Raw Deal

[Brackie]

There were three things Jessica noticed about the announcement.

One was that neither her sister nor her girlfriend were on it, and so they were still alive.

Another was that one of the people who jumped her back at the waterfall was now dead, killed by the other.

And the final one was that the person they had been looking for for the past two days, only to stop last night, had killed Bryan.

Jessica was beginning to reach the point where she couldn't tell what she was feeling. Every event that happened to her added weight to the stomach. She didn't know how much longer she could hold off the inevitability of Christina or Stephanie being announced to have been killed or become killers, and she knew exactly how she'd react to it. She would cry. She would be devestated. She would scream. She wouldn't know if she could go on. And everything else would pale in comparison to it because she'd not only failed at keeping people together, or keeping the closest people in her life from the inevitabilities, but she'd failed to extract some sort of recompense from the person who almost killed her because they were now dead themselves, victim of a "disagreement". When Jessica disagreed with people in her life she agreed to do so, or tried to defend her stance as best she could. Here, it was blood. Blood like the blood spilt every day, blood like the blood Claudeson had spilt not long when he shot Bryan in the head, and now all it meant was that Valerija was right, and it was all a waste of time. She'd come to terms with it, but it hadn't become a truth until his name appeared, a murderer, the other side of the coin of Tyrell, with one side being Christine.

It was all just one big pile of something.

So when someone knocked at the door, and Camille asked who it was and Valerija told her to hide, Jessica didn't listen to her two traveling companions and instead obeyed the sound. She got up from the couch where she'd spent the night, walked over to the door, and opened it in order to brace one of the many inevitabilities.

...

Only to be faced with another.

"...Steph?"

There she stood, looking at her girlfriend. There was a pause, as Jessica took everything in. The thoughts she'd been processing as she walked to the door, now fleeing into the recesses of her mind, replaced by swirling joy as she let out a sound between a sigh and a scream, before throwing her arms around the shoulders of her girlfriend once again.

"Oh my god, Steph! Steph, oh-"

Her grip was tight as she tried to hug away the dark thoughts, replacing them with the joy.

"-oh my god!"

[decoy73]

Knock-knock

Wait. Wait. Wait. There probably wasn't anyone here in this stupid house. She probably was just wasting time doing nothing.

"...Steph?"

And then she underwent the quite welcome feeling of being squeezed half to death as her hands wrapped around her girlfriend's body.

"Oh my god, Steph! Steph, oh ... oh my god!"

Stephanie had to stop this rambling. So she just looked into Jessica's eyes and kissed her on the lips for a good five seconds. Well, somewhere along those lines. She didn't really count.

"Oh, stop it, please," Stephanie giggled. "You're making me cry." That, to be fair, was actually true. Who could blame her, though? Things were finally looking up.

[General Goose]

Camille noticed two things about her travelling companions. Val, for her part, seemed to have embraced her survival instinct, always ready with a plan, always ready to compartmentalise any despair and hardship and get ready to perforate a threat with her pickelhaube. The grand plans of the first few days seemed - as Camille had feared - increasingly distant, with more potential heroes dying and more bad blood being stirred up, but Val was not giving in. That was good. They had that in common.

Jessica, on the other hand, seemed to have reached the despair event horizon, the point of no return. Camille could only speculate as to why - the announcements had, from what Camille knew of Jessica, spared her any especially acute heartache. Perhaps it was the cumulative effect of bad news after bad news, her threshold for this bullshit simply being lesser than the others. Or maybe it was Claudeson. Yes. That had to be it. In trying to understand her turn for the worse, Camille had been focusing on the wrong side of the announcements.

Those thoughts played out rather quickly, with an accelerated sense of urgency, in the short time it took for Jessica to get up and cross the short distance between where she'd sat and the door.

Camille was so focused on the threat from without that she was all too aware of how long it took her to react to what was going on. She was frozen in place for a second, watching Jessica move with disbelief, glancing over to Val to corroborate what she was seeing and gauge her reactions. No answer had come from the outsider - which was not exactly a reassuring sign. Camille mouthed at Jessica, 'what are you doing', her body language unusually animated in an attempt to catch her teammate's eyes before she did something stupid.

Jessica did the stupid thing.

But, Camille had to concede, sometimes by fluke, the stupid thing worked. 

She lowered the gun and smiled at the heartfelt reunion playing out before her eyes, feeling more than a smidgen of envy that was, admittedly, easily outweighed by how sincerely happy she was for Jessica. After all, Jessica needed this. She'd been through a lot. They all had, sure, but Jessica rather more pointedly than Camille.

"Aww," Camille responded, after they'd had their first few moments of introduction. "Cute. I ship it." She looked over their shoulders, just to check for any unwanted followers or unannounced travelling companions, before taking a step back from the door. There'd be time to chide Jessica for her - admittedly selfish - risk-taking later. "How about you both move back inside?"

[Kermit]

...AND THEN IDIOT GIRL JESSICA OPENED THE DOOR! Val almost stabbed her right there and then. She didn't, but she wanted to.

Jessica was worse than Princess. Princess. Sure, okay, the person on the other side of the door turned out to be her girlfriend or something, judging by the kiss, but if it had been literally ANYBODY ELSE, they could have all died.

Bait. That would be Jessica's new job. She would be bait.

Val made a brief >:c face and stuck her helmet back on. She walked to a corner of the room while Camille was asking the two reunited girls to come inside and crossed her arms. Camille was handling the situation well enough, it seemed; plus she had a gun. Val didn't have a gun. Guns usually made people listen.

[Brackie]

For as happy as Jessica finally was again, Stephanie's breath almost made her throw up, so she broke the kiss as soon as she could. She laughed for a moment.

"You're gonna make me cry!"

Jessica grabbed her girlfriend softly by the wrist and took her into the house. She saw Camille in one corner, Valerija in the other, and indicated to them with her free hand.

"I've been with them, ever since..."

She took pause for a moment, before making her way through to the kitchen.

"...it's been a bad time for me, Steph. I...I'm sorry I ran off."

Jessica pulled one chair over to another before sitting in one.

"Have you been okay?"

The weight was lifting from Jessica's stomach. Finally.

[decoy73]

Jessica led Stephanie into the house, passing by a couple people hiding in the corner, Val and Camille or something, and found a couple chairs.

"...iIt's been a bad time for me, Steph. I...I'm sorry I ran off... Have you been okay?"

"It's okay. I've just been with Diego since. He ran off after Lorenzo yesterday when they said Sapphire died." She sat down in the free chair, leaving out how she saw Tyrell kill Christine. Jessica didn't need to know, and Stephanie didn't need to remember. "So, have you been doing anything? Or were you able to be bored for the past few days?"

[General Goose]

Camille stood by the side of the room as Jessica and Stephanie had their heartfelt reunion, looking at Val and shrugging. A reunion such as this would surely be nice for anyone - Camille would, on her part, be excited to see Lucas, as awful as the circumstances were. She could understand how thrilled, how enlivened and exuberant, they were, given the circumstances. But this was the part of the reunion that Camille would have found most daunting.

There were so many details, so many aspects of trauma and hardship, that had to be covered and discussed. They needed to share their stories. Needed to check where they stood. Had to go over the horrifying moments and memories that they'd been through. Camille crossed her arms and leaned against the wall. It was an awkward conversation to listen to, especially with Camille already knowing the answers - at least partially - to Stephanie's questions. She knew that Jessica had been anything other than 'bored' over the past few days. Jessica had already said as such - it'd been a bad time over the past few days, after all. She'd already said that. 'Bored' was a common emotion here, but it was hard to describe what they'd been through as 'being able to be bored'.

She casually strolled over to Val, keeping her arms crossed, and whispered to her. "Guess we're about to become the third and fourth wheels." The saying didn't work, Camille realised, as the words left her lips, but oh well.

[Brackie]

It was inevitable Jessica would have to explain what happened to her over the past few days, especially to someone so close to her. Thankfully, Stephanie had not encountered nearly as much hardship as she herself had - hardship she was going to have to explain to her - or if she was, she wasn't telling her girlfriend about it.

Jessica squeezed Stephanie's hand as she began to explain.

"Well after I tried looking for Oliver and Christine and got lost, I..."

She paused, trying to figure out the right words. She didn't want Stephanie to become shocked or angry, considering that even though what happened to her was pretty awful, she shouldn't be worrying about it now.

"...some people robbed me. I got hurt, pretty bad, and, well, the other two girls here helped me. We were with some others, but one of them went...I don't know where, exactly. And the other one, we tried looking for him, but we couldn't find him. We-"

Another pause, because it all just seemed so ridiculous how everything wove into each other.

"-we ran into the guy who killed Christine. He...the guy we were looking for found him before we did, and then...he was on the announcements earlier."

It really was ridiculous. Just so, so stupendously overly rididiculous. But at least Stephanie was here. Everything would be okay now.

"I'm fine now. It's all fine."

She smiled.

"Things are going to be better now."

[decoy73]

"...some people robbed me. I got hurt, pretty bad, and, well, the other two girls here helped me. We were with some others, but one of them went...I don't know where, exactly. And the other one, we tried looking for him, but we couldn't find him. We-"

Stephanie's hand tightened for a moment at that.

"-we ran into the guy who killed Christine. He...the guy we were looking for found him before we did, and then...he was on the announcements earlier. I'm fine now. It's all fine. Things are going to be better now."

Stephanie just hugged Jessica again. "I know. I'm not going to let anyone hurt you."

[Brackie]

It was nice to feel protected, especially in a place like this. Not that Jessica needed protecting, but it felt safer.

A friendly silence followed, in which nobody needed to talk. The rain was still coming down on the roof, albeit less heavily than yesterday, and the whole world was just Jessica, Stephanie, and the two others in the connecting room.

Eventually, though, Jessica needed to ask something which had been on her mind.

It was all well and good to be around someone you loved, but it wasn't enough. Jessica knew it was unfair to think that, or to try and lay a burden down on someone who wasn't expecting it, but she had been through so much. She had lost people, in the literal and figurative sense, she'd been hurt badly, and right now she needed the girl she loved to tell her something more than just a promise of her own safety.

"Steph?"

Jessica looked up at her girlfriend.

"Can you promise me everything's going to turn out alright? Like, everyone's going to come out of this just fine?"

She looked into Stephanie's eyes.

"Please?"

[decoy73]

The silence was nice. Safe. She just wanted to savor this moment as long as she could.

"Steph? Can you promise me everything's going to turn out alright? Like, everyone's going to come out of this just fine? Please?"

Stephanie looked at Jessica, and bit her lip nervously.

"I ... I don't know. I want to think it, but I'm just hoping we can just get out of this alive."

Stephanie looked down for a second. Jessica's eyes were just boring into her. Goddamn, she already felt guilty for not lying and just saying "yes."

[Brackie]

...

...

...

...

...Oh.

"Okay."

Jessica's expression of mild relief mixed with some portion of happiness did not waver from her face, but internally, every previous feeling returned at once. She nodded.

"That's okay. We can...we can work with that. We can."

She gave Stephanie's hand another squeeze, before getting up from the table.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I haven't gone to the bathroom since yesterday so I should probably take care of that before my colon explodes, y'know?"

Jessica leaned down and kissed Stephanie's forehead.

"Be right back."

She walked through to the next room, where her other two companions were still.

"I'm just gonna take care of my bathroom business. You don't have to worry about Steph, she's...she'll be fine."

Again, her expression did not betray her intent. Jessica made her way through the front door, towards what looked like bushes that would serve her stated purpose, but the moment she crossed the threshhold of visibility, she was gone.

((Jessica Rennes continued elsewhere))

[Kermit]

Val stood next to Camille and watched as Stephanie and Jessica had their reunion. She appreciated the sentiment of Camille's comment.

Jessica then said she needed to poo really bad. Ew! Icky! Gross! Val leaned over to Camille and whispered in a hushed voice. "Way too much information, JEEZ."

Something about Jessica's parting words niggled at the back of Val's mind; the switch from present to past-tense. A Freudian slip, likely; one that implied Jessica was maybe not intending on returning.

Jessica was a liability. She'd almost gotten everyone killed at least twice.

It would be for the best to let her go. Personal sacrifices had to be made, yes? Yes.

Guess that made Stephanie the third wheel.

Val walked over to a couch and wordlessly fwumped herself into a sitting position, an exasperated expression upon her face.

[General Goose]

Camille didn't really think twice about the timing of Jessica's departure. That she was deflated by Stephanie's answer - which was still flavoured with more optimism and delivered far less brusquely than Camille, and she was willing to bet Val, could have delivered - was apparent, sure. That she suddenly took a turn to sharing TMI was, okay, a little bit out of keeping with the general ambience of the scene, but when you needed to go, you needed to go. Camille shrugged in response and did not move to stop Jessica. She suspected going toilet might have, funnily enough, been a euphemism for going to sulk on her own, which, again, Camille recognised. It was a valid need. Sometimes coping with stressful situations required some alone time, and if by good fortune that overlapped with other moments of more corporeal need, then that was just a timesaver.

She had to admit, Camille was secretly rather grateful that her own bowels had been less active than usual. It was certainly a sign of insufficient nutrition and high stress, but it was a silver lining nonetheless. Having to take care of constantly shitting, in this land of sparse toilet paper and nonexistent privacy, was something that she was happy she was doing without.

So Camille watched as she went, but did not move to follow her, did not get involved in her business, gave her only a respectful nod, grateful that, at least this time, she had seen fit to inform the others before embarking on a personal errand. That was a good step. With Stephanie here, she imagined that that would be a brilliant step forward for Jessica. It would give her a sense of hope, Camille imagined. Motivate her to continue searching for her sister. That would be a good thing for them all. At least, that was how Camille imagined it to be. She was well aware of the possibility that, especially in her compromised state of mental health, she would respond differently. Perhaps take this one victory as a chance to give up. Perhaps something else. It wasn't necessarily for Camille to speculate.

Camille crossed her arms and began slowly walking around the perimeter of the room in the moments after Jessica's exit. "So, I guess you've joined our hearty ragtag band of misfits, then?" Camille began, wanting to feel the space as they waited for Jessica to return with something. She hoped that it went without saying that, if Jessica called out for help or something like that, Stephanie would be the first responder. Camille didn't have that kind of relationship with her.

[decoy73]

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I haven't gone to the bathroom since yesterday so I should probably take care of that before my colon explodes, y'know?"

Okay, that was graphic. But either way, she'd be right back. Stephanie herself just leaned back as she saw the back of Jessica.

"So, I guess you've joined our hearty ragtag band of misfits, then?" Stephanie chuckled. Although "misfits" wasn't the word she would have used. "Angels" was much more fitting.

"I guess I have. Although hopefully we can move away from being misfits."