The social was filling up quickly, no doubt it was due to the rain, it drove people to find shelter wherever they could find it. The bar wasn’t large so it meant she had to move but as she righted herself from the coarse wooden surface she wondered where she would be going. The rain pounding down outside offered to refresh her and the darkness whispered its promise of solitude, she wasn’t anti-social but big groups put her on edge. She’d seen what happened to people kept taught in small areas, Miss Mina would have a busy day tomorrow be it from enforcers or each other. 

It was nice, civil at first –even if the noise of so many voices would make her head ache after a while- but people had low tolerances to alcohol, it wasn’t a commodity they had often, so it wouldn’t be long until judgements were impaired. Then one wrong gesture, one wrong word and the ugly side of people came out, it was the one thing that the greys had in their favour, she’d never seen them attack one another. Not that they seemed to particularly work together either, it certainly didn’t change her mind on them in the least. 

If she left now, without even hearing the good nurse out, what did that change? She turned the bottle between her fingers, was she really going to walk out, get drunk alone, spend an evening hating alone, she liked her personal space but sometimes too much alone was bad for a person, right? Besides, it was like Adrianna said, take every opportunity you can, of course that had been about scavenging but it applied to life too. That old guy, Papa Mina had passed her the note before her supply run, hid it with his other papers, if he was willing to put himself in such an unfavourable position with the system then didn’t she at least owe [b]him[/b] to hear out his daughter?

Her boots stopped her behind Cristi’s chair, he was the dumb arse who’d got himself in trouble with Jorgen. Of course, having been on the receiving end of some of Jorgen’s harassment she wanted to personally high five the guy, however he clearly lacked self preservation instincts so she sort of wanted to hit him with a chair too. Apparently he learned better through beatings, laying a hand on his shoulder she internally cringed, man cooties, she hoped they’d wash off. “I can’t make up my mind if you are stupid or brave…though I guess the two aren’t mutually exclusive.” Her tone gave little away but an odd mirth danced at the corner of her lips and eyes. 

Taking a slow drink from the, whatever it was in the bottle, she slid around to a free space but remained standing, bottle edge half balanced on the table. “Are we enjoying the hard work we put into getting you this? We lost Stevenson bringing it back but all things considered, pretty good right?” Stevenson had been slow, scavengers dropped all the time, Greys or the natural pitfalls of the ruins outside Barrowside, sometimes bandits. Adrianna, her mentor, had died last year, she’d got her leg trapped when rubble fell, greys were nearby. It hadn’t been a pretty sight to come upon. With a heavy sigh she took a sip of her booze in both their memories and glanced to Mina. “Oh, that reminds me, that thing your father asked me for. I’ve got it.” It was a rather pointed statement but one didn’t slip the words ‘escape’ and ‘oasis’ into regular conversation.

[i] Just this once Jess, [/i] She thought to herself, [i] I’ll put my faith in hope.[/i]