[11/12/97, Marie's office in the Computing Center at SCCU]

Hershey's knock is brief and light.

Marie's Desc: Cheerful light-coloured eyes meet yours from behind the nominal protection of smoke-blue sunglasses as this young woman notices your glance. She is usually smiling, showing a dimple in her right cheek, and her light-brown hair is curly and cut above her shoulders. Marie's skin is lightly tanned and spattered with freckles around her nose. Marie wears a loose-knit white and blue shirt, which is on the outside of well-cut blue jeans. On her feet are dockside loafers; her short fingernails are painted a pearly white. Marie stands about 5'5 and looks to be in her late teens. She carries a leather drawstring purse with a panda etched into the soft skin. When outside in the cold, Marie wears a brown leather bomber jacket. Occasionally, she is carrying a purple backpack.

Marie's door is not completely closed, probably because of the feeling of claustrophobia that would ensue from the small crowded room. The knock gets Marie's attention though, and she looks up. Calling out, she says, "Come on in." Hershey pushes the door open and slouches in. The Bone Gnawer looks awful, her usual cheerful energy nowhere in sight. She looks as though she's been up all night, and not for a good reason; behind her glasses, her eyes are reddened and shadowed. "Uh, Marie?" She glances around. "You, um, busy?"

Hershey's Desc: Hershey's a slacker, that much seems apparent. About five and a half feet tall, she's a grimy teenager with an average build and a pronounced "Noo Yawk" accent. Tangled waves of dark brown hair hang down just past her shoulders in greasy dreadlocks, unstyled, unbrushed, and generally unwashed. The face it frames is neither especially delicate nor especially square, the ordinary face of a young woman with a rash of acne. Given a shower and some good clothes, she might gradutate to pretty, but for now she's just plain, at best. Chocolate-brown eyes, probably her best feature, gaze out upon the world through Coke-bottle glasses, the thick black frames balancing on the bridge of a smallish, roundish nose. A black "Wayne's World" cap sits atop her head, the sides and bill decorated with a motley assortment of badges, pins, and stickers. An extra-large "No Fear" t-shirt, white, hangs comfortably baggy over grubby jeans with holes in the knees. On the back of the shirt is scrawled, "Living: It's The Only Thing Worth Dying For." Her bare arms are unevenly tanned and pimply, and her hair's been pulled back into a tangled ponytail. A pair of derelict black canvas high-top sneakers complete the outfit, such as it is.

Marie looks surprised to see Hershey; even if the pack knows where she lives, it's rare for one to show up without Alexander. She smiles though and stands from behind the computer on her desk, moving greenbar printouts from the lone chair. "Not so much that I can't take a break. Sit down. You want a coke?"

Hershey shakes her head unhappily and pushes the door closed with one hand. Moving further into the small room, the Garou drops heavily into the chair and looks at the older woman. "I've got--" She breaks off abruptly and pulls off her glasses, wiping the back of her hand across suddenly streaming eyes. "Shit." Her voice has dropped halfway to a whisper. "I've got bad news."

Marie freezes, the intelligent and bright look on her face congealing in sudden fear. Her light-brown eyes lock on Hershey's wet face. "What? What's happened?"

Hershey wipes at her eyes again, her face blotchy and contorted with fear and grief. "TC's gone," she says in a cracked voice, looking helplessly up at Marie. "I think he's dead."

Marie's eyes well with immediate tears, but her face locks up in stubborn lines. She gives her head a sudden, violent shake. "No."

Hershey's shoulders sag against the chair as she slouches lower, her glasses held in limp hands folded in her lap. Her gaze drops to the floor as she explains things further, her voice grieved. "I was hangin' 'round the Rialto when Razor suddenly went nuts. Somethin' 'bout TC. D'no what." She wipes at her eyes again, roughly. "Fuck. Went over th' hwhole fuckin' city, feels like, 'til I got t'Harbor Park." She looks up again, looking more like a stricken teenager than one of Gaia's warriors. "There was blood."

Marie repeats, "No." Her voice is turning hard, artificially bright. "Chris always told me when he was going to do dangerous stuff. So I'd know when to worry, and when he got back. He can't be dead." The tears aren't falling, though they shine harshly in her eyes, unshed. She doesn't appear to be breathing deeply.

Hershey gazes unhappily at Marie for a moment and then looks down again. "Davy tol' me later that they took his body off to th' Burial Mounds," she says, dully. Tears roll unheeded down the salt-tracks of previous ones. "There was a challenge 'r somethin'."

Marie's hands clench so tight that the nails bite into her hands. She still doesn't seem to be breathing; it's as if her whole body is pulled taunt by an unseen vice. She begins to rock back and forth in her chair. The motion is all the tears need, and wet lines fall from her lashes to drip down her cheeks.

Hershey looks up again, once more wiping at her eyes and cheeks and replacing her glasses. Wordless, she sits slumped in her chair.

Marie begins to take in a breath. It hitches in her throat in a horrible wheezing noise and refuses to go any further. Marie's struggle against tears becomes a struggle for breath in a full stress-induced asthmatic attack.

Hershey's eyes widen in panic as she jumps up from her chair and toward Marie. "Oh my god, oh fuck." She hesitates a moment, not knowing what to do, and then gives the woman a good whack on the back.

The whack on the back doesn't seem to help, except maybe for jarring the usually-sensible kin back to reality. Marie stops the more instinctive clawing at her throat and begins to fumble at the desk. She also seems to be attempting not to breathe against her sealed throat, but her body betrays her in hitching motions of her shoulders as the lungs struggle.

Hershey brings her hand back to slap again, but stops as she sees the woman doing something that looks productive. Still, though, she hovers nearby, worried.

Marie finally manages to get the drawer half-open. The front half of the drawer is empty of the clutter of pens and paper, unlike most everything else in the room, probably because of the potential for these kind of emergencies. There's nothing to foul Marie's clumsy attempt to get her inhaler and suck on it as if it were a lifeline. She's still crying, and now her face is bright red from the attack.

Hershey's panic fades as she realizes what's going on and that it's under control. Mumbling a soft cussword, the Gnawer sinks to the floor and sits there, crosslegged.

Marie takes a couple of hits and then sits back. Her breath still wheezes audibly, but at least her throat has opened up enough that she isn't choking. She coughs, then says hoarsely, "I don't think I need to take the test to know I need a treatment. I have to get to the clinic."

Hershey chews on a ragged thumbnail. "'Kay. I'll walk you?"

Marie nods wearily. Tears still drip slowly down her cheeks, but she isn't sobbing. She stands and gropes after her coat. Her head so down, she says, "Hershey, I want to go to the funeral." She pauses before the last word, but finally gets it out in that torn voice.

Hershey gets up and moves close to the Kinfolk woman, hesitantly touching her arm. "Yeah," she says, quietly. "I think ya should be there, too."

Marie closes her eyes and controls her breathing, so she doesn't break out in sobs again. She does reach out and hug the Gnawer, hard. Her body is trembling.

Hershey hugs back, almost as hard, and abruptly starts crying again.

Marie lets the Gnawer sob for them both, though she rests her wet face against Hershey's shoulder and adds silent hot tears to the pair's grief.

Hershey recovers after a few moments and pulls back, taking off her glasses to wipe at her messy, reddened face. "Fuck."

A thin balding man passes outside the door, looking in the half-open doorway and quickly looking away. Marie coughs again, then says, "Bathroom, near the door." She takes half a step back and shrugs into her jacket. Shoving her inhaler in her pocket, she gingerly stoops to pick up her purse strap.

Hershey nods, putting her glasses back on as she heads toward the door. After a trip to the bathroom, she looks better - more or less - but still not great.

Marie dabs her face with cold water, but she continues that slow leaky crying that some people associate with children that learn to cry silently. She doesn't seem to care about the few curious looks the pair get on their slow way to the clinic. Once told of the situation, the nurse allows Marie back quickly. Marie stops and looks back at Hershey. She swallows hard enough to be heard, then says, "Hersh, thanks for coming to tell me."

Hershey smiles weakly. "Well, yeah," she says, awkwardly. "Couldn't, like, _not_ tell you."

Marie's tears speed up, though she's still controlling her breathing tightly. The emotion in her voice makes it seem even rawer, if possible. "I was always afraid of not knowing."

Hershey rubs at the back of her neck, weight shifting from foot to foot. "Yeah, well," she says, still awkwardly. "I wouldn't do that to ya, ya know?"

Marie just nods. She then turns to follow the nurse, who's starting to look a little impatient and is gone in the maze of the college clinic.

Hershey watches her leave, then turns and heads out of the clinic.

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