8/15/05 - Alyssa, Leah
Excerpt from Julia Rossi's paper journal.
I HATE YOU CHRIS, YOU FUCKING SON OF A BITCH!!! DO NOT EVER FUCKING SCARE ME LIKE THAT EVER AGAIN OR I WILL RIP YOUR HEAD OFF AND PISS IN THE BLEEDING STUMP OF YOUR THROAT SO HELP ME GOD!!!
That felt good. I think I'll put it up in Chris's hospital room and throw darts at it until he gets out.
---
Hospitals. Their smell, their feel, their people: antiseptic and /clean/, and still under all of it the acrid scent of illness, of medication and fear and pain and ... jello. On the fourth floor of Sacred Heart hospital, a small woman roves in and out of the local visitors' lobby, a fierce, restless energy matched by the familial resemblance of a certain downed cop. By one of the room doors, a pair of uniforms stand jesting guard, exchanging humor and barbed wit with Julia Rossi to the detriment of her brother's dignity. "--should've shot himself in the /ass/. You hear that, Chris? In the /ass/."
Elevator doors open just in time for one small, anxious-faced teenager to tumble through, clutching a bouquet of flowers in a vase. There's probably a card too, somewhere in the riot of color. Eyes wide behind sunglasses, she approaches Julia (and the uniforms) with some trepidation -- hospital, cops, swearing high-energy woman, all combine to make Aly wish she'd just.. mailed something. But for Chis, and the sake of her somewhat-warped loyalty, she plants herself near Julia long enough to ask, "Um. 'Scuse me. Is that Detective Rossi's ro-- Is Detective Rossi allowed visito-- um." Pause, as curiousity gets the hold of her, "In the ass?"
The open door offers a glimpse of Detective Rossi in his bed, hands and face daubed with the white strips of bandages and tape; shadows sink the closed eyes, though surely he is awake: the lips move in a soundless murmur. Julia, paused on the balls of her feet as though prepared for flight, grins shiny-eyed curiosity at the young visitor. "Yeah, that's Chris's room. You a friend of his? Nah. I'm just saying he should've shot himself there. Give it an interesting scar. -- Chris! You robbing the cradle, now?"
"Yeah, we're friends. I was gonna take him cookies -- down at the precinct -- but then he got shot and so now I'm here and I brought flowers and no he said he was too old for me but that's okay because he's nice. Says he's just got assholes in the family, though." Run-on sentence brought to you courtesy of a stunning case of nerves, Alyssa beams hopeful charm at Chris' sister. "I'm Aly. Alyssa Carter." Grin, sheepish this time, "So where /did/ he get shot?" Nevermind the way she's clinging desperately to the flowers as if afraid someone will take them away and tell her to just run along now.
"In the chest," says Julia with some disgust, adding with sibling disappointment, "He'll live. --I'm Julia. Chris's sister." A friendly hand offers itself for shaking, while the other bats casually at the open door, grinning guards notwithstanding. "He told you he was too old, did he? Good boy. I'm not gonna ask why he /had/ to tell you he was too old, because I'm the tactful Rossi. And it's Chris. Go on in if you want. He's awake. If he's not, just poke him a few times."
"In the /CHEST/?!" Sunglasses worn for exactly this reason, Julia Rossi doesn't get treated to a direct view of Aly's eye-trick, though the girl does pale appreciably, vase slipping slightly out of her former death-grip. Fumbling, she manages to catch it again with a minimum of spillage, and averts her eyes slightly even as she reaches to shake Julia's offered hand. "Sister? You look kinda like him, yeah." Count to five, Aly, and breeeeathe. He's not dead. Even if it was his chest. "And he's hot. For, you know, bein' a cop and all." That statement made, she makes her escape -- into Chris' room, of course. "Um. Chris? Are you awake?"
The pure mirth that greets that last comment trails the visitor into the room, and the patient in his bed flattens his lips into a thin, wryly exasperated line before paring his eyes open to discover: "Hey. Alyssa." Blurred, that greeting, as is the unfocused gaze; the IV line to the bandage-swathed wrist plays culprit for that. Rossi curls the corner of his mouth, fumbling idly for a smile. "What're you doing here? How's it going, kid?"
Worry drags Aly's lips downward, filters into her voice as she hoveres at the foot of the bed, flowers clutched to her chest. "Hey." Pause, while she worries over what to say, followed by, "I, uh. Heard you got shot." The frown pulls at her lips again, and she stalls it by skirting around the side of the hospital bed -- the side away from the IV line, for ease of interaction. Flowers are deposited on the little side-table, and she drags the chair (because there is always a small, uncomfortable chair for visitors) close to the side of the bed. "I was worried."
Lips twist again, this time inching towards rue and a humor that may well be absent once the drugs wear off. "Ricochet," Chris says self-deprecatingly, his left arm, free of IV, sketching some haphazard trajectory. "Shot myself, big bad cop. My own worst enemy. Probably never hear the end of it. Better than getting squished by a car, though." There is satisfaction in the last, and the tousled head turns slowly on its pillow, inspecting the gift of flowers with owlish, distant interest. "Those for me?"
Alyssa will not laugh at the big bad cop shooting himself in the chest -- just blink back at him, the briefly shake her head. "Shot is shot, and it can't /feel/ any better to've done it to yourself than if someone else did it." It's just more embarrassing this way. She reaches to offer a pat of sympathy, then hesitates -- instead she grins at his question, and replies with, "You're the one with a bullet hole in the chest. 'Course they're for you."
The fingers in their bandages move, fore- and middle-fingers hooking at Alyssa's in amiable fellowship. "Car," Rossi reminds, grave. "Big car. I prefer the bullet. And it feels like crap, actually, but I'll live." Hoarse and quiet as the baritone is, it sweeps throaty across the Brooklyn accent, husking over the quirk of vowels. "Thanks for the flowers, kid. If Julia gives you a hard time for them, punch her. In the nose."
Hooked, then, Alyssa's fingers squeeze -- gentle support for Rossi even as she shakes her head, and chuckles quietly. "Car? Like real honest to god squished by a car?" Head tilts, and the laigh is more honest and even a little bit relieved. "I think she accused you of robbing the cradle, actually. I don't know that I could punch her in the nose."
"Just make a fist and swing." Like so. Like so. Like ... so, dammit. Chris frowns briefly at his other hand, subdues it into obedience, and presents a loosely clasped hand for Alyssa's approval. Distant amusement traces its way along his voice as he admits, "--she can kick my ass, most days, so maybe it's not a good idea. Julia's tough, and she fights dirty. Robbing the cradle? What the hell?"
Torn between amusement over the attempt and concern that it was so feeble, Alyssa's free hand reaches to tighten the clasp of Rossi's fist. Smiling, though the experssion is somewhat unsteady, she flashes approval his way before retracting her hand. "I think it's because I showed up with flowers. And was asking about you." Nose wrinkles slightly, "I probably shouldn't have said you were hot, huh?"
Eyes close, an expression of pain sliding across Chris's face. "You did? Crap. Not that I'm not flattered," he adds, a lopsided hilarity blooming between the crack of lids. Green twinkles at Alyssa, chagrin mixing headily with drug-borne mirth. "Well. Maybe Julia'll be so distracted with the fact that I escaped the death rays and the flying junk and got hit by my own bullet, she won't remember that bit."
"I /did/ say, 'for being a cop,' if that helps any." Reflected mirth twinkles, and Alyssa squeezes his figners again, just because. "/Hopefully/. Wait. Death rays?" Again, the mix of curiousity and horror leaks into her voice, and her free hand lifts to prod at his side. Away, away from the injuries, of course. "What were you /doing/?"
"Letting myself be seen in public with Lazzaro," says Rossi, content to be piling blame on the (more-or-less) blameless bald head of the absent Detective. "Turns out there're some people out there who don't like cops. Go figure. --Right." Green eyes focus on Alyssa for a moment, intelligence struggling through the fog of painkiller and weakness. "I remember. Chicken."
"Oh." Alyssa frowns slightly, eyes brooding behind the sunglasses as she contemplates Rossi's answer. "That's lousy. Cops are good people. Keep us safe." Mirth bubbles, and expression clears as she tips her head down, looks over the glasses to catch Rossi's green gaze with her own, "Even if they can't keep /themselves/ safe." Curiousity again, with a head tilt to indicate before she echos, "Chicken?"
"You," Chris says, and blinks, drifting again. "Right into the arms. It's not safe. Not that I'm not safe," he adds with a weary lift of hand. "Except when shit happens, maybe, but I might /not/ have been. Just because I have a badge -- I could've been anybody."
"But you weren't," Alyssa counters with her flawed, heartbreaking logic. "You know Leah. And she's my friend." Anxiety creeps into the voice, and fingers twist slightly against his, "The badge means you're safe. You were nice to me. Not mean, like Mr. Shaw was.." There's a pause, wherein she shakes her head and stills her fingers, green eyes searching out his again over the shadow of her 'glasses. "So I wouldn't have. But you were a cop."
Even through the gentle delirium of his chemical swaddling, some darker, uglier shadow surfaces to disturb tranquility. "I might not've been," Chris says, shaping the words painstakingly off of a recalcitrant tongue. "And the badge doesn't always mean safe. Not that way. Your friends can have bad friends, kid. I might've been lying -- Christ." Tangled in tubes and needles, one hand gropes for his head, raking through that black mop.
"But you /weren't/ lying. And I trust leah to make good friends," she states solemnly, "And I trust you to be one of the good guys, okay? Don't.. do this. Just.. stop." Frowning as she watches the hand rake through his hair, hers lowers to rest on the side of the bed, the rest of her shifted accordingly. Ahh, youth. Her gaze focuses, through glasses skewed by the lean, on their hands, and absently rubs ehr thumb across his fingers. "You're the good guys," is repeated again, just for emphasis.
Lips thin and eyes close over the struggle against drugs. Black brows draw together, sinking a furrow into sun-dark skin; on the wide brow, tape crinkles and folds over stitches. "I'm an asshole, kid. Ask anyone. But I'm not anywhere near as bad as people you might run into." Difficult, clinging to the articulation of sense: Chris stirs restlessly on the bed, fingers twitching to Alyssa's, and tightens his grasp for a moment's insistence. "Damnit. You can't just ... /trust/."
"I /do/, though..." is murmured quietly as Alyssa curls up -- head on bed, body still mostly in chair, one hand captured by Rossi and the other now reaching for him, then pulling back. Stupid grownups. "People're nice, mostly. So I don't worry that the ones I meet aren't gonna be, 'cause then where would I be? Paranoid and unhappy, and that's a stupid way to be. I don't want to be like that." A pause to reshuffle, and the hand that was reaching out now gets withdrawn, her arm tucked underneath her head. "And you trust people, too. You trusted that I wasn't just putting on a show, or something, 'cause I /could/ have been." Not while still being Aly who wears her heart and beyond on her sleeve, but this is all theoretical, after all. "You offered the reasurrance."
"Not saying you should be paranoid, kid," sighs the tired voice from the bed, Chris's own thumb sliding across Alyssa's fingers in reciprocal comfort. "Just more careful. Not everyone who pretends to be your friend is a friend." Even the fuzziness of sleep-couched baritone and wandering mind cannot quite overpower the bleakness of the next. "I'd rather have you careful than hurt. Or worse."
There isn't much that can really be said in response to Rossi's last statement -- at least not in Alyssa's mind. No arguements, no witty comebacks, just the slow thread of fear that worms its way into her brain. "I'll try," is finally offered, and though she refrains from any waterworks this time, there's a definite note of loss in her voice. Even under the comfort of Chris' thumb's movement, her fingers still tighten around his.
The hand squeezes back, weaker than their wont, but still sufficient for the purpose; eyes open, slivered to brilliant, drunk green. "You okay?" Chris asks quietly, responding to that forlorn note with a guttering flame of guilt. Just or not: it is a catholic soul, to be sure. "I don't want to show up to a call and find out that it's for you."
"You won't," Aly assures with no real surety. "Even if I have to carry a card in my pocket that says 'In case of death, do not call Chris Rossi,' or something." Head, still pillowed on her arm, tilts slightly upward so she can shift her focus from their hands to his face, and she sighs softly. "And.. no. I'm not, really. But," and that's where the words fail her, and she sighs softly, breath puffing at wisps of hair escaped from her ponytail.
He regards her thoughtfully, the big bad cop, and untangles his hand to slide its fingers against her face: the fall of hair against her brow, the line of cheek, the tip of nose. Tubes trail its path, hissing against the hospital blankets. "But?" Chris echoes, adding a gentle, reckless promise: "I'll be there if you need me, one way or another, kid. No cards. I'd just rather not see you go somewhere where you'd need me, if you know what I mean." Does she? Does he? Brows knit again, puzzling over the tangle of meaning and words.
She smiles, then, at the brush of fingers against her face. "I'm not okay. But I know I'll need to be." There's that same trace of loss, though her affection for him is obvious as she makes a counter-promise: "I'll do what I can not to need you, then. I don't... want to be any trouble." She won't bring herself to admit to knowing exactly what he's talking about -- but she /will/ try not to end up dead. "You never told me which you liked best, Chris... homicide or MA..."
"You're not any trouble--" begins Rossi, but. The morass of intention over action is abandoned; distraction claims Chris, diverting him to the new question. "Homicide or MA? Apples and oranges. Turns out they both want me dead," he observes without surprise or, for that matter, much outrage. The cop's gaze drifts, ambling across Alyssa's face and up to the ceiling, where it frowns. A care bear helium balloon leers down at him. "What the fuck is that?"
"That's stupid. Nobody should want you dead," Alyssa proclaims, frowning somewhat. Arm is extracted from underneat her head, and she reaches out to pat at his leg. Her attention wanders as well, though it's brought abruptly back into focus with Rossi's exclamation. "Grumpy Bear. It's Grumpy Bear, Chris. Care bears. Apparently one of your well-wishers has a messed up sense of humor."
Chris knits his brow even deeper over Grumpy Bear, considers, then decides with a small sigh that taking offense requires more effort than he is willing to expend. Instead, he discovers Alyssa sitting by his side. Blinks at her dreamily. Hullo. Oh. "--I'm an asshole," he reminds. "I work very hard at it. Ask anyone. Ask Julia. Ask Canto. She'll give you an earful."
"If you have to work at it, then you're not /really/ an asshole. You just act like one." Someone could make a comment about wisdom from the mouth of babes, but it wold be highly unnecessary. His leg is patted again, and fingers recurl around his. "I still haven't talked to Leah. Was going to, but then I heard about you. Getting shot. Shooting yourself. Had to come see you first." Affection, again, as Alyssa's lips curl up into a smile, "'Cause you're my cop, Chris, and that means you're not allowed to do something stupid like die 'cause of some stupid accident, or something."
Fascination limns the glance Rossi turns back to Alyssa, mixed with a dormant, struggling horror. "Your cop? --You don't have to go sharing that," he adds as an afterthought, dragging fingertips across his face in a futile attempt to remove cobwebs. "About me shooting myself. Technically it was a ricochet. It's just that from a certain point of view--"
"My cop," Alyssa confirms, "Because I don't have another one. So you're mine." Whether healthy or not, Aly's tendancy to claim people is just one of those... quirks. Yes. Amusement is present in voice and aspect as she notes, "Yeah. From a certain point of view, you shot yourself. 'Cause the bullet came from your gun. I'll be good, though. You can play the hero." She'll probably only tell Leah, at least.
Exasperation sneaks into Chris's face -- "What /hero/?" he demands -- but amusement alleviates it, however deprecating. "Yeah. I'm never going to hear the end of this one. I can see it now. The precinct is gonna suck. Assholes." A sleepy condemnation of absent officers, who will doubtless do their best to live down to their reputation at the earliest opportunity.
Face crinkles with amusement to match Chris' exasperation. "You. You're a cop. It's part of the image." Or Alyssa could be teasing him mercilessly. Who knows. "I'll bring you cookies when you're better. I was going to, just 'cause you're nice, but maybe if you share they'll leave you alone."
"Unless they're deep-fried cookies, they won't make a dent in my image. I can see it now," murmurs Chris, sliding cautious fingertips in discovery across his face. Stitches here, tapes there; he blinks and splays his hand wide, finding much the same state of disrepair there. "What the--" he begins, bewildered. "Where'd all this come from?"
Into every wounded detective's life, a little female rain must fall -- and when it rains, it pours. First Julia, now Leah, whose voice warns of her coming up the hallway. There's bantering. There's possibly flirting. There is also the squeal of womanly greeting (the hug that sister and neighbor exchange goes without sound, and without saying). "--here?" comes surprised Canto query, too. "No, I'm good, I'll go in, thanks. Talk to you later? Someone has to keep these lugs in line -- yeah, up yours, too, buddy." A laugh for one of the uniforms, and then she pokes her head into the room. "Hello."
Canto. Oh. Goodie. Chris closes his eyes, dropping the back of his arm across his shuttered lids. "Mmf."
"From the doctors who bandaged you up, I'd say," Aly assumes softly, "I dunno, though. I just know 'bout the bullet hole in your chest." Chris' reaction, coupled with the voices outside the door have her lifting her head, green eyes narrowed until she recognizes, "Leah!" There's a flash of a smile, coupled with a finger-squeeze for Chris. "Hi."
"Two of my favorite people," Leah smiles on her way in. Doesn't go far, just leans up against the wall next to the door, and shoves her hands in her pockets. She's in casual dress to go with her casual mood, although the lines around her mouth and shadows under her eyes might take issue with that assessment. "And you're looking very comfortable, both of you. Good. I can smell the healing process at work already."
From under the straddling arm, green eyes peer dreamily at Canto, unfocused like the burr of baritone. "Kid brought me flowers," Chris informs, turning his head slightly on the pillow towards the nightstand where -- indeed -- flowers bloom in their vase. Bandages, IV, little pieces of tape: Rossi is the very image of a hospital doll, taken out for the amusement of others. "You look like crap."
Free hand reaches, pats at his leg in a slightly proprietary gesture. Her cop. Good cop. "Yeah. I brought him flowers. Woulda been cookies at the precinct, but..." She trails off with a shrug, then narrows her keen-eyed gaze at Leah. "He's kinda right, though. You okay?" She shifts, then frowns slightly. "You want the chair? I'll take the edge of the bed.."
Leah shakes her head and points out, "I'm not the one with a bullet hole. I'm fine, just tired. This assh--um, jerk kept me up last night, worrying about him and fielding all manner of phone calls. At least he could hook me up with some morphine, don't you think, Aly?" Pale eyes shift to the man in the bed; they tighten at the corners, though her smile remains in place, easy and unaffected. "You look like crap, too, Rossi. How's it feeling?"
"Like absolute shit," advises Rossi, cordially, though vague guilt nibbles at the edges of his face. Just a little bit. "Mmf. Nothing to worry about. Standing in the wrong place at the wrong time. Lazzaro's okay, though," he adds, irritation and residual anxiety stretching the last into long, sticky accents. "C'mon in. Grab a seat on the bed if you want. It's been a party in here since I woke up."
Alyssa would like to point out, "You were already awake when I got here, Chris." Eyes flicker from one friend to the other, and since Rossi just offered Leah the edge of the bed, why.. she'll stick to the chair. And scoot up closer to the head of the bed, though she does so without relinquishing the hold she has on Rossi's fingers. "I didn't hear about it 'til it was on the radio. They were calling you?" Confusion mars her expression, drawing eyebrows down into a creased frown. "Isn't that backwards? I mean, you're the reporter.."
"So of course I must know everything about the case," Leah tells her with weary sarcasm. "I'm plugged in, you know. I know everything and everyone that's important in the city. Except for the part where I don't." She stays against the wall, shrugs into it. "Doesn't matter. Hey, you're alive, Rossi. Good on ya. And on Lazzaro. Someone better call Sabby if they haven't already."
A hand waves casually, airily, and be damned to the pull of tape that crunches across the forearm. "I've been awake for hours," Chris informs drowsily. "Had visitors. The LT came and yelled at me, Cap came to check on me, the entire Rossi family came to yell at me: it's been fun. And the kid brought me flowers. And -- shit -- I have an armed guard. Is that to keep me in? Or you out?"
"Oh. Well." Alyssa frowns for just a moment more, then shakes herself slightly. She came to cheer Rossi up, after all. So she smiles up at Leah first, and says, "I'm glad you're friends with Chris, 'cause.. I dunno. Just because." Chris' list of visitors is nodded at, and answered with another crinkling smile. "Some of 'em didn't leave. And the guard's weird. Do they always do that if you get shot?"
Leah forces a chuckle for his question. "Oh, I'm not dangerous. Promise. I won't even yell. That's what family's for, and since Julia's here -- you met her, right, Aly? She's a dear, isn't she?" Lower slouch against the wall; her feet push out to keep her balance. "It's to keep someone from finish the job. You know, just in case. Lotta crazies out there, obviously."
"Someone out there loves me," concludes Chris, voice thick with the onset of sleep. Eyes flicker, sliding closed on a drowse; lips move on a slow comment, soundless, then turn up the volume to: "--did a good job. You should cut him a break."
"She accused Chris of robbing the cradle. I told her he said no," Alyssa states blandly, though amusement -- and anticipation -- twinkles in her eyes. The drifting cop gets an affectionate look, and her free hand reaches up to tousle at his hair. Hah. "Hopefully there are more of us who want you alive than dead, Chris. Hopefully."
Leah says quietly, "There are," even while her mouth's still quirked at the cradle-robbing bit. "New York's Finest -- we want you very much alive. And healthy. And safe."
Drug-drowned alarm peers at Leah from that tousled hair. "Why?" asks Chris, though the tail end of the word is lost in a yawn. "Summers. Him. You see him, tell him I said thanks for saving my life and all. --Going to just close my eyes for a while," he mumbles, and suits action to word. A moment later, he has faded into the sweet, silent anaesthesia of sleep.
"A while. Huh. Sure." Affection fades into amused silence for a moment before Aly turns, resettlign ehrself in her chair with a sigh. Chris' fingers are squeezed once, breifly, and she slips her hand out of his fingers' now limp embrace, turning her attention fully toward Leah. "Hi, Leah."
"Scott," mutters Leah like a frown, like a sigh, and then shakes her head firmly. Later. For now, she switches attention to Alyssa, and there's something of prickly uncertainty picking a slow way through calm expression and low voice. "Hi, Alyssa. How--how've you been? Been a while. Sorry about that."
"I've... been better. It's been... rough. Um." She sighs and reaches a hand to scrub at her eyes, belatedly realizing she didn't take her sunglasses too when she moved. Eyes scan the bed, and she finally finds them, snatched up before she continues. "I've kinda been. Avoiding. Not exactly. I don't know. Got bad news. Wasn't sure how to... god. Broke down on Chris when I met him outside your apartments... s'how we're friends."
Leah's concern follows the uncertainty through her manner. "Oh, God, hon. I'm sorry. About John, huh? I ran into one of your teachers at a bookstore, tried to pump him for information, but-- What happened to him? He's still down in the city somewhere, right?" She tries a smile. "Doing the 'mechanic by day, writer by night' lifestyle, I hope. Crazy kid."
Alyssa shakes her head, the brief short motion coupled with the way she curls in on herself slightly -- turning toward Rossi, for the comfort that cannot be given this time around -- bringing a note of finality to her statement even before she makes it. "No. He's.. gone. Completely." A hand twitches slightly as she attempts a dismissive gesture, "I'm better off without him, anyway. Shouldn't have slept with him. He left, right after. Gone."
Well, she's no Rossi, the good Lord knows, but Leah is there, and her hands are there, curving over the girl's shoulders from behind in a warm and firm hold. "Hey," she says softly. "Don't blame yourself. It went wrong. It got -- fucked up. Happens, kid. It really does. We all have those stories in our past, and you know what? Things still turn out okay. Life does that for you: it comes around."
Hands slide up, clasped over Leah's like she's drawing strength from the older woman -- which she probably is, in a metaphorical sense at least. "That isn't even the worst part, Leah. I don't know how to.. fuck it." Rossi may be asleep, but she can still blame the swearing on his influence. "He joined the Brotherhood. John -- /my/ Johnny.. he's a terrorist now, Leah. What kind of world /is/ this?" Where good boys go bad and good cops get shot with their own bullets.
Leah's fingers tighten. So does her voice. "/Alyssa./"
Alyssa's voice is a match for Leah's, though still laced with hurt. "I /know/, Leah."
Leah rubs her shoulders for a moment. "It's a bad world," she finally says, "which is what makes finding the good in it all the more important. Family. Friends. The light they bring. The light /you/ bring. I mean, look at you and Rossi." Amusement leavens her voice, tired as it is. "Man was never /my/ friend, and I've known him for years. But you won him over lickety-split, apparently. That's a gift, dear girl. Don't let some jerkwad of a boy in love with his own hormones spoil it for you."
"I sobbed into his shirt," Alyssa admits slowly, "And today he lectured -- or tried to -- me about.. chicken? About being too trusting. Damnit, I was /trying/ this time, Leah. But he's a cop.." A smile flares briefly, "He says you call him Rossi -- and worse. And that he's an asshole." Expression -- and voice -- harden. "Not as much of an asshole as John, though. Told him about him. S'why I was crying."
Leah ruffles the girl's hair with sisterly fingers, quiet and familiar. "I do call him names. He returns the favor. We get by. We get by." Some low warmth moves with oceanic power in her alto: the tide of memory, of more. "You deserve to cry, Aly. John hurt you. He /is/ an asshole. He turned his back on you and everything mutants are supposed to stand for, huh? Isn't it about integrating in society, not blowing it up to make your own?" Her hands have moved, as if of their own accord, away; but she hasn't, is just leaning on the back of the chair now. With a sigh. "Magneto's a lost cause. I don't want to think that John is, too, but..."
Alyssa makes another admission, this time in a voice even more quiet than the last. "I wanted.. to go with him. For about a week, after I found out. Wanted desperately to just throw everything away, throw every/one/ away. But I couldn't." She tips her head upward, a slight smile spreading as she says, "Couldn't, though. I'm friends with you, and.. that's why. I realized that it'd mean I'd have to hate you guys, and you, and.. no. I just /couldn't/ do that." Mouth twists into a wry version of the original smile, "And my parents. And Chris. All of you guys are too good to hate."
"Temptation," Leah responds after a moment. "We all have them, Aly. You did the right thing. You know that." She says it firmly, permitting no doubt, and moves on with it as a given. "I /am/ glad you don't want to hate me. I don't want to hate you, either. Hate's no way to make the world better. Love -- well, that's kinda trite, but understanding, at least. We can start with that. Terrorists don't get it; they never will." And her voice hardens, and her hands on the chair back, and her gaze on the wall over Rossi's head. (Die, dancing sugarplums, die.) "Forget about him. He can't come back now, and you have your whole life ahead of you."
"I'm trying, Leah, I really am. Hit on Chris, evne if I was only joking. Says he doesn't have any eligible brothers or cousins, though." It's a crappy attempt to lighten the mood, but Alyssa's all for making it anyway.
Leah laughs at that, though softly out of deference to his sleep (and, well, his family). "No, he doesn't. He's too old for you, anyway -- and why would you trade one asshole for another? Poor girl. You need to find some sweet boy who sits in the back of one of your classes and stammers whenever you look at him." Amusement rubs raw silk over her words. "And you take his hand and kiss him and rock his world."
Alyssa grins, amusement laced through her voice as she tips her head back down, "'Cause he's hot, Leah. And fairly nice, for an asshole." She shakes her head, still grinning as she reaches up to grope for one of Leah's hands -- once found, she pats it helpfully. "Maybe you should have a go at.. er. What was the phrase you used? Banging him like a screen door?" She ducks away, still grinning.
"Been there," says Leah, "done that."
"Grumpy Bear," says a dragging, sleep-blurred voice from the bed. Green eyes are open, if blank; they trace the shape of the balloon hugging the ceiling with an idly wondering perplexity. Chris is awake. "What the hell's a Care Bear?"
"--And what have you done?" Rossi adds as a dreamy afterthought.
Leah snorts. "You."
"/You/ had /sex/ with /Chris/?!" Alyssa both confirms and questions. Loudly. With accompanying scrunched up face and twist around in her seat. She holds for a second, then squeaks. And turns aroudn to stare at Chris. "It's a cartoon. TV show. And nothing. Nothing!" They weren't talking about him. Really. Shhhh. Go back to sleep.
"Oh." It is an acknowledgment flat with bewilderment, answering both -- or neither -- and Chris closes his eyes again to lapse into sleep. Only ... wait. "Why are you telling her we had sex?" he wonders, plaintively.
Leah doesn't move back to her wall-hung slouch. It might be a near thing, by the flatness under her voice's deliberate soft calm. "Girl-talk, Rossi. Don't worry your fuzzy head about it. Do you need more drugs? I can call the nurse."
"Because you're too old to have it with me. So I told Leah that she should," Alyssa informs ever so helpfully. "It's okay, though. She didn't tell me if you were any good or not." Uncurling from her seat, she reaches out to pat affectionately at Rossi's hand. "Have a nice nap?"
The broad, stitch-marked brow furrows at Alyssa over a fuzzy-eyed blink, and Chris yawns into a loose cachet of fingers before stirring to a drowsy, "Nap? Hey, kid. You're still here. How long was I out for? --Shit." Breath catches, pinching white around lips, and Rossi focuses with abrupt attention. "Ow. She didn't? Hey, Canto."
"Not long," Leah answers over Alyssa's head. It's not looming so much as ... standing back. Behind girl-shield, say. "Rest is good for you. Don't fight it."
Alyssa nods, grinning slightly. "Yeah, I'm still here. Was just talking to Leah, mostly. Told her that thing, about my ex-boyfriend. She didn't get the tears, though. Your shirt should envy hers." Alyssa makes a good shield, damnit. She's too cute not to. "So, how come you two are friends?" This is tipped upward to Leah, as curiousity wins out over being quiet and letting Chris sleep more.
Another blink, a matched set, hastier than the last. "Did she says 'because I'm too old to have it with her?'" Did she? Chris drifts mingled unease and amusement towards Alyssa, and yawns again into IV cables and taped needles before noting, absently, "She used to date my brother, few years back. We friends, Canto?" The free hand drops, spidering lightly across the bulk of bandages beneath the robe.
Leah twitches a smile. Might be a smile, anyway. And she skips right by the first question to answer the last: "Sure, Rossi. Sure we are. Which is why I'm refraining from making a screen-door comment--" one hand steals out to squeeze Alyssa's shoulder like a laugh "--not that I think you'd remember it, anyway, when you come out of the haze."
Alyssa snickers quietly, amusement dancing wildly in vivid green eyes. /She/ will answer the first question, with a muffled, "Yes," before snickering again. "Wait. You dated his brother, and now you're...?" Gaze flicks back and forth between the two, "Or have, anyway. You said you had, not that you were.. right?"
Chris is scratching his chest, probing through the bandages with absent-minded curiosity. "Gabe is an asshole," he informs: no guilt, no, though his eyes darken in their shadowed hollows. (Perhaps a little guilt.) "What about screen doors?"
"Nothing," floats an innocent Leah. "We've had sex, Aly. Doesn't mean we're going to get married or anything. I did propose to Julia, though. She accepted. Oh, if only we were in Massachusetts!"
Rossi explains for Alyssa's benefit, apologetically, "I'm a slut. Not good at relationships."
"Banging," is all Alyssa will add, though Rossi's statement gets a puzzled, yet affectionate, "Oh," and pat on the hand. "That's unfortunate." But then again, look at /her/ history.
"Not really," Leah continues to the girl. "Unfortunate, that is. He /is/ good in bed, after all."
Mute protest turns to Leah. Don't tell her /that/. Chris chuffs a sigh and settles back again, pain knocking quietly on his threshhold.
"Really?" Alyssa perks, "Too bad he's old. And a cop." Because somehow, that just makes it worse.
Laughter shivers through Leah's voice, shoulders, fingers on Alyssa's shoulder. "Yeah, and he's an injured cop, injured in the line of duty, so we should be very nice to him and not discuss intimate details, don't you think?"
"/Please/," murmurs Chris without, it is true, overmuch optimism. His gaze drifts up, touching on the Care Bear again with idle loathing; then down again, down again, to Leah and Alyssa. And the nudge of memory, to brush his husky voice with rue. "Sorry you were worried, Canto. Would've thought Julia'd call you."
"He's a very nice cop. My cop. And that was before we were friends, anyway." No more pushing from Alyssa -- she can always ferret out details from Leah at some later date. she twists back again to look at Leah, "I hadta find out when it was on the radio. That /sucked/."
Leah glances down with a strained smile of comfort, sympathy. "Yeah, well, I heard it from one of my brothers, straight from the force's mouth. It's fine, Rossi. Just called up old memories -- you know the drill." Her mouth folds down on anything more, and she finds a new topic: "It /is/ a nice present you brought, Aly. Care Bear and all. Damn, I should've brought something."
"The balloon wasn't mine. Just the flowers," Alyssa clarifies.
Leah is briefly appalled. "Who brought the balloon, then?"
Alyssa shrugs. "Dunno. It was here when I got here. /I/ woulda brought Lucky. The green one?"
Radio. Radio? "I think it was the Captain," says Chris Rossi, to all or nothing. "Weird sense of humor. I don't get her." The hedonite's mouth thins for Leah, sharing stark understanding -- both scions of the NYPD -- before he rouses in his bed, attempting to pull himself up. Ow. Or perhaps not. Hopeful: "She didn't yell, though."
"With the clover on his belly," agrees Leah, a woman obviously seeped in the mysteries of Care Beardom. "That would've been a good choice, Aly. Grumpy -- well, only a police captain would pick that one out for her cop. I'm glad she didn't yell. Means you'll be allowed back into the squadroom?" There's some teasing there. There's more quiet concern.
Oddly out of place, as the only one who isn't born and bred of the NYPD, Alyssa lapses into quiet for a long moment, watching the byplay between the two adults. "Not yelling is good," is finally stated quietly.
"I guess we'll find out," says Detective Rossi, cynicism needling through the drug's fog to glint at Leah, star-bright. "Beston's not worried. The LT says IA's whining about excessive force. Doubt they'll convince anyone. --The Captain doesn't really yell very often," he adds for Alyssa's benefit, smile lines dipping at the corners of his eyes and mouth. "She's more of a speak softly and carry a big stick type. Scariest woman I've ever met."
So Leah has to mourn, on cue, "But what about /me/? And your sister?"
"You're not scary, Leah," Alyssa counters with a grin for Rossi's commentary, hand creeping out to claim the first two fingers of his. "Who's Beston?" is asked of the room at large.
"Scarier," says Rossi without hesitation. And of course she would have to be, to rule this bloody-minded, arrogant asshole. Self-knowledge gleams in Chris's voice, chasing away the fuzziness for a moment, at least. "Knows how to use her fists, too. --Beston's my partner. Don't think you've met him."
Leah finally gives up, gives in, and switches her shielded lean on the chair back to a seated lean on the edge of the bed, just above the footboard so she can hook an elbow over it for stability. "He's a good guy," she tells the girl, not without a quick, quirked look -- that tired smile -- at the detective. "Real good. He's going to be a saint after he dies. Count on it."
"Beston'll be, or Chris?" Confustion reigns, though Alyssa's thankful for Leah's reseating -- she can look at /both/ of them now, without craning her neck. "Will I meet him if I bring you cookies?" Bright, cheerful interest, there.
Rossi grins briefly at the thought. "Saint Beston. There's a thought that'd crack the brain. He'll love your cookies, kid. Count on it. --You planning on baking these things yourself?"
Leah flips a hand, a grimace in apology for her ambiguity, and glides into, "Hey, you can come over and use my kitchen if you want, Aly. I love to cook."
Alyssa grins, blushing faintly. "Yes, probably. I thought it wou-- you were nice to me, and all." Still slightly sheepish, the grin is turned on Leah, "May I? That would probably work better than trying to take over the kitchen at school, and explaining that I'm baking cookies for a cop. Cops," she amends, "If your partner'll like 'em."
Chris runs a lazy thumb across Alyssa's fingers, thoughtlessly rubbing a circle around the knuckle of one. "He'll love 'em. Hasn't met a baked good he didn't love. In fact, he hasn't met pretty much any edible item he didn't love." Couched on its pillow, Rossi's head turns in discomfort, nudging the weight-flattened support on its slide towards his shoulders. "You'll be picking up more cops if you keep this up, kid."
"Whenever you want," Leah assures her. "I have free time these days; just give me a call or stop by." Her eyes slide over the thumb's circle, slit like her quiet smile, and land on Rossi's face. Hello. "Tell him hi for me, next time you see him? We should catch up, him and me; it's been awhile. /You/ and I should, too, now that I think about it, but..." Her smile stretches as she shrugs. "Obviously I can wait until you're not, you know, drugged to the gills."
Alyssa crooks a smile at the slide of thumb over fingers, squeezing gently. "I dunno, Chris. One cop is hard enough to keep track of, and out of trouble." Nose wrinkles slightly, her teasing light as she shifts her gaze to Leah again. "We can bake 'me once he gets sprung free. Take 'em to him for a welcome to being back on duty.. thing." Affection tugs at Aly's voince, sharing space with a little thread of worry. "You okay, Chris? Comfortable, or..?" Alyssa, champion pillow-fluffer.
"He was here earlier," Chris says, drowsy contentment smoothing over the peaks of his accent. "Said he'd be back later with some real coffee. Wait if you want. He likes you. --And I'm not drugged to the gills." Just to the fins. Didn't he just nap? He will nap again. In just a moment. Eyes grin at Alyssa from under the heavy eyelids, and the black, hopelessly mussed head turns into its cant with a small wince. "Just fine, kid. Mm. Christ, this shit makes me sleepy--"
Leah sighs as he slips away again. She keeps her gaze on his face, the pale-brown of her irises falling to pupils' expanse. "Poor guy," she murmurs. "Helluva job, isn't it?"
Alyssa doesn't relinquish the fingers this time, even as Rossi's grip slackens and he drifts off to sleep. "Insane. I'd asked him to teach me how to shoot, one of these days." Amusement, wry, "But that was before he got shot in the chest with a ricochet from his own gun. Man." Worry flicks across her face as she looks back on the drugged up officer, though she valiantly refrains from brushing the tousled hair out of his eyes. Worried!Aly.
"It's not for everyone," and Leah leaves open the antecedent: cop life or guns? "He'll be fine, though, don't worry. They get taken very good care of. Treated like conquering heroes when they get back on the job, if they do get back." She shakes her head sharply, lips flattening. "Well. He'll get back, of course."
"You sound like you know," is offered with a keen look towards the journalist, narrow-pupiled eyes focusing on Leah's face. "Chris is my first cop." Affection again, easing into her voice -- casual, friendly. "So I don't really know.. what this is like."
Leah shrugs and allows in a self-mocking drawl, "I'm not keeping it a secret, that's for sure. Half my family is on the force. My father died on the job when I was nineteen -- heart attack. One of his brothers got shot the same year -- crippled for life. My two brothers are in it. Other uncles. Cousins." Her voluptuous alto wades from clinical calm into warmer waters, flecked with old, past exasperation's whitecaps. "Rossi and I come from the same background, you know: Brooklyn, Italian, Catholic blue. That's how I know he'll be fine. I'll make /sure/ he is, if I have to do it all myself."
Alyssa considers Leah solemnly, then shakes her head. "Wow. Wow, I had no idea there were /that/ many.. wow." Articulation abandoned for a moment, she crinkles up her nose. "I didn't realize you were. Is that why you're sometimes friends? Other than you dating his brother." The last of her words, though, send another squeeze of Rossifingers, and Alyssa notes, "It wouldn't be /all/ yourself. I'd help. I don't want him to.. I like my cop whole."
With a thin smile, Leah tells her, "All those cops have to come from somewhere, right? The borough's staffing entire precincts on its own, believe me." The expression shaves even tighter, but compassion tempers it as she shifts, goes on. "Aly, he's not yours, you know. I know you attach to people like hell, but ... it's not really safe, in general." Bites her lip. Scouts a look at Rossi, back again. "Remember those bruises you had."
"/Is/," is emphasized, "He said he'd be there if I ever needed him." Leah's reminder touches off guilt, results in a frown. "I.. know. Chris, he.. talked. Explained. I'm /not/ just blindly.. but he was a cop. And cops are supposed to be the good guys, so I still.." Even while rambling, Alyssa's voice hardens, "I'm gonna be more careful, though. Try to be, anyway."
Leah sighs her way back against the footboard. "All right. All right. I'm not your mother. You can take care of yourself." She refrains from doing more than an eyeroll to heaven's initial twitch. "I trust you. I just worry. It's what I do."
"And I trust people," is murmured with a quiet, self depreciating smile. Alyssa leans toward the end of the bed, seeking to capture Leah's hand with her free one. "I'm working at not doing it so blindly, though. I promise. Thank you for worrying." Another smile, this one more hopeful.
"'s what she does, worry," says Chris from sleep, half the words lost in the thickness of a waking tongue. He contemplates the back of his eyelids, finds them good, and remains in willful darkness. With pain, and light-headedness, and the detached serenity of drugs.
Fingers link and hold. Leah's are tight, hard, with writerly and other calluses lining their edges. Her expression is much the same. "You're welcome -- and thank /you,/ Rossi. Are you with us again?"
Rossi considers lazily. "No," he decides. The fingers caught in Alyssa's stir, barely exerting pressure before they relax again. Owlishly, the dragging baritone adds: "Don't trust. That. You know."
Alyssa's fingers exert counter-pressure, stronger than Rossi's, but still gentle. "I'm trying," is her answer, accompanied by the brush of thumb across the back of his fingers. For Leah, the grip tightens, and she sends the woman a blindingly brilliant smile. "I'm set for life, with friends like you guys."
"Oh my God," Rossi manages, weakly.
Leah, not being perforated /or/ drugged, rises to diplomacy. She smiles kindly at the girl. "Well, we'll do our best, huh? Should probably get you home at some point, though. I'm tired, too."
Alyssa's smile falters ever so slightly at Rossi's reaction, then strengthens itself again as she turns it on /him/. "I mean it. You two are just," both hands are squeezed, and she looks form one to the other, "The best. Ever. Leah, I'm sorry I didn't talk to you for so long.." But she doesn't /want/ to go home.
For this, Rossi's eyes open at last, dull behind the fan of long lashes. Feminine, alas, though Nature mocks her fairer sex by denying them such riches. Green eyes, black lashes, dark skin, pale lips. "What time is it?" he wonders at random, before focusing slowly onto Alyssa. A blink answers her smile, vaguely dazzled. "Hey, kid."
Leah frees her hand, nicely but surely, to wave off the apology. "You were busy," she assures her sardonically. "I do understand, Aly. Don't worry about it." She slithers off the bed, leaving her other hand on Rossi's ankle even as she stands. "/I/ should go home, if nothing else. Leave you two lovebirds alone."
"Shut up," says Rossi, without heat, and a hand lifts in careful summons. "C'mere, Canto."
"Hi, Chris," is murmured quietly, and the wattage on the beam kicked up a notch or two. Just because. His summons to Leah does not go unnoted, however, and Aly scoots slightly to one side -- fingers still twined with his -- to allow her access. "I should probably go too.. or something." Doesn't want to, though. That much is obvious.
Leah sighs, and does roll her eyes at the ceiling for patience, the quality of mercy not strain'd ... but does come to the call, lamb-biddable. "Yes, Rossi -- holy shit, you look even worse up close," she observes as she leans over him. Pale eyes blink clinical fascination, and then she prods his cheek experimentally. Hmm.
Stop that. Chris's free hand swats belatedly at Leah's before groping uncertainly across the stitches and ache of closed wounds to tangle with her fingers. Eyes focus slowly, quizzical across the woman's face. "I'll be fine, Canto. Really. You okay?"
"Yeah," she answers, low, and bends lower to brush a kiss on his forehead. Writer's fingers tighten on his. "Be fine by the morning--" sprightly Canto assurance there "--and will hound your fine ass in recuperation when you get home. Assuming your mother doesn't kidnap you to put you up with Gabe again. Come sleep on /my/ couch before that happens, Chris, you hear me? I won't have you get shot up and then locked away for fratricide during recovery."
Alyssa's hand disengages from Chris' during this exchange, pulls back into her lap as keen green eyes flicker back and forth between the pair. Then she ducks, studying her fingers while she allows them their space.
He would chuckle, were it in him. As it is, the spin of amusement behind his eyes must do. Chris submits meekly to the salute, as docile as any son of so formidable a woman, and lifts their entwined hands to breathe a dry, light kiss on the back of hers. "If Julia doesn't get him first. Take care, Leah."
Speaking of which redoubtable sister: a shiny-eyed head pops into the room, fingers curling around the door's edge, and purses her lips at the visitors. "Yo," greets Julia, blithe and brilliant. "Hey, visiting hours're almost over. Beston's getting argued at by Paul out here. You want I should tell your partner to shoot him, Chris?"
Leah's jaw firms a steady line below her fixed smile, and it's as well that she's standing up and swinging her gaze around to Alyssa and then Julia, fortunate sister. Bright refocus. Sprightly, sprightly-- "Let me handle him," she offers silkily. "I'll see if I can get him to actually have an expression on that face of his."
Alyssa takes Leah's distraction -- and unfortunately, Julia's appearance -- to make her move, sliding closer to recapture Rossi's fingers, and hopefully his attention. "Hey, Chris?" is questioned quietly, her eyes bright on his face. Leave the wrangling to Leah -- she gets a goodbye, too.
Chris quivers, either in exasperation or frustration or sheer, untrammeled amusement. "Go get 'im, Canto," he encourages over Julia's bubble of malicious glee. The sliver of eyes travels towards Alyssa, briefly warmed in a soundless laugh, and fingers squeeze gently at hers. "You wanted to see what kinda assholes are in my family, now's your chance, kid. Better keep your glasses on, though. --Taking off?"
"Paul makes us Republicans look bad," Leah tells Alyssa gravely. She slides a look along the way to Rossi -- a weary spasm of emotion, a tug at dragged mouth -- and then slides out the door, past Julia, to enter battle. Some dragons she /can/ slay, dammit.
Alyssa reaches first for Chris, brushing the knuckles of her free hand against his face -- gently, gently, so as not to encounter bandaged cuts -- in a similar gesture to an earlier one of his. "Yeah, I'd better. See if I can catch a ride with Leah. You.. take care of yourself, okay? I'll come visit you again." Fingers squeeze at his vefore she extracts her hand and stands, then leans to brush a kiss against his forehead, and reward him with another brilliant smile. "Try to have a good night, okay?"
Julia gurgles merriment, popping back out of the room with the parting shot: "Nurse is doing the rounds right now, kid." Even the language is the same, tripped gaily off a vibrant alto. "You got maybe a minute before she comes on in to give hero-boy a sponge bath. --Leah. Ask Paul how his hair grew back."
A snort, and retreating Canto's alto wonders, wanders, down the hallway, "Is /that/ why his wife looked so surprised at dinner? I'll be--"
The detective grins sleepily back at Alyssa, an expression that fades with horrified swiftness at: "Wait. Sponge bath? What the fuck? -- Night, kid. I'll be fine. Don't worry about me. Only the good die young."
"Sponge bath?" is squeaked, distress manifesting itself briefly before Alyssa fumbles at the edge of the bed and recovers her sunglasses. Safe behind the darkened lenses, she turns back to Chris to offer another, slighter smile. "That's /so/ my cue to go. Night, Chris." And she's out the door, eyes wide behind her glasses as she encounters her first full dose of Rossi family.. goodness.
Left behind in peace and quiet, (with only the first vivid, crashing cacophony of voices outside to infuriate nurses and patients alike) Chris Rossi closes his eyes, a small smile fading into sleep.
[Log ends.]
I HATE YOU CHRIS, YOU FUCKING SON OF A BITCH!!! DO NOT EVER FUCKING SCARE ME LIKE THAT EVER AGAIN OR I WILL RIP YOUR HEAD OFF AND PISS IN THE BLEEDING STUMP OF YOUR THROAT SO HELP ME GOD!!!
That felt good. I think I'll put it up in Chris's hospital room and throw darts at it until he gets out.
---
Hospitals. Their smell, their feel, their people: antiseptic and /clean/, and still under all of it the acrid scent of illness, of medication and fear and pain and ... jello. On the fourth floor of Sacred Heart hospital, a small woman roves in and out of the local visitors' lobby, a fierce, restless energy matched by the familial resemblance of a certain downed cop. By one of the room doors, a pair of uniforms stand jesting guard, exchanging humor and barbed wit with Julia Rossi to the detriment of her brother's dignity. "--should've shot himself in the /ass/. You hear that, Chris? In the /ass/."
Elevator doors open just in time for one small, anxious-faced teenager to tumble through, clutching a bouquet of flowers in a vase. There's probably a card too, somewhere in the riot of color. Eyes wide behind sunglasses, she approaches Julia (and the uniforms) with some trepidation -- hospital, cops, swearing high-energy woman, all combine to make Aly wish she'd just.. mailed something. But for Chis, and the sake of her somewhat-warped loyalty, she plants herself near Julia long enough to ask, "Um. 'Scuse me. Is that Detective Rossi's ro-- Is Detective Rossi allowed visito-- um." Pause, as curiousity gets the hold of her, "In the ass?"
The open door offers a glimpse of Detective Rossi in his bed, hands and face daubed with the white strips of bandages and tape; shadows sink the closed eyes, though surely he is awake: the lips move in a soundless murmur. Julia, paused on the balls of her feet as though prepared for flight, grins shiny-eyed curiosity at the young visitor. "Yeah, that's Chris's room. You a friend of his? Nah. I'm just saying he should've shot himself there. Give it an interesting scar. -- Chris! You robbing the cradle, now?"
"Yeah, we're friends. I was gonna take him cookies -- down at the precinct -- but then he got shot and so now I'm here and I brought flowers and no he said he was too old for me but that's okay because he's nice. Says he's just got assholes in the family, though." Run-on sentence brought to you courtesy of a stunning case of nerves, Alyssa beams hopeful charm at Chris' sister. "I'm Aly. Alyssa Carter." Grin, sheepish this time, "So where /did/ he get shot?" Nevermind the way she's clinging desperately to the flowers as if afraid someone will take them away and tell her to just run along now.
"In the chest," says Julia with some disgust, adding with sibling disappointment, "He'll live. --I'm Julia. Chris's sister." A friendly hand offers itself for shaking, while the other bats casually at the open door, grinning guards notwithstanding. "He told you he was too old, did he? Good boy. I'm not gonna ask why he /had/ to tell you he was too old, because I'm the tactful Rossi. And it's Chris. Go on in if you want. He's awake. If he's not, just poke him a few times."
"In the /CHEST/?!" Sunglasses worn for exactly this reason, Julia Rossi doesn't get treated to a direct view of Aly's eye-trick, though the girl does pale appreciably, vase slipping slightly out of her former death-grip. Fumbling, she manages to catch it again with a minimum of spillage, and averts her eyes slightly even as she reaches to shake Julia's offered hand. "Sister? You look kinda like him, yeah." Count to five, Aly, and breeeeathe. He's not dead. Even if it was his chest. "And he's hot. For, you know, bein' a cop and all." That statement made, she makes her escape -- into Chris' room, of course. "Um. Chris? Are you awake?"
The pure mirth that greets that last comment trails the visitor into the room, and the patient in his bed flattens his lips into a thin, wryly exasperated line before paring his eyes open to discover: "Hey. Alyssa." Blurred, that greeting, as is the unfocused gaze; the IV line to the bandage-swathed wrist plays culprit for that. Rossi curls the corner of his mouth, fumbling idly for a smile. "What're you doing here? How's it going, kid?"
Worry drags Aly's lips downward, filters into her voice as she hoveres at the foot of the bed, flowers clutched to her chest. "Hey." Pause, while she worries over what to say, followed by, "I, uh. Heard you got shot." The frown pulls at her lips again, and she stalls it by skirting around the side of the hospital bed -- the side away from the IV line, for ease of interaction. Flowers are deposited on the little side-table, and she drags the chair (because there is always a small, uncomfortable chair for visitors) close to the side of the bed. "I was worried."
Lips twist again, this time inching towards rue and a humor that may well be absent once the drugs wear off. "Ricochet," Chris says self-deprecatingly, his left arm, free of IV, sketching some haphazard trajectory. "Shot myself, big bad cop. My own worst enemy. Probably never hear the end of it. Better than getting squished by a car, though." There is satisfaction in the last, and the tousled head turns slowly on its pillow, inspecting the gift of flowers with owlish, distant interest. "Those for me?"
Alyssa will not laugh at the big bad cop shooting himself in the chest -- just blink back at him, the briefly shake her head. "Shot is shot, and it can't /feel/ any better to've done it to yourself than if someone else did it." It's just more embarrassing this way. She reaches to offer a pat of sympathy, then hesitates -- instead she grins at his question, and replies with, "You're the one with a bullet hole in the chest. 'Course they're for you."
The fingers in their bandages move, fore- and middle-fingers hooking at Alyssa's in amiable fellowship. "Car," Rossi reminds, grave. "Big car. I prefer the bullet. And it feels like crap, actually, but I'll live." Hoarse and quiet as the baritone is, it sweeps throaty across the Brooklyn accent, husking over the quirk of vowels. "Thanks for the flowers, kid. If Julia gives you a hard time for them, punch her. In the nose."
Hooked, then, Alyssa's fingers squeeze -- gentle support for Rossi even as she shakes her head, and chuckles quietly. "Car? Like real honest to god squished by a car?" Head tilts, and the laigh is more honest and even a little bit relieved. "I think she accused you of robbing the cradle, actually. I don't know that I could punch her in the nose."
"Just make a fist and swing." Like so. Like so. Like ... so, dammit. Chris frowns briefly at his other hand, subdues it into obedience, and presents a loosely clasped hand for Alyssa's approval. Distant amusement traces its way along his voice as he admits, "--she can kick my ass, most days, so maybe it's not a good idea. Julia's tough, and she fights dirty. Robbing the cradle? What the hell?"
Torn between amusement over the attempt and concern that it was so feeble, Alyssa's free hand reaches to tighten the clasp of Rossi's fist. Smiling, though the experssion is somewhat unsteady, she flashes approval his way before retracting her hand. "I think it's because I showed up with flowers. And was asking about you." Nose wrinkles slightly, "I probably shouldn't have said you were hot, huh?"
Eyes close, an expression of pain sliding across Chris's face. "You did? Crap. Not that I'm not flattered," he adds, a lopsided hilarity blooming between the crack of lids. Green twinkles at Alyssa, chagrin mixing headily with drug-borne mirth. "Well. Maybe Julia'll be so distracted with the fact that I escaped the death rays and the flying junk and got hit by my own bullet, she won't remember that bit."
"I /did/ say, 'for being a cop,' if that helps any." Reflected mirth twinkles, and Alyssa squeezes his figners again, just because. "/Hopefully/. Wait. Death rays?" Again, the mix of curiousity and horror leaks into her voice, and her free hand lifts to prod at his side. Away, away from the injuries, of course. "What were you /doing/?"
"Letting myself be seen in public with Lazzaro," says Rossi, content to be piling blame on the (more-or-less) blameless bald head of the absent Detective. "Turns out there're some people out there who don't like cops. Go figure. --Right." Green eyes focus on Alyssa for a moment, intelligence struggling through the fog of painkiller and weakness. "I remember. Chicken."
"Oh." Alyssa frowns slightly, eyes brooding behind the sunglasses as she contemplates Rossi's answer. "That's lousy. Cops are good people. Keep us safe." Mirth bubbles, and expression clears as she tips her head down, looks over the glasses to catch Rossi's green gaze with her own, "Even if they can't keep /themselves/ safe." Curiousity again, with a head tilt to indicate before she echos, "Chicken?"
"You," Chris says, and blinks, drifting again. "Right into the arms. It's not safe. Not that I'm not safe," he adds with a weary lift of hand. "Except when shit happens, maybe, but I might /not/ have been. Just because I have a badge -- I could've been anybody."
"But you weren't," Alyssa counters with her flawed, heartbreaking logic. "You know Leah. And she's my friend." Anxiety creeps into the voice, and fingers twist slightly against his, "The badge means you're safe. You were nice to me. Not mean, like Mr. Shaw was.." There's a pause, wherein she shakes her head and stills her fingers, green eyes searching out his again over the shadow of her 'glasses. "So I wouldn't have. But you were a cop."
Even through the gentle delirium of his chemical swaddling, some darker, uglier shadow surfaces to disturb tranquility. "I might not've been," Chris says, shaping the words painstakingly off of a recalcitrant tongue. "And the badge doesn't always mean safe. Not that way. Your friends can have bad friends, kid. I might've been lying -- Christ." Tangled in tubes and needles, one hand gropes for his head, raking through that black mop.
"But you /weren't/ lying. And I trust leah to make good friends," she states solemnly, "And I trust you to be one of the good guys, okay? Don't.. do this. Just.. stop." Frowning as she watches the hand rake through his hair, hers lowers to rest on the side of the bed, the rest of her shifted accordingly. Ahh, youth. Her gaze focuses, through glasses skewed by the lean, on their hands, and absently rubs ehr thumb across his fingers. "You're the good guys," is repeated again, just for emphasis.
Lips thin and eyes close over the struggle against drugs. Black brows draw together, sinking a furrow into sun-dark skin; on the wide brow, tape crinkles and folds over stitches. "I'm an asshole, kid. Ask anyone. But I'm not anywhere near as bad as people you might run into." Difficult, clinging to the articulation of sense: Chris stirs restlessly on the bed, fingers twitching to Alyssa's, and tightens his grasp for a moment's insistence. "Damnit. You can't just ... /trust/."
"I /do/, though..." is murmured quietly as Alyssa curls up -- head on bed, body still mostly in chair, one hand captured by Rossi and the other now reaching for him, then pulling back. Stupid grownups. "People're nice, mostly. So I don't worry that the ones I meet aren't gonna be, 'cause then where would I be? Paranoid and unhappy, and that's a stupid way to be. I don't want to be like that." A pause to reshuffle, and the hand that was reaching out now gets withdrawn, her arm tucked underneath her head. "And you trust people, too. You trusted that I wasn't just putting on a show, or something, 'cause I /could/ have been." Not while still being Aly who wears her heart and beyond on her sleeve, but this is all theoretical, after all. "You offered the reasurrance."
"Not saying you should be paranoid, kid," sighs the tired voice from the bed, Chris's own thumb sliding across Alyssa's fingers in reciprocal comfort. "Just more careful. Not everyone who pretends to be your friend is a friend." Even the fuzziness of sleep-couched baritone and wandering mind cannot quite overpower the bleakness of the next. "I'd rather have you careful than hurt. Or worse."
There isn't much that can really be said in response to Rossi's last statement -- at least not in Alyssa's mind. No arguements, no witty comebacks, just the slow thread of fear that worms its way into her brain. "I'll try," is finally offered, and though she refrains from any waterworks this time, there's a definite note of loss in her voice. Even under the comfort of Chris' thumb's movement, her fingers still tighten around his.
The hand squeezes back, weaker than their wont, but still sufficient for the purpose; eyes open, slivered to brilliant, drunk green. "You okay?" Chris asks quietly, responding to that forlorn note with a guttering flame of guilt. Just or not: it is a catholic soul, to be sure. "I don't want to show up to a call and find out that it's for you."
"You won't," Aly assures with no real surety. "Even if I have to carry a card in my pocket that says 'In case of death, do not call Chris Rossi,' or something." Head, still pillowed on her arm, tilts slightly upward so she can shift her focus from their hands to his face, and she sighs softly. "And.. no. I'm not, really. But," and that's where the words fail her, and she sighs softly, breath puffing at wisps of hair escaped from her ponytail.
He regards her thoughtfully, the big bad cop, and untangles his hand to slide its fingers against her face: the fall of hair against her brow, the line of cheek, the tip of nose. Tubes trail its path, hissing against the hospital blankets. "But?" Chris echoes, adding a gentle, reckless promise: "I'll be there if you need me, one way or another, kid. No cards. I'd just rather not see you go somewhere where you'd need me, if you know what I mean." Does she? Does he? Brows knit again, puzzling over the tangle of meaning and words.
She smiles, then, at the brush of fingers against her face. "I'm not okay. But I know I'll need to be." There's that same trace of loss, though her affection for him is obvious as she makes a counter-promise: "I'll do what I can not to need you, then. I don't... want to be any trouble." She won't bring herself to admit to knowing exactly what he's talking about -- but she /will/ try not to end up dead. "You never told me which you liked best, Chris... homicide or MA..."
"You're not any trouble--" begins Rossi, but. The morass of intention over action is abandoned; distraction claims Chris, diverting him to the new question. "Homicide or MA? Apples and oranges. Turns out they both want me dead," he observes without surprise or, for that matter, much outrage. The cop's gaze drifts, ambling across Alyssa's face and up to the ceiling, where it frowns. A care bear helium balloon leers down at him. "What the fuck is that?"
"That's stupid. Nobody should want you dead," Alyssa proclaims, frowning somewhat. Arm is extracted from underneat her head, and she reaches out to pat at his leg. Her attention wanders as well, though it's brought abruptly back into focus with Rossi's exclamation. "Grumpy Bear. It's Grumpy Bear, Chris. Care bears. Apparently one of your well-wishers has a messed up sense of humor."
Chris knits his brow even deeper over Grumpy Bear, considers, then decides with a small sigh that taking offense requires more effort than he is willing to expend. Instead, he discovers Alyssa sitting by his side. Blinks at her dreamily. Hullo. Oh. "--I'm an asshole," he reminds. "I work very hard at it. Ask anyone. Ask Julia. Ask Canto. She'll give you an earful."
"If you have to work at it, then you're not /really/ an asshole. You just act like one." Someone could make a comment about wisdom from the mouth of babes, but it wold be highly unnecessary. His leg is patted again, and fingers recurl around his. "I still haven't talked to Leah. Was going to, but then I heard about you. Getting shot. Shooting yourself. Had to come see you first." Affection, again, as Alyssa's lips curl up into a smile, "'Cause you're my cop, Chris, and that means you're not allowed to do something stupid like die 'cause of some stupid accident, or something."
Fascination limns the glance Rossi turns back to Alyssa, mixed with a dormant, struggling horror. "Your cop? --You don't have to go sharing that," he adds as an afterthought, dragging fingertips across his face in a futile attempt to remove cobwebs. "About me shooting myself. Technically it was a ricochet. It's just that from a certain point of view--"
"My cop," Alyssa confirms, "Because I don't have another one. So you're mine." Whether healthy or not, Aly's tendancy to claim people is just one of those... quirks. Yes. Amusement is present in voice and aspect as she notes, "Yeah. From a certain point of view, you shot yourself. 'Cause the bullet came from your gun. I'll be good, though. You can play the hero." She'll probably only tell Leah, at least.
Exasperation sneaks into Chris's face -- "What /hero/?" he demands -- but amusement alleviates it, however deprecating. "Yeah. I'm never going to hear the end of this one. I can see it now. The precinct is gonna suck. Assholes." A sleepy condemnation of absent officers, who will doubtless do their best to live down to their reputation at the earliest opportunity.
Face crinkles with amusement to match Chris' exasperation. "You. You're a cop. It's part of the image." Or Alyssa could be teasing him mercilessly. Who knows. "I'll bring you cookies when you're better. I was going to, just 'cause you're nice, but maybe if you share they'll leave you alone."
"Unless they're deep-fried cookies, they won't make a dent in my image. I can see it now," murmurs Chris, sliding cautious fingertips in discovery across his face. Stitches here, tapes there; he blinks and splays his hand wide, finding much the same state of disrepair there. "What the--" he begins, bewildered. "Where'd all this come from?"
Into every wounded detective's life, a little female rain must fall -- and when it rains, it pours. First Julia, now Leah, whose voice warns of her coming up the hallway. There's bantering. There's possibly flirting. There is also the squeal of womanly greeting (the hug that sister and neighbor exchange goes without sound, and without saying). "--here?" comes surprised Canto query, too. "No, I'm good, I'll go in, thanks. Talk to you later? Someone has to keep these lugs in line -- yeah, up yours, too, buddy." A laugh for one of the uniforms, and then she pokes her head into the room. "Hello."
Canto. Oh. Goodie. Chris closes his eyes, dropping the back of his arm across his shuttered lids. "Mmf."
"From the doctors who bandaged you up, I'd say," Aly assumes softly, "I dunno, though. I just know 'bout the bullet hole in your chest." Chris' reaction, coupled with the voices outside the door have her lifting her head, green eyes narrowed until she recognizes, "Leah!" There's a flash of a smile, coupled with a finger-squeeze for Chris. "Hi."
"Two of my favorite people," Leah smiles on her way in. Doesn't go far, just leans up against the wall next to the door, and shoves her hands in her pockets. She's in casual dress to go with her casual mood, although the lines around her mouth and shadows under her eyes might take issue with that assessment. "And you're looking very comfortable, both of you. Good. I can smell the healing process at work already."
From under the straddling arm, green eyes peer dreamily at Canto, unfocused like the burr of baritone. "Kid brought me flowers," Chris informs, turning his head slightly on the pillow towards the nightstand where -- indeed -- flowers bloom in their vase. Bandages, IV, little pieces of tape: Rossi is the very image of a hospital doll, taken out for the amusement of others. "You look like crap."
Free hand reaches, pats at his leg in a slightly proprietary gesture. Her cop. Good cop. "Yeah. I brought him flowers. Woulda been cookies at the precinct, but..." She trails off with a shrug, then narrows her keen-eyed gaze at Leah. "He's kinda right, though. You okay?" She shifts, then frowns slightly. "You want the chair? I'll take the edge of the bed.."
Leah shakes her head and points out, "I'm not the one with a bullet hole. I'm fine, just tired. This assh--um, jerk kept me up last night, worrying about him and fielding all manner of phone calls. At least he could hook me up with some morphine, don't you think, Aly?" Pale eyes shift to the man in the bed; they tighten at the corners, though her smile remains in place, easy and unaffected. "You look like crap, too, Rossi. How's it feeling?"
"Like absolute shit," advises Rossi, cordially, though vague guilt nibbles at the edges of his face. Just a little bit. "Mmf. Nothing to worry about. Standing in the wrong place at the wrong time. Lazzaro's okay, though," he adds, irritation and residual anxiety stretching the last into long, sticky accents. "C'mon in. Grab a seat on the bed if you want. It's been a party in here since I woke up."
Alyssa would like to point out, "You were already awake when I got here, Chris." Eyes flicker from one friend to the other, and since Rossi just offered Leah the edge of the bed, why.. she'll stick to the chair. And scoot up closer to the head of the bed, though she does so without relinquishing the hold she has on Rossi's fingers. "I didn't hear about it 'til it was on the radio. They were calling you?" Confusion mars her expression, drawing eyebrows down into a creased frown. "Isn't that backwards? I mean, you're the reporter.."
"So of course I must know everything about the case," Leah tells her with weary sarcasm. "I'm plugged in, you know. I know everything and everyone that's important in the city. Except for the part where I don't." She stays against the wall, shrugs into it. "Doesn't matter. Hey, you're alive, Rossi. Good on ya. And on Lazzaro. Someone better call Sabby if they haven't already."
A hand waves casually, airily, and be damned to the pull of tape that crunches across the forearm. "I've been awake for hours," Chris informs drowsily. "Had visitors. The LT came and yelled at me, Cap came to check on me, the entire Rossi family came to yell at me: it's been fun. And the kid brought me flowers. And -- shit -- I have an armed guard. Is that to keep me in? Or you out?"
"Oh. Well." Alyssa frowns for just a moment more, then shakes herself slightly. She came to cheer Rossi up, after all. So she smiles up at Leah first, and says, "I'm glad you're friends with Chris, 'cause.. I dunno. Just because." Chris' list of visitors is nodded at, and answered with another crinkling smile. "Some of 'em didn't leave. And the guard's weird. Do they always do that if you get shot?"
Leah forces a chuckle for his question. "Oh, I'm not dangerous. Promise. I won't even yell. That's what family's for, and since Julia's here -- you met her, right, Aly? She's a dear, isn't she?" Lower slouch against the wall; her feet push out to keep her balance. "It's to keep someone from finish the job. You know, just in case. Lotta crazies out there, obviously."
"Someone out there loves me," concludes Chris, voice thick with the onset of sleep. Eyes flicker, sliding closed on a drowse; lips move on a slow comment, soundless, then turn up the volume to: "--did a good job. You should cut him a break."
"She accused Chris of robbing the cradle. I told her he said no," Alyssa states blandly, though amusement -- and anticipation -- twinkles in her eyes. The drifting cop gets an affectionate look, and her free hand reaches up to tousle at his hair. Hah. "Hopefully there are more of us who want you alive than dead, Chris. Hopefully."
Leah says quietly, "There are," even while her mouth's still quirked at the cradle-robbing bit. "New York's Finest -- we want you very much alive. And healthy. And safe."
Drug-drowned alarm peers at Leah from that tousled hair. "Why?" asks Chris, though the tail end of the word is lost in a yawn. "Summers. Him. You see him, tell him I said thanks for saving my life and all. --Going to just close my eyes for a while," he mumbles, and suits action to word. A moment later, he has faded into the sweet, silent anaesthesia of sleep.
"A while. Huh. Sure." Affection fades into amused silence for a moment before Aly turns, resettlign ehrself in her chair with a sigh. Chris' fingers are squeezed once, breifly, and she slips her hand out of his fingers' now limp embrace, turning her attention fully toward Leah. "Hi, Leah."
"Scott," mutters Leah like a frown, like a sigh, and then shakes her head firmly. Later. For now, she switches attention to Alyssa, and there's something of prickly uncertainty picking a slow way through calm expression and low voice. "Hi, Alyssa. How--how've you been? Been a while. Sorry about that."
"I've... been better. It's been... rough. Um." She sighs and reaches a hand to scrub at her eyes, belatedly realizing she didn't take her sunglasses too when she moved. Eyes scan the bed, and she finally finds them, snatched up before she continues. "I've kinda been. Avoiding. Not exactly. I don't know. Got bad news. Wasn't sure how to... god. Broke down on Chris when I met him outside your apartments... s'how we're friends."
Leah's concern follows the uncertainty through her manner. "Oh, God, hon. I'm sorry. About John, huh? I ran into one of your teachers at a bookstore, tried to pump him for information, but-- What happened to him? He's still down in the city somewhere, right?" She tries a smile. "Doing the 'mechanic by day, writer by night' lifestyle, I hope. Crazy kid."
Alyssa shakes her head, the brief short motion coupled with the way she curls in on herself slightly -- turning toward Rossi, for the comfort that cannot be given this time around -- bringing a note of finality to her statement even before she makes it. "No. He's.. gone. Completely." A hand twitches slightly as she attempts a dismissive gesture, "I'm better off without him, anyway. Shouldn't have slept with him. He left, right after. Gone."
Well, she's no Rossi, the good Lord knows, but Leah is there, and her hands are there, curving over the girl's shoulders from behind in a warm and firm hold. "Hey," she says softly. "Don't blame yourself. It went wrong. It got -- fucked up. Happens, kid. It really does. We all have those stories in our past, and you know what? Things still turn out okay. Life does that for you: it comes around."
Hands slide up, clasped over Leah's like she's drawing strength from the older woman -- which she probably is, in a metaphorical sense at least. "That isn't even the worst part, Leah. I don't know how to.. fuck it." Rossi may be asleep, but she can still blame the swearing on his influence. "He joined the Brotherhood. John -- /my/ Johnny.. he's a terrorist now, Leah. What kind of world /is/ this?" Where good boys go bad and good cops get shot with their own bullets.
Leah's fingers tighten. So does her voice. "/Alyssa./"
Alyssa's voice is a match for Leah's, though still laced with hurt. "I /know/, Leah."
Leah rubs her shoulders for a moment. "It's a bad world," she finally says, "which is what makes finding the good in it all the more important. Family. Friends. The light they bring. The light /you/ bring. I mean, look at you and Rossi." Amusement leavens her voice, tired as it is. "Man was never /my/ friend, and I've known him for years. But you won him over lickety-split, apparently. That's a gift, dear girl. Don't let some jerkwad of a boy in love with his own hormones spoil it for you."
"I sobbed into his shirt," Alyssa admits slowly, "And today he lectured -- or tried to -- me about.. chicken? About being too trusting. Damnit, I was /trying/ this time, Leah. But he's a cop.." A smile flares briefly, "He says you call him Rossi -- and worse. And that he's an asshole." Expression -- and voice -- harden. "Not as much of an asshole as John, though. Told him about him. S'why I was crying."
Leah ruffles the girl's hair with sisterly fingers, quiet and familiar. "I do call him names. He returns the favor. We get by. We get by." Some low warmth moves with oceanic power in her alto: the tide of memory, of more. "You deserve to cry, Aly. John hurt you. He /is/ an asshole. He turned his back on you and everything mutants are supposed to stand for, huh? Isn't it about integrating in society, not blowing it up to make your own?" Her hands have moved, as if of their own accord, away; but she hasn't, is just leaning on the back of the chair now. With a sigh. "Magneto's a lost cause. I don't want to think that John is, too, but..."
Alyssa makes another admission, this time in a voice even more quiet than the last. "I wanted.. to go with him. For about a week, after I found out. Wanted desperately to just throw everything away, throw every/one/ away. But I couldn't." She tips her head upward, a slight smile spreading as she says, "Couldn't, though. I'm friends with you, and.. that's why. I realized that it'd mean I'd have to hate you guys, and you, and.. no. I just /couldn't/ do that." Mouth twists into a wry version of the original smile, "And my parents. And Chris. All of you guys are too good to hate."
"Temptation," Leah responds after a moment. "We all have them, Aly. You did the right thing. You know that." She says it firmly, permitting no doubt, and moves on with it as a given. "I /am/ glad you don't want to hate me. I don't want to hate you, either. Hate's no way to make the world better. Love -- well, that's kinda trite, but understanding, at least. We can start with that. Terrorists don't get it; they never will." And her voice hardens, and her hands on the chair back, and her gaze on the wall over Rossi's head. (Die, dancing sugarplums, die.) "Forget about him. He can't come back now, and you have your whole life ahead of you."
"I'm trying, Leah, I really am. Hit on Chris, evne if I was only joking. Says he doesn't have any eligible brothers or cousins, though." It's a crappy attempt to lighten the mood, but Alyssa's all for making it anyway.
Leah laughs at that, though softly out of deference to his sleep (and, well, his family). "No, he doesn't. He's too old for you, anyway -- and why would you trade one asshole for another? Poor girl. You need to find some sweet boy who sits in the back of one of your classes and stammers whenever you look at him." Amusement rubs raw silk over her words. "And you take his hand and kiss him and rock his world."
Alyssa grins, amusement laced through her voice as she tips her head back down, "'Cause he's hot, Leah. And fairly nice, for an asshole." She shakes her head, still grinning as she reaches up to grope for one of Leah's hands -- once found, she pats it helpfully. "Maybe you should have a go at.. er. What was the phrase you used? Banging him like a screen door?" She ducks away, still grinning.
"Been there," says Leah, "done that."
"Grumpy Bear," says a dragging, sleep-blurred voice from the bed. Green eyes are open, if blank; they trace the shape of the balloon hugging the ceiling with an idly wondering perplexity. Chris is awake. "What the hell's a Care Bear?"
"--And what have you done?" Rossi adds as a dreamy afterthought.
Leah snorts. "You."
"/You/ had /sex/ with /Chris/?!" Alyssa both confirms and questions. Loudly. With accompanying scrunched up face and twist around in her seat. She holds for a second, then squeaks. And turns aroudn to stare at Chris. "It's a cartoon. TV show. And nothing. Nothing!" They weren't talking about him. Really. Shhhh. Go back to sleep.
"Oh." It is an acknowledgment flat with bewilderment, answering both -- or neither -- and Chris closes his eyes again to lapse into sleep. Only ... wait. "Why are you telling her we had sex?" he wonders, plaintively.
Leah doesn't move back to her wall-hung slouch. It might be a near thing, by the flatness under her voice's deliberate soft calm. "Girl-talk, Rossi. Don't worry your fuzzy head about it. Do you need more drugs? I can call the nurse."
"Because you're too old to have it with me. So I told Leah that she should," Alyssa informs ever so helpfully. "It's okay, though. She didn't tell me if you were any good or not." Uncurling from her seat, she reaches out to pat affectionately at Rossi's hand. "Have a nice nap?"
The broad, stitch-marked brow furrows at Alyssa over a fuzzy-eyed blink, and Chris yawns into a loose cachet of fingers before stirring to a drowsy, "Nap? Hey, kid. You're still here. How long was I out for? --Shit." Breath catches, pinching white around lips, and Rossi focuses with abrupt attention. "Ow. She didn't? Hey, Canto."
"Not long," Leah answers over Alyssa's head. It's not looming so much as ... standing back. Behind girl-shield, say. "Rest is good for you. Don't fight it."
Alyssa nods, grinning slightly. "Yeah, I'm still here. Was just talking to Leah, mostly. Told her that thing, about my ex-boyfriend. She didn't get the tears, though. Your shirt should envy hers." Alyssa makes a good shield, damnit. She's too cute not to. "So, how come you two are friends?" This is tipped upward to Leah, as curiousity wins out over being quiet and letting Chris sleep more.
Another blink, a matched set, hastier than the last. "Did she says 'because I'm too old to have it with her?'" Did she? Chris drifts mingled unease and amusement towards Alyssa, and yawns again into IV cables and taped needles before noting, absently, "She used to date my brother, few years back. We friends, Canto?" The free hand drops, spidering lightly across the bulk of bandages beneath the robe.
Leah twitches a smile. Might be a smile, anyway. And she skips right by the first question to answer the last: "Sure, Rossi. Sure we are. Which is why I'm refraining from making a screen-door comment--" one hand steals out to squeeze Alyssa's shoulder like a laugh "--not that I think you'd remember it, anyway, when you come out of the haze."
Alyssa snickers quietly, amusement dancing wildly in vivid green eyes. /She/ will answer the first question, with a muffled, "Yes," before snickering again. "Wait. You dated his brother, and now you're...?" Gaze flicks back and forth between the two, "Or have, anyway. You said you had, not that you were.. right?"
Chris is scratching his chest, probing through the bandages with absent-minded curiosity. "Gabe is an asshole," he informs: no guilt, no, though his eyes darken in their shadowed hollows. (Perhaps a little guilt.) "What about screen doors?"
"Nothing," floats an innocent Leah. "We've had sex, Aly. Doesn't mean we're going to get married or anything. I did propose to Julia, though. She accepted. Oh, if only we were in Massachusetts!"
Rossi explains for Alyssa's benefit, apologetically, "I'm a slut. Not good at relationships."
"Banging," is all Alyssa will add, though Rossi's statement gets a puzzled, yet affectionate, "Oh," and pat on the hand. "That's unfortunate." But then again, look at /her/ history.
"Not really," Leah continues to the girl. "Unfortunate, that is. He /is/ good in bed, after all."
Mute protest turns to Leah. Don't tell her /that/. Chris chuffs a sigh and settles back again, pain knocking quietly on his threshhold.
"Really?" Alyssa perks, "Too bad he's old. And a cop." Because somehow, that just makes it worse.
Laughter shivers through Leah's voice, shoulders, fingers on Alyssa's shoulder. "Yeah, and he's an injured cop, injured in the line of duty, so we should be very nice to him and not discuss intimate details, don't you think?"
"/Please/," murmurs Chris without, it is true, overmuch optimism. His gaze drifts up, touching on the Care Bear again with idle loathing; then down again, down again, to Leah and Alyssa. And the nudge of memory, to brush his husky voice with rue. "Sorry you were worried, Canto. Would've thought Julia'd call you."
"He's a very nice cop. My cop. And that was before we were friends, anyway." No more pushing from Alyssa -- she can always ferret out details from Leah at some later date. she twists back again to look at Leah, "I hadta find out when it was on the radio. That /sucked/."
Leah glances down with a strained smile of comfort, sympathy. "Yeah, well, I heard it from one of my brothers, straight from the force's mouth. It's fine, Rossi. Just called up old memories -- you know the drill." Her mouth folds down on anything more, and she finds a new topic: "It /is/ a nice present you brought, Aly. Care Bear and all. Damn, I should've brought something."
"The balloon wasn't mine. Just the flowers," Alyssa clarifies.
Leah is briefly appalled. "Who brought the balloon, then?"
Alyssa shrugs. "Dunno. It was here when I got here. /I/ woulda brought Lucky. The green one?"
Radio. Radio? "I think it was the Captain," says Chris Rossi, to all or nothing. "Weird sense of humor. I don't get her." The hedonite's mouth thins for Leah, sharing stark understanding -- both scions of the NYPD -- before he rouses in his bed, attempting to pull himself up. Ow. Or perhaps not. Hopeful: "She didn't yell, though."
"With the clover on his belly," agrees Leah, a woman obviously seeped in the mysteries of Care Beardom. "That would've been a good choice, Aly. Grumpy -- well, only a police captain would pick that one out for her cop. I'm glad she didn't yell. Means you'll be allowed back into the squadroom?" There's some teasing there. There's more quiet concern.
Oddly out of place, as the only one who isn't born and bred of the NYPD, Alyssa lapses into quiet for a long moment, watching the byplay between the two adults. "Not yelling is good," is finally stated quietly.
"I guess we'll find out," says Detective Rossi, cynicism needling through the drug's fog to glint at Leah, star-bright. "Beston's not worried. The LT says IA's whining about excessive force. Doubt they'll convince anyone. --The Captain doesn't really yell very often," he adds for Alyssa's benefit, smile lines dipping at the corners of his eyes and mouth. "She's more of a speak softly and carry a big stick type. Scariest woman I've ever met."
So Leah has to mourn, on cue, "But what about /me/? And your sister?"
"You're not scary, Leah," Alyssa counters with a grin for Rossi's commentary, hand creeping out to claim the first two fingers of his. "Who's Beston?" is asked of the room at large.
"Scarier," says Rossi without hesitation. And of course she would have to be, to rule this bloody-minded, arrogant asshole. Self-knowledge gleams in Chris's voice, chasing away the fuzziness for a moment, at least. "Knows how to use her fists, too. --Beston's my partner. Don't think you've met him."
Leah finally gives up, gives in, and switches her shielded lean on the chair back to a seated lean on the edge of the bed, just above the footboard so she can hook an elbow over it for stability. "He's a good guy," she tells the girl, not without a quick, quirked look -- that tired smile -- at the detective. "Real good. He's going to be a saint after he dies. Count on it."
"Beston'll be, or Chris?" Confustion reigns, though Alyssa's thankful for Leah's reseating -- she can look at /both/ of them now, without craning her neck. "Will I meet him if I bring you cookies?" Bright, cheerful interest, there.
Rossi grins briefly at the thought. "Saint Beston. There's a thought that'd crack the brain. He'll love your cookies, kid. Count on it. --You planning on baking these things yourself?"
Leah flips a hand, a grimace in apology for her ambiguity, and glides into, "Hey, you can come over and use my kitchen if you want, Aly. I love to cook."
Alyssa grins, blushing faintly. "Yes, probably. I thought it wou-- you were nice to me, and all." Still slightly sheepish, the grin is turned on Leah, "May I? That would probably work better than trying to take over the kitchen at school, and explaining that I'm baking cookies for a cop. Cops," she amends, "If your partner'll like 'em."
Chris runs a lazy thumb across Alyssa's fingers, thoughtlessly rubbing a circle around the knuckle of one. "He'll love 'em. Hasn't met a baked good he didn't love. In fact, he hasn't met pretty much any edible item he didn't love." Couched on its pillow, Rossi's head turns in discomfort, nudging the weight-flattened support on its slide towards his shoulders. "You'll be picking up more cops if you keep this up, kid."
"Whenever you want," Leah assures her. "I have free time these days; just give me a call or stop by." Her eyes slide over the thumb's circle, slit like her quiet smile, and land on Rossi's face. Hello. "Tell him hi for me, next time you see him? We should catch up, him and me; it's been awhile. /You/ and I should, too, now that I think about it, but..." Her smile stretches as she shrugs. "Obviously I can wait until you're not, you know, drugged to the gills."
Alyssa crooks a smile at the slide of thumb over fingers, squeezing gently. "I dunno, Chris. One cop is hard enough to keep track of, and out of trouble." Nose wrinkles slightly, her teasing light as she shifts her gaze to Leah again. "We can bake 'me once he gets sprung free. Take 'em to him for a welcome to being back on duty.. thing." Affection tugs at Aly's voince, sharing space with a little thread of worry. "You okay, Chris? Comfortable, or..?" Alyssa, champion pillow-fluffer.
"He was here earlier," Chris says, drowsy contentment smoothing over the peaks of his accent. "Said he'd be back later with some real coffee. Wait if you want. He likes you. --And I'm not drugged to the gills." Just to the fins. Didn't he just nap? He will nap again. In just a moment. Eyes grin at Alyssa from under the heavy eyelids, and the black, hopelessly mussed head turns into its cant with a small wince. "Just fine, kid. Mm. Christ, this shit makes me sleepy--"
Leah sighs as he slips away again. She keeps her gaze on his face, the pale-brown of her irises falling to pupils' expanse. "Poor guy," she murmurs. "Helluva job, isn't it?"
Alyssa doesn't relinquish the fingers this time, even as Rossi's grip slackens and he drifts off to sleep. "Insane. I'd asked him to teach me how to shoot, one of these days." Amusement, wry, "But that was before he got shot in the chest with a ricochet from his own gun. Man." Worry flicks across her face as she looks back on the drugged up officer, though she valiantly refrains from brushing the tousled hair out of his eyes. Worried!Aly.
"It's not for everyone," and Leah leaves open the antecedent: cop life or guns? "He'll be fine, though, don't worry. They get taken very good care of. Treated like conquering heroes when they get back on the job, if they do get back." She shakes her head sharply, lips flattening. "Well. He'll get back, of course."
"You sound like you know," is offered with a keen look towards the journalist, narrow-pupiled eyes focusing on Leah's face. "Chris is my first cop." Affection again, easing into her voice -- casual, friendly. "So I don't really know.. what this is like."
Leah shrugs and allows in a self-mocking drawl, "I'm not keeping it a secret, that's for sure. Half my family is on the force. My father died on the job when I was nineteen -- heart attack. One of his brothers got shot the same year -- crippled for life. My two brothers are in it. Other uncles. Cousins." Her voluptuous alto wades from clinical calm into warmer waters, flecked with old, past exasperation's whitecaps. "Rossi and I come from the same background, you know: Brooklyn, Italian, Catholic blue. That's how I know he'll be fine. I'll make /sure/ he is, if I have to do it all myself."
Alyssa considers Leah solemnly, then shakes her head. "Wow. Wow, I had no idea there were /that/ many.. wow." Articulation abandoned for a moment, she crinkles up her nose. "I didn't realize you were. Is that why you're sometimes friends? Other than you dating his brother." The last of her words, though, send another squeeze of Rossifingers, and Alyssa notes, "It wouldn't be /all/ yourself. I'd help. I don't want him to.. I like my cop whole."
With a thin smile, Leah tells her, "All those cops have to come from somewhere, right? The borough's staffing entire precincts on its own, believe me." The expression shaves even tighter, but compassion tempers it as she shifts, goes on. "Aly, he's not yours, you know. I know you attach to people like hell, but ... it's not really safe, in general." Bites her lip. Scouts a look at Rossi, back again. "Remember those bruises you had."
"/Is/," is emphasized, "He said he'd be there if I ever needed him." Leah's reminder touches off guilt, results in a frown. "I.. know. Chris, he.. talked. Explained. I'm /not/ just blindly.. but he was a cop. And cops are supposed to be the good guys, so I still.." Even while rambling, Alyssa's voice hardens, "I'm gonna be more careful, though. Try to be, anyway."
Leah sighs her way back against the footboard. "All right. All right. I'm not your mother. You can take care of yourself." She refrains from doing more than an eyeroll to heaven's initial twitch. "I trust you. I just worry. It's what I do."
"And I trust people," is murmured with a quiet, self depreciating smile. Alyssa leans toward the end of the bed, seeking to capture Leah's hand with her free one. "I'm working at not doing it so blindly, though. I promise. Thank you for worrying." Another smile, this one more hopeful.
"'s what she does, worry," says Chris from sleep, half the words lost in the thickness of a waking tongue. He contemplates the back of his eyelids, finds them good, and remains in willful darkness. With pain, and light-headedness, and the detached serenity of drugs.
Fingers link and hold. Leah's are tight, hard, with writerly and other calluses lining their edges. Her expression is much the same. "You're welcome -- and thank /you,/ Rossi. Are you with us again?"
Rossi considers lazily. "No," he decides. The fingers caught in Alyssa's stir, barely exerting pressure before they relax again. Owlishly, the dragging baritone adds: "Don't trust. That. You know."
Alyssa's fingers exert counter-pressure, stronger than Rossi's, but still gentle. "I'm trying," is her answer, accompanied by the brush of thumb across the back of his fingers. For Leah, the grip tightens, and she sends the woman a blindingly brilliant smile. "I'm set for life, with friends like you guys."
"Oh my God," Rossi manages, weakly.
Leah, not being perforated /or/ drugged, rises to diplomacy. She smiles kindly at the girl. "Well, we'll do our best, huh? Should probably get you home at some point, though. I'm tired, too."
Alyssa's smile falters ever so slightly at Rossi's reaction, then strengthens itself again as she turns it on /him/. "I mean it. You two are just," both hands are squeezed, and she looks form one to the other, "The best. Ever. Leah, I'm sorry I didn't talk to you for so long.." But she doesn't /want/ to go home.
For this, Rossi's eyes open at last, dull behind the fan of long lashes. Feminine, alas, though Nature mocks her fairer sex by denying them such riches. Green eyes, black lashes, dark skin, pale lips. "What time is it?" he wonders at random, before focusing slowly onto Alyssa. A blink answers her smile, vaguely dazzled. "Hey, kid."
Leah frees her hand, nicely but surely, to wave off the apology. "You were busy," she assures her sardonically. "I do understand, Aly. Don't worry about it." She slithers off the bed, leaving her other hand on Rossi's ankle even as she stands. "/I/ should go home, if nothing else. Leave you two lovebirds alone."
"Shut up," says Rossi, without heat, and a hand lifts in careful summons. "C'mere, Canto."
"Hi, Chris," is murmured quietly, and the wattage on the beam kicked up a notch or two. Just because. His summons to Leah does not go unnoted, however, and Aly scoots slightly to one side -- fingers still twined with his -- to allow her access. "I should probably go too.. or something." Doesn't want to, though. That much is obvious.
Leah sighs, and does roll her eyes at the ceiling for patience, the quality of mercy not strain'd ... but does come to the call, lamb-biddable. "Yes, Rossi -- holy shit, you look even worse up close," she observes as she leans over him. Pale eyes blink clinical fascination, and then she prods his cheek experimentally. Hmm.
Stop that. Chris's free hand swats belatedly at Leah's before groping uncertainly across the stitches and ache of closed wounds to tangle with her fingers. Eyes focus slowly, quizzical across the woman's face. "I'll be fine, Canto. Really. You okay?"
"Yeah," she answers, low, and bends lower to brush a kiss on his forehead. Writer's fingers tighten on his. "Be fine by the morning--" sprightly Canto assurance there "--and will hound your fine ass in recuperation when you get home. Assuming your mother doesn't kidnap you to put you up with Gabe again. Come sleep on /my/ couch before that happens, Chris, you hear me? I won't have you get shot up and then locked away for fratricide during recovery."
Alyssa's hand disengages from Chris' during this exchange, pulls back into her lap as keen green eyes flicker back and forth between the pair. Then she ducks, studying her fingers while she allows them their space.
He would chuckle, were it in him. As it is, the spin of amusement behind his eyes must do. Chris submits meekly to the salute, as docile as any son of so formidable a woman, and lifts their entwined hands to breathe a dry, light kiss on the back of hers. "If Julia doesn't get him first. Take care, Leah."
Speaking of which redoubtable sister: a shiny-eyed head pops into the room, fingers curling around the door's edge, and purses her lips at the visitors. "Yo," greets Julia, blithe and brilliant. "Hey, visiting hours're almost over. Beston's getting argued at by Paul out here. You want I should tell your partner to shoot him, Chris?"
Leah's jaw firms a steady line below her fixed smile, and it's as well that she's standing up and swinging her gaze around to Alyssa and then Julia, fortunate sister. Bright refocus. Sprightly, sprightly-- "Let me handle him," she offers silkily. "I'll see if I can get him to actually have an expression on that face of his."
Alyssa takes Leah's distraction -- and unfortunately, Julia's appearance -- to make her move, sliding closer to recapture Rossi's fingers, and hopefully his attention. "Hey, Chris?" is questioned quietly, her eyes bright on his face. Leave the wrangling to Leah -- she gets a goodbye, too.
Chris quivers, either in exasperation or frustration or sheer, untrammeled amusement. "Go get 'im, Canto," he encourages over Julia's bubble of malicious glee. The sliver of eyes travels towards Alyssa, briefly warmed in a soundless laugh, and fingers squeeze gently at hers. "You wanted to see what kinda assholes are in my family, now's your chance, kid. Better keep your glasses on, though. --Taking off?"
"Paul makes us Republicans look bad," Leah tells Alyssa gravely. She slides a look along the way to Rossi -- a weary spasm of emotion, a tug at dragged mouth -- and then slides out the door, past Julia, to enter battle. Some dragons she /can/ slay, dammit.
Alyssa reaches first for Chris, brushing the knuckles of her free hand against his face -- gently, gently, so as not to encounter bandaged cuts -- in a similar gesture to an earlier one of his. "Yeah, I'd better. See if I can catch a ride with Leah. You.. take care of yourself, okay? I'll come visit you again." Fingers squeeze at his vefore she extracts her hand and stands, then leans to brush a kiss against his forehead, and reward him with another brilliant smile. "Try to have a good night, okay?"
Julia gurgles merriment, popping back out of the room with the parting shot: "Nurse is doing the rounds right now, kid." Even the language is the same, tripped gaily off a vibrant alto. "You got maybe a minute before she comes on in to give hero-boy a sponge bath. --Leah. Ask Paul how his hair grew back."
A snort, and retreating Canto's alto wonders, wanders, down the hallway, "Is /that/ why his wife looked so surprised at dinner? I'll be--"
The detective grins sleepily back at Alyssa, an expression that fades with horrified swiftness at: "Wait. Sponge bath? What the fuck? -- Night, kid. I'll be fine. Don't worry about me. Only the good die young."
"Sponge bath?" is squeaked, distress manifesting itself briefly before Alyssa fumbles at the edge of the bed and recovers her sunglasses. Safe behind the darkened lenses, she turns back to Chris to offer another, slighter smile. "That's /so/ my cue to go. Night, Chris." And she's out the door, eyes wide behind her glasses as she encounters her first full dose of Rossi family.. goodness.
Left behind in peace and quiet, (with only the first vivid, crashing cacophony of voices outside to infuriate nurses and patients alike) Chris Rossi closes his eyes, a small smile fading into sleep.
[Log ends.]