OOC: Takes place during the big AU plot and totally backdated to then.

The final showdown was something to behold, but in all the motion and movement, two of the women became separated from the rest, the sound of heavy boots on the ground after them as they found a corner to hide in.

Neither Jennifer or Kris were particularly physically strong, and Jennifer's mind was still trying to recover from having used her powers, so the trembles were wracking her body and she needed as much support as any injured person.

"Stop!" Tobias shouted, his weapon drawn and raised as he chased them, shooting two electric bullets after the women. Against his other leg rested his pistol that fired brass stakes with a silver tip, effective on the human and were enemies they had. He flicked his wrist to recharge his gun and pulled the other. "Submit and be purged or I will shoot!"

He was one of the best marksmen in this unit. Not the best, but one of them.

( Run! )

( Suffering )

There was an odd silence surrounding a particular individual the morning that Jenny Lowe had decided she was going to take a wander near Lincoln Park. She had yet to go out there, having been actively discouraged by strangers because of the news and the stories of monsters that lived behind the wall. She had been compelled there, an odd buzzing sound in her mind that had meant she was drawn towards it, if not just to find the source of it, but she was distracted by the silence and she'd walked towards it, helpless to fight as she came face to face with... herself.

A version of herself that was slimmer, had longer hair and was emitting silence.

( Lessons and Learnings )

After their eventful landing in what they now knew to be some place called 'Lincoln Park', Jenny and Alec had branched out to see whether or not they could find anything that would be of help to the others. They needed medical supplies, food, water and clean clothes, preferably of the kind that the women here wore. The tattered remains of Jenny's dress hung at her knees and she fiddled with the hem as they walked, loose threads tickling her skin.

They'd branched out pretty far from their initial landing spot, but now exhaustion was beginning to get the best of them. They were both half-starved and exhausted, the adrenaline coursing through their brains not being enough to keep them going for long. Jenny's hands were already shaking, she couldn't remember the last time she'd had a decent meal. The vampires were not the only ones that struggled to eat. In fact, they probably had it easier as many - including Jenny herself once or twice - had offered themselves to be a small snack to tide the vampire over for a while.

As they had walked side by side, probably looking every bit as tired and strung out as they were, Jenny's hand had slipped into Alec's for the reassurance, and also so that they wouldn't get separated in the crowds. Apparently, there were people out and having fun at such a late time of night. Well, it was early in the morning, she supposed, and the people that were out did look like they were the last dregs of a heavy night of drinking and partying, whooping and cheering and vomiting in nearby bins.

"We need to find somewhere to rest, and we need to get something to dress that cut," she said quietly, knowing that their base was somewhere behind then, but there was not a lot that they could do to get back there now. They needed to get supplies and things first, and the cut on Alec's head looked nasty. She knew the one on hers had stopped bleeding, at least. She didn't think she could walk that far, and more than that, she was hungry and dirty and she wanted to just get clean and find somewhere to sleep for a while that wasn't a bunk or a hard, wooden or stone floor. She wrinkled her nose and then looked up at him with something approaching a grin, adding teasingly, "And you still need to have a wash."

( Thousands Of People )

( Close Encounter )

( Stopping For The Evening )

The knock knock on the front door of Alec's house was shaky, stuttered as if she wasn't entirely sure she should be knocking. Jenny was stood outside Alec's front door, looking up at it. Lights were on inside, so there were at least people awake. It was getting late, but it wasn't unacceptably late. She hoped he wouldn't mind even it if was.

Inside she could sense minds, two animal, warm and comforting and more, people, she guessed Alec and his housemate, Toby. The houses around them were giving off noise too, conversations that filled her up. Her eyes burned, stinging from the wind and from the tears that were just waiting to fall.

It hadn't taken her long to realise that she needed someone. The house had been empty and she was still afraid.

She knocked again, a little stronger this time and the door was pulled open by someone she didn't recognise, his glasses sat on the end of his nose and he looked at her the way someone might look at a randomly tearful stranger standing on his doorstep. It was a very 'what the fuck?' look, which was what Toby was thinking.

( Can Alec come to the door? )

( Sleeping Over )

Jenny chewed on the edge of her thumb as she sat in the big bay window in her lounge. The sun was streaming in through the panes of glass, but Jenny felt cold. She was nervous, it felt like a mass of snakes had set up shop in her stomach and were wriggling over each other.

Her heart hadn't really left her throat since she'd departed from Rhiannon's. They had a plan. It was a good plan, if not a scary one, and probably very stupid because Jenny knew that the servants would be a problem, yes, they were slow, but they were strong and loyal.

She kind of wondered if they would all come out of this alright. Bumps and bruises weren't things she was particularly fond of getting and dying definitely wasn't on her agenda.

( Thinky thoughts )

[Voicemail to Alec included within]

Jenny was sifting through her mail. On the coffee table in front of her sat several books she had checked out from the library after her meeting with Rhiannon. She supposed at least whilst she had the faculties to do the boring things like bills and finances, she should.

It was hard and boring, but it had to be done. The radio was playing in the background, as well as the television, just to give her some kind of ambient noise other than the rustling of paper and the tapping of keys on a calculator.

The notepad beside her on the couch had scribbles all over it, outlining a budget for food and an allowance for sparkly things. On another page was comments about this man that she had seen, trying to work through what she remembered.

( An Unlikely Visit )

Jenny was restless. It was unnerving, the silence in her mind. It actually allowed her to hear her own thoughts above any other extraneous noise and that was a strange feeling.

She caught herself looking at people in a new light, how everyone looked so different without that sparkle around them, the lack of radiating light that told Jenny how healthy they were, how close to death.

She was at the hospital again, sitting in the waiting room and waiting for Alec to come onto his lunch break so that they could go and get food, or coffee, or something. She had already had a fairly good conversation with one of the nurses about anti-psychotics and she had spoken to a couple of patients, but that itch underneath her skin was crawling, knowing that she should be able to see and hear more than she could was unsettling. It was wrong in so many ways; why couldn't she hear them? Those idle thoughts that plagued the minds of everyone? And what had happened that meant she couldn't see people's lives anymore?

She supposed she should be grateful? She was normal now. She was better. Fixed. Whatever her father wanted to call it, she wasn't a freak anymore. But she wasn't special anymore either. As much as her 'gift' had plagued her, she missed it. She didn't like the silence.

( Catch Up )

( Table for Two )

( Idle Conversation )

From above, the pedestrian bridge over Columbus Drive looked like an old, sluggish river. It meadered in smooth loops and turns, lengthening the elevated path between Millennium Park and Daley Bicentennial Plaza, like a modernized version of the Great Wall. On nice days, people stretched three-abreast and clogged up the walkway, moving slow compared to the rushing traffic underneath.

"Excuse me." Forgetting herself and manners, Rhiannon shouldered through a couple with her arms lifted, fingers splaying wide, a full-bodied shrugging away of their protests. She hurried onward. Up ahead, an elderly man in a trench and hat walked with unexpected speed towards the plaza. He had a long, pointed umbrella that he used to punctuate his steps like a staff. A small flock of pidgeons hustled into the air and swooped over the highway.

He wasn't the right one. Deep down, Rhiannon knew that. But if she didn't make sure, later on when she put her head on the pillow, sleep wouldn't come, because what if he was so close and she let him sleep away? If she could just grab him and look at his face, search it for more than surprise, that would be enough.

It was a nice day. The sun was shining and people were out and about. Days like this when it was easy enough to find oneself surrounded by people, Jenny was almost always in the thick of it. Today was no exception. She was standing on the bridge, listening to the roar of the road nearby, the whoosh of the wind and the sounds of people. Feet on the pavement and snippets of conversations as they drifted past her. She was standing still.

( Stop! )

( Prove You're Serious )

It had felt like something out of a bad dream. In fact, initially that was what she had thought it was. Jennifer Lowe jerked upright, whole body aching and muscles feeling like they were on fire as she stumbled towards a nearby bun. She dry-heaved into it, the nausea overwhelming and not helped by the stench of rotten food that was assaulting her senses. Her throat burned, as did her stomach, the acrid taste of bile lingering on the edge of her tongue as she stayed where she was, head hanging and hair touching the rim of the bin.

She would need to shower when her body was done throwing up.

She didn't know what she was doing outside so early in the morning. Blackouts were a new one for her. She had never done that before. It was a worrying turn of events if she was suddenly going to start blacking out.

Her stomach twisted in fear; where was she exactly? How had she got there? What had happened? She was preoccupied by not knowing where she was that she completely missed the silence in her mind where there should be noise. She supposed she had been lying weirdly on her arm as she had pins and needles across her left shoulder blade, but it was nothing to worry about, the fact that she was retching into a trash can was more concerning for her.

( Going Home )

( Quiet? )

[Voicemail to Alec included within]

Alec was fully conscious now, completely and painfully aware of all the various drips in his arms and the fact he'd been admitted after his housemate had found him, which meant he had some serious apologising to do to Toby. So far the doctors couldn't explain his sudden collapse given his sudden and miraculous recovery to full health as if nothing had been wrong with him.

None of it made sense and they were still waiting on the results of the stuff the paramedics had brought in with Alec, hoping that it might reveal something about his strange illness.

Alec was looking forward to being able to sign himself out, he hated being a patient, hated lying around in bed when he could be doing something else, the only time to lie in bed was if you had someone else in it with you. He didn't and therefore he had no reason to stay where he was.

He drummed his fingers against the nearby railing and tipped his head, seeing if he could grab the interest of a passing nurse, maybe he could sweet talk her into letting him out of this bed. He was pretty sure he could do it.

( Alive And Well )

( First In )

( Fences )

It was a horrific day in the Lowe household when Jenny realised that she actually had to go shopping. She had no food left over and it occured to her that she would have to actually buy something if she wanted to eat.

Ice-cream did not constitute a proper meal, nor proper food. Not really, as good as it tasted, Jenny knew that Ben and Jerry's got a little sickening after a while.

So that was how she found herself in a local grocery store, cart empty in front of her. She stood in the doorway for a few long moments, enjoying the blasting of the hot air an made a mental note to ask someone, maybe Michaela if she ever saw her again, what to do about the bills that kept coming in through the door. She'd never had to pay for electricity, gas or water before either.

( Almost Neighbors )

She returned the smile and looked at the few remaining things that needed to be put away. "You too, Connor," she said quietly, moving to show him out, since that was polite and he had been very kind to her. "Maybe we'll meet up some time again." It was innocent enough, Jenny enjoyed having people she could hang out with. She needed to find Avery, she did owe him a coffee, after all.

"Drive safe." It was another social stereotype she knew people appreciated. But more than that, she meant it.

As if it wasn't bad enough being told to take a couple days off work, Alec had been told to wait until a Nurse Daniels could give him a lift home. Pfft, lift home, what did he need that for? Never-mind the fact he'd keeled over right in front of everybody, split open his eyebrow, and proceeded to babble nonsensical stuff at the perturbed intern that had picked him up.

He was never living this down.

Currently he was sat in one of uncomfortable plastic chairs in the general waiting area, keeping his eyes focused on something other than the people staring at him. What? Didn't they have something better to do than stare at the doctor with a bruise on his face?

Hopefully Nurse Daniels would be finishing shortly and Alec could do his best to sweet talk her out of taking him home like some kind of sick child. He'd never been taken home sick in his life, he wasn't about to start now. Stubborn? Oh hell yes.

( Muffled )

( Regular Court Jester )

( Gonna Be Okay? )

Jenny nestled herself into her parka as she sat on the bench, toes tapping on the ground beneath her feet. She was watching people walking past, listening to the hum of their thoughts and letting it distract her from the fact that her nose was very cold. Her gaze kept being drawn to a middle aged man who was sat on the other side of the park, watching the kids on the swings and biting down on his hamburger. He was portly, she would have said, rather rounded in the stomach area and he was dark grey, not a colour that Jenny found at all reassuring. Her lower lip slid between her teeth and she stared at him, watching it get darker and wondering if she should say something.

She jerked a little at the first hint of a skeletal flash and tore her eyes away to stare at the floor, muttering to herself that it was going to be alright. The crunching of people's feet as they moved past the young woman who was rocking slightly was soothing to her, it matched in time with her mantra almost like some kind of tuneless song.

"It's Jenny, Jenny Lowe, right?" broke through her thoughts and she looked up a couple of seconds later when she realised that the shoes in front of her weren't moving, words dying on her lips. She vaguely recognised the owners. People she had maybe gone to school with. Fifteen years ago. Apparently she was remembered.

"Y-yeah?" she tilted her head and looked at them, almost like she was actively trying to hear what they were thinking, even though her power didn't stretch that far.

"Man, why'd they let you outta the hospital? You're still nuts, aren't you. Who's grey?" Jenny flinched a little as one of the guys reached out to touch her shoulder, crouching down so he was on her level, "Still hearing things? Is the special bus gonna come pick you up or did they kick you off that?"

"Let go," Jenny muttered, sliding along the bench. "I'm not doing anything wrong." Her eyes widened a little, though, when the guy's aura finally became clear to her. "You're sick," she announced. "You're sick and you don't know it yet."

"I'm not the sick one here," he spat, pushing Jenny back down onto the bench when she tried to get up, looking a little more distressed.

"No! I can see it! You're sick. You need to go see a doctor like that man over there, so you don't get sicker and-"

Of course, her words were drowned out by the guy laughing, and the other guy and two girls that were with him. She got to her feet to walk away, maybe before they touched her again. She didn't like being touched all that much. Not by people she didn't know - germs and all that.

"Don't leave now, Jenny, we got some catching up to do. I wanna hear more about what you can hear."

"Yeah, I mean, we heard that you like to think you can see and hear things about people. What makes you so special? You one of those vampire freaks?"

Jenny rolled her eyes. "Vampires can't come out in the day, stupid." It had been a stupid thing to say because the guy stiffened and set his jaw. Oops.

"So you're not a vampire. Whatever. Still a freak. A crazy, fucked up freak."

"Well, I have to- need to go home," she said quietly, disjointed as she backed up away from the group, who just moved closer and she panicked, stumbling over her own feet in her haste to get away which left her somewhat like a wounded gazelle on the Serengetti.

Michaela was bustling around the house that afternoon, having decided that her domestic chores had been neglected over the holidays. Ryan had gone back to school the week after New Year's, and the house was back to feeling too quiet without her oldest around. Work was steady, if a little dull, and she had some feelers out about branching into other jobs.

( Benign Interference )


"I can help," Jenny said after a moment, "With something... I- they used to let me do a couple of things. Nothing dangerous, though, the staff did that so we didn't hurt ourselves." She wrinkled her nose and stayed seated, lifting up the coffee again, almost blindly doing as she was told, it was something she was used to doing. Following orders she could do.

"You can help with the soup," Michaela said, raising her voice a little as she passed through the door of the laundry room. The door of the dryer squeaked a little, and she began to pull out the warm clothes to toss them into the plastic basket for later folding. What a weird afternoon this had been, but then again weird had been kind of par for the course lately. Ah, life.

Maybe she should check with the local social service people, see if they could offer some assistance. It wasn't right to kick a kid - and Jenny seemed more like a kid than her own daughter - out on her own when she'd maybe never had to fend for herself. 'Just got out'. Hospital. And her father probably put her there.

Yeah, she was motivated enough to interfere now.

Sterility. Hospitals were white and sterile, little things that dispensed alcohol gel at every doorway into the wards to clean your hands so that the patients didn't get sicker. So that you didn't get sick from what they patients had.

Sometimes the floors were shiny enough that, when looking down, it was possible to see a reflection staring back at you. Jenny always thought it looked a little like there was another her, just trapped in the hospital floor, the reflected hospital. Like another, mirror world. Maybe in that world she wasn't crazy, it was impossible to tell.

At least today she didn't look like an ex-mental patient, which was always a good thing. She'd combed her hair down and was twisting chunks of it between her fingers as she listened to the buzzing in her mind, feeling the drain as she approached another ward. It was a more general one and her feet dragged, feeling the sick and the ill all around her, desperate thoughts warring with hopeful ones for pride of place in her mind.

She watched someone in a hospital bed coughing. The grey around him flickered and turned to that translucent, light colour as she watched. He was going to live, he would be fine. Her feet took her over to his bed and she sat down on the edge, covering his shaking hand with her own as his coughs subsided.

( 'I ain'y buyin'' )

( Are You Okay? )

( A life saved )

( Something special )