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There are the times when John pushes himself and how powers beyond what is normal.  This is one of those times.  He takes a breath, and then the world changes.  It becomes a world on mannequins.  He grabs Alicia and Sammy like a canoe in mid leap, and then weaves his way through the crowded lunch room with her, careful not to knock anyone over, or break anything.  Through the doors, up the stairs.  Leaping makes you a slave to gravity, but staying on the ground makes your speed an asset.  His dad told him that once, and he's worked hard to keep it in the front of his mind whenever he does something like this.  A scant few seconds later John is setting Alicia down on the roof, holding her in his vise-like grip to keep her from falling.  "Are you two ok?"  they can feel the heat radiating from him, holding the January chill of the outdoors at bay.

Sammy has a death grip on Alicia, and isn't really focused on John or herself.  As blood drips from several incidental wounds, she keeps saying "Alicia, stop, Alicia, listen to me, please, its Sammy" like a mantra, over and over.

Alicia redefines the term "wildcat". For a few seconds, she is screaming a stream of semi-intelligible invectives, mostly in Spanish, as she scrambles to pull away from John. His shirt acquires a number of rips as her clawed hands flail about. Her body twists and bends, her knees and feet instinctively striking John in an attempt to make him loosen his grip.

Slowly, she calms down, breathing heavily. Her shades gone, her eyes look wildly about, still searching, the slit-pupils dilated.

Finally, she manages to stammer. "Fine. I'm fine. Just... let me go."

Sammy lets go and steps back a step.  "Damn."  Her hand covers a freely bleeding slash on one of her arms, then finds another on her side.  "Ow.  Damn.  You have some sharp claws on you, girl."  She steps back some more and sits on the roof, her back against a safety retention wall.  "Want to talk about it?"

John silently lets her go and removes his shirt from under his jacket with a snap that pulls it free.  He begins to tear a few strips and press them to Sammy's wounds.  "Move your hands so I can see."  his voice is calm as he moves her clothing to look at the wounds.

"No," Sammy says stubbornly.  "Not unless I'm going to bleed to death in the next 10 minutes.  Get her under control first.  I'll be okay."

Alicia steps back, trembling. She crouches as she lets out one final wordless scream, then collapses into a ball on the ground, sitting with her arms wrapped around her legs and her face pressed against her knees. Her limbs twitch from the adrenaline rush.

"There isn't anything I can do for her that you can't.  And, in all honesty you're better suited to deal with her than I am."  John says as he presses the shirt into the wounds to help halt the bleeding.

"Ow.  Fine."  Sammy moves her hands to give him access.  "Alicia?  Alicia?  Over here.  Talk to me.  'cause if you don't talk to me, I'm going to have to start telling you Once Upon A Time in Sammy-land stories that are going to make John blush.  I don't need him blushing while he's trying to patch me up.  Am I going to need stitches?  Alicia... its ok.  It really is ok.  It was all an accident, people lost control, but its ok."

"I don't think you'll need stitches.  And this is the same roof."  he says, already turning red.

"See?" Sammy says, forcing a grin.  "I don't even have to tell the stories, just mention them and boom, red.  Don't make me torture him any more than I've already done.  Ah-leee-sha.  Nobody's judging you; it, or something like it, has happened to a lot of us.  You just had the bad luck of knowing right away who was behind it."

"Sylvia didn't do it on purpose.  She's not that kind of person."  John finishes fussing over Sammy.  "Be right back."  And the little breeze is the only way you know that he left.  He starts to open the small first aid kit to put some antiseptic over the cuts then some band-aids.

"No.  She was just happy.  So happy that it leaked out through the cracks.  I guess she and Donnie..." Sammy stops abruptly and coughs.  "Yeah.  Well."

Alicia raises her head. Her face is blotchy, tear stains smearing her cheeks.

She says, "Sammy?" Her eyes focus on the girl then widen as she sees her injuries.

"Dios mio, no. Oh, God, Sammy! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" She stands to move closer, then stops, afraid.

At Sammy's words, she shakes her head. "No. It's not OK. I hurt you, and... John?" She looks in confusion at him, standing there shirtless.


Alicia looks beyond Sammy, to a point far away in distance and time. "I knew who it was then, too. Didn't help any." She hugs her arms to suppress a shudder.

Alicia focuses back to the here and now. "I told you they did. They smelled of each other last night."

Her voice gets cold and her eyes narrow. "The b**ch gets chingada and decides to f**k with people's heads to celebrate?"

"It wasn't deliberate.  She's still learning.  Just like all of us.  Just like me, anyhow."  Sammy reaches out an arm.  "Come here," she encourages.  "I don't have to forgive you.  There's nothing to forgive.  You were doing what came naturally, and I got too close.  My own stupid fault for not wrapping myself in a bubble first, or just letting John take the hit.  No offense, John.  Come on, Alicia, sit down.  Shhh, it's ok, come on, come on, sit down with auntie Sam and lets talk about it."

It's too late. Alicia's emotional roller-coaster has left the station and is building up a good head of steam.

She starts pacing, her fists clenching and unclenching. "She's probably not even sorry about it. She's probably sitting there at the table, laughing about stupid little Alicia dancing like a puppet on her strings. Making me do things. Making me hurt people..."

It's not certain if she's still speaking about Sylvia.

Sammy casts a scared look at John, then pushes his hands off of her wounds.  She stands up and grabs Alicia's arms.  "Alicia!  Stop it!  I want to help you, but I don't know how!  All I know is that Sylvia DID NOT DO THIS ON PURPOSE.  I swear it.  Please, Alicia?"  Sammy is scared to the verge of tears, but she keeps in there.  "Please?  I don't know who hurt you, but it wasn't Sylvia.  Not this time.  Let me help you."  She oh-so-cautiously tries to wrap her arms around the other girl.

John lets Sammy go to Alicia with no resistance.  He's carefully putting things back in the bag and then there is a breeze.  It's a moment longer before he's back with a fresh blue t-shirt.  Exactly the same kind he wore earlier, and wore yesterday.  He stands a few feet away, quietly.

At Sammy's touch, Alicia stands like a statue, every muscle in her body tightened to the breaking point. Her eyes focus back from that other place their gaze had been drawn to and she returns Sammy's hug with fierceness.

Her breath is uneven, as if she'd just run a marathon. Her skin is hot, a sheen of sweat bright on her skin. It takes her a few seconds to fully come down from her fugue, her muscles slowly relaxing. In an oddly similar fashion as with Colin, her body molds itself to Sammy's. There's nothing sexual about it, though; it is the act of a child seeking comfort, not a lover slaking lust.

Her face buried in the crook of Sammy's neck, Alicia takes a deep breath, inhaling her friend's scent. She murmurs almost indistinctly, "La lluvia fresca."

Finally, she lifts her head, to stare at Sammy's face from inches away. Golden swirls spin in her eyes. She smiles shyly, placing a hand on Sammy's cheek. "Gracias."

She steps away, giving Sammy her personal space back. She looks at John, her expression firm.

"Am I in trouble?"

"I don't know.  You forget to return some library books or something?"  John has a smile that seems to creep up on you.  It seems to always be there, even when he looks serious.  And then it's fully there.  "Are you physically ok?"

Sammy very carefully tries to hide it, but as soon as Alicia moves away and starts to talk to John, she starts trembling.  From fear, from adrenaline tapering down, from cold, from some combination of all of the above, who knows.  She also feels tired, like she just ran a marathon.  She's no psi, but emotional work is still draining.  She moves away a small distance to let those two talk.

"I don't know how I got up here; I'm assuming that was you. I'm... not sure what went down back down there. Did I hurt anybody... else?" Her face winces as she is stricken again by the thought of having injured her friend.

At John's question, she looks down at herself. "I guess so." She looks at her hands as she flexes her claws. An involuntary chuckle escapes her lips. "I think I broke a nail."

"I think Sammy managed to get to you before you got to Sylvia.  And yes, you two getting up here was me."  He looks towards Sammy.  "You guys should get back inside, it's cold out here."

Almost unnoticed, a blackbird lazily circles above them.

Sammy doesn't turn around.  The wind is hitting her full in the face now.  "Y-y-yeah, in a minute.  I just need to feel some air around me.  Y-you guys can go on in.  I'll b-be along soon, before I turn t-too b-blue."

Alicia turns, concern in her face as she hears somethng in Sammy's voice. She starts to move, then stops, biting her lip in indecision.

She looks to John in mute appeal. What do I do?

Her face firms again. "John, by my seat. My jacket, please?"

Alicia's senses registered the motion, if only the faintest impression of him shifting his weight, and he hands her the requested jacket.  "I'll see you guys later on.  Call me if you need anything."  He turns to walk slowly from the roof.

Alicia calls over her shoulder. "Wait up, I'll walk down with you."

She moves noiselessly and places her jacket over Sammy's shoulders. She leans in to say quietly, "Whenever you're ready" and softly kisses the back of her head. The jacket is old Army surplus, heavy and worn, but comfy and warm.

Alicia joins John and gives a rueful grin. "I guess I blew our cover."

Her eyes widen as she realizes something, her hands flying up to reach them. "Crap!"

"No one saw much."  John says, handing her her glasses.  "I grabbed them when I got your jacket."

Alicia accepts her shades gratefully and dons them.

Her demeanor changes once they're back on. The aloof, inscrutable girl is back.

The sunglasses serve to mask more than her eyes.

She says, with a sly smile, "So, do we just amble back inside or do we just magically appear back as if nothing happened? Maybe we can pretend we hid under the table to make out."

John changes colors, "Let's just walk back in.  Just be ready for drama if you do.  But it's better to face these things than run away from them.  Even the petty high school ones."

Alicia grins. "Bring it."

OOC: Unless Kat has something more to add, I think this one's in the can.

OOC: Nope, not unless a Blackbird is going to come along and snip off Sammy's nose.  sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye...

OOC: "Mmmm... blackbird pie." Alicia salivates.  :laugh:

OOC: She clearly hasn't seen enough Sylvester and Tweety cartoons.  ;D

OOC: Thufferin' Thuccotash! :laugh: