Things don't always look better in the clear light of morning

[runmakitarun]

Makita sleeps for nearly sixteen hours before her eyes snap open abruptly. She's in a bed. That isn't right. Her mind casts back, trying to figure out how she got here, but the memory she finds first stops any search for an explanation.

Now she's curled up on the bed, tucked into as small a space as she can manage, whining brokenly.

Comments

[slayer_fray]

Mel isn't gone for more than a few minutes. She has a plate of warm fresh-from-the-oven cinnamon buns when she returns, which she leaves on the bedside table.

There's no need to worry; Mike made them.

Mel just sits on the bed, and lays a hand on Kita's shoulder.

[runmakitarun]

There's a slight twitch at the touch, but it's no longer the feeble instinct of an exhausted girl. Rather it's that girl remembering other touches, and shying away from the memories.

She sobs quietly for quite a while, long enough for the cinnamon buns to cool down to room temperature, before she manages to speak. "Hey." Her voice is dry and cracked from disuse and exhaustion, the word barely sounding like more than a hurt little noise.

[slayer_fray]

"Buns have gone cold," Mel says. Not scolding, more just fact.Her hand stays put.

[runmakitarun]

"Oh." Makita can't even muster more of a response than that. She's still numb, though no longer with physical exhaustion. And that's part of the problem: being tired had been a great distraction.

[gotham_knocking]

He's afraid what he'll find. But he's more afraid not to look, more afraid that if doesn't try to help, he's failing Kita. She got him back home alive. So now he has to do the same, in a sense.

Alex enters the room, and tries to find Kita in the dim light from the other side of the door.

[runmakitarun]

She's not hard to find, really. Even curled up and buried in the bed, the low keening sound she emits makes her location obvious.

[gotham_knocking]

"Kita?" He moves closer to he bed, not sure she will respond even if she is awake and not catatonic this time.

[runmakitarun]

For the moment, at least, she doesn't. The sound has shifted a bit from what it was the night before. It is no less broken, but where before it had been a sound of instinctual anguish, this time there's a note of awareness of the pain.