diamondo | SIXTH RIDE ✦ ANONYMOUS TEXT

[He'll get one more text message that's essentially gibberish, but that's because Parker's in way too much of a hurry to actually type anything coherent; frankly, it's a miracle it gets sent off at all.

And soon enough, she comes cannonballing through the door, most likely looking already like she's just as much of a wreck as Mondo is.]

[...well, he's assuming that she's on her way, then.

Mondo glances up when she comes charging in, immediately springing to his feet to reach out-- and then promptly pull his hand back like he's not sure if he can touch her. He's very physically affectionate, yes, but not with girls. And even if he considers Parker his sister, she's still a girl.]

Shit, are you alright? --Don't answer that, that's a fucking stupid question. He's already been taken back so they're gonna make sure he's okay.

[Honestly, at this point it's probably better all around that he doesn't anyway, because Parker sometimes has a tendency to lose track of what her hands are doing when she's particularly agitated, which in turn frequently involves things like unconsciously crushing beer bottles into glass fragments with her bare fingers.

Needless to say, she is particularly agitated.]

He can't just be asleep why isn't he waking up.

[The words come out strange, mostly because she's forcing them out through a throat that doesn't want to oblige, so they all sound terse and clunky — a somewhat grim reminder that she and Ishimaru are so frequently the same, and his emotions always end up a little off, too.]

Who took him. Where is he.

I dunno. Shit, I've got no fucking clue. This's never happened before. He would've said something if he was sick...!

[Mondo shakes his head. Now isn't the time to get riled up. Parker's doing enough of that for both of them. He's had moments where he's needed to calm others down before and he realizes that this is one of those times.]

He's in the back. They're gonna let us see him once they've checked him out, alright? We've just gotta wait for a little while.

[For a minute, it looks like she's going to say something, but ultimately her actions do all the talking for her. As clearly as if she'd said it aloud, the "No, I don't want to wait" comes through — as something seems to jar into place, some recognition snaps, and she pushes past Mondo to start walking purposefully toward the door she presumes is "the back".

It might be a very good idea to stop her, seeing as how she's not likely to stop herself.

Possibly not even for nuisances like walls and doors.]

[Mondo reaches out for her shoulder then, trying to stop her.]

Alice, c'mon, you can't go back there just yet. If we interrupt 'em it'll take 'em longer to figure out what's wrong with Ishimaru. It shouldn't be much longer, okay?

[At first, she just pulls right out of his grip — proving again that despite her size and generally petite appearance, she's unusually strong (after all, she hangs off of buildings by her fingers) — but she doesn't make it more than a few extra paces before she slows down, like a wind-up toy grinding down to an agonizing still.]

He was fine.

[...]

Why isn't he fine.

[Mondo seems a bit startled by that and is fully prepared to grab her again when she slows down.]

I don't know. Fuck, if I had any sort of idea, I'd tell you. But I've got no fucking clue. He was fine when he went to bed and then he just... didn't get up. I thought he was tired or something, so I let him sleep and kept an eye on him, but he's been asleep for a solid day and... and shit, I don't know...

[He's rambling. Mondo runs a hand back through the shorter strands of dark hair on his neck and shifts a bit, awkwardly.]

But... I'm sure he'll be fine! I'm sure he'll get up soon! So c'mon, let's let the nurses do their jobs and we'll wait for him right here, okay?

Someone did something.

[She doesn't notice it, but her hands are curling and uncurling into white-knuckled fists at her side as she slowly seems to process whatever it is she's working through.]

People don't just fall asleep and not get up. He was fine. Someone did something. Someone did something to him. People don't just do this.

No. No one did anything to him. We bolt the door every fucking night without fail. Fuck, I watched him do it. No one could've gotten in to hurt him. I was the only other person in there, and I know for a fucking fact that I didn't do anything to him.

[Mondo reaches out hesitantly to touch her shoulder. The touch is gentle and it's clear he's not really sure if he should be doing it.]

Believe me, if there was someone behind this, I wouldn't be here. I'd be beating the shit outta 'em.

[Never mind the fact that Ishimaru doesn't want him doing things like that...]

But no one's at fault here. This is just something that happened.

No.

[It's flat and heavy, and final.]

Someone did this. This is what the bad guys do. This. Good people get hurt. Someone did something and nobody knows what it is.

...If someone did something to him, we'll catch 'em together.

[He doesn't believe anyone did anything to Ishimaru, but he's not sure what else to say.]

[The thing is, Parker has never been very good at empathy. Emotions aren't something that come easily to her, either in teasing them out in herself or in reading them in others. It's why she's a terrible grifter; it's why she so frequently gets things wrong socially, and has to be guided back around to an understanding the long way, because she simply doesn't intuit the same things that other people take for granted.

They'd all known about Nate and his son. About the hospital. It was why Nate always got a little hinky on jobs that involved little kids. Everyone knew it because they all knew to watch for it, because when Nate wasn't at his best, when he was going off the rails, that would put all of them in danger and he was the one they were trusting to get them all out with sense and reason and cunning.

Parker's always sort of understood the situation with Nate and Sam, but she's never really empathized with it. It never really clicked, to stand in Nate's shoes and experience what he must've felt, standing there, watching his son die because his own insurance company had denied the special treatment.

Except that now she's standing here, in a hospital, and Ishimaru is somewhere that she can't see, and something is wrong and no one knows what it is, and this isn't like her little brother at all. She'd known what had killed him. She'd seen it. It was fast, and final, and over.

She's never had to stand around in Nate's shoes and try to bear up against the heavy weight of futility like he had.

All of a sudden she gets it. It took her awhile, but she's gotten it now.

Ishimaru was always good at helping her understand things like that.]

...

[She doesn't say anything, really. She's not Sophie. She can't just magically make words come. And she doesn't know how to put what's inside her into fitting words, anyway.]

SIXTH RIDE ✦ ANONYMOUS TEXT

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