(Untitled)

[thesamename]

Characters: aunomdedieu & thesamename
Date: February 15th
Summary: There's a vampire plant tied to Jackie's ankle.
Warnings: Some blood, some cursing. Jackie has issues with suicide that I suppose an encounter with lethal blood loss will have her thinking about.

It had not taken her long to notice that the vine was filled with singing. It hadn't taken her long at all

Comments

8E mmm monsters

[thesamename]

She is in shock. Even without her blood spilling out onto the grass, she imagines she would have been in shock, attacked with such sudden ferocity, rescued with equal abruptness in a burst of flame and the unearthly shrieking of the jilted rose. She is shocked, has prided herself in her quick mind and her ability to adapt for a long time, but the moment is too surreal, too violent, too erratic. And she is bleeding, no longer in such intense pain, with thorns pinching and ripping at her skin, but she is bleeding and she is in shock.

She stares up at Caprica helplessly, feels hands on her and shudders once before reaching out to grab at the woman's sleeve, as if that will steady her in the tumult. Maybe it does, or maybe she closes her eyes and pretends that it's Dominique-(blonde hair and blue eyes, that's all she needs, she clings and she holds on to that image)-even if she knows she'll never fool herself into really believing that.

It helps. Lies have always helped Jackie to move past what hurts her and she begins to tell herself that it isn't that bad. She hears it when the other woman tells her she will be all right, and she takes that in, believes it. Of course she'll be all right, God has never taken enough pity on her to let her die, why would he start now-(Why would she let herself die in this blasted place without Dominique anyway?)

"God..." she sighs this, eyes still closed, and it is more an expletive than a prayer, but perhaps that isn't clear in the softness of it. It takes Jackie time to breathe easily again, her heart still thundering with fear-fueled adrenaline in her chest, but it is steadily moving to more a taxed and sluggish tattoo under Caprica's hands.

When Jackie's dark eyes open they are unfocused and she is careful not to look too closely at her rescuer-(blonde hair, blue eyes, that's all that matters)-and she turns her head to search out the scorched and smoldering place where the rose had gone down screaming.

The red string around her ankle has finally come loose, at least.

[aunomdedieu]

Jackie isn't quite seeing her, a fact that Caprica attributes to the blood loss and not to the fact that the other woman might be purposely avoiding looking at her. Either way, Jackie clutches at her sleeve and Caprica watches her with her eyes wide and anxious.

She doesn't know this woman well yet, could let her die if she wanted to. She can remember the words of Gaius-who-was-not-Gaius when she'd been in much the same situation, on Caprica after the cafe was bombed by the resistance and she chose to save the life of that man, Anders. Do you honestly believe one more body's going to weigh any heavier on your conscience - which is something that you don't have, do you?

But she does, and if she lets this happen, it'd be one more step to going back to what she was before she realized what she could be. And Caprica cannot allow herself to be that again. Not again. She holds on to her conscience and to her guilt like a lifeline.

She pulls her hands away from Jackie only long enough to tear a long strip of fabric off the bottom of her own shirt, using it as a makeshift bandage. Of all the colors she could have worn today, she's wearing white, and the blood soaks through in a deep crimson stain - but it's enough to slow it down, at least until Caprica can get her somewhere where she can tend to her wounds better. She would think about trying to find one of the snakes here and now, but she remembers Jackie's objection to it last time. And the last thing she really needs is to make her more upset than she probably already is.

She can, she thinks, get Jackie back to the house. It's not far, and there's a first aid kit there, not to mention water; she'll need to get fluids in her. Caprica is not particularly medically inclined - that function in Cylon society has fallen to the Fours - but she has a general idea of what she's supposed to be doing. Moving Jackie is dangerous, but so is leaving her here.

At least Jackie seems to be breathing fairly well. "I'm going to need to move you," Caprica says, keeping her voice soft and intentionally calm. It will help if she keeps talking, keeps Jackie focused on her voice. "Do you think you can stand up if I help you?"

She'll take as much of the other woman's weight as necessary - she'll carry her if she needs to. Caprica is much stronger than she appears.

[thesamename]

Jackie's knuckles are white where she has her hand caught in Caprica's shirt, unwilling to release it. Then again, she was already a pale and unhealthy little creature before the flower took a drink of her blood, she is quickly going ashen. Being wrapped up tight is a start, but even within her rather addled mind, she thinks she agrees that she needs to be moved.

"I..." She doesn't know where, precisely, she was going with that and she closes her eyes again for a moment to concentrate, still working on the mental gymnastics to tell herself that she is fine, that she can stand up. However, building the will to try to push herself up is another battle entirely. "I don't know," she decides after another few moments of silent deliberation. Maybe she can stand, or maybe she'll swoon as soon as she makes her feet, or maybe she'll never get that far, her skills of logical reasoning and predication seem to be failing her for the time being.

What she does manage, is to slowly loosen her grip from the other woman's shirt and roll carefully from her back onto her side. This seems to be somewhat of an improvement, and she pushes up on one hand, precariously leaned but it's something.

"I guess it doesn't matter," she mumbles, clearly disoriented, but at least not unconscious. She isn't sure she wants to go any farther on her own, however.

[aunomdedieu]

As Jackie starts to push herself up on her arm, Caprica moves to slide her arm around her shoulders. For the first time she really notices the way her bones stick out under her skin, even with her clothing in the way; if she had to guess, she'd say Jackie hasn't eaten properly in days. A very slight expression somewhat like a frown makes the corners of her lips turn down a little, but a moment later she wipes that look from her face. That's not what she needs to concentrate on right now.

"Here," she says, shifting her arm to a better grip on Jackie's shoulders. "Come on-" She starts to stand up herself, trying to guide Jackie to her feet with her - though she also moves slowly, trying not to push Jackie too fast. If she can keep her from passing out, at least until they get to the house, that will help; moving too quickly will only exacerbate the blood loss and the stress on her body even more.

[thesamename]

She swallows thickly as she rises, can taste blood in her mouth but really doesn't know if that's internal bleeding, her imagination, or the wild spray from the plant's flailing as it burned. Jackie grits her teeth briefly as she tries to ignore the sense of blood rushing to her head, taking a deep breath that ends with her forehead on Caprica's shoulder, leaned in and holding on tightly against the dizziness that washes over her, spots behind her eyes and a hiss in her ears.

"I'm fine," she breathes, like there's been no call for worry whatsoever, but she makes no move to pull away, lets her rescuer take as much of her weight as she can carry. There's not much there to hoist, not that her weight had anything to do with why Jackie often chose not to eat. At the moment, actually, she was thinking a big bloody steak would be... really kind of nice.

Jackie lifts her head again eventually, expression slightly dazed, a furrow between her brows. "Are we going?" She's glad to know she can be bossy even after a mutant plant attack.

[aunomdedieu]

Caprica's hand tightens around Jackie's shoulder as the other woman leans into her, the gesture completely subconscious. Part of her wants to chide the other woman for even entertaining the ridiculous notion that she's fine, because she clearly isn't. But pride is... well, it's a very human trait (and not completely strange to Cylons, either, if she would let herself think about it), and Caprica has known people equally stubborn before.

She does almost laugh when Jackie asks her if they're going, sounding impatient and disgruntled. The half-laugh comes out as a breathy exhalation, almost a sigh, and a very tiny, thin smile touches her lips for just a moment before fading. "Let's go, then."

It is slow going, but Caprica manages to get them both back to the house and get Jackie onto the bed in one of the guest bedrooms - thank God it's on the first floor. The first aid kit is in the bathroom, and she fetches it, bringing it back to the bedroom. The most severe of the injuries, the deep, bloody gash on Jackie's side that she bandaged, is the first one she deals with; she cuts away the strip of fabric that was there, replaces it with layers of gauze and tape. Caprica's shirt is torn and her hands are covered with the other woman's blood by now, but she can't allow herself to notice or think about it, not until she's gotten this taken care of. She is quiet, focused while she works.

[thesamename]

Pride. Perhaps Jackie plays her off more voraciously than others. Had survived through an experience where she was left with no pride at all and overcompensated for the memory, the exact same way she did with her needs for control. Much of the farce was fabrication, but it made her feel safe and that was all that mattered.

At the moment, she doesn't have much choice other than to feel more safe than she had moments--(was it moments? She really has no idea.)--before. There is the tiny and unrelentingly pragmatic part of herself that warns her not to trust Caprica, to stop entertaining the fantasy that blue eyes and blonde hair are all that matter. She barely knows this woman, it does not matter that she's been kind, interesting, and has saved Jackie's life. Anyone can fake sincerity, that didn't make it true.

Still, it's difficult enough staying awake as they move across the garden. All protests that she might have voiced are drowned out in the simple necessity of medical care. It... helps that the home Caprica takes her to is somewhat familiar, a place she has been before. She had never intended to sleep in any of the beds in this place, her insomnia usually kept the possibility of sleep far at bay, but even as the other woman is wrapping her up in gauze, Jackie knows that's what is going to happen.

Jackie raises a hand, maybe to warn that she just can't keep her eyes open any longer, but that seems silly in retrospect and she lowers it again, turning her head to the side, aware of the dirt and the blood in her hair beneath her cheek, for a moment, but really is too exhausted to care. She closes her eyes, she breathes, lets things go dark, and that is what is enough for the moment.

[aunomdedieu]

It doesn't surprise Caprica in the slightest that Jackie is tired; it's a normal response to blood loss, to the kind of trauma she's undergone. The other woman lifts her hand and Caprica glances up, but by then she's lowered it again and her eyes have fallen closed. For a moment as Jackie falls asleep, Caprica moves her own hand to rest over the other woman's, touching her, more personal than she had been before. She doesn't even really know why - maybe just to feel another person's skin against hers, for the simple, physical contact.

The touch doesn't last long, at any rate; she draws in a deep breath and pulls her hand away, going back to work dressing the remainder of Jackie's injuries. The rest are not so severe, but she bandages them anyway to keep them from becoming infected.

When she's finally satisfied that at least Jackie is no longer in danger of bleeding out, she stands up, goes into the bathroom to wash the blood off her hands, then goes into the master bedroom upstairs to change into another shirt, throwing the other one away; it's ruined now. She goes back down to the kitchen for a few moments, pours a glass of water and prepares a plate full of fresh fruit because that's what she has on hand - slices of apples, oranges, bananas. She sets the plate and the glass next to Jackie's bed, then goes back upstairs to rest for just a little while.

Caprica's body is designed to go weeks without sleep; she isn't physically tired. Mentally, however, is another story; the worry and anxiety have exhausted her a little, and she surprises herself by dozing off for a couple of hours. Eventually, she does get back up, goes back downstairs, slipping back into the guest bedroom to check on Jackie.

[thesamename]

Jackie dreams, invariably, of Dominique. About Dominique sitting in the window smoking, sunlight in blonde hair, about Dominique's faint and insufferable smile, about Dominique sitting on the edge of the bed and petting her hair, no matter how many times Jackie bats her hands away. Jackie is too tired to fight her over it, gives in and relaxes under the warm hands.

It's a lie anyway. Dom is nowhere in the gardens, and they are not at home in their secret little apartment where no one bothers them. Where it's quite and safe and familiar. Caprica had brought her to her own home, had laid her out in one of the beds and wrapped her up. The details from here to there are fuzzy as Jackie wakes, and she spends a moment staring numbly at the ceiling as she sorts through things. Thorns, fire, blood.

She turns her head to look out the window, maybe half hoping for someone to be there, but there is no one, just sunlight glittering off a plate of fruit and a glass of water. Her mouth tastes like dirt and blood, so if nothing else, water would be welcome. She pushes herself up delicately, snagging the class and sinking back down as she sips at. Considering her current state, it is refreshing and she eyes the fruit for a moment before taking a slice of orange and letting it burst in her mouth.

She looks up at the movement at the door, expression too tired for either anger or gratitude at the moment.

[aunomdedieu]

At least Jackie's been eating, drinking something; it's a good sign. Caprica smiles a little, pushing her own hair back from her neck in a gesture that looks almost self-conscious, and moves a little further into the room.

Her gaze goes automatically out the window, and still she half-expects to see woods, hills and mountains in the distance. Part of her almost expects the atmosphere to be yellow with fallout, permanently stained, but then the house wouldn't be standing; the visualization is incongruous. Yet the view is neither; instead, she's greeted with a view of the Gardens through the thin, filmy curtains. And that's probably the most unsettling.

She presses her lips together a moment before going back to the bed and sitting on the foot of it, turning her gaze back to Jackie. "How are you feeling?" she asks, sincere. She must be at least a little better, since she's eating.

[thesamename]

Jackie watches her warily, is trying to sort through how she feels about all of this, but can't quite draw it all into logical delineations, her overriding thoughts are mostly of exhaustion, dirtiness, and soreness. Still, she pushes herself up until she can rest her back against something, drawing her legs in further away from the other woman.

"I'm fine," she decides, looking down at her hands as she folds them across her stomach. They're scratched, red lines where thorns met skin, maybe from when she was pulling at the creature's leaves. "Never better."

She's not so good with vulnerability, and yet has so many points of pain and weakness that it's no wonder she seems angry and hurt to those smart enough to see past the things she says. The control freak inside of her is still reeling to get its footing, and even if saying 'I'm fine' serves the purpose of being unecessarily difficult--(Dominique had told her she was difficult a long time ago, as if Jackie didn't know exactly how she was behaving)--it's also something for her to assert. She makes poor associations with lying and being in control.

[aunomdedieu]

Jackie had asserted that she was fine before, even when she clearly wasn't, and Caprica had been able to ignore it, brush it off. But she looks at the other woman now, at the bandages on her wounds and the scratches all over her hands and arms, and it strikes her suddenly how not fine Jackie is. And that she keeps denying it, avoiding the truth despite all evidence to the contrary - Caprica is suddenly reminded of Gaius, on New Caprica, insisting he was all right despite the pills and the alcohol and the self-hatred. She doesn't even know why she thinks of it, really, except that Jackie's stubbornness brings back memories.

"You're not fine," she says before she can even think to stop herself - doesn't snap the words, doesn't sound angry, but her voice is a little tight, a little pained, and her body tenses up a bit to match. And then her mind catches up with her and her immediate first reaction is to apologize; her lips part, and she nearly says she's sorry, but stops herself at the last moment. Looks away and moves a hand to her forehead.

"... It's all right," she says eventually, though she may almost be talking more to herself, reassuring herself. She exhales a tense breath, slowly. When she looks up again, her gaze is carefully neutral - concerned, but calm. Like she's put a wall up.

"Can I get you anything else?" Her voice is steady as can be.

[thesamename]

There's not much to do other than to watch the way Caprica reacts. Jackie looks up when the woman refutes her, not exactly surprised, though maybe it tells her something about her. Something that would have been... clearer and easier to understand if Caprica had been angry. Jackie knows how to deal with bullies, even the well-meaning sort, but even if Caprica does not apologize explicitly, that is what her following concession is. Jackie hates apologies with a special passion, finds them useless, wastes of time, because they don't change anything about what's come before them and sincerity is so easily faked in the grip of even the most minute amount of guilt.

Jackie at least recognizes the careful recentering. She's watched Dominique maintain it time and time again over the past year. Her--(She can't actually apply the words lover or girlfriend to Dominique in her own mind, that implies entirely too much connection between them and it makes Jackie's skin itch)--'lover' has only really shown frustration to her once or twice though, when Jackie was being particularly petty, and offered anger only when Jackie let someone hurt her.

Caprica is not Dominique and she should get over it. Which seems easier said than done with how crippled she feels without Dominique here, and she resents it. She resents everyone involved and she has no trouble spreading that sentiment evenly: herself for not being in control of herself well enough to push past, Dominique for not leaving her when she was told, before it was too late and Jackie couldn't really live without her, and Caprica for being herself, for being kind, for not leaving Jackie alone when she was so clearly unfriendly--(even if she was incredibly lonely.)

"No," Jackie decides, the set of her mouth turning sullen.

[aunomdedieu]

If Caprica is angry, it has nothing to do with Jackie. She's been fighting not to get angry at all in this place - there was nothing for her to be angry about, other than impotent frustration at the fact that she's trapped, they're all trapped. In her own world she had things to be angry about, but not here. Yet now, it's as if all that frustration has built up to something else. The flowers are just the last straw. Endangering everyone else because some people chose not to accept the Queen's 'gift' - it's not only unfair, it's wrong. Caprica thinks she has enough of a moral compass to know that. (It's as wrong as destroying an entire race for the sins of their ancestors, after all.)

She swallows around the knot in her throat and just nods in answer, standing up and moving around to the side of the bed to reach over and check Jackie's bandages, mostly the one on the worst of the wounds; it's going to need to be changed fairly soon, but for now she thinks she can leave it in place.

"You know," she says quietly after a moment, "you can stay if you want to." She means even after Jackie's injuries have healed - and she is careful to make it sound like an offer, not a request. As much as she doesn't show it, Caprica is achingly lonely herself, and she thinks she can sense that in Jackie, too, despite all the coldness and pride and stubbornness - or possibly it's her own mind making things up. But if there is one thing she has always been good at - one thing the Sixes in general are very good at - it is reading people.

[thesamename]

Jackie is halfway to batting the woman's hands away when she hears what it is that Caprica says and is distracted from the endeavor.

"Why would I do that?"

It isn't an entirely unappealing thing to be offered. The house is infinitely more comfortable to stay in than the library, or down at the Necessities where she had little choice about crossing paths with the other women in the Garden. Being here would involve spending time with Caprica instead, however. Trying to decide whether the pain that involves or the relief it brings is greater is not clear cut, and Jackie doesn't have an answer.

She is not quick to admit how much she misses home. No, not home, just Dominique. She has absolutely no attachment to the rest of it, but she will always be too proud to say it and she does not particularly like to be read.

[aunomdedieu]

Why would she, indeed? It's not as if she and Caprica are close. Indeed, Jackie has been trying as best she can to keep her distance - Caprica is well aware of that and she doesn't think Jackie has made any effort to disguise the fact. It's times like this, still, that Caprica wishes not-Gaius was here to show her what to do next, guide her through this. But she cannot rely on him forever, and either way, she knows what she's doing. She draws in a breath and smiles, very slightly. It's not insincere. In fact, it's more sincere than she herself even realizes.

"Because no one should be alone."

The funny thing is, she isn't even sure if she's talking about Jackie or about herself.

She moves to lean against the doorframe nearby, moving one hand to brush the side of her neck in almost a nervous gesture, looks away and down for a couple seconds. Then looks back up again.

"You don't... have to say yes." Though her tone almost, almost implies she wishes Jackie would say yes.