecessary as I happen t'have a rather thorough first aid kit wi' me.

"Personally, I'd prefer to cut off yer shirt. If now, you insist on wanting to remove it," she tilts her head slightly, an eyebrow arching, "so on yer head be it."

[Nash] He makes a valiant effort to pay attention and listen to what she's saying to him. Green eyes made brighter by pain are locked on her face, as though she's the only solid object in the room right now; he's holding his right arm so tightly tendons pop like guitar strings beneath the skin of his dominant hand.

A muddled combination of fatigue, concussion and blood loss have him mutedly laughing at her conclusion, the way she so neatly sums up her lecture on what will happen if he decides to wrestle off his shirt rather than sitting the fuck still and letting her operate on his clothing. When he responds, his brows lugubriously lift and his eyes nearly close.

"And you say my English don't make no kinda sense," he tells her, then draws a stabilizing breath and lowers his brows. His eyes open again. "Alright. Fuck it. Cut the sumbitch off."

[Slaughter] "My English makes perfect sense," she answers. "You just ha' a head wound."

He agrees and a ghost of a smirk crosses her mouth, but she says nothing. She leans over the edge of the tub to retrieve the first aid kit, larger than one might have traditionally in the car. This is a doctor, however, and a doctor for whom first aid is perhaps better qualified as 'combat medicine'.

She retrieves the trauma shears, moving the kit so it is half leaned against the wall of the bathroom, steadying it.

Trauma shears have blunt tips, a bent blade. They cut through the fabric of his shirt like a knife through butter. The pieces are left on the floor with the drops of blood and the beyond-soiled paper towel.

There is an almost comforting pattern, even to trauma, even to something like this. She knows it, and follows it without much conversation. The first step is to slow the bleeding. The second is to clean the wound. He had asked for alcohol and got saline and iodine instead - the iodine leaving an orange smear over his skin. She does not worry much about the blood dried and smeared over his forearm.

Her movements have always seemed precise. Imogen is a graceful woman, but only in the fact that she wastes no energy in her body. She walks when she has someone to go, lifts her hand when she has something to reach, a gesture to make. She wastes no energy on the beauty of motion, and in that there is something compelling. She is simply as business like in this.

She does talk a little, not so much engaging him in conversation, as providing him information. Normally, after this long, one would not stitch a wound, but all things considered (and she does not specify) it would likely be better that she does. He will need antibiotics to combat the pain, and if he wants it, she will provide him with narcotics as well.

When it is time to stitch, she warns him, then gets to work.

[Nash] Though he's effortlessly and somewhat confusingly charming, though he can keep up a conversation with someone as educated and scathingly intelligent as Imogen without possessing credentials or brains necessary to otherwise impress her, Nash is at the distinct disadvantage of being badly injured at the moment. Wit and charm are not high on his list of things to accomplish: staying upright and not swooning, however, are.

That said, as she works, he talks but doesn't chatter. His head injury does not make him goofy, or talkative. If anything, it's sedated him. He's tired but not fighting for consciousness, and as Imogen works, methodically and confidently, he occasionally makes comments.

Some of them are amusing. Some of them he just thinks are amusing. Some of them are so laden with colloquialisms and Southern turns of phrase she likely doesn't have a clue what he's saying.

The shirt falls away like wrapping paper at the hands of a small child, giving up no fight. Clothed, he doesn't look like much. He's tall and spindly, looks as though he'd go down easily in a fight. Missing his shirt, Nash is hardly a pillar of strength and vitality, but time and age have not left him completely flabby, either. Beneath a healthy layer of fat there is definition in his musculature, along with a sense that he would be in far better shape if he visited a gym occasionally.

It goes without saying he has scars. They are not innumerable, but they are prominent and would be difficult to explain to humans. 'Car crash,' is what he tends to tell women he takes to bed. Imogen knows better: he didn't get out of the way fast enough one time. All it took was one time: the only set of scars on him that are supernatural are a trio of claws raking across his chest.

His appendix was taken out before the dawn of laparoscopic surgery.

On his right upper arm, looking more like a battle scar than a tattoo, is the Fenrir glyph. The ink is so faded, it's obvious that it is both several decades old and the work of an amateur, if not a Garou with no formal training.

In good health he would have cracked a joke about being half naked in front of her, but he just shivers and bitches about the weather. Within seconds he has goose flesh.

Choosing betadine over isopropyl alcohol was not something he would have thought to do, but when cleansing the wound doesn't make him curse everyone who ever existed, he says, "I gotta take you shopping with me more often."

He says this, and then he has to endure somewhere in the neighborhood of fourteen stitches being threaded into either side of his arm. His breathing accelerates and he sweats despite previously complaining of cold, but he doesn't try to jerk away from her.

"Do I wanna know how an ME gets a hold of antibiotics?" he asks--out of nowhere, like his last question. "Y'all can't write scripts, can you?"

[Slaughter] There is now blood on her hands, and it is worth noting that she does not bother with universal precautions. It is perhaps a nod to a simple truth: neither of them are truly human. The rules are different. The smell of sanguine sharp in the air, familiar. Though she had looked at his scars, she does not stare at them. His tattoo receives a longer linger; she has seen the glyph before. She refocuses then. Tells him about the antibiotics. Starts to stitch.

She keeps one hand firmly on his forearm, her grip cool but a reminder for him not to jerk away, and protection for them both should he actually do so. She can feel the tension of his tendons and muscles beneath her hand, the way they stand out as he strains to remain still.

If she needs to, she reminds him to breathe.

He asks a question, seemingly out of the blue and she glances up at him once, before turning her attention back to her work. The small curved needle slowly pushes through one end of the wound and out the other. She is performing a double layer closure. It will take some time.

"Really what you should be asking," her mouth twists, seen in profile as she is bent over her work, "is how will an ME get ahold of narcotics."

A beat. "I ha' a licence to practice medicine in the state o' Illinois. I can write prescriptions. My malpractice insurance providers would not be thrilled, but I imagine you aren't going to sue, are you?"

[Nash] "The thought hadn't crossed my mind yet."

Science waffles on whether men or women have higher pain thresholds and better tolerance for nature's warning system. Nash seems, at first, to think holding his breath is an effective means of weathering the suturing procedure. His breathing, whether or not he's speaking, is audible and ragged, but it's better than nothing.

"Suin' you wouldn't do no good, anyway."

He ducks his head and blinks several times as sweat courses down his brow and into his eyes. He doesn't have any hands free.

"Sue you, who's gonna get me antibiotics next time I get the shit bit outta me? Narcotics I can get no problem. Dealers in this city ain't too subtle."

A beat.

"Not that I'm buyin'. Ain't too many other reasons you see cars pullin' into motel parking lots at three o'clock in the mornin'."

[Slaughter] "Well and besides," a few strands of her hair have fallen free of her chignon, brushing her temple where they fall down her profile, not quite in her eyes, but not quite out of it, either. "If yeh were to sue me, the antibiotics and narcotics would be low on the list, wi' bathroom surgery bein' on the top, I should think.

"But," and here she does look at him for a moment, smirking, even as her attention flicks over his white face, touching on the sweat beading his brow. "thank you for your reassurances."

Her attention turns back down, "Yeh should be able to release your elbow now," she says, fitting in another stitch with perfect precision.

[Nash] Laughing at the bone-dry nature of her response could throw him off of concentrating on hauling in each unwilling breath and letting it go again, but if anything it gives him something to concentrate on than each burning stab of the suture needle into his skin as she stitches. Though her touch is firm and professional, that does little to change the concentration of nerve endings in the human epidermis.

It's a small prick, but it happens repeatedly, and she's putting in a deeper layer of stitches to keep it from gaping later on. He'll thank her one day.

Maybe.

He's grown paler since the procedure started, but he at least has sweat securing his hair in place. It doesn't fall in his eyes until he tips his head forward to try and blink the salt water out of existence, and he leaves it where it is at any rate. Watching Imogen work, he doesn't see her shake her head or otherwise try to move to get the strands back off of her skin.

The go-ahead to let go of his arm comes, and Nash does so slowly, as though he's expecting the oozing to start again as soon as he releases his own artery. In jerking stages, he moves his hand away, until he's holding it airborne as though a gun is aimed at him, or he's otherwise removing himself from a sterile field.

"Whoa Nelly, will you look at that," he says, before swiping sweat from his orbits with the back of his now-freed wrist. He sits breathing his arduous breaths for a few seconds, studying her with that hazy cast to his gaze.

Whatever he decides, he doesn't announce with the necessary number of words. Nash says, "Here, hold still," but doesn't say what he's doing before he reaches across his body to brush the hair from her temple.

[Slaughter] Her reaction is instantaneous and stunningly accurate. One hand had been laid on his forearm, a continuous pressure to keep him still. It leaves his skin, even as her other hand stills. Her head tilts away from him as she catches his wrist, her gaze lifting to meet his eyes.

A second passes, and she lets him go, deliberately, her hand lifting to her face to brush back her hair herself, again a deliberate motion.

"Thank-you," she says, mildly, before she turns back to her work.

[Nash] Though Nash is considerably larger than Imogen in every sense of the physical word, though he could break her grip if he truly wanted to, that doesn't mean she could not fell him in a heartbeat. She knows where the weak points in the human body are, and she has him in a fairly delicate position right now: she could rip out his stitches, puncture his radial artery, do Lord knows what else in the amount of time it took his bruised brain to come up with some way to physically overpower her.

Her delicate hand is hardly able to encircle his wrist, but its presence at all makes him stop. His hands were shoddily rinsed off before he left Rogers Park but remnants of the night before exist in the form of soot and blood and dirt on his knuckles and ground into his nail beds.

When she looks him in the eye, he looks back, unblinking, equal parts curious and amused. While she focuses solely on his eyes, his own take in the whole of her face up until the point where she releases him. He wiggles his fingers, then returns his hand to his bent knee almost as deliberately.

"Don't mention it," he replies, suppressing a smirk, and returns his attention to the structure she's introducing to the mess on his forearm.

[Nash] "You say that now," he says, though he doesn't appear to be too concerned about it. Either he doesn't want to be all that concerned, or he simply isn't; perhaps he realizes that the task of wrapping up his forearm is far too monumental to attempt one-handed, in his current state. Whatever it is, after that segue, Nash returns his elbow to the blood-smeared lip of the tub. "Takes all the fun outta sayin' I told you so if you're dead."

[Slaughter] She watches him lower his forearm back to the tub, her gaze moving briefly toward the Kin, before reaching out to take it, beginning to wrap the wound. The initial contact is painful, then a release of it, as the tension in the bandage begins to ease the inflammation in the limb. The effect does nothing to improve the healing of the limb, but is a relief nonetheless.

"I'll keep that in mind, shall I?"

[Nash] The kinsman's nostrils flare and his teeth grind down against vocalization of impact when Imogen none-too-gently presses pads down on the wounds and starts to bind his forearm. It's been too soon for infection to set in, yet the soft tissue injury is deep, and his suppression of an outcry may very well be indicative of a hairline fracture somewhere. His color is terrible and his respirations are still shaky and ineffective, yet if he was going to lose consciousness, he would have done so already.

"Please do," he says. A pause to reach up to swipe sweat out of his eyes again, and he adds, "Or, y'know, bring some goddamn backup with you, Annie Oakley."

[Slaughter] "I think between the two of us, myself whole and you wi' a good balance o' yer blood outside yer body, I might just ha' the upper hand when it comes to lecturing about risks," she observes, as she pauses in her wrapping, glancing from the arm to Nash.

"Yeh might ha' fractured the bone," she warns. "I'll check mobility and such before I go, shall I? But you're goin' to have to be bloody careful for a while."

[Nash] "Yeah, yeah, yeah," he says, grousing in response to her observation, his general demeanor making it difficult to assess whether he's truly irritated or whether he's affecting such a thing. It's half-hearted, in either case. Likely he's too concussed, too exsanguinated, to truly impress upon Imogen just how little he approves of her being right.

Then she says he might have fractured the bone. Nash looks up as sharply as is possible, given his lugubriousness, and narrows his eyes at his forearm, as though it's its fault that they're in this mess. He hasn't tried to move the fingers of his right hand since they embarked upon this endeavor.

"Careful's my goddamn middle name."

[Slaughter] "Is it now. I've not heard much relation between names and actions," she smirks faintly. She is finishing the last wrap of the bandage, and snips the gauze before she tapes it in place. The bandage is tidy, neat - almost a work of art, if one can call such a thing so.

"But then again, my last name is Slaughter," she smirks, glancing up, arching an eyebrow. "So what do I know. Show me yeh can move yer fingers will yeh?"

[Nash] Imogen's one-two punch of a joke has Nash making a noise that would have been a laugh were his breathing not being partitioned in favor of providing him with a palliative effect on top of oxygenation. He has enough energy to flick his eyebrows, to nonverbally agree with her, and then she's telling him to show him he can move his fingers.

"You can't just take my word for it?" he asks.

Of course she can't.

Were he not still in the throes of a head injury, he might have been able to move his fingers. As it stands, he's incapable of moving them with any true purpose. Imogen asks him to move his fingers; he flexes his wrist by minute degrees instead, making a miscalculation somewhere along the line, and doesn't see the point in staying quiet this time.

"Ow!!" he yells, wrenching his arm back toward his torso, as though it's her fault that that happened.

[Slaughter] Her hand is on his arm still, and she catches it before he can wrench it, closing on the uninjured part of the limb. "All right." Her response is abruptly quiet, even calm, a sharp contrast to his outburst of (righteous) pain, the near violent reaction.

"Fingers," she says, her hand now lightly touching his wrist. "Just tell me if yeh can feel this." A spare suture needle is plucked from the kit.

The upside of testing his nerves is it will likely test motion as well - the jerk and reflexive pull away from the small pricks of pain.

[Nash] It isn't the same as attempting to treat a Garou, with the threat of frenzy looming over their heads, and Nash is so thoroughly injured that he would have about as much coordination and effectiveness as a drunk in a bar brawl, yet his physical advantage over her and the threat of adrenaline bolstering testosterone is enough to cause fear and hesitance in a normal woman despite his being human.

Imogen is hardly a normal woman, and despite the almost animal nature of his agitation, she doesn't shrink away from him. Her quiet tone, her persistence, has him calming after a few shaking breaths.

"Fingers," he repeats, as though he'd misheard her the first time. "I thought you said 'The whole damn thing,' sorry Doc."

Her neurological exam, as she continues along, reveals what she'd likely suspected before they began this affair: he has no peripheral nerve damage from whatever bit him, his sensory input remains unaltered, yet he's dampened from the blow to his head. Response to pain comes out of reflex rather than reaction; his grip with his uninjured left hand is likewise weak, though not weak enough to cause alarm--he had, after all, managed to drive his truck back from Rogers Park and manipulate items in the grocery store--and his pupils are equal despite being unreactive.

He knows both of their names, knows where he is; he gets the date wrong. He thinks it's still Friday.

[Slaughter] She inspects his head as well, her fingers firm though careful (gentle is not quite a word to be used with her) on his hair, pressing against his skull, feeling the shape of it while she watches his face for the telltale signs of pain.

"It's Saturday," she corrects him once, quietly. "Not Friday."

A little later she gets to her feet. The tub's tap leaks gently, leaving a dampness on the porcelain. Her feet are damp. She steps out, careful of what some might call her patient, and her own bearings, thoroughly aware of herself.

"Haven't slept since this happened, have you?" she asks.

[Nash] His scalp is bruised where he took several blows to the head, and he winces and hisses in a breath and snarls "Ow" as though it's part of a conversation rather than a reaction to pain; where his scalp actually split is where Imogen elicits the greatest reaction, and while it could use stitches, the bleeding has slowed on its own.

Being told it's Saturday has him flicking his eyebrows again, as if to say Well how about that.

Even as she rises, Nash stays parked on the linoleum, his arm elevated by virtue of his elbow being set on the edge of the tub, eyes lazy in their tracking of her. At her question he scowls, as though the thought of sleeping is a foreign concept, or else he simply can't remember.

"I'll be damned if I know," he says. "Y'ain't gonna tell me I can't sleep, are ya? Thought that was just for kids and people with shit leakin' outta their ears."

[Slaughter] "No, I'm not," she says, stretching her body out with a series of nearly invisible movements that elongate the cramped muscles she has from nearly an hour of immobility. She glances briefly out toward the main room, more an action of thought, rather than to see anything - from this angle, all she can see is the mirrored doors of the sliding closet, her shoes on the carpeted floor.

"Can yeh stand?" it's not the first time she's asked him this question.

[Nash] "'Course I can stand," he says, as if she's asking him something completely ridiculous, like if he speaks English or if he's male.

A handful of seconds go by, perhaps while Imogen waits for him to actually begin the process of standing, and Nash looks at her with his eyebrows raised in bleary cross-examination before it dawns on him what exactly it is that she's asking.

"Oh you mean stand up?" A slow blink, a lowering of his eyebrows, and he concludes, "Shit. Hang on," as though getting himself off the floor unassisted is something that simply slipped his mind. It's far more daunting a task than getting out of the Aston Martin had been: he has to get his legs under him while maintaining his balance. He gets his left hand on the lid of the toilet, then sits cocking an accusatory eye at it.

[Maialen de Xove y Miasol] (OH MY GOD THEY ARE IN CHINATOWN.)

[Slaughter] "Stop," before he has a chance to actually attempt to get to his feet. A muscle in her jaw moves, repeatedly, reflexively as she regards him for several seconds.

Imogen does not touch others lightly. This has already reached her threshold.

She steps forward, crouching down by his good side, looping his arm over her shoulder. Her feet planted steadily on the floor, she places a steading hand on his chest as her other hand comes around his back to curve a hand at his shoulder.

Then, presumably he has allowed her to do all this, she says: "Ready?"

And lifts with her legs.

[Maialen de Xove y Miasol] (messes up another of jamie's transcripts. MAKES A FACE.)

[Slaughter] (*GASP* FAIRIES)

[Nash] The legal investigator is a full foot taller than the forensic pathologist. Nash being on his ass on the floor is the only thing that has her standing over him; all she needs to do is help him get his legs under him, and he has demonstrated he can handle the rest.

At this moment, she has to be thankful that the man is not entirely cognizant of what is going on around him. There are no witty comments about their height disparity or how she's spending an awful lot of time with her hands on him today. He would have to be blind to not have been able to tell, from their encounter in the elevator if nothing else, that Imogen does not relish touching strangers.

A delicate hand on his bare chest finds the lungs beneath still pulling for air in the fog of pain and head trauma as though he's having difficulty catching his breath. His skin is coated with diaphoretic sweat; she can feel his heart slamming even if she only holds a hand there for a moment.

Ready?

"Yeah," he says, in that lazy way of his.

He isn't deadweight; he helps her get him standing, and once he's there, his breathing deepens, quickens, as though he's going to faint. It doesn't come to that.

"Hoo," he announces, once he's standing. An appraising glance at her, his eyes having lost their typical gray coloration with the invasion of pain, and Nash huffs out a laugh. "I thank you kindly."

[Slaughter] Her hands tighten on him as he gets to his feet, and briefly unsteadies. "Don't mention it," the doctor answers, waiting a moment before stepping back slowly, watching him.

"C'mon," she says. "I'll wake yeh in two hours."

And so she will - and then two hours after that. It is a steady series of repetition he may be fortunate enough to forget. His name, her name. Where they were. What's the date.

Eventually, she must be satisfied that he will survive unconscious without her intervention. When he fully wakes, he is alone in the room. The bed opposite him is not slept in, but the coverlet is faintly mussed where she had sat, her back against the wall doing - well. He had not been conscious enough to know.

The bathroom is wiped clean of blood, the towel she had used for her own hands, taken away. The first aid kit gone. Two bottles of pills by the sink - each with a yellow stickie with their use ("Antibiotics" "Painkiller") and instructions written in an angular and tight hand. Beneath, the bottles are labelled with a false name. The bag of supplies is left for him - supplies to change his bandage, clean it and disinfect it.

And that is it.