Rooms

He's back, she's gone. He's supposed to be dead how is he back?

Looking for anyone who might know the whereabouts of a girl named Marta Flores. She's been living in the Marvel door. She dis left the house without her keys or her bag, and she hasn't answered my attempts to contact her.

[A pause.]

As far as I can tell, she isn't registered at any of the quarantine zones, but I don't know how reliable that info might be, and I need to find her.

[She'd worked her shift, feeling a little under the weather, hard to smile at the customers while a nagging headache clung to the back of her neck. She'd come home. She'd walked into the house, and she'd frozen in the door for a long, painfully breathless moment before screaming. Her mind shorted out for a bit before she found herself fallen where she'd stood, a crumple of limbs just inside the front door, hands shoved hard against her mouth as she stared across the floor to where Seven was. Slumped to the side like he'd been kneeling and fallen that way, eyes open and fixed, a dark hole in the center of his forehead and red spreading across the clean floor behind him.

Her whole body shook as she tried to stop the high, scared sounds from escaping from her throat. Eyes wide, she couldn't look away from him as she scrambled back, out of the door, trying to pull it closed to block her view of him.

No. It couldn't be happening like this. It was supposed to be safe here with him. But... She pushed the door open again, just a crack, confirming what she'd seen. She made a sound like a dying animal at the sight of his open eyes, and scuttled away again, putting her back to the outer wall next to the door.

She was lost. She needed help. Phone or journal, and she finally chose one, her hand shaking so badly that her handwriting was nearly illegible.]

[Sam A.]
Someone shot him.

[Ella D.]
He's dead.

Who: Ella Dean
What: Neighbors moving in
When: Recently.
Where: Marvel

( They came in a van )

Who: Ella Dean & Clementine Murphy
What: Introductions & return of lost property
Where: Gotham
When: Recently

( Gotham rushed, the same way New York back where superheroes lived in comic books rushed, the same tenor and the same sense some folks were going to be left behind in the backwash )

Who: Ella D and Joey A
What: It's not coffee.
When: Recently
Where: Gatsby
Warnings: These two do not need warnings.

( Inside, light was gas-flare low, the indolent buzz of people drinking, and playing cards, and having a good time, and feeling self-congratulatory that they were having a good time when others weren't )

[Written, not typed, in messy script.]

[donovan lock.]

Hey. I'm alive. What's going on?

[locked to sam a.]

[Heavy pen press.] Hi.

[locked to ella d.]

Sorry. How'd you get through the hotel thing? How's Beth?

[Public]

Did many people end up in the wrong doors after the hotel this time around?

[Jack C/Luke H]

Have either of you heard from Max? There hasn't been a peep from across the way.

[Joey A

You make it home okay?

Who: Joey & Ella
What: Coffee
Where: Ella's place
When: Directly after plot.
Warnings: None!

( She checked on Beth first. )

WHO: Jude Murphy and Ella Dean
WHERE: At a club, Gatsby
WHEN: Before the event
WHAT: Jude and Ella meet randomly at her place of work.
RATING: Light!
STATUS: log; complete.

( It wasn’t Vegas, there was no neon and rush, rush, rush. There were no bodies, no Ian, nothing that was more complicated than standing up on stage for four hours a week and singing the way that made her heart happy )

[Max M]

Hey. So I think the polite thing is to let someone know you spent a night walking around in their skin.

[Joey A]

You make it out this time all right?

[Luke H]

You and Wren do okay?

[Neil D]

Was it easy on you this time around?

The way the doors open between worlds, do folks think it's a good thing or a bad thing? We got ourselves saved by a different world over here but the doors don't shut tight anymore. No one's kicked back to where they came from.

[Max M]

You're safe still, right?

[Jack C]

Hey. So I figured rather than ask my sister how you were doing, I'd straight up ask you myself. How are you doing?

Who: Joey & Ella
What: We found dreams in a zombieless place.
Where: Dreamland.
When: Now(complete).
Warnings: None, but some sads.

She ran until her lungs heaved, and hurt and her feet slapped at the ground, and the hallway expanded and contracted like a concertina, door after door that they flew through, pale-washed green walls and antiseptic smell and swinging doors until the last set they burst through, it wasn’t the hospital ( at all. )

[Locked to Gwen D]
On the bright side, I don't think I'm going to set any new furniture on fire at this point. Did you manage to get anything on whoever was conducting the experiments?

[Locked to Ella D]
El, I'm going to be away. If anyone from work comes looking for me, tell them you haven't heard from me, alright?

[Corvus' room, X-Mansion]
[The door creaked open slowly.] Hey, you awake in here?

[Max M]

Not dead.

[Public]

I feel sorta guilty it's better this way. And that the hotel knows how to live my life better than I do. Anyone else better off this side?

[Dylan M]

You made it across, honey?

[Lin A]

So where did you end up, Petunia?

[Joey A]

Still alive?

[Max was a week into a search that felt like it had been going a year. She was used to having connections, names in a hat that she could pull out whenever she needed anything. Here, she was blind. She didn't trust S.H.I.E.L.D. enough to clue them in on anything, and she didn't trust herself to get into their systems without being caught. This wasn't home, and she just didn't have the equipment or the confidence in the systems that she needed to do the job she usually did without reservation. At least she was getting a handle on what she could and couldn't do with her mutation, and Dailey always made her feel like she had the upper-hand. Talking about doing something to help the people who'd been affected by the pulse, to keep them from getting caught by whoever had Corvus, by the government, by S.H.I.E.L.D., it was the kind of purpose that Max needed in her life.

All things considered, she felt better than she had since the CIA had tried to blow her up.

But Corvus was still missing. She had faith they'd find him, she didn't have faith in his condition once they did. And the fact that he was missing at all, that said they were going to have a bigger fight on their hands.

She gave herself fifteen minutes to go by the apartment and change, and she walked down the hall that led to her apartment in black and grey, jeans and a t-shirt, long gloves up past her elbows, loose hair blonde and eyes blue.]

Where are you Are You good?

[There wasn't much that was impressive about the studio in the New York walk-up. But it was furnished simply, and Max took that as a blessing. At least it meant she wouldn't need to redecorate. And, honestly, she didn't care what the place looked like; she didn't care about much just then. The first thing she'd done, when she'd realized that leaving the hotel wasn't an option, was to look for a phone that actually dialed out. She'd found an old, dusty thing in the lobby, and she'd dialed Brandon.

Amanda sounded far away through a phone line that crackled, and the call only held out for a few minutes before the phone died altogether. And that, she realized, was probably the way she was going to experience her daughter growing up - crackling minutes whenever the old phone decided to work, because it wasn't in the mood to let her redial just then. She should have been grateful for even that much, but she wasn't grateful. She wasn't grateful at all.

And so she'd gone home, after stopping for a twelve pack, and stared long and hard in the mirror. She looked tired, all those side-jobs taking a toll the way only sleepless days could. In the end, she tired of the mirror. She lit a smoke, and she took her beer into the hallway to wait for Corvus.]

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