2019-08-28 - Long Distance Repair

(TXT to Lilith) Isabella : Lilith is it too early to take you up on that offer?

(TXT to Lilith) Isabella : Alexander's in the hospital. The serial killer cut his throat.
(TXT to Isabella) Lilith : ... I'll be there as soon as I can. Shouldn't be long. Is he in a room yet?
(TXT to Lilith) Isabella : Not yet. He's in the OR, they're doing what they can. He's in shock, he lost a lot of blood.
(TXT to Isabella) Lilith : Hm. I wonder if they don't have the right staff if I can... be sneaky. Driving. Be right there.
(TXT to Byron) Isabella : It went badly. I'm at the hospital, Alexander's in the OR. I asked Lilith to see if she could help things along once they get him to a room.
(TXT to Isabella) Byron : Jesus, Bella.
(TXT to Isabella) Byron : What if they can't save him in time before he's set up in a room?
(TXT to Byron) Isabella : ...I took care of it.
(TXT to Byron) Isabella : I bought him the time.

By the time Byron Thorne and Lilith Winslow arrive at the hospital it is a little past one in the morning.

It must be a slow day in the emergency room; compared to when the two of them had been brought in during the Ring Incident, it was decidedly packed. And while there are a few milling bodies, still, in this purgatorial space, the crowd is minimal - ostensibly to the relief of those working this specific shift. Nurses in scrubs move past in quick, but steady clips, patients are funneled in and out of triage. There are a few standing by in the waiting room, various injuries visible, and more than just a few cases of alcohol poisoning - a sure sign of summer beach parties reaching a fever pitch by the end of the summer.

They'd be able to find Isabella easily, situated away from the rest, leaning against the wall and her green-gold eyes fixed on the hallway where they took Alexander through in a rushing gurney and harried EMTs trying to keep him stabilized. Dressed in jeans, a loose, short-sleeved top and boots, her hair in a messy knot, she looks about her usual.

Except that she's covered in blood.

Streaks of red wind up garishly over her sunkissed complexion, over her hands and arms, and soaked through the pristine white fabric of her blouse. She doesn't seem to have noticed, having only arrived just several minutes before. Understandably, she looks...indescribable. It isn't just the blood but the live emotions rolling over her features, whipping between concern, fury and terror - the kind that is bone-deep, reaching down to the very marrow. The last, she attempts to keep off her face, but surrounded by so much misery, it is becoming progressively difficult.

Lilith may have risen a little above being trailer park in a few ways, but she was still raised with no supervision, questionable gray area morals, and one hell of a principle about what allots community property in a pinch. On the way into the Memorial Hospital from the parking garage, she's slipped into black skinny jeans and a fitted slink of simple gray heather v-neck t-shirt with a pair of black slip-on Toms, hair twisted back away from her fresh face in a bun. If she had any sleep on her, it's worn during the drive after the text and she's keenly awake and alert, very much in a determined level of disaster response mode. But it's the calm kind, she gets that this time, it isn't her precise disaster for a change. She called Byron, they synced up text results and agreed to meet in the waiting room. But he might well beat her.

She's distracted by a bright idea. After watching a doctor out away from the building near the parking garage elevator on a smoke break like a stakeout from a chosen parking spot, she notices them talking on the phone and distracted by conversation. She sees the white doctor coat with badge slung over a bench by the smoker's pole in the designated area for such things. Very quietly, she gets out of her car, breezes by to snatch it and leaps a railing to go down a quick few chunks of stairs before hauling down the rest to hit the elevator on the lower floor.

Lilith Winslow is trailer park hood when she wants to be and she might need access. She's preparing for that. Folding the garment up to put in a shoulder bag, she sets toward the waiting area to meet with Byron and Isabella.

It's a wonder that Byron Thorne even got Isabella's text because text messages don't get as much attention as an annoying ongoing ringtone. And by that time, he was already in bed. His body ached from two days of intense physical activity and he really needed the rest. Even during sleep, he doesn't turn his phone silent. He often had business to tend to, so he always needed to be on the ready. Thus when his phone lights up indicating a message received, he only takes notice of it when he's stirring in bed, flipping over to lay on his side on take notice of that light show.

At this hour, it's usually Lilith messaging him. His investors and clients would most likely call or send an email. He was weary but he reaches over for his phone anyway to see what she wanted. He comes to find that it's not Lilith at all but Isabella. Something something Alexander. Something something went badly. It's not as if he's been asleep for long, so he's not overly groggy when he reads the message. Turning to look over his shoulder at Vivian who was still asleep, he taps a message out in response before dragging himself quietly out of bed. This was about Alexander, not Isabella. Why should he concern himself with it?

Rather than dressing in a suit at this hour Byron tosses on a gray sweater, a pair of jeans at some boots. At this hour, there was hardly any traffic, so it doesn't take much time at all for him to reach the Addington Memorial. In his mind, he was trying to imagine just how badly this seance went. He told them it was a bad idea. Then he gets the call from Lilith, picking it up on his headset. This is what makes phone calls far superior to text messages. After a brief exchange and promising to meet in the lobby, he pulls up into the parking lot.

Now, the head of going covert ops didn't cross his mind. He was a normal person and not a freak who thinks this whole thing is a game! So he walks in casually enough, meeting up with Isabella before Lilith decides to get there. He can see the blood that she's covered in, his concern is for her in this moment. "Bella, are /you/ hurt?" He asks, because that's a lot of blood. If they hadn't admitted her into the OR, then the blood wasn't hers. "Did that idiot actually bleed himself out over those god damn bones?"

It may be at this point that Lilith comes in to join them, but he's far too preoccupied and annoyed by this whole thing to notice.

Much like Lilith Winslow, even when dressed out of his expensive three-piece suits, Byron Thorne stands out no matter what he is wearing. Green-gold eyes lift to regard him as he walks through the doors, surprise wreathing her lightly suntanned mien. Because she knows him well enough to know that he won't be rushing over here because of Alexander, she just sent him the texts to update him on the situation because she promised him that she would. The fact that he is here is just as surprising to her as it is to him. Her jaw visibly works when he comes within conversation distance, attempting to shake herself out of the field of worry and exhaustion that she has been mired in for the last...

...it feels like an eternity, honestly. A perennial proclivity of hospitals to feel as if trapped in a bubble full of molasses, with how long the wait often feels. It had been the same, when Byron and Lilith and Alexander were admitted after the Hanging Bridge Incident.

She shakes her head slowly. "I'm fine," Isabella tells him, and physically, at least, that's the honest truth. "Remember the thing we wanted to try? With a spirit? To..." She gestures with her index finger, from her temple to his. "I think he tried to see if it could happen, and he paid for it."

The doors slide open again, and whenever she catches sight of Lilith walking through the lobby, she lifts her hand to signal her from across the way, For the first time in what feels like forever, relief slips over her tight expression, and no small degree of gratitude.

Lilith didn't ask questions in the texts with Isabella much. She got what she needed from the key wording and details between the lines and all the motivation she ever really needed for this moment was already waiting and dormant inside her. Guilt. She's usually one of of the dirty guns with her powers, controlled or not, violent and powerful destruction making terrible ruins. She remembers what it's like to rip into a man, not just from the dreams that plagued her, but because she's done it. And she's done it to someone that helped save her very life the very same night.

Alexander Clayton. She was coated in his blood when she was brought into the hospital last, all by her doing. Lilith remembers the way his leg was shaped like an odd stickout detail during the walk inside to waiting area and the pair she's seeking-- she knows it inside and out, bouncing molecular kinetic energy all made into form. She remembers tipping the lovely accident of biology that humans are and breaking it all down with exploiting until he split open to the bone through muscle and sinew like a human stress fracture all at once.

"Isabella. Are you alright? How long has he been back with them?" She adjusts the shoulder bag and smiles just a hint aside at Byron. Why did she call him? Because she needs to be steady for what she's about to try to do, that's why, and nothing makes her steadier in this whole world than this Thorne right here. She didn't say that, of course, and her eyes are mostly for the other woman as she comes near enough to reach with grasp for the other woman's hands in draw forward for survey, then squeezing. Given the blood, she's doing some due diligence with a perception shift of her eyes there in that moment, just in case.

Then she fesses up quietly, "... I stole a doctor coat on the way in, just in case."

Byron remembers the conversation clearly enough, he even contacted Lilith in the hopes of borrowing the ghost that she knew. That plan was thwarted, but he recalls exactly what they were planning on testing with a ghost. "He tried to... control it? Attack it?" All he knew was Alexander had abilities like his own and he hardly thought they'd come of any use against a spirit. Moving in close, his hand rests upon her shoulder giving it a comforting squeeze.

See, Byron doesn't much care for Alexander There are reasons for that. He's not even sure why he woke up, got dressed only to find himself here now. Every muscle in his body was screaming at him and his ribs were still slightly discolored with bruising after a sparring match earlier that day. Just the fact that the's here could be several things and despite his own exhaustion, he's trying to be supportive. That's when Lilith comes in. He knew that she'd show up, she called him before he got here. "So.." He would like to start badgering her with questions, learn everything that he can about what happened, but Lilith was here for a particular reason. Looking between the two women, he comes to ask, "Are they even going to let us in?"

Guess who wasn't invited to this little party? De la fucking Vega, that's who. The guy turns up in the darndest places like a bad penny. Not that he's any stranger to the hospital, what with his recent extended stay here; a few of the nurses probably know him by name. He strides in a little while after Byron and Lilith, still dressed for a duty shift at the precinct: suit and tie, cup of coffee that's finished off as he steps through the front doors of the emergency ward, and binned on his way up to the front desk. His cruiser, that unmarked monstrosity of American muscle car, is parked out front, and the girl at the desk seems to recognise him. Given the way she sort of dodges eye contact with the captain, they've either a) slept together or b) had a difference of opinion some time in the recent past. Or, possibly, both.

He flashes his badge for protocol's sake, and happens to spot a couple of familiar faces while he's getting directions to Clayton's whereabouts. Does he approach? Not yet.

Guilt is a powerful motivator; if nothing else, that is something that Isabella understands and while she doesn't know Lilith well, were she in her right mind, she could analyze and break down the reasons why she answered the call so quickly. But she knows what it is like, Lilith had told her, herself - that it would be nice, for a change, to be an asset and not a liability, and it's clear that after their lengthy, in-depth conversation in the local coffeehouse that she has elected to trust the content in her words - and tonight, her faith is rewarded.

The query comes and she flashes her fellow brunette a faint half-smile that somehow reaches her eyes despite the tightened corners of it. "I'm not hurt." And this is honest. "About twenty minutes," she supplies - she doesn't need to check the time, she knows just how many minutes have passed. With those pale hands out, the way she extends her own to let their fingers thread through one another is almost mechanical, mindless, reaching out because someone else does. Drawn forward a step, suddenly conscious of the fact that her fingers and arms hold traces of coagulated blood, so dark that they look like black veins crawling all over her skin, the look of her shifts into something more sheepish. She returns the squeeze gently.

Mischief returns to her, however muted, at the stolen doctor's coat. "Clever girl," she murmurs lowly, giving her hands another squeeze. By the way a sharper, more focused look flares in her eyes, she doesn't need to be told the reasons why.

If nothing else, Byron has an unfailing ability to drive her to focus on work, and she reclaims more and more of the clarity she had lost while riding in the ambulance. "I know him," she tells her childhood friend quietly. "Violence is a last resort, always. He wanted to convince him to stop murdering, to go back to sleep - to know why he's doing this, and hurting the Ghoul would have been counterproductive to those aims, as he doesn't really have a body to hurt in the form he took to speak to us." Brows stitch together. "I think he tried to see if a spirit had a mind to ride in. To read him." The squeeze on her shoulder has her releasing Lilith's fingers slowly, so she could reach a hand up to return it over the entrepreneur's knuckles.

Byron didn't even need to ask and Isabelle supplies some of the answers to questions that were bouncing around in his mind. He wears this pensive look on his face, piercing eyes staring directly at Isabella as he listens to her every word. "So, does this mean that the Ghoul is as much of a monster that we figured him to be?" He didn't have any doubts about that. Still, Thorne follows up with, "And what happened exactly that landed Clayton in the hospital? What did William Gohl do?" Perhaps, he is trying to gauge whether he should make this attempt as well or not. Perhaps Alexander failed due to a miscalculation on his part or underestimating Gohl. Whatever it is, Byron wants details.

He know that he, personally, can't do anything here in the hospital but make demands and his use name, but more likely his assets to try and get them what they want from the hospital staff; thus he asks, "Do you want me to get things from your houseboat?" This is very similar to what he'd done for her when it was her stay in a hospital bed. It's not that he's preparing to leave immediately, but he's making a schedule, a to-do list in his mind, slotting everything that needs to be done and dealt with.

A look is given to Lilith. He knows why she's here now, though this is not something that she usually does for anyone. It was quite a big favor to ask from her or maybe she was repaying Alexander back for what he'd done at the stone bridge. Memories of that night slowly return to him, but he's quick to put them out of his mind.

The cop continues to loiter a short way off from the little gathering. A doctor comes out to greet him after a few minutes, along with a couple of paramedics. A verbal rundown is given, and some sort of paper report is handed off, and signed by the captain. His eyes flick occasionally to the trio nearby, but he's evidently got his own business to attend to. For the time being.

Lilith tilts her head to think while listening to Isabella once her hands are free adjusting the bag on her shoulder as she looks at the doorway and swinging entry and desk and oh, hell, there's a cop. Not just a cop, the head cop kind that knows she isn't a doctor if she goes breezing into a bathroom to put on her oh-so-cleverly stolen coat to plow through the doors like she owns the place. Her lips kind of twist to one side like she's weighing one thing or another heavily given the look in her eyes while she listens to the exchange between Byron and Isabella. Then abruptly, she widens her eyes to look at Byron himself.

Quietly, she reminds him, even though she swore it was bullshit at the time, "... he said I broke his toe. Carver said I broke his toe and I didn't even know where he was or--" She's barely speaking above a whisper, like this utterly means something for very close to right now. Her lashes drop over her eyes and she lapses into focus for a long, long moment, thinking or centering or... really, it's an odd thing to bring up and interject with, isn't it?

He blossomed open and bled like so many crimson rivers necking into a waterfall, still somehow hot like the burn of guilt on her fever-cursed skin. Can she find him without seeing him? Is he stable? Can she undo a piece of what she did that terrible night?

Not standing here like this, she can't, uncertain with nerves on her. When she opens her eyes, she looks at Ruiz across the way again, then the door, then Byron, then Isabella. Really, she's a lot of eyes here and the cogs of clockwork thought are ticking visibly, which... maybe to Byron, can admittedly be a bad sign sometimes because her ideas aren't always... well, they aren't boring, at least. But she bides her time and lets the others talk, more or less.

That is all part and parcel of knowing someone so well - over half her life, and constant contact in spite of their decade's estrangement. Isabella, at the very least, knows how to anticipate. The intensity of the dark stare looking back at her earns a twitch of her lips, faint, because she can't seem to muster up more than that - understandable, all things considered, given the few weeks she has had; Ring-possessed, mother murdered, nearly killed and now having to tape her lover's throat shut and doing something she swore she would never do again in order to save his life. The fact that she is still standing, and thinking, and doing is at least a testament to her incredible resilience. Like a bouncy clown that keeps getting up no matter how hard, or how often, she gets punched.

"I don't know," she tells Byron quietly. "I don't know what he did, those questions will have to be answered whenever Alexander wakes up. But the Ghoul tried to kill him the same way he did the others."

She falls quiet, listening to Lilith as she whispers and she blinks, turning to look at the hallway leading into the OR. Her expression sharpens, suddenly remembering - the experiments, how to bridge abilities between two people. She doesn't know if Lilith can find people remotely, but it sounds like she can heal people, or break them, remotely. However, she needs to be able to find them...

"It could work," she says softly. "I know it can work, if I'm understanding what you're proposing. Alexander performed an experiment recently about the very thing, bridging people's abilities together to produce a desired effect. But I think you need a reader." There's a glance towards Byron. "Someone to strengthen the link. And if Alexander's unconscious, his mental defenses should be down. I think you can do it, Ronnie - you know both Lilith and Alexander." But the question, in the end, is if he's willing.

Green-gold eyes lift to scan the room, falling on Captain de la Vega by the front desk. Surprise, again, is on her face, but the look of her shifts to a more determined one. "I'll talk to the Captain," she says, quietly, easing away from the wall. "I'm no good in that arena...out of practice." She smiles thinly at that, jamming her hands in her pockets to keep her shaking fingers from view. "I'll be back."

And with that, if not stopped, she'll start moving for Ruiz.

If Byron had noticed de la Vega earlier, he paid the man no mind. This was a hospital, there was crime going on everywhere and victims are usually brought here, so he doesn't expect the police Captain to be here for this incident with Alexander Clayton. That's when Lilith speaks up, his attention drawn to her again when she says something to utterly random. Or, at first it seemed that way. He'll keep that in mind.

Nevermind that Isabella comes up with this plan to.. do who knows what, it's something he'd heard was done before but not something that Thorne was ready to do. "You've got to be fucking kidding me." He tells her flat out. "Why don't we just get a nurse to tell us where Clayton is and Lilith can work from there or, I don't know. She broke Carver's toe when she didn't even know where he was." This is all said with hasty annoyance, he even starts his own way down the hall to see if he can find a door that has Clayton's name attached to it. "Better yet, why I don't I try to pinpoint him out of every single person in this hospital." He doesn't raise his voice per se, but he makes it clear that he's not happy about what is being asked of him.

The scrubs-clad staff member on duty at the nurses' station surely has her eye on Byron as he starts snooping around looking for Alexander's room. She's not going to chase him down, probably, but there are plenty of other medical staff milling about who'll have questions for him if he starts busting into rooms.

De la Vega, meanwhile, has finished with the requisite paperwork that needed signing off on, and is finishing up with his debriefing of the paramedics that were on the scene. They're just turning to head off when Isabella approaches. And the captain's dark eyes settle on the brunette with a characteristic air of scrutiny. The blood is noted, and then a greeting tendered; curt, jaw tight. "Miss Reede. I'm sure I don't need to ask why you're here. Do you need a doctor?"

It'd be easier if she could look at Byron, use him, trust what she knows as a touch and focal point with him doing nothing at all he doesn't want to do, but Lilith doesn't ask after the vehement reply out of him. Instead she looks at Isabella, the state of her, the blood, the way she's still talking with Ruiz and she weighs a few things that maybe weren't obvious before but are becoming obvious now. The woman cares for Alexander, this isn't just about sating guilt or learning to be something other than a dirty gun with all her violence prone tendencies, reversing damages. She remembers their conversation, her offering, she thinks about pieces of what they might have been trying to do.

Carver is the best teacher sometimes, without ever knowing what he's doing. Monkey see, monkey do, monkey say, monkey try. She thinks that and her lips twitch just a touch. Then she thinks about breaking his other toe just to see if she actually gets a text about it like a test run, but..

After a moment of quietly looking between Byron searching and asking and naysaying and studying Isabella talking to Ruiz, Lilith wanders over to one of the chairs out of the way and closes her eyes with her hands clasped at her knees, leaned way forward like somewhat winging something on hope and prayer. Or fixing something a certain way with sheer will, because in that moment, for anyone paying mind to her, even though she's good at being quiet about usage on a certain level, she lights up like the sun. But she stays leaned forward and harder in concentration then, teeth grit, so whatever that was... she's not done.

Do you know what it's like to tear a man apart from the insides? It sticks and it sticks. It's always easier to break things than put them back together. But right now she's going to very quietly and willfully find a way to stabilize the man before anything else can go wrong, and maybe then some, all from a place of preferred anonymity that approaching the doctors and nurses wouldn't provide. She just has to trust that it's better this way.

Lilith just has to trust herself. There's no Byron crutch of touch and trust in knowing him through and through the times she healed him.

As Byron snoops around, annoyed as hell, Isabella glances at Lilith and shrugs. "He's still in the OR," she murmurs towards her fellow brunette. She's only passing on what she knows, it's not like their abilities come with a rulebook! A hand reaches out, though, to squeeze the other woman's shoulder as she leaves their vicinity, to approach the dark-haired cop, lingering behind as he talks to medical professionals - who soon disperse. But there's a look over her shoulder, watching Lilith find an out-of-the-way place to take a seat..and do what she must.

There's a slight smile, barely there, but visible if one looks closely enough.

The Captain's greeting is taken in stride - tight as it is, and with good reason. For all of the man's brusqueness, there was a tenuous friendship between him and the investigator. "I'm alright," she tells him, and that is truthful. "And honestly, I've been doing what I can to stay out of hospitals for a while. It's not going so well, though." There's a glance towards her two schoolmates on the other side of the emergency room.

"Did you come to check on Alexander's situation?" she inquires, her voice pitched low, lifting a hand to scrub her face, silently wondering if she should have subjected herself to the hospital's terrible coffee before she decided to keep going. "I was there, I can tell you what happened."

Of course Byron is annoyed, when he's asked to do some weird scheme that he'd only HEARD about and that brought about some sort of shockwave of results. Isabella could've just told /him/ that Alexander was in the OR then he wouldn't be out searching for the man's room, which he may have one being set up, but he's not in there yet. This would've been far easier if they knew where Alexander was in his mind. With the prying eyes of some of the staff looking his way, in his own agitation, his attempts at distracting them doesn't quite take hold as he's trying to affect the lot of them at once to try and pass through without being noticed. At the same time, he's trying to feel out exactly where Alexander is, since by now he's out of earshot of what Reede had said.

His success is mostly minimal as what he gets back is the emotions and passing 'thoughts' of several people in nearby rooms. None of them Clayton.

Ruiz has half an eye on Lilith as she settles into a chair and closes her eyes. He might not have a bead on precisely what she's doing, but the man isn't an idiot. And he's lived in Gray Harbour, and amongst its oddball denizens for long enough to know when something's going down. His gaze resettles on Isabella, and she's regarded for a long moment with slightly narrowed eyes. "Considering you're here, covered in blood, I'm going to have to agree with you." That staying out of hospitals isn't working out so well for her.

"I came to handle some other business, and was informed of him being admitted while enroute." There's a twitch in his jaw. He's on duty and in uniform, and thus on the clock; Alexander is a civilian and a casualty, not a friend. "I can probably get you in for a few minutes to see him, if that's whyThorne is skulking around like a fucking peeping Tom," he points out after a beat, sliding his hands into his pants pockets after checking the time on his watch.

After a long, long moment of sitting forward like that, Lilith sits up straight in the chair then sinks back to lean and look at the ceiling, wiping some at her nose. It's unclear if trying to suss out Alexander with such effort from afar or doing the unfamiliar, or working with all that sheer will did it or... if it's stress and anxiety that's really just internal increasing her blood pressure, but she wipes the barest leak of blood from her nose to try and hide it when she starts to feel it run, head tipped back a touch to staunch any other gradual drips.

Eventually, though, she pipes up with her lashes drowsing with woozy blink of general comedown, and it's clear that it's not just the powers that were an issue for her to work out to do what she wanted to do without the barriers of bystanders or interference-- there's something internal about it all that's triggering for her and when she exhales, all the tense posture floods out of her.

"He's... it's okay."

She felt everything accelerate inside him once she found Alexander, not mentally but like a lifepulse draw with what she remembers as familiar. Lilith kickstarted all the little machines like tiny mechanisms inside the man once she had him, his body that she once broke, the goal of it all, the power of what she can do well in mind. And she knows wherever he is, his body blossomed with response and vitality that no doubt startled the people once the machine vitals changed, as well as the wound severity, but luckily she's sitting right here, unobtrusive in this little chair. Maybe it was a good thing to do it this way, all told, fear and uncertainty aside. And she feels a world better for it because she had to do what she could. She just had to.

And more importantly, Isabella is probably feeling a little better too. Lilith's lips slant a touch, but her eyes remain on the ceiling with head tipped back after that piped up assurance.

Unable to help herself, Isabella's eyes wander towards the hallway where they brought Alexander through, and the way Byron's vanished through those winding corridors. Lilith remains within her line of sight, and her fingers absently clench into the lining of her pockets, her hopes pinned on her schoolmate and her frightening abilities. "I'm not the patient this time," she says, her voice low and hoarse from strain she would never admit out loud. "So either this is an extremely lucky break on my part or the unfortunate beginning of some twisted revolving door situation I'm not sure I'm all that ready to sign up for." She tilts her head back and takes a breath, to rein it all in. At this hour, it's easier to get tired than impotently furious at things beyond her control.

The offer, though, is rather startling - she hadn't been about to ask, and the intent was rather to put her money where her mouth was in the digital conversation she had with Byron about the police officer just a few days ago. But it is a welcome one and for a long and silent moment, her green-and-gold eyes sweep over the man's tight expression.

"Byron's here because I texted him and he came," she tells him. "We've known each other since our childhood, and he offered to get some things for me back in my residence." She elects to tackle that first. After her jaw works, loathing already as to how her voice is going to sound, she keeps her contralto pitched the same way, to mask every wound and worry threatening to burst from her chest like something roiling, sick and alive. "...he's...still in the OR. But if it's not an inconvenience, I would be grateful if you could."

It's okay.

Lilith's words, soft and lilting as they are, manage to carry, and she turns to look over at her. After watching her for a few moments, she seems to catch her meaning - gratitude slips over her strained mien, flashed towards the other woman, and she closes her eyes. Relief, palpable and intense, rolls off her in a tide. She starts to lean back, and sag against the nearby wall, adrenaline slowly losing its grip on blood, bone and sinew.

Being unable to separate Alexander from the various others patients who are unfortunate enough to be at this hospital today, most likely because he's unconscious, Byron actually does stop to speak to a passing nurse to make his inquiry, pretending to be a concerned friend. It's during this conversation that leads him back the way they came, possibly towards the nurse's station, but from what intel she comes across, she relays that he's in the OR. With that knowledge, even Thorne knows that it's not going to be as simple as heading that way, so instead he joins the others to give them THE NEWS. "I was told that Clayton is currently in the OR, unfortunately," Or he didn't ask, "I don't know what condition he's in currently."

Now that he feels like he's done something useful which, in truth, was it really that hard to ask? He informs, "Now Lilith should know exactly where to start doing whatever it is that she does." He wasn't here to even take notice of her performing her glimmer magic. "Maybe she can find him." He even offers Winslow a reassuring enough smile, despite that still simmering annoyance that he went through all of that just to obtain this information.

"If it's successful," He adds on, "Are we just going to wait here?"

The captain, as always, is a study in laconic efficiency of speech and almost indolent scarcity of movement; he doesn't appear to register the surprise on Isabella's face, though meets her green-gold eyes for two steady beats before sending a glance toward the nurses' desk. A brisk snap of his fingers to gain the woman's attention. The one that seemed to know him when he walked in. He flashes her a brilliant smile, all scruffy cheeked dimples and crinkled eyes, then holds up a finger to say he needs a moment.

"If you can promise to keep your friends in line until I can get you in. And if you can promise nothing will happen that I'm going to fucking regret, if I do get you in." He eyes the brunette there. "Then give me five minutes." He doesn't touch her shoulder as he pushes off to chat with that nurse, though he seems to have considered it. "Él va a estar bien," he murmurs in parting. As he prowls past Byron, a brisk, "Thorne." Lilith and her bleeding nose are made note of, but nothing more for the time being.

"C'mere. Hold my hands." Is Lilith pretending she's not done it yet while making a sudden reach for Byron with lift of hands? Not quite. Of course, he may assume just that since he wasn't around before, there's a delay, and she does look rather focused and distracted and contemplating as she lays back in slump in the chair. After a small sniffle, she pulls her head up and another little drip of blood leaks out from a nostril, eyes seeking Ruiz arranging and Isabella recovering from adrenaline tension there for a beat before she's all eyes for Byron.

She didn't have to use him as a focal point and she was drawn to the other familiar lifepulse in the hospital on her own, eventually, with sheer focused will and alternate perception that she fanned out with effort. And she's proud of that, wants to share that with him even, but at the same time, she still genuinely wants him to feel useful and needed right now, the way she promised she'd always need him when it all boils down. So she says, "Give Isabella a minute to breathe and we'll figure out what we can do for her to make this easier. And thank you for narrowing it down. Do you have a kleenex?"

He might not have the grumps turned off as a result, but Lilith might have an idea on how to quiet them so Isabella isn't triggered as a result after a high-stress day. Maybe.

With Byron returning, Isabella nods in his direction - but with doctors and nurses taking care of Alexander in the OR, there's not much else for them to do but wait, though she is assured, at least, that he is in good hands. There's another glance at Lilith and should the young woman look back up at her, she gives her another small smile and a surreptitious thumbs up from where she is leaning.

"I'll stay," she replies to Byron, keeping the low facade over her contralto, leaving it hoarse and almost husky - words that carry the implication that neither of them have to if they don't want to. "It'll be a while yet until he's out, probably, but I don't want him to wake up alone. I texted his roommate...I can get some rest once she gets here. I can call an Uber to get home." Exhaustion doesn't seem to hamper her ability to plan any, lifting a hand so she could roll her fingertips on top of her eyelids.

There's a glance at Ruiz's way when he charms the nurse at the front desk with his smile, finding some room in her for a spark of amusement, occupying the space where the lion's share of her worry had been just moments ago, before Lilith's power had wiped that all away. Brows lift faintly towards her hairline, but when those deceptive, dark-but-green eyes find hers, her expression grows solemn again, bobbing faintly in a nod. "I will....thank you, Captain," she tells him softly in parting, her attention following him as he moves off to talk to the nurse.

Finally, she pushes off the wall, moving back to where Lilith and Byron are, to take a seat next to the former. She hunts down a small packet of kleenex from her satchel in offerance.

"You know, I always thought red was my color, but I think you wear that better than I do, also," she quips, holding it out for her nose and will assist her if needed. And after a few moments, the next words slip out, barely above a whisper, but still audible to those standing near: "Thank you both."

When he's being asked to hold Lilith's hands, Byron does so, though he has no idea how her powers work. He only knows how his own work. Or the ones he's most familiar with. Still, he'll give her hands a gentle squeeze and watch her as she seems to be seeking Alexander out. Granting her this bit of quiet to concentrate, his own eyes wander, scanning the area. He's not the one using his abilities after all. Often when people use their powers, sometimes, not always, you're able to determine that something is going on. A shift in the air, an intensity of their shine. Something. So when he returns to Lilith, he's attempting to sense just that, to get a better feel of what it's like when she's using her own abilities. Of course, he doesn't sense anything, but you don't always do. Then there is that hint of something when her nose begins to bleed. That's a far different reaction to using one's powers than he's ever experienced.

With her hands still within his own, he drops down into a low crouch so that he has to look up into Lilith's face. Before he can even reach into his pockets to find out whether he has a tissue or not (If this were his suit, he'd most likely have a handkerchief, but it's not), Isabella is here to save the day with her own pack of tissues. "How do you know that it even worked? Can you feel something?" Perhaps her powers are entirely different than his. It's fascinating all the same.

His eyes trail behind Ruiz when it looks like the police Captain is on the move for something or other. "He here for Clayton too?" The question posed to Isabella most likely. "I'll pick up some things from your place, drop them off here and then I'll probably head home. I need the sleep."

Lilith smiles some at Byron and there's a faint tremor left in her hands from adrenaline rush and nerves of her own that persisted through will and determination that she quelled. Human bodies are sometimes in a way to be pushed not healing, but ruin with a slip, and working to mend things and accelerate the tiny pieces that make people is really opposite from what she usually does with them, and they aren't static like 'things'. That tremor is quelled immediately with his squeezing pulse, though, and when she asks for the Kleenex, she smiles some at Isabella to release a hand and take it for squeezing press. It's more drip than anything from stressing herself out with rush of blood pressure and exerting power at the same time, not so much because she's taxed, but then again, these things are kind of hard to tell.

She looks fine other than that now, though, and it's really just a slow leak of gradual that's quick staunching with pressure. After a moment, she leans forward some to tip the top of her head and forehead against Byron crouched down there with silent 'okay' and fond gesture that's a little shamelessly intimate in the moment. Habits. Then she explains, "I feel what I do, yes. I have to pick and choose where to either... speed things up or break them down in the body, but when I do it backwards, it's more like... tugging strings and pressing keys to make resonance through the body. Then everything... I don't know. It's hard to explain. But it's okay. It was him, not some random man. I remember... what he felt like."

Then after drawing in a breath, she drops the Kleenex in her lap, suggesting to Isabella, "I'll at least stay with you until he returns with some things for you to have and change into and get comfortable with. He may well be in a room by then with somewhere better for you to post up and rest too." Then she looks at Byron again with slight smile and maybe a bit of unspoken question. But whatever it is, she holds that for after he's done the clothes bit, looking back at Isabella again shortly after the suggestion, "Waiting and replaying things over and over is no good for anyone alone, really."

Byron's question earns him a shake of Isabella's head. "No, other police business, but he heard through dispatch," she replies, reaching over so she could take and discard the bloody tissues by crumpling them in her hand and tucking them in her pockets. "He's going to try and get me and whoever else wants to in to see him once they get him out of the OR." She cranes her neck to watch the veteran cop deal with the nurses and hospital staff with the same, gritty aplomb he seems to apply to everything else in his life. "Must be nice to have a rank," she murmurs lowly.

The prospect of fresh clothes is something that brightens her mood some, and all without having to leave the hospital. Her hand reaches out to squeeze Byron's shoulder, now that he's forced to crouch in front of Lilith. "Thanks, B. I appreciate it," the last said quietly. Simple words, but ones limned with a certain, immovable weight behind them.

With Lilith's suggestion, there's a faint smile - there's sense in her words, warring with her perpetual reluctance to impose, but she, too, remembers their conversation The urge to let her rest after what she has put herself through for the sake of another - the stress could not have been easy, and using the Talent always had risks considering what they tend to attract - is nigh near overwhelming, but this is one that she is willing to shelve. Some part of her recognizes, on some level, that she does need this....and that on some small degree, Lilith does also.

"Alright," she says, reaching out to give the young woman next to her a squeeze on her hand. "If you're sure. Thank you again for today, Lilith. I owe you."