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They canceled class after the sprinklers went off in the lunch room.  Dave contacts the US to offer rides to any that need it.

OOC: Further stuff for that day can go here.

Colin looks around for Laney.

Alicia hears the announcement and shrugs. It saves her the trip to the office to say she's sick and needs to go home.


OOC: Nope. She's pretty much oblivous to that, too. Right now, catching a cold is the least of her worries.

Through the crowds of laughing and chattering students Laney slipped by like a ghost, pale and shivering, having no idea where she was headed or why.   They were all dripping in the hallways, a chorus of complaints, for the school could not release them into the winter day immediately.  It would take time to summon buses with drivers.   Those who were fortunate enough to obtain rides would be allowed to leave, of course.  She knew this from experience;  four times, in fact.    She must wait for a bus; too considerate to ask either of her guardians to leave work for this.

Donnie stands near Sylvia and Colin, shoulders slumped. He turns toards his friend and asks "Was what I said so wrong? I am trying to get her to see things from our perspective. I might have sounded heavy handed I guess. I am just used to playing kings and making dramatic moments in our Dungeons & Dragons games, maybe. Too dramatic. I don't know. I don't feel as if I was judging her at lunch." He shrugs. "I guess Preston gets away for a nother day."

Sammy calls Elrod.  "Is it too late to get a ride with you?"  Her voice sounds wrong.

Colin has a way with the universe.  It tends to make sure he needs to be where he needs to be.  A collision with the back of a larger boy, which gets a "sorry" from the larger boy.  This has Colin spun around and taking another way, then dodging a girl shaking her long hair out has him turning to go around, and then ducking a swinging backpack had him bumping right into her.


"Late?  You don't sound good.  You need a ride?  Meet me in the back parking lot."

"I'll be ok.  I'll tell you about it in the car."  She pauses.  "Were you out of the building?  School got shut down; the sprinklers in the cafeteria broke and soaked everybody in there."

"You do have a flair for drama. But the problem here is that she needs more time. We should give her time to figure herself out instead of rubbing her face in every shortcoming. It's too soon for her to see things from our point of view, she doesn't even see them from her own point of view. We should all learn some patience." he can't say the world without laughing a bit inside.


"What is it with Preston? Didn't we say it's Mike we have to watch out for?"

He looks at her for a moment, saying nothing, before reaching out and pulling her into a squelchy hug.

"I'm sorry," he says quietly, right at her ear. "Things got ugly fast there, didn't they?"

"Laney! I was just looking for you. I have something for you." He hands her a folded note.

"I am usually on fast-forward. Trips me up all the time."


"Yeah, I was being a little sarcastic. I don't have anything against him right now."

"I'm afraid, when Alicia talks, all I hear is--"  She makes Peanuts noises.  "'Wa-waah wa-waah wah wah.'  She's trying to rein it in.  You can tell.  But she needs bellhops to meet her at the door to carry all that baggage.  And everything you say or do has to do with her.  Thus, I leave.  I can't deal with that."

Stunned someone bumped into her and it didn't involve pain or something breaking, Laney just stares at Colin in miserable confusion for a full minute before his words sink in.  

"Oh.  Hi.  What's this?" and she accepts the note to unfold and examine it.

Alicia returns the hug, unconcernedly dropping her just-retrieved property.


Resting her head on his shoulder, she says quietly. "The truth always does."

"Think of it this way. She comes from a world where Torrance won. How would we be if the witches won?"

"Well..." He wants to say something about tact. "But..." He wants to say something about the subjective nature of truth. "I..."

He settles for "Let's get you home."

He gathers up her things once more and leads her gently, with one arm around her shoulders, away from the crowds and the office and the buzz into a secluded corner where he can respond to Dave that yes, a ride would be greatly appreciated, thank you very much.

Sylvia always gets a little weird when someone talks about the witches.  Or Torrance.  She brings them up often enough, but it's like picking at a scab.  She does it to see if it still hurts.  And it always does.

She can't quite dredge up a light reply, but she tries.  All she comes up with is a look as if someone sank a poisoned piece of shrapnel in her brain, and it's been worming its way inward ever since.  "Fucked," she says, like someone who knows.

Colin nods. "And she got very close to that."

He turns to Sylvia. "But the future might be very different. I showed her a little vision of what she could become. You were in there too. Would you like to see it?" he says, pointing at his head.

"No," she says.  "Dealing with Alicia in the present is difficult enough."

Donnie gets his cell phone out and types out a quick message.

There is no immediate reply.

Alicia almost manages enough energy to rebuff Rhys's offer, but even that's too much. She allows herself to be led, quiet and uncommunicative. To say she's sulking would be granting her too much effort.

When they get to Dave's van, Rhys bundles Alicia inside and then climbs in himself. "Thanks again, Dave. Do you want some cash for gas or something? I don't know how you guys do this."

He turns to Alicia. "Do you want to go to your own house? I don't have the address - you'd have to tell Dave. Or we could go back to my place - dad will give you a lift home when he gets back from the office."

Receiving no reply to her question, a bewildered Laney slips away again while Colin speaks to his friends.  She finds herself at her locker and begins sorting her books and preparing to go home.  There is something comforting in the routine, until she notices her backpack zipper hadn't been closed all the way and her history book and notes were soaked through.

Dave waves it off, "This is what we do.  Don't worry about it."  He gets out of the parking lot and heads to where he's asked.  Rob is riding shotgun and flipping through a magazine.

Oblivious to all events and happily dreaming...
A dry, sleeping Sarah sprawls across her books and the table.  Even the bell for next class fails to rouse her.

OOC: No this isn't some fiendish SO setup I just thought this would be the easiest filler and explain why I couldn't manage to post until now. :)  Or not...

Alicia closes her eyes, faced with the Herculean task of making a decision. All she wants to do right now is to burrow into her bed and hide from the world for a while. But the thought of having Rhys see her home, her room... no. And what if her mother gets home to find him there? Hell, no.

Going to Rhys's, though, means having to face him and his well-meaning questions, his concern, his compassion. She's not sure she can handle that without ending up causing another cluster f**k, another disaster.

Either way, it'll just be more pain, for you and those you care for. Life sucks, doesn't it?

If she could manage the energy, she'd sob in frustration.

Finally, with the fatalistic reasoning that if you're going to eat s**t pie, you might as well put whipped cream on it, she gives Rhys her address. Maybe, just maybe, she can convince them to just throw her out the car as they drive by.

Rhys holds Alicia tight all the way to her apartment. When Dave pulls up in front of the building, he helps her gather her things.

"Do you... want some company? I won't say anything if you don't want me to. I just think you probably shouldn't be alone right now. You'll just stew and get mad again."

Once again, Alicia is at a crossroad on the way to Hell. Either path ends up in the same place, the difference only in the flavor of pain to be experienced along the way.

Best thing is to break it off right now. I'll send him away. He'll feel bad, but not as bad as he'll be after putting up with me any more.

To her absolute shock, the word that comes out of her mouth is, "OK."

Crap. Betrayed by my weak will.

She plods up the stairs to the building door like a prisoner on his way to the electric chair.

Rhys turns to Dave.

"Thanks for the ride, man. I'll be fine from here."

Then he follows Alicia up the stairs and into the building.

"You take a lot in stride."  John says softly, looking into her bag.  "We can salvage that, if you don't have to leave right away I can get Mr. Heep to let us use the tables in his science class room.  Lots of space to lay out wet paper to dry."

As Alicia walks down the hall to the apartment door, she thinks, At the door, I'll tell him I've changed my mind and want to be alone. He can call Dave back to get picked up. Yeah, that should work.

But the moment the door opens, the smells and sounds of her home reach out to embrace her, causing any conscious thought to escape her mind as she steps in to draw what comfort she can from the familiar surroundings.

What Rhys sees when he enters is a modest apartment composed of an open area functioning as a combination living and dining room, with a small alcove kitchen to one side. Doors obviously lead to bedrooms, bathroom and closets. The furniture obviously came from thrift stores; there's no pattern or common style between them. A small TV and old stereo system sit in a cheap entertainment system. Despite that, the apartment is clean and neat, though; surfaces dusted, floors swept, the sink containing only the breakfast dishes from that morning.

Alicia heads unerringly to one door. Reaching it, though, she pauses, looking back at Rhys and biting her lip. Finally, she sighs and says in a resigned voice, "Come on." She opens the door and steps into her room.

OOC: I swear it wasn't intentional. I missed your post.

Colin answers to Sylvia, then is separated from Laney for a moment by the confusion, but he elbows his way back to her.

"It's Dr. David Banner's number. He is a physicist as well as a retired superhero. He's one of the best persons around to ask to, if you want to figure out if you can do something special. I think I can help you as well, but my way would be... well, less scientific. You've seen it first hand."

He looks her over. "Hey, Laney, are you all right?". He sounds concerned and looks at John for confirmation.

Rhys passes no judgement on the modest apartment. He knows he's lucky that his father is a moderately successful attorney and that they're slightly better off than most of the people he's been meeting since he came to America. He's lived in worse himself over the years.

He follows Alicia to her room.

The bedroom is a study in contrast. While the main room is bright, the bedroom is cloaked in shadow. Alicia doesn't even bother flipping barely visible light switch next to the door as she moves about. There's a general impression of shapes, poorly defined in the dimness. Rhys can just about make out Alicia stripping off her wet clothes and dropping them on the floor to join other discarded garments.

There is a slight smell to the room, musky but not unpleasant.

OOC: Does Rhys flip the switch?

{Nope.}

Rhys drops his bag and his coat in an out-of-the-way place and moves quietly into the room.

"Do you want the door closed?"

Alicia turns to him; he can tell because her eyes glow in the dark.

She shrugs then belatedly realizes he probably can't see her. "S'awright." This sparks another thought. "Sorry. You can turn on the light if you want."

"I don't need it*, and you probably don't really want it."

He closes the door anyway, shutting off the last of what light was coming in from the main room. He moves flawlessly toward her in the darkness and pulls her into a gentle embrace.

"Come here," he says, tugging her gently toward her bed. "You need to get warmed up. We can just cuddle up under the covers and keep each other warm. How does that sound?"

* - He can easily enough shift some points into some form of night vision.

"How else should I take it?  Would it change anything if I got upset?  Things...happen.  I can't change them.  I don't know...Which room?  This was due today..."   Cold, wet, and aching from the mishaps of Saturday and this morning, Laney stands there shivering and mumbles her reply.  Her gaze seems hollow as if she weren't seeing what her hands were doing anymore.  

It had just occurred to Laney that a coat might help with this problem, when -



"I'm not...I mean, yes, I wanted to um...No. This is...um...Retired?"  She must have realized she lacks coherency, because she falls silent and returns to pulling books from her pack.

"I'll be right back."  John says.  He glances around, and there is a mild breeze.  About thirty seconds later he's back, like he was never gone, handing Laney his now dry jacket.  "Put this on, and Mr. Heep's room is up on the fourth floor when you want to head up."

Obediently tugging on the jacket, that same empty expression on her face, Laney tries this conversation thing once more:

"Thanks, John.   I'm sorry. I'm not thinking straight today.  Distracted.  Um...Colin, are you talking about tests or something?  Who is this guy?  It'd be a little weird, me calling him out of the blue and then having to explain to...well, it'd just be weird.   Does he know you're giving his number out like that?   No offense, but if he's retired...um...

"...probably shouldn't be talking about this here, anyway.  Fourth floor?"

"Maybe. I'm not sure. Not if you chose the mystic way."


"Dr. David Banner. Although... well you might know him as the Hulk."


"He doesn't work as a superhero anymore. He helped us before though, he and his wife came here to give us some advice. I'm sure they could help you or at least find someone who could, and that they'd be glad to help."


Colin looks at her, then at John, then back at her.

"Do you usually have trouble when you have to focus?"

She went bug-eyed at the name Hulk, so that obviously meant something to her.

"Well, I don't want to bother anyone, but if you think he has time to um...I don't know.  Maybe it would be better not to bother him...I...Trouble?   I'm alright.  It's just been a bad day,that's all.  For everyone...just distracted, that's all."