The girl coughed, deeply and painfully, as Collins placed her on Mark and Roger's couch. She started awake as Mark entered with two of his heaviest blankets.

The first words out of her mouth, as quiet and raspy as they were: "Oh fuck." She groaned and tried to sit up.

"Shh, its ok, just lay down Honey," Angel said sweetly as the rest gathered around. Too weak to disagree, the girl collapsed back into the cushions.

"Sweetheart," Joanne said gently, "you're in pretty bad shape there. Can you tell us your name, where you're from? How old you are?"

With that deer-caught-in-the-headlights look, the girl finally muttered "Elisha. Um, or Ellie." Then let out another bout of coughing. Only Mark noticed that she had purposefully avoided the age and origin questions.

Joanne gestured for the group to move away from this girl –Ellie's- earshot, and she quietly explained in her logical lawyer voice: "We need to find out more about her before we decide a course of action. Obviously, in her condition, we can't just throw her out the door and wish her luck. My best guess is that she's a runaway, but if she's not 18 yet its risky for us to keep her here, it could be considered kidnap. Then again, if she ran away because of abuse, we should take her to a shelter or something. And there could be people out there worried about her."

Mark glanced at the frail creature, passed out again but shivering under blankets on his couch. Then he turned back to the group. "I'll talk to her, but we should make her comfortable first, clean her up a little. She's a mess. You guys go home, its late. Or should I say early. Get some sleep, then come back later. We'll get this figured out."

Maureen, Joanne, Collins, and Angel all slowly nodded their agreement, suddenly realizing how exhausted they were. Mimi leaned against Roger. "I'll stay," she offered. "She'll probably want a girl to help her get cleaned up, instead of Mark and Roger. And I might have some clothes she can wear, though they'll be way long on her."

Roger hugged Mimi and Mark gave her an appreciative glance, before going back to the couch and whispering something to Ellie. The rest bid their goodbyes and rather solemnly filed out of the loft.