The Universe's Mixer

Hank sat heavily at a small table in the coffee shop that was currently nearest the hospital, putting down his book and papers and carefully spreading them out. He had deep bags under his eyes and his clothes were a bit wrinkled, his hair sticking out at odd ends and just passed the need for a new trim.

He hadn't been the most groomed before the storm, but after a couple of days of being outside his lab helping to reinforce the windows and keep the patients in the hospital calm and well looked after, his appearance suffered dramatically. He hadn't noticed, however, as the adrenaline from one of the worst storms he'd ever heard about (let alone lived through) passed his thoughts returned to his experiments. Forty eight hours without sleep more or less demanded he go home and sleep, change his clothes, and eat something, but that could wait just a little bit longer, right? At least until he had a nice, relaxing cup of joe and read the results of the tests he'd missed while helping with damage control.

Now all was settled and the doctors who hadn't been at the hospital during the storm had returned to take over, and the exhausted staff that had been forced to remain on duty were allowed to leave. Hank had gathered the reports on the serums he'd left testing while he was upstairs and gone out for the coffee, too excited about the progress his work had recently made to not read up before hitting his apartment.

The biggest cup of steaming hot coffee he could buy sat on the table with all of his papers, and the eighteen year old did his best seventy-something impression as he battled sleep while reading through the pages of material quicker than most people could read their favorite blog post.

Fred hadn't exactly been ignoring her pager during the storm, or during her time in the Library. She had felt the thing go off and checked the numbers, and she was very happy that people cared enough just to call a device that wouldn't do much other than let her know they called. It was kind of sweet. Eventually she left the Library and the hard working woman she'd met there. Fred would definitely have to talk to her again.

Borrowing a phone in the Library, she'd called Jack and explained why she hadn't called before. While it didn't take long to make a phone call, sometimes it took a little while to get to one. She'd also explained her living situation, something she was probably going to have to repeat a few times for a little while. After hanging up, Fred headed over. Jack was kind enough to let her clean up at his place; he even offered her a place to stay that wasn't a wading pool. She accepted. She probably could have stayed a few other places, but Jack's seemed the best choice.

Jack was sweet, and he offered her all sorts of things to comfort her. She was more than a little impressed with his own apartment and very glad that he'd never commented on her own, which didn't seem any less nice but certainly not the same sort of nice as his. It wasn't until she was freshly washed and dried in clothes that were cleaner and drier than what she'd been in that it hit her. She'd been so very selfish.

"Lorne! Jack, I've been a terrible friend. Dean, Sam, you, Dinah, everyone I know can take care of themselves. Lorne can, too; he's done it before, but it'll just kill him if Caritas is ruined again. Oh, I've got to go find him." She was already yanking on her shoes. "He could be hurt. What if he lost his head! Sure, he's not gonna die right away, but it's not good!"

Fred stopped at the door and looked back at the King of Wonderland. "You can come along if you'd like." The way she said it could have been read as "I'd really like you to come, but I'd understand if you didn't want to."

Dinah hadn't heard from Harry after the storm. She'd left a voicemail, but no answer. She wasn't sure whether to be hurt that he was taking the whole break thing to the extreme of avoiding her this much, or worried that something had happened.

She needed to find a way to move past this. She needed closure, and she needed to just rip off the band-aid, so to speak.

She still had the key to his apartment and the bracelet to get past his wards, though she hadn't been wearing it lately. It was just another reminder of him. She really needed to get that back, as she didn't want to be responsible for it falling into the wrong hands. Wayne Manor might have been relatively safe for the City, but with the types of things that Harry's wards protected against, Dinah doubted the defenses of the manor would help at all with that.

She really hadn't wanted to stop by the apartment. She was a little afraid that dropping by the apartment might just confirm that Murphy was still living there. So she'd tried the office first.

No dice. Apparently it just wasn't her day.

So Dinah steered her car toward Harry's apartment, trying to steel herself against what she might find there.

Maybe it would be better to find Murphy there, she reflected. Maybe it would be better to just confirm that things were really and truly over, instead of the half-waiting for things to somehow work themselves out.

Key and bracelet in hand, Dinah approached the door. She hesitated for just a minute and then knocked.