FIC: [Haven] Climbing Mount Haven (PG13) gen
I wrote about 3 fics for halfamoon on Tumblr. This is the only one I've brushed up for AO3 and FFN, but I'll post the others here too in the next day or so.
TITLE: Climbing Mount Haven
AUTHOR: roseveare
RATING: PG13
LENGTH: ~5,000 words
SUMMARY: Lexie, Jennifer and Jordan embark on a journey to the police station which Haven's geography conspires to make far more epic than usual.
NOTES: AU divergence set after Countdown. Written for the halfamoon female characters challenge, day #6 - hurt/comfort. I was quite taken by the idea of trying to write a story with hurt/comfort tones using an all-female cast.
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Climbing Mount Haven
"So I, I, I do not like this town. I don't know why I decided to stay in this town -- or I do, because Duke, and have you seen the ass on that man? But this. This town sucks." Rant number three of the morning: Jennifer was counting, and apparently her tongue was running away from her big-style, because Lexie, at this point, was just standing grinning. "Anyway, you're taking this very well for someone who's only been in this town for about half the time I have."
Lexie's face went abruptly very sober, and Jen wasn't entirely sure she could decode that expression. "Nah, I got this. Mountain spontaneously appearing where the town was? Believe me, I've dealt with worse. Grab-ass customers are a scourge upon the Earth."
"Um," Jennifer said. "Sure." She shaded her eyes to look up toward the summit of Mount Haven, the mountain itself darkened against the sun. "How high is this thing, you reckon? I think that looks high. Maybe not Everest-high, but that is a substantial mountain up there."
"Yeah." Lexie squared her jaw. "We need better shoes. Luckily, Audrey Parker mainlined really sensible footwear." She kicked the line of shoes in the open closet.
They had been clearing the last of Jen's stuff out of Audrey's old apartment. Lexie was in a foul mood with Nathan and had stated that she would rather take girl-time than sit flicking paper planes from Audrey's desk in the police station in the same room as 'that grump' all day. Even though Lexie was a little rambunctious and not the sort of person Jen might usually have chosen to hang with, they'd had a pleasant enough hour until the mountain happened.
"Um. You want to climb it?" Jen was not sure of the wisdom of that plan. In contrast to the 'admire it and wait for it to go away' plan, it had distinct drawbacks. She greatly preferred her plan.
"Not all the way," Lexie said. "Someone needs to find the Troubled person and deal with it. We need intel. At the very least, we need to get to Nathan and the police station. All the houses look to still be up there."
"We need mountain ponies," Jen said. "Donkeys. Whatever people use to get around in those countries that are up in the Himalayas and ninety percent vertical."
"Yeah. Pity we don't have those in Haven." Her face screwed up. "I sure hope this resets itself, or the damage to infrastructure is going to be enormous." Which seemed a particularly un-Lexie thing to say.
Jen frowned and toed the offered change of shoes. "My feet are smaller."
Lexie threw two pairs of socks at her, one of them a huge thick woolly pink pair. "Just wear all these."
Jen sighed.
Down at the Gull, the same people who'd been milling around staring when the mountain first appeared were still milling around. Lexie asked, "Did anyone manage to get through to anyone in town on their phone?" to a lot of headshakes. "No reason to worry. Probably knocked out all the masts and lines." She waved it off.
"You ladies are going up there?" a guy asked. "Alone?"
"Not alone." Lexie pointed between Jennifer and herself. Pointedly.
"Well, whatever. I know you're like a cop and all, but..." The guy stared dubiously at the terrain that began a few hundred yards inshore.
"Dude, you can come if you want, but given we solve these things day in day out and that makes you the designated redshirt, do you really want?" Lexie smirked at his reaction. "Check. So stay here and look after the hysterical tourists and keep folks from panicking. The Gull has food and drink enough that you could basically survive here for weeks on zero effort, so I guess, have fun with that? I would."
"Lexie," Jen hissed as they headed away, craning back over her shoulder. "Did you just set those people loose on Duke's stocks?"
"He's a civic minded guy." Lexie waved the objection off. "Besides, this won't last weeks. We're gonna deal with it today."
They started off up the mountain. It was a tough trudge that had Jennifer gasping within fifteen minutes and wishing she'd brought more water. But it wasn't like they were isolated, and it was easy -- for someone with Lexie's cheek -- to cadge a refill of water or juice from the scared or annoyed (and it was almost funny how it was so much more the latter, in Haven, in such a scary situation) people who were stranded in the askew houses clinging to the mountainside.
Jen couldn't remember the last time she'd walked miles, and she was soon bemoaning her aching feet in the ill-fitting boots, because three pairs of even very fluffy, very pink socks could only solve so much.
The regular ways and routes of Haven were all muddled, paths made impassable, roads smushed, so they had to pick new routes and tread seldom-trod ground in order to find a way up. After about an hour, they had at least managed to spot the police station, bigger than the other jumbled buildings from Main Street, all odd angles on the slopes depressingly far above. Knowing where they were heading for was an improvement, but Jen was starting to feel like they were making no progress at all and the walk was endless.
"It's like we're on a quest," she suggested aloud to Lexie. "Like Lord of the Rings or something... trudging through some bizarre fantasy landscape." Trying to bolster both their spirits, trying to make it feel exciting.
"I refuse to be a hobbit," Lexie declared.
"You could be an elf," Jen said, but then again, that meant Orlando Bloom, and huh. Maybe not. "Or, or, whatsit. Aragorn. He's the hero, kind of, isn't he?"
Lexie laughed, and said with a generous streak of sarcasm, "Mr stoic and serious... right. I also refuse to be Nathan."
They were walking through a patch of what must have been waste land. All its tangles of undergrowth had been stretched out and flattened. There was the hull of an abandoned car, stranded without hope of moving on the sheer slope, though its wheels seemed to have gone long before. Then there was a little wooden hut... a tiny cabin... that seemed like it had been hidden in the foliage, but was revealed now by the sixty degree shift in alignment of the ground.
It wasn't particularly alarming to hear the crack of feet treading through undergrowth, and the mellow but shaky sound of another person's voice, because they were still in Haven, which was still a town, and people had been a constant on their journey. But something about this voice alarmed Jen instantly, not the least because it was familiar.
"I don't believe it. You."
Jen turned, and Lexie grabbed her wrist out of some protective impulse. "Y-you!"
Jordan McKee was standing there, face seeming paler and black leather seeming darker. Holding a gun on them, of course, because so far as Jen could tell, that was what Jordan did, and gee, God forbid she break the habit now, right?
She stopped and discovered she'd babbled most of that chain of thought aloud. Jordan looked nonplussed and put the gun away.
Lexie said. "Nice. Thanks. Feels more friendly now." She waggled her fingers. Lexie was very sarcastic. Jen pursed her lips. She hadn't said the other things aloud on purpose. She was a little intimidated by Jordan. "I thought you left town. But I can see you've just been hiding out here." She grimaced around the abandoned-looking cabin. "Let me guess. Just planning on coming back and going after Nathan again once you've lulled him into a false sense of... not having a crazy stalker bitch on his ass?"
"No," Jordan said, stepping nearer to them slowly, and notably under-reacting to the insult. "I'm not going after Nathan any more... Audrey."
"Audrey?" Jen blinked.
"I did mean to leave town. This is a Guard safe house. I was just using it for the time being." Jordan's voice shook. She gestured around. "What the fuck happened this time?"
"We don't know. We were heading to find out." Lexie's eyes darted between Jen and Jordan and her tongue nervously flicked across her lip. "Also, it's Lexie. Remember?"
Jordan rolled her eyes. "Sure. 'Lexie'. Whatever."
"You, uh, want to come with?" Jen could tell that Lexie asked only reluctantly, but apparently she thought Jordan could be of use in a manner the guy from the Gull was not. "Your Guard contacts, maybe they could help us narrow down whose Trouble this might be."
Jordan looked nervous and very, very hesitant, and not much like the violent and scary person that Jen knew her to be, but she nodded slowly. "All right." Her eyes traced the distance up the mountain and grew all the more apprehensive, but she wiped her gloved hands on her pants and stepped forward.
"You'd do better in decent shoes," Lexie observed.
"Well, all I have are these," Jordan retorted, and thus kept her big leather boots with the enormous spike heels. Jen huffed a bit in outrage for her abandoned pumps.
Having Jordan tagging along with them was just weird, although it should not be possible, really, to add all that much to the situation's weirdness, when they were already tracking up through the rugged terrain caused by the destruction of Haven's roads and pathways, like some post-apocalyptic movie. As they climbed, higher and further into the town itself, they encountered more and more people, and thus more and more people who were actively in need of help. It was hard not to get distracted by that, although most of the people had neighbours, and Lexie and Jordan both seemed good at co-opting other people into doing the actual help part. Crisis management, Jen thought wryly, though she watched Jordan with new eyes, and Lexie with... new eyes of suspicion.
A while longer and she was watching Jordan with suspicion, too. The taller woman seemed to be struggling with increasing effort to keep going at all, which didn't make sense because they had been climbing for longer than she had.
"Are you all right?" Jen asked nervously, eventually, eyes following the way Jordan's gloved hand hovered over one side of her abdomen.
"...No," Jordan grit, reluctantly.
Lexie had backtracked and was alongside them in an instant. "What's the matter?" Her eyes, too, zeroed in on the way Jordan held herself. "You're hurt." Her hands went to Jordan's hand and midriff, and Jordan automatically flinched and used the back of gloved fingers to knock them away.
"No! Stay away!"
"Let me see," Lexie coaxed. "You've been limping, too, though I thought that was those terrible boots on this rough walking surface."
"They are," Jordan hissed with venom, "awesome boots."
"Well, yeah, but no," Lexie said.
"The leg is nothing," Jordan said, but she slowly peeled her top aside and pushed down the waistband of her pants, just an inch or so. Jen could see the button had deliberately been left undone. The action revealed a bloody square of gauze taped into place.
Jen couldn't stop herself bursting out, "You idiot! You shouldn't have been doing all this moving around!"
"Yeah?" Jordan just looked sick and determined. "Well, I'll take my chances. One, someone needs to deal with this latest shit, and two... I'm safer with you than I have been in days. As far as I know, Wade Crocker's still out there, trying to kill me. And fuck knows what the Guard will do to me if they find me, after what I did to Vince."
"What did you do to Vince?" Lexie asked, sharply.
"Nothing, he's fine. He'll be fine," Jordan said quickly. She waggled her fingers in a meaningful gesture. "It took three days to have any permanent effects, remember?"
Lexie looked sick.
"Wait," Jen said, and her head was tumbling with things, but this was-- "You know what she means, what that means? I don't know what that means, and I've known her -- been in Haven -- for days longer than you--"
"She's Audrey," Jordan said, caustically, and glared at Lexie. "Seriously, your friends? I already got that you didn't bother to tell Nathan, but she's not going to try and make you sacrifice her for a town."
"I was... building up to it," Lexie... Audrey said, looking at Jen apologetically. "I was going to do it today. Because Duke and Nathan both know now. Sorry." She pulled a face. "Now, Jordan, what the hell happened with Wade Crocker? He knifed the man in that store, but he was supposed to be your friend, wasn't he?"
"So I thought," she grit.
Audrey sighed and rubbed her head.
"He's dangerous." Jordan's voice was very grim. "I was leaving, like I told you. I was... saying goodbye. He didn't kill the guy in the store, he-- I thought he was just experimenting, he was just that desperate to know, and he regretted that act, too, now he'd got it out of his system. But then he -- he--" She gulped and held her gloved hand over her mouth, for a moment unable to speak, before she took it away to hiss, "I thought he was going to kill me. I -- I smacked him in the face with my wrist and got the door of the car open and I was out of there--" Her jacket sleeves were short, ending above the start of her gloves, leaving a strip of skin exposed. "He chased me." She gulped again, heaving breath. "I lost him. I didn't even feel any of this until later, once I'd holed up in that place. It's only lucky the Guard keep all their hideouts well stocked, and I could clean up the wound and treat it."
"It must have been horrible." Jen tried to put a hand on her shoulder -- through her jacket, surely it couldn't hurt -- but Jordan squirmed away, too used to avoiding contact.
"So we need to solve the problem of Wade, now, as well," Audrey said. "Thanks a lot for landing that one on us, Jordan."
"Fuck off. I wanted him to kill you, not indiscriminately go after Troubled people! I thought it might stop all the Troubles. I still think it might." Jordan's face flinched and she shook her head. "I don't want him to do it. I've given up the idea. You, Nathan... There's been too much talk of murder. I'm not a monster."
Audrey was looking startled.
"I believe you," Jen said, although she was still kind of holding it against Audrey for not being Lexie, and maybe had only warmed to Jordan on that score, because Jordan still wasn't great. But she was hurt, and Jen could spare some sympathy for that.
"I don't think you're a monster," Audrey said. "But you did kind of make the Wade problem all by yourself and, you know, not thrilled about the whole murder-plan. Either mine or Nathan's." A dazed distance in her eyes made Jen think that she was wondering, though, if her death at a Crocker's hand would work. But that was the kind of plan with no room for second chances.
"That's even worse than the Nathan plan for the Troubles!" she said quickly. "If it failed..." Jen swallowed. "I mean, there'd literally be no other options, if it didn't work, would there?"
Jordan gave a sharp nod. "And I'm going to fix the Wade problem... When I'm feeling better," she added ruefully. She peeled her top back down and covered the bandage. The wound was clean and covered and not bleeding excessively, and apparently that was good enough for Audrey to let it go.
"We need to get you to the police station, under protection," Audrey said. "Then we can figure out what the situation is with Vince, and then we will all deal with Wade. Damn it, I wish I could contact Duke!" She fisted her hand in frustration.
"He -- he won't be in danger, will he?" Jen asked, alarmed. "Wade's his brother."
"Crockers, both." Jordan scowled.
"Duke has only ever tried to help," Audrey snapped.
"Really, Duke is a good person," Jen urged. "Wade is... Wade has some problems."
"No shit," Jordan said sourly.
"Well... it sounds like he has more problems now," Jen admitted.
"He needs to be put down before he tries to kill someone else and maybe succeeds this time," Jordan said.
"'Put down'?" Audrey raised her eyebrows and adopted a 'well, see...' sort of sarcastic expression. "Not so much with the non-murdering approach to solving your problems."
"Oh, can it," Jordan seethed, and returned her hand pointedly to cradling her abdomen where the wound lay underneath her clothing.
"Hey. I'm not talking him down from his blood-craze only for you to kill my friend's brother, or for you to go to town on him with your Pain Touch of Doom and set him off again!" Audrey retorted. "You want to join the team, you do it by our rules."
Jordan sneered but held up both her gloved hands in a surrender-ish gesture.
"I think we need to get Haven off this fricking mountain first?" Jen offered, starting to feel like she was in the middle of an old argument and to feel a little bit pissy about that. "Please?"
"Yes. Good. Okay," Audrey allowed, and eyed Jordan. "Truce?"
"Considering I'm barely on my feet, sure. Truce," Jordan replied.
It wasn't too inaccurate an assessment. Jordan gamely managed another half hour before falling to her knees on what had once been a school's sports pitch. Jen joined in out of, obviously, pure solidarity, and sagged at the angled side-lines of the field. "I have never wanted to be a mountain goat so much," she sighed. Goats were cute and snappy and a bit like hobbits, and she could cope with that, right now. Idle wishing was probably asking for it in Haven. She waited for a moment and when it didn't happen was actually a little bit disappointed.
"What?" Jordan asked listlessly at her little grunting noise.
"Just... kind of waiting to be Troubled into a mountain goat." Jennifer attempted to muster some cheer.
"...I'd take that, right now," the other woman agreed.
Audrey ventured back for them. Audrey was apparently magical and tireless, and Jen hated her a little bit for that right then. Okay, that wasn't exactly fair, because Audrey was tired, she was just more used to this Troubled crap. She was still human, even if she'd come out of a mystical Barn.
"Sorry, sorry...." Jen mumbled, getting up.
"I'm... not apologising for the hole in my gut," Jordan said, "but I'm not sure if I can get back to my feet, or walk any further if I did manage that."
"--Oh," Jen breathed, who hadn't realised it was so bad. "We can carry you, if we have to." She looked at Audrey.
"--To the nearest friendly house, to wait until we get this mountain back down to a molehill," Audrey agreed.
"No." Jordan at first tried to fight off Jen's hands then went dead still after she gained a hold on Jordan's shoulders in spite of the resistance. But there was a thick leather jacket between them and no danger. "I might as well stay here as that! You don't know who has Guard connections. I don't know them all."
"Vince isn't going to hurt you," Audrey said, rather more heatedly. "Just because that's what you'd do. He wanted to let Nathan live, remember? Vince will be okay. The Guard will not be after you."
"When they find out about Wade, they might." Jordan's voice shook.
--Because the name Crocker was a huge red flag of danger to the Guard, and Jordan had activated Wade, a killer. And Jen realised that now she was anticipating that everyone else should react as she would to such a thing.
"Chances are they don't even know the full story yet," Audrey said. "Don't be paranoid. You were coming to the police station already. So you'd rather face Nathan?"
Jordan flinched, but gritted, "I'm still coming to the police station." She... seemed to accept Jen's help, leaning into her support to try and get to her feet. Jen tried to hold her balance and be as steady a prop as she could.
Audrey rolled her eyes. "All right." She stomped to join them. Still in Lexie-wear, she wasn't wearing a huge amount, but she ignored Jordan's gasp and attempt to warn her. "Immune, remember?" Audrey had nothing at all to worry about. "Come on, we need to move."
Jordan was clearly a very determined person even if she wasn't a particularly nice person, and if they managed to keep her upright between them, then she proved that she could keep moving. At times, they still had to let go to take steeper sections on their hands and knees, but they kept Jordan between them, Audrey behind, Jen in front, continuing to help her climb when she needed it.
They were almost tantalizingly within reach of the police station, and supporting Jordan's steps at either side of her again, when Jen stumbled over a ridge of broken concrete underfoot. She fell, taking Jordan down with her, and almost Audrey as well. Audrey set her feet and hauled back, but didn't quite have the leverage to keep them all up, and in the end she only managed to salvage her own balance.
As they fell, Jordan's uncovered face brushed against Jen's hand.
The world dissolved into a mist of pain -- and it was gone, gone just as suddenly as it had flared into being, but the memory of it was enough to keep her screaming as she pressed her hands over her face and rolled on the ground.
Gradually, she became aware both that she'd stopped and that Lex--Audrey was pulling at her, talking soothingly, or attempting to, breathless and half-panicked as she was. Someone else was sobbing, dry and painful sobs, and mumbling "sorry" over and over again.
"It's not..." Jen gulped, looked around at both of them. Jordan on hands and knees, wrung out by sorrow as well as pain and exhaustion now, Audrey leaned over in silhouette against the sun. "It wasn't your fault. It was an accident. I'm the one that fell."
She deliberately reached out with her bare hand. She had to scramble on her knees a way, as Jordan must have backed off when the accidental touch happened, but she determinedly, if also timidly and quickly, patted her hand on Jordan's leather-covered shoulder in an offer of comfort. Jordan's head was down, so she didn't make moves to stop the gesture, and she was so shocked by the venture to touch that she stopped her sobs and shaking with a little hiccup.
"It's all right," Jen said in a small voice. "It doesn't hurt anymore. It was only a teeny, tiny second." She gulped and squared her shoulders. "It wasn't even that bad." It had been that bad, worse than a hundred dentist's drills, worse than breaking her collarbone falling off her best friend's motorbike when she was seventeen, and probably Jordan knew she was lying, but she determinedly lied anyway. Because this was a person, and not a weapon, and Jordan hadn't meant to hurt her.
"Can you move again?" Audrey asked -- both of them, Jen rather thought. "We're almost there. I can hold you up on my own the rest of the way, Jordan."
Jordan nodded slowly, her eyes pulling away from Jen, and she caught hold of Audrey's offered hand.
"No, I-- I can help, too." Jen sidled over and stomped down on the intense swell of do-not-want that churned in her at the risk of getting near the threat of that level of pain again. "It won't happen again. I'll be more careful."
She thought Jordan might flinch away and refuse anyway. But Jordan seemed far too dazed.
***
Nathan and Dwight were inside the police station. When they saw the state of Jordan, Nathan sparked with something like concern but infused with a lot of tension, and Dwight's concern was a good deal less ambivalent. But Jordan said, "Don't touch me," and Audrey said, "Later," and they quickly moved things on to the business of the Trouble. Having just spent four hours climbing Mount Haven, and at this very moment trying to navigate a police station with its floor at a thirty degree angle, Jen and apparently also Jordan could both get behind that.
"We've got the Troubled person," Nathan said. "His name's Angus March, and his dying wife wanted to visit the mountains, but we're still trying to talk him out of bringing the mountains to her, so..." He looked gratefully at Audrey.
"I'll give it a shot," she said.
Apparently they'd forgotten whatever their spat of this morning had been. With the promise of work to do and Troubles to solve, they disappeared off together in step.
Jen shook her head, faintly amazed. That was not going to fool anyone for very long.
"You two look like you need some bolstering," Dwight said, and gestured for one of his officers to produce a solution, which materialised in the predictable form of coffee and donuts.
"She needs a doctor." Jen frowned unhappily as Jordan snatched the offered sugared treats. She wondered what there'd been in the way of food at the Guard safe house.
"That, too," Dwight said, grimly. "Hold that thought." Carefully shutting the door behind him to close them into his office, he left them alone. They sat either side of the Chief's desk. Jordan sat with Dwight's big chair cradling her thin frame and a sign that said Chief in front of her, which might have been an amusing visual, in other circumstances.
"You're going to be okay," Jen said, nervously -- honestly trying to persuade herself of it, because Jordan was kind of an enemy, but Jen believed in the people she had come to know in Haven-- "These people, they're good people. They'll help you."
"I know," Jordan said slowly, reluctantly.
Ah, Jen thought. Because that suggested Jordan had known that, deep down, all along. She'd been determined that the police station was the place to come to ensure her safety. Determined to head straight to Nathan, travelling with Audrey, even when she'd been so hot to see them dead, before. "Ah," said Jen. "Oh. Um, I guess I understand that there's the whole awkward ex thing with Audrey and Nathan--" Jordan was glaring at her, so she sped up. "But there's the Dwight thing, which has got to be better, right? And then you know they wouldn't hurt you and I'm sure if you were willing to help, then they'd let you help, like me, like Duke, the same way you help with what the Guard do. I mean of course that's if the whole Vince issue--"
"Stop talking," Jordan said. "But..." Her voice gained less harshness and a touch more warmth as she sighed. "Thanks."
Dwight chose that moment to re-appear, bringing the new old woman M.E. with him. Jordan and Jen exchanged glances and Jen shuffled back to let Gloria in.
"You can't touch her skin, remember," Dwight said sharply, as Gloria put bandages and supplies down on the table.
"I've dealt with the Troubled ones before, kid," Gloria huffed dismissively, and said to Jordan, "C'mon, Vampirella, I got gloves but you can do the bulk of the work if that leaves you more comfortable. Can talk you through it if you got ears. Now, how 'bout you show me where the problem is?"
Jordan blinked at her, then wordlessly held up her top and peeled back the gauze underneath it. Gloria sucked in air through her teeth in a shrill nails-down-a-blackboard sound. "Whoa, now. Tell me you won't be planning to climb any more mountains with this hole in your middle before I go to the effort, because I don't appreciate wasting my time... If you get my drift."
"Deal," Jordan said wearily.
A bump shook the room and realigned the floor, suddenly enough to almost tip them off their feet and out of their chairs. Gloria grabbed Jordan's shoulder, who responded by flinching hard and averting every bit of exposed skin away from the older woman.
Jennifer, already on her feet, was beside Dwight at the window in a shot.
The sheer slope outside had gone, and the familiar main street of Haven replacing it was in the final stages of knitting itself back together as she watched, broken pieces falling into place like a jigsaw.
"It looks like, um, like Lexie did the trick," Jen said, and hummed happily, despite the swift presence of mind she'd had to summon mid-way through the simple statement. She stopped humming as she realised that everyone in the room was giving her the same funny, arch look. Then they realised too, and they all turned away fast.
"...Yeah," Gloria said slowly. "Little Miss Do-It. Every bit as good as Audrey was. You'd never guess she hadn't had the same practice."
"That Lexie," Dwight said, with a forced-casual fake laugh. "She's... got an aptitude."
Jordan snorted, angled her head sarcastically, and chewed on the fingertip of a glove as her narrowed eyes slid over both of them.
Jennifer looked away and focused on projecting innocence so very, very hard.
END
TITLE: Climbing Mount Haven
AUTHOR: roseveare
RATING: PG13
LENGTH: ~5,000 words
SUMMARY: Lexie, Jennifer and Jordan embark on a journey to the police station which Haven's geography conspires to make far more epic than usual.
NOTES: AU divergence set after Countdown. Written for the halfamoon female characters challenge, day #6 - hurt/comfort. I was quite taken by the idea of trying to write a story with hurt/comfort tones using an all-female cast.
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Climbing Mount Haven
"So I, I, I do not like this town. I don't know why I decided to stay in this town -- or I do, because Duke, and have you seen the ass on that man? But this. This town sucks." Rant number three of the morning: Jennifer was counting, and apparently her tongue was running away from her big-style, because Lexie, at this point, was just standing grinning. "Anyway, you're taking this very well for someone who's only been in this town for about half the time I have."
Lexie's face went abruptly very sober, and Jen wasn't entirely sure she could decode that expression. "Nah, I got this. Mountain spontaneously appearing where the town was? Believe me, I've dealt with worse. Grab-ass customers are a scourge upon the Earth."
"Um," Jennifer said. "Sure." She shaded her eyes to look up toward the summit of Mount Haven, the mountain itself darkened against the sun. "How high is this thing, you reckon? I think that looks high. Maybe not Everest-high, but that is a substantial mountain up there."
"Yeah." Lexie squared her jaw. "We need better shoes. Luckily, Audrey Parker mainlined really sensible footwear." She kicked the line of shoes in the open closet.
They had been clearing the last of Jen's stuff out of Audrey's old apartment. Lexie was in a foul mood with Nathan and had stated that she would rather take girl-time than sit flicking paper planes from Audrey's desk in the police station in the same room as 'that grump' all day. Even though Lexie was a little rambunctious and not the sort of person Jen might usually have chosen to hang with, they'd had a pleasant enough hour until the mountain happened.
"Um. You want to climb it?" Jen was not sure of the wisdom of that plan. In contrast to the 'admire it and wait for it to go away' plan, it had distinct drawbacks. She greatly preferred her plan.
"Not all the way," Lexie said. "Someone needs to find the Troubled person and deal with it. We need intel. At the very least, we need to get to Nathan and the police station. All the houses look to still be up there."
"We need mountain ponies," Jen said. "Donkeys. Whatever people use to get around in those countries that are up in the Himalayas and ninety percent vertical."
"Yeah. Pity we don't have those in Haven." Her face screwed up. "I sure hope this resets itself, or the damage to infrastructure is going to be enormous." Which seemed a particularly un-Lexie thing to say.
Jen frowned and toed the offered change of shoes. "My feet are smaller."
Lexie threw two pairs of socks at her, one of them a huge thick woolly pink pair. "Just wear all these."
Jen sighed.
Down at the Gull, the same people who'd been milling around staring when the mountain first appeared were still milling around. Lexie asked, "Did anyone manage to get through to anyone in town on their phone?" to a lot of headshakes. "No reason to worry. Probably knocked out all the masts and lines." She waved it off.
"You ladies are going up there?" a guy asked. "Alone?"
"Not alone." Lexie pointed between Jennifer and herself. Pointedly.
"Well, whatever. I know you're like a cop and all, but..." The guy stared dubiously at the terrain that began a few hundred yards inshore.
"Dude, you can come if you want, but given we solve these things day in day out and that makes you the designated redshirt, do you really want?" Lexie smirked at his reaction. "Check. So stay here and look after the hysterical tourists and keep folks from panicking. The Gull has food and drink enough that you could basically survive here for weeks on zero effort, so I guess, have fun with that? I would."
"Lexie," Jen hissed as they headed away, craning back over her shoulder. "Did you just set those people loose on Duke's stocks?"
"He's a civic minded guy." Lexie waved the objection off. "Besides, this won't last weeks. We're gonna deal with it today."
They started off up the mountain. It was a tough trudge that had Jennifer gasping within fifteen minutes and wishing she'd brought more water. But it wasn't like they were isolated, and it was easy -- for someone with Lexie's cheek -- to cadge a refill of water or juice from the scared or annoyed (and it was almost funny how it was so much more the latter, in Haven, in such a scary situation) people who were stranded in the askew houses clinging to the mountainside.
Jen couldn't remember the last time she'd walked miles, and she was soon bemoaning her aching feet in the ill-fitting boots, because three pairs of even very fluffy, very pink socks could only solve so much.
The regular ways and routes of Haven were all muddled, paths made impassable, roads smushed, so they had to pick new routes and tread seldom-trod ground in order to find a way up. After about an hour, they had at least managed to spot the police station, bigger than the other jumbled buildings from Main Street, all odd angles on the slopes depressingly far above. Knowing where they were heading for was an improvement, but Jen was starting to feel like they were making no progress at all and the walk was endless.
"It's like we're on a quest," she suggested aloud to Lexie. "Like Lord of the Rings or something... trudging through some bizarre fantasy landscape." Trying to bolster both their spirits, trying to make it feel exciting.
"I refuse to be a hobbit," Lexie declared.
"You could be an elf," Jen said, but then again, that meant Orlando Bloom, and huh. Maybe not. "Or, or, whatsit. Aragorn. He's the hero, kind of, isn't he?"
Lexie laughed, and said with a generous streak of sarcasm, "Mr stoic and serious... right. I also refuse to be Nathan."
They were walking through a patch of what must have been waste land. All its tangles of undergrowth had been stretched out and flattened. There was the hull of an abandoned car, stranded without hope of moving on the sheer slope, though its wheels seemed to have gone long before. Then there was a little wooden hut... a tiny cabin... that seemed like it had been hidden in the foliage, but was revealed now by the sixty degree shift in alignment of the ground.
It wasn't particularly alarming to hear the crack of feet treading through undergrowth, and the mellow but shaky sound of another person's voice, because they were still in Haven, which was still a town, and people had been a constant on their journey. But something about this voice alarmed Jen instantly, not the least because it was familiar.
"I don't believe it. You."
Jen turned, and Lexie grabbed her wrist out of some protective impulse. "Y-you!"
Jordan McKee was standing there, face seeming paler and black leather seeming darker. Holding a gun on them, of course, because so far as Jen could tell, that was what Jordan did, and gee, God forbid she break the habit now, right?
She stopped and discovered she'd babbled most of that chain of thought aloud. Jordan looked nonplussed and put the gun away.
Lexie said. "Nice. Thanks. Feels more friendly now." She waggled her fingers. Lexie was very sarcastic. Jen pursed her lips. She hadn't said the other things aloud on purpose. She was a little intimidated by Jordan. "I thought you left town. But I can see you've just been hiding out here." She grimaced around the abandoned-looking cabin. "Let me guess. Just planning on coming back and going after Nathan again once you've lulled him into a false sense of... not having a crazy stalker bitch on his ass?"
"No," Jordan said, stepping nearer to them slowly, and notably under-reacting to the insult. "I'm not going after Nathan any more... Audrey."
"Audrey?" Jen blinked.
"I did mean to leave town. This is a Guard safe house. I was just using it for the time being." Jordan's voice shook. She gestured around. "What the fuck happened this time?"
"We don't know. We were heading to find out." Lexie's eyes darted between Jen and Jordan and her tongue nervously flicked across her lip. "Also, it's Lexie. Remember?"
Jordan rolled her eyes. "Sure. 'Lexie'. Whatever."
"You, uh, want to come with?" Jen could tell that Lexie asked only reluctantly, but apparently she thought Jordan could be of use in a manner the guy from the Gull was not. "Your Guard contacts, maybe they could help us narrow down whose Trouble this might be."
Jordan looked nervous and very, very hesitant, and not much like the violent and scary person that Jen knew her to be, but she nodded slowly. "All right." Her eyes traced the distance up the mountain and grew all the more apprehensive, but she wiped her gloved hands on her pants and stepped forward.
"You'd do better in decent shoes," Lexie observed.
"Well, all I have are these," Jordan retorted, and thus kept her big leather boots with the enormous spike heels. Jen huffed a bit in outrage for her abandoned pumps.
Having Jordan tagging along with them was just weird, although it should not be possible, really, to add all that much to the situation's weirdness, when they were already tracking up through the rugged terrain caused by the destruction of Haven's roads and pathways, like some post-apocalyptic movie. As they climbed, higher and further into the town itself, they encountered more and more people, and thus more and more people who were actively in need of help. It was hard not to get distracted by that, although most of the people had neighbours, and Lexie and Jordan both seemed good at co-opting other people into doing the actual help part. Crisis management, Jen thought wryly, though she watched Jordan with new eyes, and Lexie with... new eyes of suspicion.
A while longer and she was watching Jordan with suspicion, too. The taller woman seemed to be struggling with increasing effort to keep going at all, which didn't make sense because they had been climbing for longer than she had.
"Are you all right?" Jen asked nervously, eventually, eyes following the way Jordan's gloved hand hovered over one side of her abdomen.
"...No," Jordan grit, reluctantly.
Lexie had backtracked and was alongside them in an instant. "What's the matter?" Her eyes, too, zeroed in on the way Jordan held herself. "You're hurt." Her hands went to Jordan's hand and midriff, and Jordan automatically flinched and used the back of gloved fingers to knock them away.
"No! Stay away!"
"Let me see," Lexie coaxed. "You've been limping, too, though I thought that was those terrible boots on this rough walking surface."
"They are," Jordan hissed with venom, "awesome boots."
"Well, yeah, but no," Lexie said.
"The leg is nothing," Jordan said, but she slowly peeled her top aside and pushed down the waistband of her pants, just an inch or so. Jen could see the button had deliberately been left undone. The action revealed a bloody square of gauze taped into place.
Jen couldn't stop herself bursting out, "You idiot! You shouldn't have been doing all this moving around!"
"Yeah?" Jordan just looked sick and determined. "Well, I'll take my chances. One, someone needs to deal with this latest shit, and two... I'm safer with you than I have been in days. As far as I know, Wade Crocker's still out there, trying to kill me. And fuck knows what the Guard will do to me if they find me, after what I did to Vince."
"What did you do to Vince?" Lexie asked, sharply.
"Nothing, he's fine. He'll be fine," Jordan said quickly. She waggled her fingers in a meaningful gesture. "It took three days to have any permanent effects, remember?"
Lexie looked sick.
"Wait," Jen said, and her head was tumbling with things, but this was-- "You know what she means, what that means? I don't know what that means, and I've known her -- been in Haven -- for days longer than you--"
"She's Audrey," Jordan said, caustically, and glared at Lexie. "Seriously, your friends? I already got that you didn't bother to tell Nathan, but she's not going to try and make you sacrifice her for a town."
"I was... building up to it," Lexie... Audrey said, looking at Jen apologetically. "I was going to do it today. Because Duke and Nathan both know now. Sorry." She pulled a face. "Now, Jordan, what the hell happened with Wade Crocker? He knifed the man in that store, but he was supposed to be your friend, wasn't he?"
"So I thought," she grit.
Audrey sighed and rubbed her head.
"He's dangerous." Jordan's voice was very grim. "I was leaving, like I told you. I was... saying goodbye. He didn't kill the guy in the store, he-- I thought he was just experimenting, he was just that desperate to know, and he regretted that act, too, now he'd got it out of his system. But then he -- he--" She gulped and held her gloved hand over her mouth, for a moment unable to speak, before she took it away to hiss, "I thought he was going to kill me. I -- I smacked him in the face with my wrist and got the door of the car open and I was out of there--" Her jacket sleeves were short, ending above the start of her gloves, leaving a strip of skin exposed. "He chased me." She gulped again, heaving breath. "I lost him. I didn't even feel any of this until later, once I'd holed up in that place. It's only lucky the Guard keep all their hideouts well stocked, and I could clean up the wound and treat it."
"It must have been horrible." Jen tried to put a hand on her shoulder -- through her jacket, surely it couldn't hurt -- but Jordan squirmed away, too used to avoiding contact.
"So we need to solve the problem of Wade, now, as well," Audrey said. "Thanks a lot for landing that one on us, Jordan."
"Fuck off. I wanted him to kill you, not indiscriminately go after Troubled people! I thought it might stop all the Troubles. I still think it might." Jordan's face flinched and she shook her head. "I don't want him to do it. I've given up the idea. You, Nathan... There's been too much talk of murder. I'm not a monster."
Audrey was looking startled.
"I believe you," Jen said, although she was still kind of holding it against Audrey for not being Lexie, and maybe had only warmed to Jordan on that score, because Jordan still wasn't great. But she was hurt, and Jen could spare some sympathy for that.
"I don't think you're a monster," Audrey said. "But you did kind of make the Wade problem all by yourself and, you know, not thrilled about the whole murder-plan. Either mine or Nathan's." A dazed distance in her eyes made Jen think that she was wondering, though, if her death at a Crocker's hand would work. But that was the kind of plan with no room for second chances.
"That's even worse than the Nathan plan for the Troubles!" she said quickly. "If it failed..." Jen swallowed. "I mean, there'd literally be no other options, if it didn't work, would there?"
Jordan gave a sharp nod. "And I'm going to fix the Wade problem... When I'm feeling better," she added ruefully. She peeled her top back down and covered the bandage. The wound was clean and covered and not bleeding excessively, and apparently that was good enough for Audrey to let it go.
"We need to get you to the police station, under protection," Audrey said. "Then we can figure out what the situation is with Vince, and then we will all deal with Wade. Damn it, I wish I could contact Duke!" She fisted her hand in frustration.
"He -- he won't be in danger, will he?" Jen asked, alarmed. "Wade's his brother."
"Crockers, both." Jordan scowled.
"Duke has only ever tried to help," Audrey snapped.
"Really, Duke is a good person," Jen urged. "Wade is... Wade has some problems."
"No shit," Jordan said sourly.
"Well... it sounds like he has more problems now," Jen admitted.
"He needs to be put down before he tries to kill someone else and maybe succeeds this time," Jordan said.
"'Put down'?" Audrey raised her eyebrows and adopted a 'well, see...' sort of sarcastic expression. "Not so much with the non-murdering approach to solving your problems."
"Oh, can it," Jordan seethed, and returned her hand pointedly to cradling her abdomen where the wound lay underneath her clothing.
"Hey. I'm not talking him down from his blood-craze only for you to kill my friend's brother, or for you to go to town on him with your Pain Touch of Doom and set him off again!" Audrey retorted. "You want to join the team, you do it by our rules."
Jordan sneered but held up both her gloved hands in a surrender-ish gesture.
"I think we need to get Haven off this fricking mountain first?" Jen offered, starting to feel like she was in the middle of an old argument and to feel a little bit pissy about that. "Please?"
"Yes. Good. Okay," Audrey allowed, and eyed Jordan. "Truce?"
"Considering I'm barely on my feet, sure. Truce," Jordan replied.
It wasn't too inaccurate an assessment. Jordan gamely managed another half hour before falling to her knees on what had once been a school's sports pitch. Jen joined in out of, obviously, pure solidarity, and sagged at the angled side-lines of the field. "I have never wanted to be a mountain goat so much," she sighed. Goats were cute and snappy and a bit like hobbits, and she could cope with that, right now. Idle wishing was probably asking for it in Haven. She waited for a moment and when it didn't happen was actually a little bit disappointed.
"What?" Jordan asked listlessly at her little grunting noise.
"Just... kind of waiting to be Troubled into a mountain goat." Jennifer attempted to muster some cheer.
"...I'd take that, right now," the other woman agreed.
Audrey ventured back for them. Audrey was apparently magical and tireless, and Jen hated her a little bit for that right then. Okay, that wasn't exactly fair, because Audrey was tired, she was just more used to this Troubled crap. She was still human, even if she'd come out of a mystical Barn.
"Sorry, sorry...." Jen mumbled, getting up.
"I'm... not apologising for the hole in my gut," Jordan said, "but I'm not sure if I can get back to my feet, or walk any further if I did manage that."
"--Oh," Jen breathed, who hadn't realised it was so bad. "We can carry you, if we have to." She looked at Audrey.
"--To the nearest friendly house, to wait until we get this mountain back down to a molehill," Audrey agreed.
"No." Jordan at first tried to fight off Jen's hands then went dead still after she gained a hold on Jordan's shoulders in spite of the resistance. But there was a thick leather jacket between them and no danger. "I might as well stay here as that! You don't know who has Guard connections. I don't know them all."
"Vince isn't going to hurt you," Audrey said, rather more heatedly. "Just because that's what you'd do. He wanted to let Nathan live, remember? Vince will be okay. The Guard will not be after you."
"When they find out about Wade, they might." Jordan's voice shook.
--Because the name Crocker was a huge red flag of danger to the Guard, and Jordan had activated Wade, a killer. And Jen realised that now she was anticipating that everyone else should react as she would to such a thing.
"Chances are they don't even know the full story yet," Audrey said. "Don't be paranoid. You were coming to the police station already. So you'd rather face Nathan?"
Jordan flinched, but gritted, "I'm still coming to the police station." She... seemed to accept Jen's help, leaning into her support to try and get to her feet. Jen tried to hold her balance and be as steady a prop as she could.
Audrey rolled her eyes. "All right." She stomped to join them. Still in Lexie-wear, she wasn't wearing a huge amount, but she ignored Jordan's gasp and attempt to warn her. "Immune, remember?" Audrey had nothing at all to worry about. "Come on, we need to move."
Jordan was clearly a very determined person even if she wasn't a particularly nice person, and if they managed to keep her upright between them, then she proved that she could keep moving. At times, they still had to let go to take steeper sections on their hands and knees, but they kept Jordan between them, Audrey behind, Jen in front, continuing to help her climb when she needed it.
They were almost tantalizingly within reach of the police station, and supporting Jordan's steps at either side of her again, when Jen stumbled over a ridge of broken concrete underfoot. She fell, taking Jordan down with her, and almost Audrey as well. Audrey set her feet and hauled back, but didn't quite have the leverage to keep them all up, and in the end she only managed to salvage her own balance.
As they fell, Jordan's uncovered face brushed against Jen's hand.
The world dissolved into a mist of pain -- and it was gone, gone just as suddenly as it had flared into being, but the memory of it was enough to keep her screaming as she pressed her hands over her face and rolled on the ground.
Gradually, she became aware both that she'd stopped and that Lex--Audrey was pulling at her, talking soothingly, or attempting to, breathless and half-panicked as she was. Someone else was sobbing, dry and painful sobs, and mumbling "sorry" over and over again.
"It's not..." Jen gulped, looked around at both of them. Jordan on hands and knees, wrung out by sorrow as well as pain and exhaustion now, Audrey leaned over in silhouette against the sun. "It wasn't your fault. It was an accident. I'm the one that fell."
She deliberately reached out with her bare hand. She had to scramble on her knees a way, as Jordan must have backed off when the accidental touch happened, but she determinedly, if also timidly and quickly, patted her hand on Jordan's leather-covered shoulder in an offer of comfort. Jordan's head was down, so she didn't make moves to stop the gesture, and she was so shocked by the venture to touch that she stopped her sobs and shaking with a little hiccup.
"It's all right," Jen said in a small voice. "It doesn't hurt anymore. It was only a teeny, tiny second." She gulped and squared her shoulders. "It wasn't even that bad." It had been that bad, worse than a hundred dentist's drills, worse than breaking her collarbone falling off her best friend's motorbike when she was seventeen, and probably Jordan knew she was lying, but she determinedly lied anyway. Because this was a person, and not a weapon, and Jordan hadn't meant to hurt her.
"Can you move again?" Audrey asked -- both of them, Jen rather thought. "We're almost there. I can hold you up on my own the rest of the way, Jordan."
Jordan nodded slowly, her eyes pulling away from Jen, and she caught hold of Audrey's offered hand.
"No, I-- I can help, too." Jen sidled over and stomped down on the intense swell of do-not-want that churned in her at the risk of getting near the threat of that level of pain again. "It won't happen again. I'll be more careful."
She thought Jordan might flinch away and refuse anyway. But Jordan seemed far too dazed.
***
Nathan and Dwight were inside the police station. When they saw the state of Jordan, Nathan sparked with something like concern but infused with a lot of tension, and Dwight's concern was a good deal less ambivalent. But Jordan said, "Don't touch me," and Audrey said, "Later," and they quickly moved things on to the business of the Trouble. Having just spent four hours climbing Mount Haven, and at this very moment trying to navigate a police station with its floor at a thirty degree angle, Jen and apparently also Jordan could both get behind that.
"We've got the Troubled person," Nathan said. "His name's Angus March, and his dying wife wanted to visit the mountains, but we're still trying to talk him out of bringing the mountains to her, so..." He looked gratefully at Audrey.
"I'll give it a shot," she said.
Apparently they'd forgotten whatever their spat of this morning had been. With the promise of work to do and Troubles to solve, they disappeared off together in step.
Jen shook her head, faintly amazed. That was not going to fool anyone for very long.
"You two look like you need some bolstering," Dwight said, and gestured for one of his officers to produce a solution, which materialised in the predictable form of coffee and donuts.
"She needs a doctor." Jen frowned unhappily as Jordan snatched the offered sugared treats. She wondered what there'd been in the way of food at the Guard safe house.
"That, too," Dwight said, grimly. "Hold that thought." Carefully shutting the door behind him to close them into his office, he left them alone. They sat either side of the Chief's desk. Jordan sat with Dwight's big chair cradling her thin frame and a sign that said Chief in front of her, which might have been an amusing visual, in other circumstances.
"You're going to be okay," Jen said, nervously -- honestly trying to persuade herself of it, because Jordan was kind of an enemy, but Jen believed in the people she had come to know in Haven-- "These people, they're good people. They'll help you."
"I know," Jordan said slowly, reluctantly.
Ah, Jen thought. Because that suggested Jordan had known that, deep down, all along. She'd been determined that the police station was the place to come to ensure her safety. Determined to head straight to Nathan, travelling with Audrey, even when she'd been so hot to see them dead, before. "Ah," said Jen. "Oh. Um, I guess I understand that there's the whole awkward ex thing with Audrey and Nathan--" Jordan was glaring at her, so she sped up. "But there's the Dwight thing, which has got to be better, right? And then you know they wouldn't hurt you and I'm sure if you were willing to help, then they'd let you help, like me, like Duke, the same way you help with what the Guard do. I mean of course that's if the whole Vince issue--"
"Stop talking," Jordan said. "But..." Her voice gained less harshness and a touch more warmth as she sighed. "Thanks."
Dwight chose that moment to re-appear, bringing the new old woman M.E. with him. Jordan and Jen exchanged glances and Jen shuffled back to let Gloria in.
"You can't touch her skin, remember," Dwight said sharply, as Gloria put bandages and supplies down on the table.
"I've dealt with the Troubled ones before, kid," Gloria huffed dismissively, and said to Jordan, "C'mon, Vampirella, I got gloves but you can do the bulk of the work if that leaves you more comfortable. Can talk you through it if you got ears. Now, how 'bout you show me where the problem is?"
Jordan blinked at her, then wordlessly held up her top and peeled back the gauze underneath it. Gloria sucked in air through her teeth in a shrill nails-down-a-blackboard sound. "Whoa, now. Tell me you won't be planning to climb any more mountains with this hole in your middle before I go to the effort, because I don't appreciate wasting my time... If you get my drift."
"Deal," Jordan said wearily.
A bump shook the room and realigned the floor, suddenly enough to almost tip them off their feet and out of their chairs. Gloria grabbed Jordan's shoulder, who responded by flinching hard and averting every bit of exposed skin away from the older woman.
Jennifer, already on her feet, was beside Dwight at the window in a shot.
The sheer slope outside had gone, and the familiar main street of Haven replacing it was in the final stages of knitting itself back together as she watched, broken pieces falling into place like a jigsaw.
"It looks like, um, like Lexie did the trick," Jen said, and hummed happily, despite the swift presence of mind she'd had to summon mid-way through the simple statement. She stopped humming as she realised that everyone in the room was giving her the same funny, arch look. Then they realised too, and they all turned away fast.
"...Yeah," Gloria said slowly. "Little Miss Do-It. Every bit as good as Audrey was. You'd never guess she hadn't had the same practice."
"That Lexie," Dwight said, with a forced-casual fake laugh. "She's... got an aptitude."
Jordan snorted, angled her head sarcastically, and chewed on the fingertip of a glove as her narrowed eyes slid over both of them.
Jennifer looked away and focused on projecting innocence so very, very hard.
END