Jessica

Acceptance Part One

Inside the cell assigned to one Baumgartner, the prisoner wasn't sleeping despite the orders that the guards gave out a couple hours prior.

She was too busy thinking about what her daughter was doing. Lana told her that her new friends were nice but she always refused to talk about anything that they did together. She just hoped she could trust her word, the last thing she wanted was her getting in more trouble, especially when she wasn't by her side. Divided, they were weaker.

Suddenly, Lori heard a bizarre noise and got up from her bed to check what that could have possibly been. There wasn't a single beam of light coming in so her first thought was looking outside the cell but there was nothing new to see.

Then she sensed an almost inconceivable sound, similar to a footstep and she turned around wondering how that could be if she didn't even notice anything opening. In the darkness she barely managed to see a pure white figure in the shape of a man, lacking any clothes and riddled with holes.

She promptly jumped away from him but, despite her instinctive reaction, nothing came out of her hands because of the blasted collar around her neck. She could only scream as the monstrous stranger approached her.

And despite him seemingly not having a mouth he still uttered this as he grabbed her: "I'm sorry."

When the guards heard her voice and arrived at the cell, there was nothing left of her... or him for that matter.

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Seeing Jessica focused on her work like never before, Kitty had to leave the house on her own. There was a new wound that needed time to heal, though it wasn't the first one, and it simply couldn't while she looked at her being that happy, as if she was finally about to finish everything she set out to do.

She needed time for herself to think about how she could have made this new status quo continue. Just the fact that she had to be away from Jessica to think about it spoke volumes.

She put on a lot more makeup than usual and even some clip on nose and eyebrow rings to make herself unrecognisable. The clothes she stopped wearing last year would have probably been enough but she had to make sure that there was no chance of anyone annoying her.

But despite all of her effort a voice she knew still called out to her, whispering her name and sneakily approaching her.

"Hi! What's with the get up? I like it but not as much as your usual look" said the blond who, unlike her, looked the same as usual though he didn't keep his hair as short as she would have liked.

"Jimmy! You saw right through my disguise?" she replied, holding onto her hood

"Sure. I could recognise you anywhere." and that phrase caused her several conflicting feelings simultaneously, "What are you up to?"

"I just wanted to go for a walk."

"Uh, cool... so, do you mind if we talk?"

She didn't see why not but they had to go somewhere else, where they could take a seat and no one would bother them, like on a bench next to an empty little playground.

A doubt appeared in her overthinking head and she couldn't help but ask: "So, Jimmy, where do you live now, anyway?"

"In a dark little box in Hell's Kitchen." That wasn't too far away from where she lived so it didn't seem unreasonable that they could just bump into each other like that, "How have you been, living with her?"

"You mean Jessica?"

"...yeah, her..."

"She's cool. Respectful, too. Why do you ask?"