Creeping sense of dread (Zoe, Rachel, Danny)

[lightningseed.insanejournal.com]

Rachel hadn't been at school for two days and Zoe was dreadfully worried. Yesterday she'd called Rachel's house and Rachel's stepmother said she was just sick. But she wasn't replying to texts and she hadn't been online and maybe she was sick but maybe she was kidnapped and Imogene was lying and Zoe had a huge knot in her stomach as she waited to find out which.

She'd had another bad dream last night, and she'd written down what she could remember but it wasn't much more than creeping sense of dread. This was worse than a vision, because maybe it was a premonition but maybe it was just a dream.

Basically Zoe had arrived at school that morning as an anxious mess. She had only done half her homework, and only then because she'd been using her Critical Thinking essay as a distraction. There was going to be a short test in Chemistry this afternoon too but Zoe thought she could probably wing it and get a decent mark anyway. She was good at Chemistry. And even if she fudged one small test she'd still be alright.

She and Liz had a good run of traffic on the way to school so Zoe had plenty of time to wait around before class began. She lingered in her usual spot near the front gates, where she and Rachel (and lately, Danny and sometimes even Dylan) would meet if any of them were early. There was a little flower garden protected by a short stone wall which was the perfect height for sitting and watching everyone arrive at school.

Relief crashed over her when she saw Rachel walking through the gate, and Zoe jumped up from the wall and ran over. It was obvious something wasn't right though; Rachel looked wrecked. Drained of all energy, dragging her feet. Her hair was dirty and pulled up in a ponytail and she clutched the straps of her backpack like it was a parachute.

"Rach?" Zoe asked, putting herself in Rachel's path so she had to stop and look at her. "What happened? Are you alright?"

Rachel looked up at her, without her usual smile. She breathed in deep and let it out, like she was gathering the energy to talk. "Having a bad week," she said.

"Why? Did your Dad do something? Is you family being awful?"

Rachel shook her head. No, her dad was being very helpful. He'd pulled her out of bed yesterday and guided her downstairs and put a spoon in her hand and watched as she ate breakfast. He'd put clothes in front of her and made her get dressed. He'd put her in the car and taken her to Regent's Park zoo and wasn't even mad when she refused to get out of the car because people in a crowded zoo sounded like the worst place in the world to be. He'd called school and lied and said she was ill. Today he had work, and had left her care with Imogene.

They must have arranged it because Imogene took much the same approach. Pulling her out of bed (she was stronger than she looked) and sitting her in front of breakfast. Getting her into her school uniform, putting her in a car, and driving her to school. Rachel felt like the world's must useless puppet.

"Was it finding out about what happened to Danny?"

Rachel closed her eyes and leaned forward, till her forehead rested on Zoe's shoulder. "Danny," she murmured, so sadly. Zoe wrapped her arms around her and held her, even though this caused a few members of the stream of students walking past to start calling out things like "get a room!" and "gaaay!"

"It's just everything," Rachel said, trudging the few steps back to the flower wall and sitting heavily down. "I just feel like everybody is going to die."

"Oh shit," said Zoe, who knew that feeling in her own way. She looked up as she noticed one of the people in the student stream walking deliberately toward them, but it was just Danny. "Hey Danny," she said, and shot a smile towards him.

Comments

[daniel_marlow]

Danny gave both of them a concerned look as they stood there, huddled together. He had noticed Rachel's absence the past few days too and it worried him. He had sent her a few texts, but he didn't want to seem too clingy. He had just met them, after all.

"Hey," he said softly, moving closer to them. "Is everything okay?"

[runrachelrun.insanejournal.com]

"Everything is crap," Rachel said. "Nothing... nothing happened to me, I'm not..." she looked up at Danny, worried. Worried that he would think someone was hurting her the way his uncle had hurt him when that wasn't the case. "Dad was watching the news the other night and they said they were sure that Malaysian airline had crashed in the ocean and there were no survivors. And I couldn't stop thinking about it. About... none of those people knew they were going to die when they left. They got on a plane and then everyone died."

[daniel_marlow]

"It's pretty shit," Danny acknowledged. "Those poor people. Is that what made you sick, Rachel? Thinking about that?"

[runrachelrun.insanejournal.com]

Rachel dragged her hands over her hair. "Everything," she said, keeping her hands linked around the back of her neck. "Just - oh god it's exactly what my mother used to do, you know? That's one of the things I remember about her... She'd obsess about different ways to die - surprise ways. Like sinkholes? Sinkholes that just open up underneath houses, or once this whole suburb sank somewhere in Brazil, I think, this whole suburb sank and she was terrified that it was going to happen to us, and so I was terrified too. That's what my brain's doing... this voice in my head telling me all the ways I might die and I can't make it stop."

[daniel_marlow]

"O-Okay." Danny felt completely overwhelmed by that, but it wasn't entirely out of his frame of experience either. "Why don't we go sit down somewhere, okay? School can wait." He glanced at Zoe to see if she agreed.

[lightningseed.insanejournal.com]

"We're going to get in trouble if we skip," Zoe said apprehensively. She didn't want to start getting in trouble, and she didn't want Rachel to get in trouble either. She was already on a warning for the incident on the roof, and Zoe was pretty sure all the teachers were still keeping a fairly close eye on Zoe, too. But she wasn't so keen on the idea of leaving Rachel alone in class, either. "What's your first class?" she asked Rachel.

"Dance," she replied. "I'm going to pretend to have cramps. I can't dance right now."

Zoe chewed her lip. She didn't know what to do, what was best. But Danny, who had done the whole therapy thing himself, seemed to think it was okay. And the more Zoe thought about it, the more she knew she wasn't going to leave them. "Okay," she said. "Let's go somewhere."

[daniel_marlow]

Danny nodded and he reached out for Rachel's hand to see if she wanted to take it. "Have you eaten anything?" he asked, because he knew sometimes when people were upset they didn't. Food helped ground people though and she looked like she could use some grounding. "I have some money and I know a cafe nearby where we could get something to eat."

[lightningseed.insanejournal.com]

"I had a bit of cereal," Rachel said, taking his hand and letting him pull her up. Standing took so much effort. "Not much though." It had tasted like dust.

Oh god they were actually doing it. Zoe bit the insides of her cheeks. At least she wouldn't get in trouble with Liz - Liz would get it. She wouldn't like Zoe missing school, but she understood about looking after people. "We better go quickly before the bell rings," Zoe said, putting her hand out to steady Rachel as she stumbled up. "Which cafe are we heading towards?"

[daniel_marlow]

"Mariposas is close by," he said, keeping tight hold of Rachel's hand. He led the way, as quickly as he could since Zoe seemed to be agitated about it. "We can have some nice tea as well if you want, Rachel. They have all kinds there." He was chattering to try to cheer her up, but he didn't know how much it was really going to help.

[lightningseed.insanejournal.com]

Zoe tried to look as innocent as possible as they made their way out of the gate. Plenty of people were still milling around, coming in or heading out to wait for friends. They didn't look too out of the ordinary until they actually started heading away from school, but there weren't teachers our patrolling the streets around school so it was okay. Well, not okay, but they'd get away with it for now.

"I know the lady that owns Mariposa's," Zoe said, for something to say. Rachel had nodded at Danny's suggestion of tea, but hadn't chimed in with any opinion. "She kind of dated my sort of cousin, and she's in Spectre. The prog-metal band thing," she added, in case they'd forgotten.

"You know everyone," Rachel commented. Zoe shrugged.

[daniel_marlow]

"Zoe's mad connected," Danny said, and even as the words left his lips, they felt silly. He shook his head at himself as they crossed the street and veered towards the cafe. "Maybe she'll give us a discount then."

[lightningseed.insanejournal.com]

Zoe snorted at Danny's ridiculous comment. "Uuh maybe," she said. "Or maybe she'll give me a supposed-to-be-in-school lecture. Although maybe not. She's kind of wild. Or we could just lie and say it's a free period," she said, thinking of the obvious thing to say.

Rachel sighed, still letting Danny lead the way by her hand. She couldn't believe that just a couple of days ago she'd gotten such a thrill from this contact. That she'd felt her heart start racing as all the possibilities came rushing through from his hand to hers. Now it was just skin, and she hated that it felt so bland.

[daniel_marlow]

The door chimed when Danny pushed it open and they sort of glanced around, doing the awkward 'where should we sit' dance until Danny spotted a nice table with sofa chairs and headed towards it.

When he sat down, he tried to bring Rachel with him. "Do you want to talk more about it?" he asked her gently.

[runrachelrun.insanejournal.com]

"About all the different ways we could die?" Rachel asked, dropping down beside Danny. Zoe settled down on the chair opposite them, pushing her schoolbag under the table with her foot. "Or about old Chinese women who lost their whole family on a plane two weeks ago? Or about how my brain just won't stop thinking about her?" She turned her head and buried her face against Danny's arm. "Just can't stop thinking about her," she croaked.

[daniel_marlow]

Danny wrapped his arm around her, to the shock of even himself. She sounded like she needed it though. "We could find out if there's a charity or a fun set up for the families involved and see if we could donate money?" he suggested, trying to help.

[runrachelrun.insanejournal.com]

Rachel shrugged. Maybe it would help, maybe it would make her feel less useless? But it was only money, though. "But it won't stop it happening," she said. "It won't really change anything. I'm sorry," she groaned, still buried in his shoulder. "I'm sorry I'm such a drag."

"Don't be stupid," said Zoe, then quickly added "No, not stupid. I didn't mean you're stupid. But you don't need to apologise. It's... it's bad. It's nasty, all the ways we can die. But... most of us don't. Loads and loads of people live till they're really old. And planes are usually safe, and cars are usually safe, and... there aren't that many sink holes, I think? I mean, I've never heard of them."

[daniel_marlow]

"What Zoe said. You don't have to apologise to us. Everyone is allowed bad days. And I've never heard of a sink hole either!" He was quick to jump on that bandwagon because it sounded terrifying. "And we're still here!"

[runrachelrun.insanejournal.com]

"They're so... I'll show you," Rachel said, turning from Danny and pulling out her phone instead. "Maybe you have to see them to understand... they're so dramatic. So big... This one in Florida ate a house..." she searched for a picture, turning her phone around to show Zoe as well.

"That's not real," said Zoe, eying up the phone. It was a picture of an enormous hole that had opened up in the middle of a city street, deep enough that the straight dirt walls of the thing disappeared into shadow, a piece of a house was still hanging over the side. "That's go to be from a movie or something."

"No, it happens," Rachel insisted, passing her phone to Danny.

[daniel_marlow]

Danny's eyes widened at the photo, but he managed not to panic. "It doesn't happen a lot though," he said, trying to reassure the both of them, clearly. "Otherwise we'd hear about it more."

[runrachelrun.insanejournal.com]

"But it still happens," Rachel frowned, dropping her phone onto the table. "And it's not just sink holes, or disappearing planes. It's... it's the Thames turning red and places like Iris getting destroyed, and it's earthquakes and volcanoes, and it's car crashes and murders, and it's bombs going off in the subway, and-"

"It's bad, yes," said Zoe, before Rachel could get to it's kids bringing guns to school. "It's bad... but then there are people like Liz in the world too."

Rachel slumped back in her seat with a sigh, but she did manage a small smile at the mention of Liz. "She's outnumbered," she pointed out.

[daniel_marlow]

"I don't think she is," Danny said, looking down at his own hands. "Yeah, there's people like my uncle, and that's made me afraid of pretty much everyone else. But despite that, I think people are mostly good. Most people don't want to hurt anyone else."

[runrachelrun.insanejournal.com]

Rachel shrugged again. But they do she thought. And it wasn't even just people. Liz was outnumbered by the whole world. "Sometimes I don't understand how I'm still alive," she said, after a moment.

"Do you mean after your mum tried to kill you?" Zoe asked, learning forward, chewing on her thumb.

"Just everything," Rachel said, staring at the ceiling.

[daniel_marlow]

"I'm glad you are," Danny rushed to say. He thought she might need to know. "I've never met someone I can talk to like you guys before. Who wasn't my mum, I mean. And- No one, I mean- I don't let people touch me," he explained quietly. "Even Dylan, and he's been my friend for four years. No one touches me, and look," he gave Rachel a little squeeze. "And that's real."

[runrachelrun.insanejournal.com]

No one touched Danny except her, except Rachel. No one touched Danny except he was the one who had taken her hand today and he was the one with his arm around her. Which made her special to him in a way that she couldn't even begin to understand, so she burst into tears instead.

"Oh," said Zoe, as Rachel started to cry into Danny's shoulder. "Oh dear."

[daniel_marlow]

"Oh shit," Danny pulled his arm back and then he lifted both his hands like he was surrendering. She was still against his shoulder, but he felt like it was necessary anyway. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to! I'm so sorry! Do you want me to go away?" What had he said?!