She stands in the empty driveway of her own home, arms crossed over her chest to block out the chill. Her eyes burn, glossed over from the sting of air, and stare off into space as silhouettes of mist and days long gone flit about the windows and doorways to breathe down salt to keep the evil out. It should bring a sense of comfort, a sense of security, but the chatter in her teeth - not from the coolness on her skin - doesn't cease.

Then again, that's probably to be expected. She's seen many a dead guy, even corpses floating down the river, but watching a man die is altogether different.

I could have stopped it.

Soon enough the salt is laid and she swallows down her convictions. She remembers well the flash of platinum blonde and blood-stained teeth from earlier, so she doesn't allow her nerves to settle, not until she's given the entire house a solid thrice-over. The stench of Malevolence is gone. The only presence she feels is Carol downstairs. As soon as these things are considered facts instead of hopes, every muscle in her body deflates, and she allows herself to breathe.

With every heaving breath, there's an ache, and with every subtle shift, there's a scratch or bruise or gash to remind her she ought to just lay down on this bathroom floor and die. She's not quite as dramatic as Gideon, though, so she settles for stripping her clothes off. With distaste, she tosses the bloodied clothes in the hamper. She should just hop directly in the shower after that, but she catches her own reflection in the mirror and does a double-take.

She nears herself. Squeezes her own chub and sighs. Leans in close and, with wary fingertips, prods the dried blood on her cheek. Nefyn's. A shiver runs through her vertebrae and she yanks the hand towel from the rack to scrub it away. Even when it's gone she continues to rub the skin raw, stopping only when her cheek is inflamed and stinging. This towel, too, joins the hamper, and she steps into the shower to decontaminate from...fucking everything, really.

The water scalds. She puts it on the highest heat in hopes it'll burn the day's events right off her. Steam curls in front of her face and blurs the yellow swirls in the shower curtain. It's reminiscint of the mist over the lake, curling around Ro's pastel sundress as she disappeared beneath the ripples. No. She doesn't want to think of this either. She opts to just close her eyes and blank her mind. Life is better when you don't confront your trauma.

True or not, it gets the job done. The heat eases the soreness pulsating through her muscles. She's not sure how long she stands in there - probably long enough to make Jeremy's eyes bulge out of his head when he sees the water bill - but she gets out, towels off, and nearly cracks her head on the back wall after everything when she sees a message scrawled in the steamed mirror. The contents of the message, however, brings her heart back to its regular rate.

He PULLed tHe TRiggerR

She presses her lips in a fine line and sighs. Just like Stella to come all this way and reassure her. Just like Stella to do it in a way that works. "Okay," Lacey says. "Alright. Okay." Alright.

There are more important things to worry about now, anyways. Like getting to the hospital. From the drawers she hasn't emptied yet, she finds a new change of clothes, and from the kitchen, a granola bar (or three) to ease the pang in her belly during the walk. The fresh air is much-needed but she hadn't thought about the chill that'd be shoved into her neck by walking out here with wet hair. She chooses to focus on the little things like this, or the way her jaw hurts when she chews, or the crookedness of the sidewalk. She misses when these were the things she worried about most.

Even these things fade away - she can't take herself seriously getting frustrated at them all. Her attentions turn to the dead that wander Carrick, carrying on as they had before Darcy had taken them away. They walk the streets as they had in life, arm-in-arm or strolling solo. They ignore the bony fellas that flicker in and out and sit on the curb or rooftops to watch the world go by. The bony fellas ignore them back. It's all like it should be, almost.

She's content to watch. In all honesty, she takes her time. Even when she walks through the automatic doors and nearly chokes on the sterility in the air, she moves slow with a thick dread in her chest at the thought of walking up to that room where they must have him, of finding Gideon's mother wracked with bad news or one of the nurses who'll say, "I'm sorry, but your friend didn't make it."

She can't not come though, no, there's obligation, responsibility. Even if he is- let's not think of the word right now -she wants to be there. Maybe, like, maybe his soul will wander these halls, and maybe she'll have to find him and help him just like uh, like with Ro-Anne and-

There's a squeak in her eardrum, one that throws her directly out of her reverie. Back to the real world, where a nurse stands before her, waving a hand in front of her face, a face she hadn't realized was tear-sodden until now. "Hello? Miss? Are you okay, do you need medical attention?"

"Oh. No," she utters, sniffling wetly. She rubs her cheeks with her sleeves and takes a deep breath. "I'm looking for my friend, actually, he came in, uh, with a gunshot wound, his name's Gideon. Erie, too, he came in too."

The nurse offers her a soft look and nods, gesturing her forward. "I'll take you to the waiting room with the rest of the family. They should catch you up to speed." And he does, and a conglomeration of faces turn to meet her once she's standing in the middle of that little place with an excess of purple chairs, not enough of them empty.

Gideon's mother and Elijah stay where they are, the former too much of a mess to stand and the latter with a comforting hand to the woman's back, whispering reassurances. Laurel, however, lights on her feet and rushes over, pulling Lacey into a constricting hug she'd never asked for. She reminds herself Laurel's hug is for Laurel and she pats the woman's back, not without awkwardness.

"Oh, Laceybug, I haven't seen you in a hot minute, I'm so glad you came. I, I mean, shoot, I'm glad for a lot of things right now, but God, he sends his angels one way or another, and here you are. I can't, I mean, I can hardly even speak right now, y'hear all this? I can't even say how much what you've done means to me. You'll have to wait for something coherent until later, I'm afraid, but-" Oh, no. Oh no. The woman's crying. She pulls away and stares down through smiling, bleary eyes. "They found my boy. Alive. They found my baby boy alive. And I know it was you who helped figure it out. Honestly, I lost hope we'd ever even find his body by the time they found Stella, but I- here he is! Here he is."

"Erie, he's gonna be okay, though, right? He's absolutely fine?"

"Well, it's gonna take quite a bit of time for him to get up and running like usual again, and they're still in there...trying to get him all balanced out, he's all malnourished and they're doing tests to make sure he's not got an infection right now, but I think so, yeah. My boy's gonna be just fine."

The question sits on the tip of Lacey's tongue. She pushes it off the edge. "And...Gideon. What's the verdict on him?"

Laurel's smile fades here, and she puts her fingers to her chin, thinking to herself. "He's still in surgery. That's all we really know. We've been waitin' here for hours."

A sick pit twists in Lacey's gut. "Hm."

Oh, there Laurel goes again, eyes dripping. "Y'know, I almost feel like I could lose another son, because I consider him one, too. I'm confident, I mean, I was- no, I am, but, I'm sure he was gonna be my son-in-law someday. But now..."

She doesn't seem to know where to go with her sentence. Her pinky drives into her mouth and she starts to bite at the nail, but she's stopped abruptly when the door behind them opens and another nurse steps through. "Mott?"

Laurel gasps and raises her hand. The nurse smiles and steps nearer. "You're the mother?" Laurel nods. "We've got him stable now. You're free to come visit, if you'd like."

"Oh, absolutely. Thank you, ma'am, thank you heartily." Laurel turns back to Lacey and gives her hand a brief squeeze. "Just hold out hope, sweetheart. That's all we can do now."

And with that, the nurse takes Laurel back, and Lacey is alone here again. Alone with Gideon's crying mother and Elijah holding her.

With nothing more to do than take Laurel's words to heart, she sinks into one of the hard cushions and from there she doesn't move, not for any of the several hours that pass. The crying at the other side of the room stops and restarts, over and over, and Lacey's lost count of how many times she's leaned forward with her elbows on her knees and palms pressed to her forehead.

She's never been fond of hospitals. Too many dead people wandering around, crying just like the living, all the time, or asking for change for the vending machine from nurses and visitors that don't realize they're there, and now that the barrier is down, the situation isn't any different.

A couple times there's a squeak, fainter than before. At first she wrote it off as wet shoes on the linoleum but both times, nobody's walking in the waiting room and, well, this little section is carpeted off. The television in the corner, maybe. Or something living in the wall. Regardless, it grates on her patience.

Just as she's reaching the end of her rope with sitting here as the anticipation builds and threatens to split her dam in two, the doors to the waiting room open. Jeremy stands there and searches the room; Lacey sits up straight and clears her throat. The brown eyes they share meet and he lets out a sigh of relief as he joins her in three brisk strides. "I came back to the spot to pick you up but you weren't there. I told you to call me if they drove you anywhere."

"Oh. I walked. Sorry, I forgot to mention that. Long day, y'know?"

"Yeah. I know."

It doesn't show any sign of ending soon. Elijah makes a noise of protest, but Gideon's mother is up, making her way over to the two. Her hair, the same color as Gideon's, a honey-brown, slips free of her bun in various places and sticks to her face, plastered down with her own dried tears. Her eyes are the same glinting blue as his, too, but they're ringed with a raw pink, and the skin beneath her cheeks is dotted with red spots, petechiae. She looks frail, so thin and small she is, and so shaky, but still, she forces herself to keep shuffling forward until she's standing in front of Jeremy.

She looks up at him, looks at him earnestly. "You probably saved my son from a bullet to the head," she says plainly, quiet. "You gave him a fighting chance. Thank you for that."

Jeremy shakes his head. "In all honesty, I got there and just heard the shot. I thought he hurt my daughter so I did the only thing I could think to do. I wish I'd gotten there sooner, before the gun went off. I'm sorry."

"Shh," she says, waving her hands out to dismiss his words. "I'm just glad you were there at all."

He concedes. "Me too. Me too."

The door creaks behind them. "Lucas?"

Everyone in the room turns to the nurse, immediately stiff. Elijah stands. The air in the room ceases to flow; they all hold their breath. For a moment, silence stretches on, but then Gideon's mother steps away and wipes her cheeks with the fullness of her hands. "Me, that's me. I'm his mother, surname Lucas." She parts her mouth again, about to say more, but the question dies right there, can't bring herself to ask it, can't bring herself to end this painful gap of silence where an answer holds everything she holds dear in the balance.

The nurse clears his throat and swallows. "Right. I'm reporting back about your son, Gideon. He...it's taken quite a bit of effort, as I'm sure you're aware of from the wait, but he's out of surgery now. He's stable."

All at once, the air in the room returns. It must be enough to knock Gideon's poor mother down, because her knees give out with relief and she collapses right then and there. Jeremy and Elijah rush forward and just barely catch her before her knees crack against the ground. "Thank God, thank God," she mutters, sucking in trembling breaths. "Can I see him?"

"Soon. We're still getting him situated in the room he'll be staying in until we can do further testing, but I can take you there, if you're fine with waiting outside. Can you walk alright, miss?"

"Yes, yes, I'm fine. Take me to him, please. Please take me to him. I can wait. Thank you, oh, God, thank you."

Jeremy and Elijah hand her over to the nurse, who makes sure to keep a supporting hand at her back as they disappear through the doors. Lacey gets a look at the hall, a pristine, long hall. Somewhere down that hall, Gideon stays. Alive. Well. He's gonna live.

The doors swing shut.

Everything she'd been afraid of, every ill feeling inside of her dies all at once, and she buries her face in her hands. He's okay. My friend is okay. My friends are okay. It's all okay. It's gonna be okay.

Someone nudges her. She looks up. It's Jeremy. "It's good news. You ready to go home now that we've got it?"

"No," she says without really thinking, "I'll stay the night, I think."

He furrows his brows. "You sure?" She nods, and he nods back, accepting. "Okay." He grabs up a magazine on the seat beside her and flings it out of the way before settling down. "I'll stay with you."

"Ah, I wish I could," a gruff voice a few feet away says, accompanied by the pop of joints. Elijah stalks forward and raises his arms over his head, stretching. "I came as soon as I heard Laurel's son was here, but I had to leave my family in the dust to do it. I should be gettin' back to them. Hey," he bumps Jeremy's shoulder with the back of his hand, "you call me if anythin' changes or if anyone needs anythin'. Either of you, included."

"I will, Eli. Go home. You need rest."

He claps his hand reassuringly on Jeremy's shoulder again before heading to the doors leading out, but before he reaches them, he stops. Sways in place. Then he glances back. At Lacey. "I didn't wanna ask before. But was it the ones who killed my Stella?"

Lacey, solemn, nods. "Dolly- the woman, she admitted to it. The man who shot Gideon helped her cover it up, helped her cover a few things up. And then the other man, the one she did it for-" She stops herself short, clamping her mouth shut. The hole in Nefyn's head shows itself to her loud and clear, seeping with blood, and the blood dripping from the corner of his open mouth, too, that moth crawling over his still bottom lip.

Elijah gives her a queer look - the sudden stop must've been suspicious, and a part of him must suspect there's more to it, more that she knows that she's not saying - but he acknowledges she wants to keep this to herself for now, and so he's content to let it be, content to take the small justices of today home with him. He tips his hat at her. "You get some rest tonight, young lady. You too, Jer."

"We'll try," Jeremy says.

And with that, Elijah retires for the night.

The hours don't get any shorter as they drill off, one by one. Jeremy and Lacey wait, and wait, and wait. It's a little more bearable, knowing the ones they're here for are going to make it through the long night, but Lacey can't help but let her eyes flutter to a close every so often. The only reason she doesn't fall asleep right there is because that incessant squeaking keeps nudging her away from rest every time her head shows a hint of nodding off. After one time too many of this, she clenches her fist. If she didn't know any better, she'd think it was coming from inside her own skull.

Three granola bars wasn't nearly enough to stave her off, either, and Jeremy recognizes this when her rumbling stomach echoes through the otherwise empty waiting room. He takes off shortly after to get food and bring it back, promises he'll return soon, and at this point, Lacey really is alone. Now, now the wait is unbearable because now even flipping through the magazines can't take her mind off the snapback of Nefyn's head after he shot the mirror.

He pulled the trigger. He pulled the trigger. He pulled the trigger.

Footsteps. She glances up gratefully only to find Gideon's mother standing over her, tender-eyed and fidgeting. "I'm just gonna head back, real quick, just a short time, to pack a bag for here, and to bring some stuff for him too when he wakes up. He'll want his toothbrush..." she trails off, but brings herself back. "You can go back and see him if you'd like. I told the doctors it was okay. I know you're both close and, well, you went to go get him after he took off. I wish- I wish he hadn't done that, but I-"

Lacey pats the woman's arm before she can get twisted up in her own words (consoling the human embodiment of emotion isn't something she feels like doing right now), and the latter smiles, pats her hand in return, and then slips away. Lacey moves just as quickly, although it takes her a moment to adjust to standing after waiting around on her ass for so long. They head through different doors, and that long corridor she'd caught glimpses of before stretches out before her, daunting.

She comes upon the nurse who'd taken his mother back earlier, and he smiles at her warmly, gesturing to the room in front of him. "He's not awake," he says, "and I wouldn't expect him to wake up anytime soon, but you're welcome to sit inside with him."

That's okay - she just has to see him. The thing is, when she steps into the room, she almost wishes she hadn't, because...is he supposed to be so pale?

A lump sticks itself smack in the middle of her throat. She keeps her head ducked as she nears the bedside. A chair has already been pulled up close to him, and she settles down in it, clasping her hands in her lap as she stares at him. Now that she's this close, she can't stop.

A variety of wires and tubes are connected to him, stuck into his skin and attached to other things. An IV drip steadily works into his bloodstream. At Lacey's ear, his heart beeps, beeps, beeps. His clothes from before - if they could even be called clothes anymore with the state they were in - have been replaced by a light blue hospital gown, and a blanket it tucked up to his chest over it. He's in good hands here, she knows it, but she can't help but feel a pang of worry light up within her when she sees the hollows around his eyes, the sickly pallor beneath them, or his arms laid out atop the blanket, bruised in some places, pads stuck over gashes in others. There's a thick bandage wrapped around the palm he'd gripped the glass shard with, the one he'd used to defend himself from her demons.

And his face, it's so devoid. He looks like he's in a sleep so deep he'll never come out of it, and she wonders: will he? Yeah, he has to. The doctors seem confident. And his chest reassures her, heaving steadily, up, down, up, down.

Christ, Gideon. Why do you have to just...be you? He's selfless, yes. But too selfless. He pushed himself too far over that line, and Lacey knew all along he was long past it, knew it and tried to tell him 'no,' but still, he kept going, and now he's here for it. Now he's here for it.