(Untitled)

[grabber_fray]

They had found bodies. And it made Mel slightly sick every time she reflected how she took it in her stride

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[i_spoiled_it]

Steph is so much less at ease now than she had been last week; the bodies, and then the howling noises, increasing every night -- it worries her. A lot.

But there's nothing she can do about it. And since they still haven't found a way back -- and she has to confess she hasn't been looking as hard lately -- well, that just leaves making the street as defensible as possible.

Right now, that means learning every inch of it -- even if those inches seem to change every circuit. This is Steph's seventh running lap of the street, and she can't seem to keep track of where the alleys lead off.

But ooh, babies! And babies who are already familiar, which is even better.

"Hey!" she calls, slowing and stopping, waving to the kids. "You've gotta be Mel, right?"

[grabber_fray]

Mel glances up and grins, careful not to disturb the twin suckling on her boobs.

"It's the hair, isn't it?" she says. "People always talk about me as that skinny girl with the hair.

"Steph, isn't it?"

[i_spoiled_it]

"Nope, it's the twins," Steph says, brightening at Mel's friendliness and coming over to sit a polite distance away. "I met Sokka when he was looking after them a few times, and I ran into their dad, too. Is that how you know my name?"

[grabber_fray]

"Uh, if that's easier for you," Mel says, knowing damn well that it was the twins. "How OK are you with alternate timelines?"

[tophblindbandit]

And here comes, walking down the street, someone Mel might recognize from a different post-apocalyptic world.

At first Toph can only sense Mel, sitting in the gutter. But as she gets closer she "notices" the two babies with her.

Toph grins. She only knows of one mother with twins, and after speaking with that lady at the wall she's fairly sure its her.

"Mel, is that you?"

[grabber_fray]

"Toph?"

Mel glances up, grinning widely enough to hear it in her voice. "Hey, Rocky! When'd you turn up?"

[tophblindbandit]

Grinning, Toph makes her way over and sits down beside Mel.

"Just recently," she replies. "I was on my way back to my room from 202 when all of a sudden, here I was."

She won't mention that she tripped and fell flat on her face.

[grabber_fray]

Best not to, really.

Mel detaches baby Hana carefully from her breast and elbows Toph lightly with the same arm. "Here, take this.

"So you're number six, huh? How's the place holding up without us?"

Have they torn themselves apart with leadership struggles yet?

[notanoptimist]

"You know," says her brother tiredly, as he plops down beside her with grease on his cheek - or is that soot, from pulling the wrong wire? - "eventually we're gonna hit a world that doesn't have dead earth and isn't dropping bodies all over the place. I just know it."

That dry, sarcastic tone? That is the voice of hope.

[grabber_fray]

Mel would clean the dirt off, except a) she has her hands full of babies, and b) she doesn't care.

Instead she angles from the hip to leans on him, without dropping either girl.

"At least they were old," she says. "Before we got here. And we can clean up the rooms."

And then they'll have SOMEWHERE TO LIVE.

[notanoptimist]

What, the roof isn't good enough for her anymore?

This is what's running through Sokka's head when his chin tilts to peer at her, but he doesn't bring it up. Leaning back against her, he brings a hand up to ruffle multi-colored hair and kick his feet against the building. "Well, hopefully what killed them is dead now, too. How many rooms are there? Enough for everybody?"

[grabber_fray]

No, Mel's going to stay on the roof. But she was thinking of everyone else.

"Fourteen," she says. "Not apartments or anything - bedroom and a bathroom each. But that'll do for what we've got. Apart from us, I don't know how many familis and couples we've got."

[twiceahero]

Barbara is pissed. Part of it's at Mel because she burned the bodies before a thorough examination could be made, but the vast majority of it as at the chair.

It's been years since she felt truly handicapped, but by the time she got word that anything had been found and managed to get her chair down the street it was already over and the bodies burned.

She's self-aware enough to know that it's not Mel that's the problem, so she manages to suppress it. Most of it. Her voice is only slightly clipped, "You found the bodies?"

[grabber_fray]

Mel would be pissed if she knew that someone with forensics experience was around and not telling her, but then, she's only unofficially the leader here, right?

She glances up from the girls - who are happily sucking away regardless of any clippedness of anyone's tone, andtakes in the wheelchair in one glance.

"Yes."

[twiceahero]

Barbara slides her glasses off and pinches the bridge of her nose, "Did anyone examine them for time and cause of death?" She's afraid the answer is going to be "no", and that means she's going to be kicking herself for screwing this one up for quite a while.

[grabber_fray]

"Time was weeks ago," Mel says. "If not longer. Cause - I'm guessing the giant teeth marks point to being eaten."

[onewhoisall]

Cass watched as Steph, Barbara and others she didn't know approached the woman and talk with her. While she couldn't hear the conversation between Babs and Mel, the body language between them told a story of concern and frustration.

She's not sure what brought her down from her perch on the roof to the street below but she's there now and she is slowly approaching Mel.

"Hello."

[grabber_fray]

Mel now has a pair of giggly, rolling babies on a blanket in the street in front of her, fenced in on two sides by her own spread legs.

She glances up and grins at the approaching woman.

"Hey."

Apparently it's her day for meeting strangers. Must be the girls.