The boy was quiet, and shy, and sweet and she adored him, the shao-lin Master of sarcasm, Poetic Justice.....PJ. He stumbled into the railroad car, blood trickling off his slit wrists, wicked blade still clenched in one. And apologized for intruding.
When asked why, he said he'd made orphans and widows. And she'd found herself saying that being an orphan wasn't so bad, she was one.......and neither was being a widow.
Chelsea sat up sharply, the abrupt stop of the music drawing Nico's attention.
"What's wrong, m'dear?"
"Just.....PJ's hurt....." He rarely saw her of all people seem disturbed.
"Who's PJ?"
Lucky's voice, sharply, "PoJu, get to the phone."
"Friend. Hollower."
"Need healing?" She could sense him reach for his pockets, for his scalpel and his bone, and shook her head no. There were simpler ways than magic, sometimes.
"Just three numbers, PJ..." she said, stripping his shirt back from his arms.
"You can't do it." Nico stopped in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen, leaning on the jamb, watching her.
"Will he or she live?"
In the expanse of the rail car, the beep of the each dialed number rang for an eternity. 9.....
"I don't know......" She turned PoJu's wrists over in her hands, ran her fingertips across the ragged edges of flesh, heard another beep. 1..... "He found the veins, did a damn nice job."
"One more......" she said softly, wrapping her arms around herself as if cold. Nico disappeared into their bedroom, returning with a blanket. She startled when he wrapped her in it, conceding to his touch with a frown.
"Do you know... why?" She shook her head no. Lucky, the kind of firm that earned the nickname June Fucking Cleaver: "Peanut jelly, dial that last number." "If there's anything I can do... otherwise... I'll just be here.
"I think......" She paused. The last beep echoed; the phone rang, someone answered. He didn't talk to her, just lay across the carpet, as in the rail car he bled on the chair while she coaxed him into holding his arms above his body to cut off the circulation. "He's got help coming, maybe......"
Chelsea glanced up at Nico, the shadows pooling at her feet for a last minute railroad ride, if necessary. Bring him here where Nico could heal him or go to him and dial the phone herself; either one was going to hurt.
Banging, on a door, far away yet not but a few feet from her. PJ raises his head, blood tears on his face. His body rises in the rail car as the paramedics lift him up.
Chelsea leaned backwards against him, pulling the blanket around her as the shadows dispersed.
"I'm sorry I.....bled on.....your car," he said.
She giggled suddenly, at nothing Nico could see; and then broke down crying. He wrapped his arms around her shoulder, holding her. It was several minutes, either before she could speak or before she decided what to say, he couldn't be certain which.
"When do you have to go?" she asked. He pulled her tight.
"Where would I be going?"
"The gauntlet. Where you said the shards are."
"After our trip. Why?"
"Because....." She took a deep breath and spat it out the only way she knew how to put it. "Because if you're going to get yourself killed, at least make me a proper widow this time." He smiled a little under the brim of the everpresent hat.
"Whatcha got in mind?"
"Maybe....." Shit. Good question. And then it hit her; for the first time in her lifetime, there was a Druid with the rank to serve Lady Conrad. "Connal could handfast us."
"I'd like that." He stroked her hair. She turned around on the piano bench, wrapping her arms around his waist. "I'd like that...a lot."