Mrs. Jones froze, breathing deeply. No! Not her babies! How could this have happened to her children?
She stomps over to James, and smacks him, and his face stings red where it connects. "Wha-the-fuck-Georgia. Wha-did-I-do?"
"I fucking hate you! I hope you're happy with yourself, because I don't have anything left to give you, you've already taken everything that I have! You took the man I knew and loved, and turned him into… Into, this," she screeched, gesturing to his intoxicated form, "You've taken my house, all my possessions, and my children! How could you do that! Do you realize what you did? YOU killed YOUR CHILDREN! What the fuck is WRONG with you!"
"Who're they?" He interrupts, pointing off to the side, "and why are they sad?"
She looks like she's about to burst at being cut off, but settles for answering him,
"That girl? The one who's crying? That's Rocky, and she was Cece's best friend. They did everything together. That boy holding her hand, looking blank? That's Deuce, another one of Cece's friends. That boy on Rocky's other side? The one whose shoulder she's crying on, who looks like he's about to explode in anger? That's Ty. Rocky's brother, Cece's boyfriend. Cece had a life, James, she had people who loved her, and who took that away from her, and you took her away from them."
Seething in anger, she turns away from him, only to bump into Henry. Henry immediately latches unto her, and begins sobbing into her stomach, and she tightens her arms around him, motherly instincts taking over.
"Shhh, shhh, its going to be all right, shhh." But she doesn't believe it.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"I'm sorry, ma'am. But there's no chance either of your children survived the explosion. The bottom half collapsed, so she fell with the building 6 floors, not to mention the flames, lack of oxygen, and shrapnel in the air. I'm sorry for your loss."
She feels like Ty when she replies, "No, you're not. If you cared, you would've gone in after them. That's your job, after all."
He stutters some reply, and she smirks contentedly at his black eye. Good job, Ty. And she regrets telling Cece that Ty wasn't good for her. He punched a fireman, risked getting arrested, to save her. That's dedication.
And tears sting her eyes when she realizes she'll never get to tell Cece that.
A commotion in the rubble that was once their home turns heads. A fireman, the one who had pulled Ty off of the one with a black eye, walks out, smiling. Rage shoots through her. How dare he? Both of her children were dead, because of his inability to act, and he was SMILING?
But then she understands, as she sees who's behind him. Cece stumbles out of the wreckage, dazed and disoriented, Flynn gripping her hand like a lifeline.
She runs over to them, and gathers them up in her arms, holding them close, crying tears of joy. She hears Cece's sharp intake of breath, and pulls away to see her wincing. She pulls her arms off of her, and nearly faints.
Her hands, which had been wrapped around Cece, are dripping with shockingly scarlet blood.
Cece looks at her hands, her disoriented eyes registering surprise. She only manages to murmur, "Oh," before collapsing on the ground.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
A blur of activity – with paramedics, policemen, and firemen swarming – follows.
Sitting in the waiting room at the ER is never fun, especially when it's your daughter who's injured. The memory of her daughter's blood on her hands is branded into her memory, haunting her.
"Mrs. Jones?" she looks up at the nurse expectantly, "You may see your daughter now."
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
She looked so fragile, like porcelain, with her body disappearing into an over-sized hospital gown, making her look smaller than she actually is. Her ivory skin, even paler than usual, adds to the image of a porcelain doll, her resigned, broken expression makes her look so frail, so delicate, and not at all like the Cece she knew.
But worst of all was her hair. The fiery red in contrast to white skin brings the memory of blood into the front of her imagination. It's easy to imagine the hair as crimson blood from a head wound.
"She's doing all right. Still unstable, and we have no definite statistics yet. I'd say she has a 50/50 chance of surviving this. That's really all I can say."
"She doesn't look injured. What's wrong with her?"
"Most of the damage is on her back, from what your son told me, she used her back as a shield to protect him from the shrapnel. Also, she has minor burns on her feet and legs, with some major burns on her arms."
She closes her eyes, before choking out, "I'm going. I… can't see her like this. I'm going to tell her friends about her… condition."
The nurse nods in understanding, and Mrs. Jones gives Cece one last fleeting look, before she walks out.