New York -- Abandoned Lower Level Under the 42nd Street Station -- Manhattan. Monday Afternoon.

[icecoldfrost]

Emma had warned Jack to wear something he didn't mind getting a bit dirty in, but she didn't bother to confirm his suspicions, even after they'd slipped past a grate and down a tunnel, eventually taking a labyrinth set of twists, turns, and ladders.

It wasn't that she didn't trust Jack. It was just what you did down here.

"Hank?" she eventually called, stepping from a tunnel into a space that was actually brightly lit and clean. "I brought a friend, like you said I could."

Well, he'd said 'bring that boy sometime,' but close enough.

[OOC: NFB, for the person with her.]

Comments

[bitten_notshy]

Jack stirred the saucepan, not glancing toward her.

<<I want>>, he thought simply.

[icecoldfrost]

<<I was leaving a party, and they decided a girl alone was easy prey.>> Emma sounded utterly detached, like describing something that had happened to someone else. <<I wouldn't give them a kiss.>>

<<I raked my nails across their ringleader's face and ran for it. They caught up.>>

<<The last thing I remember after they bounced my head off the payment was the big one saying it would be more than a kiss I'd be giving them now. And they were laughing and kicking me. When I woke up, I was here, and Hank had the bodies laid out. That was the first time we met.>>

She offered up the memory, half-removed, so he wouldn't experience any of it from Emma's viewpoint. <<I just wanted to get away.>>

[bitten_notshy]

Jack's shoulders shuddered. <<Oh my god.>>

It took most of his concentration not to say it aloud.

<<You were lucky Hank was there>>, he continued. There was more, a great formation of anger and horror, but it wasn't easily defined by something so simple as words -- let alone words in his fourth language.

[icecoldfrost]

Emma shrugged imperceptibly. <<He'd been watching me for awhile, apparently. He'd seen me once, twice, three times, and then started looking for me. He liked what he saw, and wanted to be friends.>>

<<We made a deal. I'd help him remember everything he'd lost, and he would protect me. But I protect him, too. He can't help the way he is; how he looks or his odd bits or any of that. I won't let him get in trouble for helping me.>>

[bitten_notshy]

<<I'm not about to call the police>>, Jack replied firmly. <<Just friends? Why?>>

[icecoldfrost]

<<It's Hank, who knows why?>> she replied. <<He said he liked how I 'dodged the hard times' like him, and wanted to be friends. I don't know if he even realized I was a telepath at first."