Disclaimer: I do not own the show or characters. All I own is the writing and story.
Author's note: This, too (or six), was originally posted under my other username (HannahMiley1fan).
Warning: This is dark-themed, angst-filled, maturity level reading material. Mentions drug addiction/overdose, alcoholism/overdose, attempted-but failed-suicide. (Fair warning - Red is dead)
Invisible Shadow
The sound of breaking glass stops Lorna instantly in her tracks. She looks down at the ground and notices the many broken bottles covering the rocky alley-way. A sad sigh escapes her—seeing how awful the conditions are in her new hometown pulls heavily on her heartstrings. Growing up in the Morello family, she was a naïve young girl—thinking everyone had the happy, optimistic life she led. Now, though, that has clearly been proven wrong as she follows the trail behind the alley-way to find—what she assumes to be—a homeless woman lying unconscious in a pile of broken beer bottles.
Her eyes wide in shock at the sight before her, Lorna timidly bends down to tap on the woman's shoulder—not quite sure how to wake her. By the strong smell, she can rightfully assume that this woman must have drunk way too much alcohol which must have caused her to pass out. With such assumption, the short brunette decides it's best to bring the unknown woman to a hospital—so, she does her best to scoop her up off the ground and carry – rather carefully drag, since the other is a bit too tall – her to her car.
After a speedy drive to the nearest hospital, Lorna carefully gets the unconscious woman out from the passenger side and does her best to carry her to the entrance. Fortunately, she finds a barren wheelchair sitting in the corner—she quickly runs to it, placing the woman in it. She hurriedly pushes the wheelchair up to the receptionist desk, "I found this woman lying unconscious in an alley-way, please help her! I thinks she mighta drank too much alcohol cause' there were all kinds a beer bottles broken around where I found her!"
The nurse immediately comes over and takes the girl away, leaving Lorna to sit solemnly on one of the waiting room chairs. She sighs and stares down at the marble floor. She really hopes this woman turns out to be okay; her heart already aches immaculately for her.
Coughing and sputtering, big brown eyes finally pop open only to be disgruntled with their surroundings. "It's good to see that you're alive—some kind woman was nice enough to bring you in here. Said she saw you lying in an alley way, smelling strongly of alcohol. And, boy, would she be correct on that one…We just spent an hour pumping your stomach of not just a lethal amount of alcohol but also of a killer amount of heroin. Were you trying to kill yourself or something?" A nurse questions her a bit harshly.
"Do you use that attitude with all your patients? Or just ones who look like me?" The woman glares heavily at the nurse, still hacking a fair amount from the pumping of her stomach.
Scoffing, the nurse gets up from her seat to harshly stare back at her patient. "You should be thankful you're not dead! It's homeless asses like you that are making this country crumble to the ground! You're the patients who make me regret coming in to work most days—you don't deserve to be alive, not when you fucking do this to yourselves," she shouts, making her way to the door.
Infuriated, the younger woman rips out the IV from her arm—throwing it to the floor—and jumps off the bed. "Obviously, ya shouldn't be working in this field—you have no compassion or empathy, ya selfish bitch! Fuck this place, I'm getting the hell outta here," she hisses furiously before running out of the room and down the hall, back to the ER waiting room.
Lorna notices the woman and immediately goes over to her. "Oh, thank God you're alive! Are you okay?" She gives a concerned stare, cautiously keeping her distance in an effort not to make the other feel anxious.
"Thank God I'm alive?! You don't even fuckin' know me, kid—why the fuck should it matter to ya whether I lived or died?"
Her brown eyes saddened, Lorna stares up at her with an empathetic expression. "Because no one deserves to die," she softly answers, staring down at her shoes. Looking this woman over—who obviously isn't happy with her predicament—makes Lorna wonder what could possibly be going on in her life to make her turn to alcohol as an escape. "Do ya have a place to stay or somewhere I can take ya back to? Please don't tell me you're living on the streets..."
"Ya oughta take that nurse's job—ya'd be much better suited for it than her! Fuckin' bitch tells her patients that she wishes they were dead so they wouldn't ruin the country anymore. Ain't that fucked up?" The taller woman shakes her head.
She looks Lorna over, confused at how this could be the person who found her—she doesn't seem like the type of girl who just goes strolling along on the streets of the city. "I stay wherever the fuck I can find—there's only so much a mother can take when she has a drug-addicted, alcoholic daughter like me. Fuck, who am I kidding—she ain't even a real mother, she's just given me the gift of life is all."
Lorna's heart slowly shatters inside of her. She can't imagine what it's like to be this woman—to have one's own mother hate them, that absolutely breaks her heart to hear that. "I can't let ya go back on the streets…how bout' ya come back to my place with me? At least for a few days, I'd hate for something like this to happen to ya again."
When they arrive at Lorna's apartment, she immediately has the redhead woman sit down on the couch while she goes to the kitchen to make her a cup of herbal tea. Once it's steeped enough, she carries it back into the living room and hands it to the other. "Care to tell me your name? I'm Lorna," the shorter woman asks, sitting beside her.
"Oh fuck, guess that's a good idea—I'm Nicky," the redhead lets out a small chuckle. She slowly brings the cup of hot tea to her lips and takes a small sip of it. "Hmm, I'm not much of tea person but that's pretty good, kid. Thanks."
The brunette gives a soft smile in return. "So, Nicky, ya wanna talk about why ya overdosed on drugs and alcohol? That's kinda impressive, by the way, but not in a good way," Lorna gently wonders, staring over at her with a curious expression displayed on her face. It's definitely not her place to ask such a blunt question, not when the two of them just met. Yet, she can't stop herself—she's never encountered a person like this Nicky woman.
Nicky takes another sip of tea before setting the mug down. Shaking her head, she lets out a laugh and just stares at Lorna. "Wow, ya really cut to the chase there! Why do ya care so much, kid? Why are ya being so kind to some piece of shit ya found on the streets, huh?"
"Ya ain't no piece of shit," Lorna sternly says, gently reaching her hand over to touch Nicky's cheek. She lightly strokes it with her finger tips. "I care because I don't think anyone deserves to die. Please, can ya tell me why ya'd do somethin' like that? What's going on in your life that makes ya wanna drink yourself to death? Or take drugs until ya fall unconscious?"
Biting her lip, Nicky grunts out a sigh. She hates to talk to people about her life decisions. "It's real easy when ya got no one to care about ya anymore. I'm a grown adult—I don't gotta worry about what my mother thinks, not that ever did when I was living with her. Then again, she never really cared either." She looks away from the brunette, trying to hide her teary face. Crying is something she hardly ever does, and she'll be damned if she lets some woman she barely knows see her doing exactly that.
Lorna's eyes soften with sympathy as she carefully grabs hold of one of the other's hands. Giving it a warm squeeze, she peers sadly up at the redhead, "I'm so sorry, hon…How can your own mother just not care about ya? That makes me sick to hear that—she's your fuckin' mother! She should care! I couldn't even imagine what it's like to have such a mother…Ya really don't got anyone else besides her?"
"There was this woman I worked for—back in high school—her name was Red, one of the most amazing people I'd ever fucking met. She became like a mother to me, much better than that bitch Marka could ever even dream to be. Red made me wanna be a better person; she kept me off drugs and all that shit," Nicky fiercely says, still looking away from the brunette. Tears threaten to pour from her eyes at any moment—just saying that name makes her feel queasy and ill inside.
"What happened?" Lorna softly asks, giving her hand a tight squeeze while staring at her in concern.
Exhaling a long deep breath, Nicky musters up the strength to go on with the story. "She died—no fuck that, she was murdered! Her asshole of a husband was part a this fuckin' Russian mafia and the fuckers killed her! The one woman in my life who wanted to help me—who wanted me to live a meaningful life—was fuckin' taken unfairly from me!" By this point, she can't stop the sobs from taking over—she grips tightly onto the hand that's holding hers.
"I couldn't care less about what the fuck happens to me now—the only fucking person who cared for me is six feet under the ground! I have nothing anymore, except heroin."
Instinctively, Lorna pulls the distraught woman into a tight embrace. She spends several silent moments just sitting and holding her, letting her hands rub comfortingly around her back. "Oh, honey…I'm so sorry to hear that! That must be so hard to go through," she soothes, squeezing her comfortingly.
"Ya know, why don't ya just stay here with me for as long as ya want? I could use the company, I don't know many people around here and ya seem real nice, Nicky. Besides, I refuse to let ya go back to living on the streets."
With the sobs easing into light sniffles, Nicky sighs and looks up at the brunette with puffy eyes and a sad smile. "You're too sweet, kid. But there's absolutely no way I can stay here with ya; I refuse to take advantage of ya like that. I'm not worth it," she answers, taking Lorna's head into her hands and giving a delicate kiss to her forehead. "Thanks for saving my life, Lorna—believe me, I appreciate that. But you're a young, innocent, sweet woman…ya don't need to be affiliated with a person like me. You'll just end up getting hurt, kid."
"I believe that's my decision to make, hon," Lorna strongly says back. She pulls Nicky back down to her arms, gazing firmly into her big brown eyes with compassion. "I want ya to stay with me—I don't want ya on the streets. And how the fuck is letting you stay with me taking advantage? You need somewhere to live and ya don't got no one else…so you will stay here. End of discussion."