And left an empty shell of me...

[x-polarisstar.livejournal.com]

Tuesday, late afternoon. Alison checks on her roommate and discovers an extremely distraught Lorna. Occurs before Alison's fight with Remy



The shades were tightly drawn, turning brilliant day to dim twilight. Clothes were scattered carelessly on the floor, having been thrown off when nightmares had made them feel suffocating. The covers joined them for the most part except for the white cotton sheets that draped the motionless figure in the bed. As it had for most of the day, the silence was broken by intermittent muffled sobs. Lorna had spent the last twelve hours wishing she were dead. She hadn’t made any appreciable improvement.

There was a faint knock on the door, and then a louder one, eventually followed by Alison's voice calling out her name. "Lorna? I know you're in there..." tiredness edged her voice, but Lorna could only recognize too well the determination to not go anywhere else underlining it.

Oh god, go away, go away, go away, go away. Lorna whimpered and resolutely ignored the voice at the door. The doorknob and hinges were already so much fused scrap metal, there was no opening the door short of removing it from the frame. Not here, not here, not here

"Lorna," Alison's voice called out again, worry sharper than before. "I'm not going away, roomie," she added, gently, the sound of wood creaking as she leaned on the door briefly. The doorknob creaked, it's condition revealed. "Lorna. Open the door."

Not here, not here, not here If thinking made it so, Lorna would have vanished into the ether then and there. Instead, she simply became a slightly smaller ball of misery and prayed that Alison would leave her alone and, if God was truly good, hopefully forget she existed altogether.

A faint mutter reached her ears, followed by a sharp sound as light sparked from the door suddenly, a neat semicircle soon followed by two more. With a thud, the door fell to the ground with a thud, neatly sheared off its hinges and doorknob. "... sorry 'bout the door," Alison sighed, stepping in slowly.

God hates me. Lorna lifted her head from the pillow and glared from a splotchy, tear-stained face with eyes puffed and red-rimmed from crying. She didn’t say a word, just buried her face back in the damp pillow again and went back to ignoring Alison.

Picking her way through the messy room, clenching her teeth at the condition Lorna was in but setting aside the urge to go throttle Amanda now for the moment, Alison kept quiet until she reached the bed, sitting down carefully on the edge.

The faint give of the mattress told Lorna when Ali had sat down and confirmed her sick feeling that there was no way Alison was going to leave without a fight. She lifted her head just enough to speak, “I don’t want to talk about it.” Her voice was thick and choked.

"Ok," was all Alison replied, reaching out to stroke her hair gently, tugging at one of the kleenex she now always carried about thanks to Miles, to dab at Lorna's barely revealed cheek with her other hand. "No talking about it."

Lorna twisted around, wrapping herself even further in her sheet, and blinked owlishly up at Alison. Her recently re-injured and re-healed right hand curled close to her chest. New scars still glistened there, angry and red. “You broke my door.”

"Yeah," was the bland answer. "It was ugly anyway," she answered after a moment reflection, nodding solemnly. "I'll get you a new one." She reached out and tucked away a stray strand of hair, the green shade almost listless, as opposed to its usual vibrancy.

"You'd better," she said, trying for some sense of normalcy, "since we're currently down a shower and now a door," she tripped up on a sob and lost what little composure she had as she dissolved back into helpless tears.

Alison reached over, gathering her up as best she could, tugging until she had a good hold on Lorna, enough to rock the women gently as she cried. "Shh... wasn't your fault, hon," she murmured, entirely unaware that Lorna had in fact, no clue about events with the potion.

I shouldn't have challenged him. Lorna protested mentally. Oh god, Doug...what must he think? What was I thinking... Dear god, how many more people am I going to hurt? Drawing in a deep shuddering breath, she forced out the question, "Is Doug okay?"

"No," was the truthful reply. "But he's got people watching out for him, and he's not happy at all with what happened. I... don't know what possessed Amanda to make that damn potion," she couldn't help but snarl, although she regained control immediately, for Lorna's sake.

"Potion?" Lorna repeated. She tugged away from Alison's grasp, "What potion?"

A slow blink answered that question, followed by a frown. Uh oh. Making a mental note to pin Lorna if she made for the door, Alison took a deep breath. "The love potion. That she made. And got set loose yesterday."

“Yesterday...” Lorna went limp with relief. Not my fault.

"You didn't know!" Alison breathes out in dismay. "Oh god, Lorna. It wasn't you, whatever happened. Amanda hauled off and made this stupid love potion and it got loose somehow and-" she stopped, hugging her friend fiercely instead.

But Lorna wrenched away from Alison again, “Amanda did this? But she...” she stared down at her right hand, “Why?” She was shaking. Could this get any worse? She longed for the mindless bliss of the past few days but it was well beyond her reach now.

"Accident," was the short reply. "Kid stupidity, nothing bad or evil was meant. It was an accident Lorna," Alison leaned, not touching Lorna not now of all times, but keeping eye contact with her. "She didn't mean for it to happen, I'm thinking. Heck, she got sucked into it herself. Wasn't good for anyone involved."

"Holy god," Lorna tried to tug her sheet around her enough that she could stand up, there had to be something she could do. She could ensure that they didn't think she blamed them and it was better than dwelling on rape. Physical or otherwise. But her attempts at pulling all her messy, spiky, painful emotions to heel so she could lock them away met with the same success as catching sunbeams or dreams. Anger welled up and she lashed out at the easiest target. "What kind of fucking psycho makes something like that? How much of a sociopath do you have to be to fuck with someone's emotions like that?"

Pulling up her legs to sit on the bed indian style, Alison didn't show an iota of the pure relief that swept through her, at seeing Lorna angry. Instead, she shook her head. "Pete talked to her. Probably has a lot to do with her being a kid and not realizing... consequences. She's being sent back to London for this, for a while, back to her old teacher." The words spilled out, Alison wincing at the incoherency of her speech. "Also, it was criminally stupid and if I see her, I'll do something unpleasant. And... I wasn't even hit." Alison sighed, repressing the urge to reach out to Lorna, somehow.

“Fuck that. Age has nothing to do with it. You can’t tell me that living on the street isn’t a damned good replacement for years. It’s fucking rape.” Lorna crumpled again into deep racking sobs. She wasn’t talking about Amanda. Didn’t care about Amanda. “It’s never going to be better.”

No argument could be offered there, because essentially, Alison agreed... but wondered, at the same time. Was there more to this? She reached again, slowly, drawing Lorna closer if she would allow it, wondering what exactly had happened, what in the world was going on beyond the... obvious.

Lorna curled up, wrapping her arms around herself as though that alone would stop her from flying to pieces. "Anyway..." she said finally, “I don't want to talk about it."

Alison had bad news for Lorna, but now wasn't the time. Now was for her to rest and get some sort of strength back... but there would be talking. Whether Lorna liked it or not. "You rest," she murmured, and then looked about the room, and at the tear stained pillow. "My room. C'mon. Do that and I'll leave you alone. Up."

Lorna nodded and tried to stand. She moved like an old woman, slowly like her bones were fragile as glass and sharp enough to shred her skin. She clung to the sheet she'd wrapped around herself, using it as a pitiful shield against the world. She stumbled when she tried to walk and ended up leaning on Alison to cross the common room.

Alison helped her across carefully, carefully making certain Lorna did not in fact, keep the bed-sheet when she transferred her to her bed, tucking her in swiftly. "Sleep. I'll check in now and then. No one's coming in my room. No one."

Lorna resisted the urge to fuse the hinges to ensure it. She did her best to make Alison happy by falling asleep. When that failed, she transferred her concentration to ensuring her crying was silent as possible. Eventually, exhaustion carried the waking world away.