Happy Accidents WHO Irena Thorne OT Jesse Damiani, Elise Delaney WHAT Running into an old friend WHERE Cedar Falls Apartments WHEN Saturday, July 23, 2016 around 10:30 AM WARNINGS None...for now
One week. Despite the comfort of having her family near, despite the bright and brave smiles she flashed whenever anyone was looking, Ren still felt like the life she'd created for herself over the last several years was splitting apart at the seams, slowly unravelling, disintegrating no matter how she grasped at the frayed edges. Not that anyone else could see them.
A week was a standard vacation, but she was benched. She had no idea what Donovan had told the others. It could have been the truth, but none of them had reached out to her. None of them. Not that she wanted them to. It was safer this way, distance and all. She'd left for a reason, and even if nothing else extraordinarily awful had happened in the last seven days, seven days without incident wasn't exactly the kind of record that inspired confidence.
She could still feel the difference inside of her. She'd had a lot of time to think about things and, after several hours of soul searching and being real with herself, Ren had to accept the fact that she'd been feeling different for a while now. Since the accident. The first one. She'd done her best to ignore the signs in the beginning. It had been fairly easy to attribute all the weird electrical surges, the appliances that turned off and on at will, the power outages, to a wiring problem in her flat. What kind of nutcase would she have to be in order to automatically jump to the conclusion that she was the one causing those things to happen? It wasn't logical. If she'd been more alert, had more energy than usual, that was a good thing, wasn't it? It meant she hadn't suffered any bad effects from her fall. And if she wasn't sleeping much, well, it wasn't an issue if she wasn't tired, right?
In fact, that excess of energy was becoming a constant. The terror and adrenaline that had burned through her in the immediate aftermath of the hospital had dulled the effects of absorbing another person's...life force...or whatever it was she'd done, but she couldn't figure out how to turn off the ever-present buzz that seemed to crackle between her ears and filled her up with enough stamina to run back to back marathons. Daily.
The gym was becoming her second home, and when she wasn't there, she was running around town doing errands for her sisters or buying groceries for Raj or any other number of menial tasks that would keep her busy, because she couldn't stand to sit still. She'd been at the 24-hour gym until seven o'clock this morning, and she'd be hitting Xtreme Fitness soon, but in the interim, she was running a makeshift tour de stade of Cedar Falls, up and down each stairwell twice and walking it off on each floor before doing it all over again. Even though she'd been going for hours, she'd barely broken a sweat, which was a good thing, because the routine was a good way to meet the neighbors and looking like a drowned rat wouldn't have been the best first impression on her part. Seeing a petite girl in leggings and a cropped tee over a sports bra didn't seem to put people on their guard. So what if she was power-walking the halls? It wasn't like she was casing the joint….
Which, despite her history, was not something Ren would do. Her brother lived here. Her sister and nieces lived her. That made these people, all of them, her people. She didn't steal from her people. Ren had a code.
A door opened up ahead and she plastered on another smile as she continued down the hall, her dark hair swaying in a fluffy ponytail. The girl that exited was super thin and super pale, but what really caught Ren's attention was the vivid red hair that cast everything around her into neon technicolor. It made the thief grin, if only because there was nothing inconspicuous whatsoever about that girl, but when her attention dropped to the baby carrier on her arm and the bundle of pink skin and wispy red hair tucked closely against her chest, Ren almost grimaced. She was always on the lookout to meet new people and make friendly acquaintances, especially with people her own age, but babies weren't really her thing.
Neither were new moms, because they only ever wanted to talk about their babies.
Which...she was going to have to get used to. Maybe. It depended how long she was going to be stuck here, and if she'd still be around when Alex and Seth had their baby. Word was, Seth's sister was also expecting, so...the family was definitely expanding.
"Do we have everything?" Ren heard the redhead ask, but the answer was lost on her because she was suddenly intensely focused on the guy who stepped into the hallway.
No.
Way.
What was he…?
"Jesse?!?!?" Ren's voice rang out in disbelief. She picked up her pace and jogged the rest of the way to the door. "Oh my God! It really is you!" As if she hadn't been sure before. "Of all the apartment buildings in all the towns in all the world…." An excited laugh bubbled up and cut her off as she flung both of her arms around him and enveloped him in a tight hug.