Swallowed by a vicious vengeful sea (Stephie, Marie, Rachel, Josie, Matt, Thomas, Zoe, Cai, Danny)
The scene smelled of spilled petrol and Stephie clutched Marie tighter, gagging not from the smell itself but the sense memory of the Templar splashing Thomas with petrol. She pressed her face against Marie’s hair, and clung. Marie was wailing and clinging too, Stephie could feel her tears hot on her neck in heartbreaking contrast to the icy shock as they were both soaked completely in the rain.
The truck had come to a stop at an angle as unnatural as a broken arm, cutting across the intersection, and Stephie found herself running over, dragged over by the horror of the idea that it would have been her. She wasn’t the only one, several others were gathered round but it was hard to drag her eyes away from the skidmarks, the torn railing, the churning, dark water below ripped apart by rain. Stephie was a safe distance from the edge, but she curled a protective hand around the back of Marie’s head and stepped backwards anyway, as if an arm might reach out and pull her in. She was still barely breathing. There was still petrol and fire and burning flesh and horror in her mind, and petrol and cold air and shouting and Marie sobbing in the real world.
Stephie was whining from the back of her throat, she could hear it, but was barely in her own body. Out of body experiences were supposed to be you in the air looking down at yourself, but that wasn't right -
Her jaw was wired so tight she was only breathing through her nose, shallow, too shallow to do anything with. Petrol on Thomas and Marie crying and the blinding crash of the truck against the car right in front of her. She spun in a frantic circle, her hand still on Marie’s head, but the world was a blur of cars in the dark, a few of them driving slowly past on the one clear corner of road. Most, though, had stopped, doors open, and there were several people gathering around the front of the truck and the broken railings.
Her lungs demanded more and she sucked in a very sharp breath through her nose, as much rainwater as air, and started coughing. The sharp pain of the tiniest bit of water up her nose clapped her back into her body and Marie was still crying and oh god, oh god-
“It’s okay Marie,” Stephie heard herself say, somehow, by some miracle, voice shaken and wet and flimsy. “It’s okay.”
This did nothing to calm Marie but it helped Stephie, a little tiny bit. Helped her enough that she could pull her eyes away from the site and look around her. The truck had fishtailed across the intersection and a telephone pole had eaten into its front. Stephie should probably move her car but there was no way in hell she could get back into it; she could barely move she was so tense. Even if Marie did want to get down, Stephie didn’t think she could have let her go. “It’s okay,” she said again, this time on purpose, kissing Marie’s face and stroking her hair. “I’ve got you, we’re okay.”
“Can you swim?” she could hear someone asking, over and over, but the voice didn’t register as words, as a question, until a young woman grabbed her arm and asked her – one eye was starting to swell shut but the other was wide and frantic – “Can you swim?” Stephie stared as comprehension slowly dawned; she wanted her to jump into the river after the car.
Stephie shook her head. She could swim, but, “I have my kid with me,” she said, never mind that it was the Thames in flood, and that should have been excuse enough - and then, as her mind caught up and she realised she’d seen her face before said, “Wait – it's you.” The girl paused, staring at her, as Stephie tried to pull her name up through her stunned stupid mind. “Rachel?”
The girl raised both her eyebrows but they stayed knotted together and her eyes were no less frantic. “It's Stephie," she said, trying to remember literally anything about the girl other than her attachment to Zoe. "From the wedding."
"My- my dad,” she stuttered, sounding as dazed as Stephie had felt till a moment ago, before Stephie realised she could still speak and comfort and recognise people. Rachel twisted to look back over her shoulder at the open mouth of the broken barrier. She stepped toward the river and Stephie reached out and grabbed her sleeve, still stunned by the thought that it would have been her.
“No – hey – stay here,” Stephie pleaded. The smell in her nose was not the petrol they were going to use to burn Thomas. There’d been a car crash. Someone had gone into the river. It was not petrol they were going to use on Thomas. She was probably in shock. She wanted Thomas’s arms wrapped around her and Marie to prove to them they were alright but all she had were her own. Stephie’s voice was thin as she pleaded “Hey, stay away from the edge," and it was only then that Rachel realised she was pulling herself toward the river, toward the gash in the fence and the abyss that had swallowed her father.
Stephie tugged Rachel's sleeve harder, pulling them closer together, and wrapped her arm around Rachel's waist and Rachel made a keening noise, and Stephie was saying "No, no no," and Marie was crying louder than them both.
Rachel was still pulling toward the river and Stephie was holding on, terrified that if she let go Rachel would fly straight at the river but terrified too that she'd take Stephie and Marie with her and she should let go, and not risk herself, not risk Marie, but they weren't that close to the edge, the greater risk seemed to be to Rachel and it was hard to think very hard at all.
No one had ever held Rachel like this, she thought. She could feel the strength of the arm around her but the shake of it, too. Although... sometimes her dad sometimes held her this tight to stop her doing something.
Her dad...
Rachel stared at Stephie, in stunned horror, and Stephie tried to look reassuring and confident and brave but the most she could manage was ‘not actively screaming in panic’. Still, no amount of reassurance would have saved Rachel. Stephie had seen a fair amount of reaction to trauma in her time, and there was a numbness, a blankness closing over Rachel that Stephie had felt before herself, though it was horrifying to see it happen to someone else. Rachel felt like she was passing out from the inside out, the whole world was just... no... no... impossible... no – her mother. Her father.
She crumbled to her knees, a scream vomiting out of her mouth – Stephie clutched Marie tighter and jumped back like the blonde was about to explode. Rachel bent over her knees, her arms clutched around her stomach, screaming, screaming till she was out of breath.
The screaming made it so much worse – Stephie could hear Scarlett’s voice instead, she could hear Jax’s – Stephie’s breathing was turning into a keening panic, she could have almost joined her – she was so shaken. Marie was sobbing and all Stephie could think to do was rock her, she couldn’t even speak. Her vision had tunnelled right down to what was in front of her, twisted barriers, rain on the dark surface of the river, rain on Rachel’s back, and Marie crying. Marie crying. She should do something, but she was frozen. World was a bubble. Help, thought Stephie, at a loss for how to even begin to deal. The petrol smell and the scream were shutting down her brain because her brain knew what was coming next-
It wasn’t till she heard the siren cut off that she realised she was hearing sirens at all, and once they were off, the whole world roared back into place like the UFO that had been trying to take her up had given in and dumped her back in her body. Hard, rough. Stephie staggered like she’d actually been dropped.
First things first: Marie was crying.
“Okay, baby, okay,” she said, pressing her face against Marie’s, one hand firmly rubbing her back. “I got you, okay, Gingernut, be brave. We’re brave. So brave, aren’t we?” She swung Marie in gentle half circles as she spoke, like she had when Marie was a baby, as she caught her own breath and pulled it deep into her lungs. With breathing came the full realisation that she wasn’t hurt. Her body was ready to run or fight and her tense muscles burned from holding Marie, but she wasn’t hurt.
Secondly, the siren. It, she discovered, as awareness of her surroundings grew, belonged to a RMMH ambulance and Stephie nearly threw up with relief. There were other people in the world besides her and Marie and screaming Rachel. She had allies here.
“MATT!” she screamed across the road, as she saw him leaping out. Matt did a quick once over of the scene then came running over, rain already plastering his dark hair to his face. “She hurt?” he asked, looking at Marie, who was wailing, and hiccupping through her tears.
“I don’t know – you have to check her out,” Stephie gasped, though she utterly refused to hand Marie over.
Matt didn’t ask her to. “Take her over to the ambo,” he said, putting a hand on Stephie’s back – Stephie flinched violently and shrieked – “Don’t touch me!”
“Hey!” snapped another voice and Stephie’s eyes found Josie – looking almost undercover in a borrowed, too-large, RMMH paramedics jacket – and her mouth fell open in another wave of relief as Josie ran over and pulled Stephie and Marie close. Josie gripped her in a fierce hug, her fist clutched in Stephie’s hair. It stole Stephie’s breath, but only for a moment because she buried her face in Josie’s neck. Her demon strength didn’t make Stephie flinch as Matt’s simple, human strength had; the opposite. Josie was here. Standing on her own feet felt less impossible. “You’re alive,” Josie said into Stephie’s wet hair. “You’re alive, you’re alive.” Stephie barely heard her, over Marie screaming, but Josie’s words had been more to reassure herself than Stephie. Louder, she said, “Time to move.” Arm around Stephie, Josie herded her: “Ambulance, come on.”
“What’s happening?” Stephie hissed, as they hurried over. Yes, she could run on her own, she had Marie in her arms, she could speak, she could think.
“Heard you were in trouble again,” Josie said. “Came to make sure it wasn’t supernatural.”
“Is it?”
“Can’t feel anything,” Josie promised her, getting her into the ambulance. It was a massive lie: she could feel every single goddamned soul. Every bright, panicked, frustrated soul. But none of them, so far as she could tell in the uproar, none of them stronger than human.
Stephie heaved Marie onto the stretcher, taking Marie’s wet, red face in her hands to look at her properly.
“Marie, you gotta speak to me, baby, does anything hurt?” Stephie moved her hands over Marie’s tiny arms, her torso, her legs. Marie didn’t cry any harder when Stephie touched any particular part of her body, but her tears were turning into hiccup sobs. Please just be terrified Stephie pleaded with the world. Don’t be hurt don’t be hurt. Stephie wrapped her arms around Marie again and held her close, her hand curling around the back of Marie’s head. Marie clung on like she’d just developed supernatural strength as well, and Stephie whispered frantic promises that they were safe, that Stephie wouldn’t leave her, they were safe, and she was sorry, she was so, so sorry.
Outside in the bucketing rain, Matt knelt down next to Rachel, trying to talk her out of screaming. He remembered her from her breakdown a while ago, the manic girl they’d picked up from that shitty council flat, one of Zoe’s people, which meant she was one of Peter’s. On top of that, he knew it was her demonic step-sister who had killed a bunch of people in the theatre– Matt had been part of the fruitless hunt to find her. Matt had exorcised one of her victims from the theatre.
Nothing he said to her got a reaction, but when he told her he was going to help her climb to her feet, she didn’t protest this so he gave it a go, and whether she was cooperating consciously or on automatic it didn’t matter for now, she got her legs underneath her when he pulled her up. Standing pulled her out of her scream as well, which was a relief and a half, and she shuddered against him, and didn’t struggle as he led her toward the ambulance.
His partner Sophiah had gone over to assess the truck driver, who’d staggered out of the truck with blood pouring down his face, the rain sluicing it off as soon as it appeared, and a second ambulance had arrived just behind his; Matt took note of all this and left them to it.
Matt appeared at the ambulance doors, his arms supporting Rachel, who was barely standing on her own. Josie reached out and grabbed her arms, pulling her inside. It was like moving a doll, and Rachel’s soul felt... gross. Rachel sat where she was put on the stretcher next to Stephie, curled her arms around her stomach again, and bent her head toward her knees and wheezed. Rain had plastered her hair to her face, her clothes to her body, and there was a wild, crackling energy about her.
Josie wiped her hands on her jeans and stepped, as much as she could in the crowded ambulance, back.
“I’ve got Marie,” Matt said, taking over. “Stephie, are you hurt?”
“N-no,” Stephie said, stepping back reluctantly, without taking her eyes off Marie, who wailed harder as Stephie left her behind, even if it was only a few feet.
“Then sit, talk to Rachel. Josie, get them blankets, and the hot drinks. Hey, slugger, you’re alright, aren’t you?” This last part was to Marie, who was convinced that she wasn’t.
“I have more clothes for Marie in my car,” Stephie said to Josie, who gave her arm a squeeze of comradery and jumped out of the ambulance back in to the rain. Now that she was fully present, Stephie could do something, and she’d been in these ambulances enough times to know her way around the basics. “Is she really alright?” she asked Matt, as she pulled out two thermal blankets.
“Tell me exactly what happened to her,” Matt asked, getting out a torch to shine in her eyes. That made Stephie’s stomach clench in new and different fear I’ve given her a brain injury she’s going to die Stephie felt herself start to disassociate with panic again but squeezed her hands into fists and her nails bit into her palms. NO – do your job she told herself, firmly. I’m here. Marie needs me to be here.
She swallowed hard and told Matt everything, while she sat down next to Rachel. Stephie jumped between talking to Matt and trying to encourage Rachel out of her wet clothes, but Rachel’s arms were frozen fast to her body and she flinched away when Stephie tried to ease her clothes off her. Stephie left it, fearing underlying trauma, and wrapped her up in the blanket over her clothes. Her wet clothes would suck the heat out of her body but they were safe and sheltered, that would have to do for now. Rachel didn’t protest when Stephie rubbed her back through the blanket, but neither did she do anything else.
“Am I gonna die?” Marie whimpered through her tears and Stephie shouted “No!” so suddenly Marie jumped.
“My mummy and daddy died,” Marie pointed out, and Stephie looked frantically at Matt for reassurance.
“She’s fine,” Matt told Stephie, then smiled widely at Marie. “You’re fine, kiddo, you’re right as rain.” Marie looked over at Stephie through her soaking wet hair with an expression on her face that hit Stephie so hard she swore to tear the world apart before she let Marie look like that again.
“You’re not gonna die,” Stephie pulled Marie into her lap and buried a kiss in her hair as Matt climbed around them to check on Rachel. She set about peeling off Marie’s wet clothes, which was much easier than it had been with Rachel, and wrapped her up like a shaking burrito in the blanket, in Stephie’s arms. “I promise you, you’re not going to die.”
Matt lifted Rachel’s face to get her to look at him. She didn’t respond to any of the questions, she just shook.
Outside, through the rain, a police car had arrived, and there were two cops getting people away from the river. Across the intersection, Stephie saw Josie see the uniforms, and both women froze. One of the officers approached her, and Stephie’s eyes widened, pleading no no no no but all she could do was watch.
Josie was putting a hell of a lot of faith in the protection of the RMMH paramedic jacket. It didn’t disguise her face, at all, but it was dark, and wet, and who would be looking for her mascquerading as a paramedic for a private hospital? Hopefully not this woman, taller than Josie, with her hair cropped short. “Getting warm clothes out of the car for the kid,” Josie said, gesturing back at the ambulance. The policewoman nodded.
“Don’t move the car before we’ve photographed the scene,” she said, and Josie nodded, cooperating, and – that was it. The policewoman moved on and Josie climbed into Stephie’s car – both doors were still hanging open. Stephie’s phone was lying on the floor and Josie could hear Thomas's voice, freaking out. Josie found Marie’s bag in the back first, then went for the phone. “Thomas, you there?” she asked, sheltered momentarily from the rain under the open boot. “Crisis averted.”