Entry tags:

!log, dani storm, jackie frost

a log in three acts;
WHO: Jackie Frost & Dani Storm
WHAT: Dani tries to talk to her friend after she wakes up.
WHEN: Over the course of the day, Wednesday, September 2.
WHERE: Medical Wing and Capes Dorm
RATING: PG



10:35 am

"You're up." Jackie barely looks up from her copy of the Scoop.

Dani sits down in the plastic chair a little too quickly. "Barely. How are you?"

"Fine." There's a pause, too long, before she remembers to ask after her friend. "You?"

"My head is still screaming bloody murder and I missed my mom going to jail." Dani shrugs. "Could be worse."

"Oh, I heard about that."

"Yeah, Jamie left a message for me." Dani leaves the obvious 'why didn't you?' unsaid. "I heard about your place too. I hope the reports were exaggerating." Thoughts of her best friend being homeless only compound the pounding behind her eyes.

Jackie's blue eyes flick up, unemotional, from the paper. "They weren't." She says nothing more.

Dani waits for something else, but it doesn't come. "I'm sorry, Jackie. That plain sucks."

She merely shrugs in response, and turns the page.

"What are you going to do?" Dani wants to reach over, but knows better.

"I'll figure it out." Jackie frowns, showing just the littlest twinge of annoyance.

What the hell? Dani rubs a hand across her forehead, and keeps pushing. "You talk to Justice yet?"

Finally, Jackie puts down the paper and looks at her friend. "You have a headache. Don't think about Justice." A small, stiff smile. "Go back to bed, Dandan."

Dani blinks, stunned. Jackie is probably right. "Yeah, okay. Call me if you need anything, 'kay?" Dani walks towards the door, her PDA already out of her bag and in her hand. "I kinda ran out on Zac anyway, he'll be worried."

"Will do." But she won't.

***

1:25 pm

"Knock knock!" There are no curtains around the bed, but Dani doesn't want to barge in either. Standing by the foot of the bed with a silver box of Turkish Delight in hand, she paints a picture Jackie would find plenty familiar.

"Hi," Jackie says, stretching her arms and wincing. She'd seen Dani coming; her PDA sits next to her.

"This is obviously for you." Dani sets the box on the tiny bedside table. "How're you doing, Leelee?"

"Ready to get out." There's an empty pause, where she should be asking after Dani's well-being.

"How long do they want to keep you?"

"A couple more hours." Last tests to be run, stitches to be checked. Jackie picks up her PDA, looking at the time.

Dani leans on the rail acting as a footboard, feeling slightly uncomfortable. "What're your plans for after that?"

"Get a hotel room," Jackie shrugs, tapping through items on the tiny screen. Before Dani can protest, she adds, "I need some time to think."

Dani bites her tongue and nods. "Okay. And Justice?"

"Haven't heard from him." Which is true, though she can see his bed from hers.

"Hmm," Dani shifts her weight, moving it forward onto her hands on the bar, "do you know what you're going to do about him?"

Jackie's eyebrows raise, though whether it's in response to Dani's question or something on the screen is unclear. "We'll see."

"Well do you want to stay with him?" Jackie isn't technically 'with' Johnny, according to her, but she should know what Dani means.

"Dani, I'm tired." Jackie sighs, casting her glance to the far side of the room.

Dani doesn't know what to say. They both know that Jackie is being held as a precaution and nothing else.

Silence fills the space between them, and Jackie doesn't bother to fill it with anything. Instead, she turns back to her PDA.

Eventually, she looks up. "I just don't want to talk about it, okay?" Her tone is not particularly unkind, but neither is it friendly, or sad, or tired, or really, anything at all.

Dani swallows her rising annoyance. She isn't going to call out her best friend in such a public place. "Fine. I'll just talk to you later, after I pack."

A nod, and then Jackie merely waits until she's gone.

***

3:15 pm

In her Resident Assistant single, Jackie moves methodically through her closet, laying clothes on the bed next to an open suitcase. This will come; this can stay. As studiously as she selects her outfits for the month of September, she keeps thoughts of her friends out of her mind. Every face that flickers in her memory, creased with annoyance and worry and confusion, she transforms to a chess piece. Rooks, knights, pawns. She casts thoughts back to chess games played in the past, criticizing moves she'd made, analyzing what she could have done better, what she will do better in the future.

Still, again and again, that twinge of guilt comes. She'd pretty much ignored her best friend. As many times as she tells herself that it didn't matter, that she doesn't care, she does. But she can't, not right now.

So chess it is. Bishops instead of friends, botched games instead of plans gone awry.

Dani, in the meantime, paces agitatedly across her room, her own bag half-packed and sprawled across her bed. Zac comforts her as best as he can, listening intently and reacting appropriately, but this is a matter between best friends, and there's only so much he can do. Clothes fly out of the closet and into the bag haphazardly, because although Dani has recovered enough to use her powers again, efficient multitasking is still out of her grasp.

Ultimately, the Storm inside her wins. Declaring herself to be unable to take this crap any longer, Dani charges out of her room and down the stairs to the Resident Assistant single. She doesn't even bother knocking.

"Alright, Jackie. I've had it. You gonna talk to me now, or just blow me off some more?"

Jackie doesn't look up as she neatly folds a shirt into a square; she was aware of how terribly she was acting, and she knew her best friend well enough to predict that this would come sooner or later.

"I'm not blowing you off, Dani. I just..." she pauses, sighs, and rolls her eyes at the ceiling as she selects upon a suitable trope to feed the other girl. "Need some space to work through everything."

Dani exhales. "This isn't you asking for space, Jackie. This is you shutting me out." They both know there's a difference. "I know you've been through a lot, but we all have." Her voice softens. "Talk to me, Leelee. Please?"

"Maybe later, Danielle." Jackie's reply comes smoothly, the words cutting through the softness of their shared childhood. That's gone, that's in the past, that is no more.

The harshness stings like a slap to the face, making Dani almost flinch. Her temper rises swiftly, and the words are falling out before she can stop them. "I know this is about Johnny, so stop taking it out me." She lifts her chin, challenging the blonde to claim otherwise. "I know he bit you, but a lot of people were bitten, Jackie. So what's wrong?"

If there were a hard suitcase to slam shut, it would be slammed. Instead, Jackie simply looks up and directs a cool, level stare at her best friend. "This is not about Johnny biting me," she says, the words coming calm and measured, with razor-sharp edges. "And I told you - I'll talk to you when I'm ready to talk to you. That is not now."

Pointedly, she turns back to the laundry. "Bye, Dani."

Best friend or not, Dani Storm has a limit as to how much she'll take, and Jackie has pushed it. She quirks an eyebrow, but there is no amusement in her expression. "Fine. Not him biting you, but something else. Whatever, Jackie. I'm done with you taking out whatever the hell the matter is on me. Come find me when you're done being ridiculous." She walks out of the room silently, shutting the door with a quiet click behind her.