"Okay, I know we've made jokes about your alcoholism for years, Allison, but this is just proving that, the second something truly bad happens, you get out of hand."

Jasper took another step back when Allison, who had just barely managed to pull off her dress and slip into her silk sleep pants and top, started retching again. She had enough sense to have covered herself in towels, but she was clearly a disaster. Jasper sighed, leaning back against the sinks in the master bathroom. Cruella just barely convinced her to go home after talking to Mariana. I can't even imagine what it would have been like to try and drag her through a hospital, and then to a car like this. Bloody hell, woman. You bitched about how your hair looked hot pink instead of dark read because of expired toner at Lana Marie's birthday just a few weeks ago, and now - Jasper grimaced, this time aloud when Allison ended up, still shrouded by towels, keeled forward, her thick rimmed glasses almost sliding off her face. Too swiftly for her to object (and well aware that she would thank him later), Jasper gently swiped them off her face, folded them up, and put them on the edge of the sink.

Allison started mumbling, retched a little more, and then, looking angrily at the rubbish bin most of her bile had been caught in, defeatedly laid back against the wall. Somewhat grudgingly, she accepted the (now mostly flat) bubbled water Jasper handed her. His feet tapping up and down against the ground, he eventually sat down across from her. He laughed a little when she, after about a minute or so of struggle, pulled off her pumps, and chucked them towards the doorways. Allison managed a hint of a smile, though she seemed to also still be on the verge of retching more. Still, she slowly nipped up the water, and Jasper barely contained himself from laughing when he realised just how much she looked like her cat lapping up water in a bowl. She would maul you if you said that to her right now. Maybe. Probably not, actually. Seemingly more calm, at least, in her body, Allison sat up just a little. Jasper paused for a few seconds when it occurred to him just how tiny she was, 4'11'' and only 100lb.

"Shoes," Allison eventually said, casting a disdainful look towards the blurriness of her shoes. "Are feet prisons."

Jasper snickered. "You would know, having been to a prison today."

Allison scowled. "You have no idea how many people I now hate."

"You're not exactly known for giving up a grudge," Jasper casually replied. "Who else has made it onto the list of the great Allison Lacey De Vil?"

She paused.

"No one new," She eventually muttered. "Though I haven't hated Mariana or James more than I have now."

"Unsurprising," Jasper sighed, glancing around. "Did Mariana tell you anything none of us didn't already know?"

"A few more details about her unsavoury business partnership with James," Allison said, rubbing at her throbbing head. "Fuck. But, yes. She had been planning some scheme to exploit poor people, you know, the works. I don't think she's ever had an altruistic thought in her life."

"Sounds about right," Jasper shook his head. "Anything else?"

"Just a little," She said, finally meeting his increasingly concerned gaze. "What are you looking at me like that for?"

"Later," Jasper said quickly. "You were saying?"

Allison weakly nodded. "She knew James was violent all along," She quietly said. "And she had hoped that he would 'do what she couldn't,' especially after she first heard Ella was pregnant."

"Critique the laws, but obey them when you need to," Horace had dramatically read out from one of the stolen books they had dragged up to the loft. "Persuade the laws, and if they don't listen, accept your fate."

Jasper had snorted. "If we rolled over and accepted our fates, we would all be in prison right now. Or in handcuffs. Pick your poison."

"Neither," Estella had thrown some silk and satin sheets over a dress form nearly ten feet across the room. "Do I honestly look like I could survive prison?"

Horace had shrugged. "Depends," He had waved his fingers at some of the increasingly elaborate fashion pieces scattered across the floor. "You as you? Probably. You as the party crashing, bitch slapping Cruella? No. That woman wouldn't survive prison. But you would."

"Ella, seriously," Jasper had started laughing. "You would break out of prison and never get in trouble for it. Hacksaw, bedsheets, etc. The whole nine yards. Basically, you would be the best person to try and escape prison with."

She had smirked. "Is that a request? You know you wouldn't have to ask. I'm never going to leave the two of you hanging up to dry."

"Well, that's a relief," Horace had remarked, setting down the book on the top of the nearby stack. "Because we wouldn't be as successful at any of what we do without you."

"Even if you can be a real bitch about it," Jasper had added.

Horace had nodded. "Even if you can be a real bitch about it."

"You two are a nightmare," Estella had jokingly remarked, dramatically collapsing down into the (also, incidentally, stolen) couch they had pulled up and into the loft. "Though I don't imagine I could handle living with just about anyone else."

Jasper had rolled his eyes. "And, yet, you've snagged yourself some pretty nice arm candy when you're embracing the show crashing Cruella. How did you find that guy, anyways? Since he looks more like an MP than anything -"

"He looks a lot like Tony Blair," Horace had remarked, shrugging when she and Jasper both turned to him in surprise. "What? I'm completely serious."

"That guy who wants to get into Parliament?" Jasper had eyed him strangely. "All I know is that he's that smart guy out of Oxford."

"You two are ridiculous," Estella had half jokingly gagged. "Could you two stop speculating on my romantic life?"

"It's hard not to be interested," Jasper had shrugged. "Seriously, Ella. How did you find someone like that?"

"He was very close to the baroness," Estella's voice had taken on a dark edge. "Still is, maybe. Either way, he seems to be quite different from her. I can't help but wonder if he's trying to manipulate her."

"So, we're competing?" Horace had chuckled. "Competing to pull the rug out from under that bitch?"

Estella had winked. "We can only keep our fingers crossed on that front, now won't we? We're going to figure things out, either way. We'll deal with her. We're getting close. It's only a matter of time."

"Just be careful," Horace had said, his voice going unusually calm. "We don't know much about any of these people."

"I know," Estella had almost impatiently replied. "Believe me, after everything we've all been through these past few years, being careful is second nature."

Jasper had sighed. "It really is."

Beep.

Lana Marie nearly screamed when another set of loud, almost piercing beeps started to ring out. The fourteen year old just about jumped out of the small couch she had cocooned herself in, reaching for the nearest pen as if it were a weapon. She awkwardly dropped it when the doors to the hospital room slid open, and two doctors stepped in. She looked between them, and her mother. It was then she realised her mother had been anxiously watching her the whole time, having set down the book she had been reading. Wait, how long was mum…how long was I…Almost as if she were afraid of how the doctors would look at her, Lana Marie sat down on the couch again, her fingers tapping up and down against her legs. After a few seconds, she did manage to look up and away from her hands. She blinked back tears when she met her mother's gaze. Without hesitation, she all but latched onto her mother the best she could from the side of the hospital bed. She barely realised how anxiously she was shaking until her body began to relax as her mother gently ran her fingers through her daughter's hair.

"Lanie," She said calmly. "It's going to be alright, darling, I promise."

Lana Marie weakly nodded. "Where's Allie?"

Cruella hesitated. "She's fine," She began. "But she is at home. She's not feeling well. You know how she is, when she gets stressed."

"Yeah," The fourteen year old tiredly agreed. "Are you going to be able to go home soon?"

"I can answer that," One of the doctors said, looking between mother and daughter, and their own clipboard. "Scans suggest she is not concussed, though those stitches were deep. She ought to be able to return home tomorrow, after it can be ensured the stitches don't rupture overnight."

"Thank God," Cruella sighed. "And you're sure there is nothing else -"

"Absolutely sure," The other doctor reassured her. "You probably don't want to go under another set of scans, considering that we already did two additional scans to ensure everything would be sorted."

Cruella nodded. "Alright."

Neither she nor her daughter heard much else of what was said by the medical staff. It was almost too overwhelming to focus on that. I could have lost my angel, and, now, she could have lost me. Am I ever going to be able to be at ease? She tried not to focus on that. Instead, almost too aware of her daughter's anxiety, Cruella loosely held onto her, and kept treading her fingers through her hair. It was the one thing that had always soothed her daughter, even from when she was a small child. She's still a young child, just not as small. She's only fourteen. She should never have to know how badly things went between me and her father. She should only have had to know how things are with me, and with Allie. She doesn't deserve any of this pain. She shouldn't have to consider it at all, let alone carry it. The buzzing of machines all around, and the hum of electricity were, at last, becoming white noise. Just a buzzing hum in the background.

"I don't know what to tell you," Cruella finally said. "But I'm going to do everything I can to ensure you'll be safe, Lanie."

"Is he going to come back?" Lana Marie whispered. "How much does he know about us?"

"That I'm not sure," Her mother said, almost annoyed at the thought. "I don't have the faintest clue how little or how much he knows about us, but I'll find a way to ensure you'll be safe."

"He's scary," Lana Marie shook just a little. "Even scarier than grandmother."

"Yes," Cruella quietly agreed. "He is."