The Luckiest Girl In The World

"Next?"

The receptionist was a pleasant looking older woman with a cloud of white hair, kind of like somebody's grandma had taken up residence behind the reception desk. Kathy gave the woman a small, nervous smile as she stepped forward. "Hi," she said softly, hands clutching each other so as to not start wringing them. "My name's Katherine? Uh, Katherine Li?"

After so long of only being called 'Kathy,' using her full name sounded a bit strange to her ears, like a shirt that didn't quite fit anymore. "I, umm, called on Thursday?"

"Ah yes!" The woman looked up at Kathy and smiled, with an honest-to-god twinkle in her eye. "There was a last-minute cancellation and we were able to fit you in. I'm glad, honey. You sounded like you needed someone to talk to."

"Err, yes," Kathy said. "I did. Or, umm, do." After spending part of Halloween sleeping on Ezra's porch roof 'someone to talk to' was probably the least of what she needed. "And I'm told this office serves...special?...cases?"

It was vague, but the receptionist seemed to understand exactly what she was getting at. "This office specializes in dealing with issues relating to the supernatural," she said quietly, so her voice wouldn't carry much beyond Kathy. "With everything that happened last year, Dr. A figured that people would need a lot of help processing what happened. She likes to say she never expected to treat people for demonic entities, but every session is already like an exorcism." The receptionist pushed a clipboard over the counter and gave Kathy an encouraging smile. "You're not the first person who needs help with this and you won't be the last, sweetheart. Now you fill out that paperwork and we'll get you started on your intake visit."

"Thank you," Kathy said, giving the woman - Delores was her name, she saw - a shy smile before heading back to the waiting room proper. Her stomach was still doing flips and turns and that feeling only got worse as she saw all the questions that the forms were asking, but she bit her lip and resolutely started answering them to the best of her ability.

She could do this. She could.

[Establishy!]

False dawn stained the sky as the Fandom contingent woke up and started getting ready. Today was the day of reckoning; the final battle against Cairax and then home, leaving this place behind them for good. Everyone was quiet as they readied themselves, tired, perhaps, or deep in thought. It was going to be a long, grueling day and a general feeling of unease hung over the entire Mount, like a dark fog had settled over the whole area.

The only person who hadn't gotten up with the rest was Kathy; her closet door had remained firmly shut as everyone else got dressed and ate a little if they could. She'd been quiet the night before, still angry over the decision to stay and fight maybe, or unsettled by the run-in with Christian's people. Either way, she'd retreated to her closet as soon as they'd returned, closing the doors firmly behind her in an unspoken command to leave her alone.

Which was all well and good then, but today they needed to get ready and no amount of brooding or hurt feelings would stand in the way of that. So when everyone was just about to leave, it was Eliot who went and tapped on the closet door to have her come out. And it was Eliot, a few minutes of silence later, who opened the door and discovered that Kathy was gone.

Again.

[And so begins the last day! Everyone modded with gracious permission from my team of rockstars. Previous post]

In the wake of Josh's escape, the Mount looked like an anthill that had been kicked over. More soldiers were called to the top of the Big Wall, trying to keep a lookout in case he came back, or get a sense of which direction he ran in, or just to feel like they were doing something. The civilians weren't much different, trying to stare past the exes to see what the Thing in the Cellar had been. Everywhere there was a hubbub of noise and movement and confusion--except around each of the Heroes. They were still, calm, quiet--but then, they knew exactly what the Thing had been. Instead, their eyes were all on Stealth as she laid a hand on Captain Freedom's forearm and murmured something, her head giving a minute nod towards the Rodenberry Building.

So, a meeting then.

Kathy didn't know whether she had been intended to be included of if Stealth just didn't think it was worth kicking anybody out for. Either way, ten minutes after Stealth had left the Big Wall, she was ensconced in a chair high up on in the penthouse, with Raven as a big, black bird perching docilely on her shoulder. Kathy didn't realize it, but this was the same room her friends had gathered twenty-one months ago when Stealth had recruited them into the war against Rodney.

( In the room where it happens )

[Preplayed with the amazing-as-always tigerundercover and adapted from Chapter of Ex-Communication by Peter Clines. NFB, NFI, OOC welcomed. Previous post Next post]

Kathy was pacing again. She couldn't help it. She knew it was frustrating Max to no end, but she was finding it real hard to work up a single fuck about that. She was trapped here, in her worst nightmare come to fucking life, and it was all his fault. If he couldn't handle a little pacing, that was on him.

Okay, it was also bugging Nick, too. She could see the little twitch around his eye with every step of her shoes on the tile--especially since she was making sure to clack them firmly as part of her 'Fuck You Max Hale' plan. She felt a little bad about Nick's annoyance, but hey, it wasn't like she asked him to hover. After news had spread about Tori's death earlier in the evening, he hadn't let her alone. He'd appointed himself her guardian angel, so he was just going to have to deal with a little pacing.

Or a lot of pacing.

The clacking of her shoes was a lot better than the clacking of the teeth outside. Now there was a noise that could drive someone mad. Kathy knew; she could hear the chattering of teeth all night long. Earplugs and loud music didn't help; that just meant that if anything happened, she wouldn't be able to hear it. If Legion were smart, he'd send out just a few exes late at night with ladders to climb over. Not a lot, not a loud invasion, but a few. Just enough to sneak past sleepy guards. Just enough to bite and raise an army inside here. Kathy wasn't going to give him the chance to get smart and sneak up on her, oh no. Even if it meant not sleeping at night because of the constant clack clack clacking by her chamber wall.

Clack clack clack. Fifteen steps from one wall of this room to the other. Clack clack clack Fifteen steps back. Clack clack clack. Fifteen steps to the far wall again.

Kathy was aware she might be going a little crazy. That was fine, so long as she took people with her.

( Some surprises on all sides )


Later, Kathy would only remember the rest of the night in snapshots. Nick would catch her eyes and she'd stare back, helpless and unmoving, until he broke eye contact again. And then she would pass out immediately into a dark and dreamless sleep. She woke up several times as they sped across the rooftops of LA, Nick thrilled to be Gorgon once more, up however many tiers he could get from her. She was like cocaine, he told her once; a hit from her was the best and purest high he could imagine, shooting him up so many tiers it was hard to keep count. She put the 'speed' in 'speedball,' apparently. He needed three more hits from her to cross the distance between the Mount and his old apartment and she crashed out after each one. She didn't wake up from the fourth time he drained her until they were in his apartment, waking up in his dusty bed to the sound of him crashing to the floor, his legs giving out at the same time as the energy from his last hit wore away. She must have caught his eyes again, because the next thing she knew, the sky was lightening to the east and they were running again, his dead cellphone tucked away in the harness with her, both strapped tightly to his back.

But the run home wasn't as fun and carefree as the trip there. At some point, Max's spell must have run out because they weren't just running, they were fleeing, being chased by exes that were ringed with blue flame, mouths open wide to show rows of shark-like teeth and claws made only to rend and tear. And Nick was slowing, dropping from tier to tier and Cairax's exes gained ground. One time, one of them got close enough that she could feel the heat of the fire on her cheek, smell the scent of rot that rose from it before it missed a jump and plummeted between buildings. "Last time, baby," Nick said, turning around to drain her one more time. And as the world floated away again, Kathy realized she was glad that she was going under again, that if Nick slipped or tripped or just didn't go fast enough, she'd be unconscious when Cairax got his talons on them.

She woke in the Mount, curled up on the box spring in her apartment - her first night in the Mount, she'd put the mattress on the floor in front of the door as an easy barricade - Nick's phone plugged into a charger and attached to the wall. Bleary-eyed but smiling for the first time since she'd gotten to Los Angeles, Kathy opened up Nick's contacts to see who on the island she could call.

[NFI, NFB, all the love to OOC. Previous Post. Next Posts here and here.]

Kathy didn't know why she was here. It was a question she couldn't answer for herself, never mind anyone else who might ask. But no matter how many times she tried to end up somewhere else, her feet had brought her here, right in front of the West Gate. Something about the conversation with Todd yesterday and the hungry look in the eyes of all those people, clustered outside the office. She'd sworn up and down that she didn't have the ability to talk to exes, but was she actually sure?

Wait a minute. Of course she was. This was stupid.

Once more, Kathy turned away, heading back towards town proper. Except then she thought about Todd's genuine grief and, once more, she found herself spinning back around and heading towards the gate again.

Fuck, she hated this place. It was turning her inside out over bullshit. But - fine. She'd go, she'd try to talk to a fucking zombie, she'd prove to herself for the last time that she didn't have any non-bouncy powers, and then she'd go back to her place and try to catnap for a few hours.

West Gate was on Vine and directly across from it was the guard station. She knocked, ducking her head inside to make sure if wouldn't interfere with the people patrolling the Wall if she just kind of...hung out there for awhile. The guy in camo - probably another Unbreakable, judging from his sheer size - seemed pretty unfazed by the question. A lot of people came to the gates, she realized, probably looking for familiar faces; the After Death folks especially. He pointed to a bright line painted on the ground in front of the gate, telling her to stay at least a yard behind it. So long as she did that, none of the exes would be able to touch her.

Giving him an appreciative nod, Kathy went out to the designated location and just stared through the bars for a moment. These were spaced a lot wider than the bars that made up the East Wall, wide enough that she was able to get a full view of the street beyond it. She'd...pretty much been avoiding doing that very thing since she arrived and yet, here she was now, doing that exact thing.

( Fuck, this was stupid. )

[Adapted from Chapter 18 of Ex-Communication, by Peter Clines. NFI, NFB, OOC is nice to get. Previous Post Next Post]

A week. She'd been here a week already. And as much as Kathy wanted to sit in her room all day and sulk at the unfairness of the universe for sticking her here, she was really, really bad and doing nothing. Just ask Raven! Or Dante! Or Anders! You know, if they were here. She was especially bad at doing nothing when just outside her window were several hundred exes all chattering their teeth at the guards on the walls above them.

So, as an accredited EMT in a place where trained medical professionals were few and far between, Kathy had volunteered to work in the clinic for a few hours every day, in part to spell Dr. Connolly and give the poor woman a break, and part to keep herself busy so she didn't run screaming mad watching every minute tick by that she was stuck here.

Boredom mixed very oddly with hypervigilance.

Today, though, even this place was slow. With regular scavenging runs currently on break due to demonic activity in the neighborhood, fewer people were getting hurt. The last patient--Deborah Jenkins, 33, sliced her arm on a rusted railing--had been discharged this morning. Kathy had remade the bed, cleaned up the patient area, taken stock of equipment and supplies, folded bandages, thrown a load of sheets in the washing machine...and now was stationed behind the desk reading the treatment of thrush, an outcropping of oral yeast. Not really her thing, but it was that or Connolly's notes on the ex-virus, and of the two...

( Yeah. Oral yeast outcroppings it was. )

[Adapted and mangled from Chapter 16 of Ex-Communication by Peter Clines and, oops, I made myself sad with this one. NFI, NFB, OOC is great though. Previous Post Next Post]

Catching Banzai hadn't been as easy as one would like. In the two years since she'd died, they'd forgotten just how fast she was. And she was panic-running, flat out, not bothering to converse energy or breath. If she'd known the layout of the Rodenberry Building, they might not have caught her until she'd made it outside, halfway through the Mount.

But St. George had caught her up against a pair of locked doors and his impervious skin held up against her kicks and blows and scratches as well as it did bites from exes. He was glad he was the one who caught her, though; some of her attacks would have incapacitated anyone else if they'd landed. He just held her in the loose circle of his arms and let her wear herself out trying to get away.

He didn't take the heel to the groin or the gouge towards the eyes or the elbow to the throat personally. He wasn't even entirely sure that she could see him. Her eyes were wide and blank, constantly darting around, refusing to focus on his face. St. George didn't know how much Banzai remembered, but from the intensity of her reaction, he was betting it was a lot more than anyone had hoped.

When she finally sagged in his arms, exhausted and whimpering, he scooped her up and carried her back towards Max's room, shooing away volunteers and nosy patients. Max Hale's return to the living had brought up a lot of goddamn questions and ( it was time to get some answers. )



The North Gate was a few blocks from the hospital. Like all the entrances through the Big Wall, there were a few hundred exes and the air crackled with the sound of chattering teeth. Half of them pressed against the gate. The rest staggered through the street. Kathy made a small sound in the back of her throat, clutching St. George's hand in a white-knuckled grip, but her steps didn't falter.

"Baby, you don't have to see this," Nick said, his wheelchair rolling along beside them. "You could wait in the hospital with Danielle--"

"No," Kathy interrupted sharply. "I need to see. I need to know."

In the middle of Bronson was a smoking set of lines, a scar in the pavement stretching from one side of the road to the other. The superheated material had turned a fresh, deep black that stood out from the faded charcoal of the street. Three exes had been slashed in half bu Zzzap's burning touch, too slow to get out of the way and too mindless to realize their danger. Steam still trailed from their severed bodies. A spray of gore marked where one had boiled and exploded.

To parallel lines marked out a ring fifteen feet across. Inside the double circle was what looked like two triangles--or maybe an hourglass--surrounded by squiggles.

( So, about those symbols... )

[Text taken and adapted from Chapter 13 of Ex-Communication by Peter Clines. NFB, NFI, OOC is made of sparkles.]

The door to 33 Apocalypse was almost in sight when Kathy realized that she'd forgotten her phone back at The Perk. She must have left it on the counter while grabbing a bunch of 'thank you for coming to help me move' strawberry creams to bring back for everyone. And then she'd been having so much fun chatting with Ezra and Dante that she'd never thought to bring it back.

She blamed the patriarchy for her lack of phone-sized pockets, dammit.

"Hey guys," she said, drawing to a halt a few yards from the door. "I left my phone back at The Perk like an idiot. I'm just gonna run and grab it, okay?"

( Nothing bad ever hides under a cut. )

[Preplayed with the amazing rebelseekspizza and dashing smilestopscars. For once, open for interaction, but NFB! And so plot kicks off, which many apologies for the amount of spam incoming.]

Kathy sat on the hard police bench, right outside the holding cell, an ice pack against her cheek. The holding tank was surprisingly full for a Wednesday night; not only were a bunch of guys from the warehouse there, but so were several drunks, two dealers, and a pickpocket. Once, she would have helped put the people in there--in fact, she recognized one of the dealers and was doing her best not to let him get a good look at her. Now, while she wasn't in the cell itself, it was only because the police didn't think it would be 'appropriate.' They thought she was still underage and Kathy wasn't about to tell them otherwise because right now, technically, she wasn't under arrest. She hadn't been handcuffed, they weren't processing her, and she wasn't even under guard--though there were several cops that occasionally checking over to make sure she was still there and sitting quietly. Nothing that happened tonight was going onto her permanent record--though she'd already gotten several paternalistic lectures on the way to the station and they weren't letting her leave until an 'adult' got here to collect her.

If she'd been thinking straight, she would have given them Raven's number and had her shift into a grumpy old Korean lady to come and fetch her. Then again, if she'd been thinking straight, she wouldn't be here now. Not that she'd been big on thinking straight since she'd been resurrected. Really, the way she'd been going, this outcome had practically been inevitable.

( This will all be fine )

[Preplayed with the utterly splendid vdistinctive. NFB, I have all the feels]

Kathy...Kathy wasn't doing so well. She had a whole slew of reasons why she wasn't doing well, from her realization she remembered everything about being dead, to finding out Raven had killed her family, to her run-in with Ezra at the Coterie-run bar when she'd just wanted to drown her sorrows the old-fashioned way, it had been one thing after another after a-fucking-nother.

Which was why the phone call at ten pm found her putting the last touches on her makeup and hair for an evening out on the town. Her outfit left very little to the imagination and even less as protection to the elements, but she didn't care. Hell, that was the whole point. This was the third night she was in Boston and the third night of making questionable choices in the pursuit of getting her brain to shut down so she wouldn't have to think about any of the things she didn't want to think about. Sure, it was a weeknight in the dead of winter, but Boston was a college town. There were always people willing to party.

Though that didn't explain how Eliot knew what was going on. She listened to his message with a frown and immediately called him back. The only person who knew she was here was Ezra, so who'd gone to Eliot, carrying tales?

[Eliot's thread is chronologically first, but open to phone calls or that guy in Boston if he'd like! NFB for off-island shenanigans. Content warning for alcohol as a coping mechanism in the comments.]