[IC] Partners (Cars & Blue)

[Blue Demon]

The sound of an alarm drove spikes into Delia's brain. Her reached out her hand and fumbled around.

God. What did I drink last night? She wondered as she continued searching for her alarm. Except it seemed to have moved during the night.

Tentatively Delia cracked open one brown eye and groaned. Light streamed into her room. She cursed as she closed the blinded eye and threw and arm over her face. She swore again as the noise made her head hurt even worse. It must have been a hell of a party. She hadn't been this smashed in ages. She didn't even remember the party.

Delia moved and suddenly found no more bed under her. She squeaked as she hit the floor with a thud and another curse. The movement made her clutch her head and groan again, more hamming it up at this point to see if anyone would come and pity her. Of course the alarm had the obnoxious gal to continue to beep at her. The annoying machine. Once she got to her feet she was going to rip it out of the wall and mangle it beyond repair.

Dax would be proud of her violent thoughts. Delia was a non-violent sort of person. She was passive aggressive sort of person. And when that failed she was usually pretty good at manipulating someone to be her benefactor. Usually Dax. He was the most violent of all her friends. He had no problem scaring people. Of course that was why he hung around her. Said he felt less violent when she was around. It didn't hurt that he bought her shinny baubles to make her happy.

Just be quiet. Delia begged the infernal machine mentalli. Please. Aren't you supposed to shut off after a few minutes anyways?

Delia knew it wasn't listening to her. Or else it would have shut up. She wiggled around to push herself up and stopped. This wasn't her carpet. She forced her eyes open and stared at a horendous seventies orange.

"Gods Above." Delia whispered. This wasn't her room. She whipped her head about and saw, much to her horror, she was in a tacky hotel, probably motel, room.

[carsgovroom]

The first thing Elise was aware of when she started to rouse was how much her head was throbbing. It reminded her of the first and only time she'd agreed to doing some tequila shots with some of her coworkers one night after work and the hangover she'd experienced the next morning.

But that almost paled in comparison to this pain. It was like someone had driven an ice pick through her temple.

Then Elise became aware of the loud and shrill beeps that were sounding less foggy by the moment as she woke. They did nothing to help her aching head. What time is it? she wondered, God, what DAY is it? I feed so...what did I do last night? She tried to think about the previous night, tried to think about the last thing she remembered doing, but she couldn't. Her mind was swimming, her thoughts and memories were cloudy, and her head continued to pound painfully.

She wanted to throw up.

But first she needed to turn off that freaking alarm.

Eyes still closed, Elise reached her left arm out to hit the button on her alarm clock. But where her alarm clock should have been there was only open air. Her hand didn't even touch her bedside table. Something was wrong...something other than this hangover. A hangover she shouldn't have because she hardly ever drank that much. Elise became aware that she was lying on a lumpy mattress, a mattress she didn't recognize.

Then she heard a thump and a noise of surprise that she had not made. Oh God, I'm not alone...

Almost instinctively at the realization of another presence Elise tried opening her eyes and sitting u[p. Both proved to be mistakes. Light hit her eyes, almost blinding her and sending another stab of pain through her temple, and sitting up just made her head spin. After several moments of nursing her head, Elise finally managed to push herself slowly into a sitting position and eased her eyelids open.

She was greeted with a jarring color of orange. It was so bright it made her eyes hurt, but she hardly thought about that. What she thought about was how she recognized nothing surrounding her, not the walls, or the bed, or the rest of the furniture. She wasn't in her room. Her heart thumped and she felt panic creeping through her.

Then her brown eyes fell on the opposite side of the bed she was sitting on and the girl on the floor. The girl who had obviously fallen to the floor from the bed where she had been lying next to Elise. A girl that was as much a stranger to Elise as this room was.

Elise could only stare at her for a moment, her eyes wide as she tried to process what was happening. It made her head hurt again. "Who...who are you?" she asked, her voice sounding strangely slurred to her ears.

[Blue Demon]

Who...who are you?

Delia whipped her head back so hard she gave herself whiplash. She grabbed her neck and groaned even as she scooted away from the bed. The young woman stared with eyes wide open. There was a rather attractive woman on her bed. Delia tried to remember the brown headed woman, but came up blank. She looked down and saw much to her relief she was clothed. Maybe that was a good sign they hadn't...

Delia looked back up at the woman quickly. She hadn't moved in those few heartbeats. She squinted her eyes to make her headache less. Sunglasses would have been nice.

"Who am I?" Delia squeaked. Her voice was thin and reedy, on the edge of panic. "Did we sleep together?" She hit the wall with a small smack.

"Oh God. Dax is going to kill me if I cheated on him." She groaned again. Delia was fond of being overly dramatic. "But maybe he'll forgive me since it was a woman." She clutched her head in woe. Then turned her doe eyes onto the strange woman.

By now her headache was beginning to recede. Or was it because she had something else to focus on it was no longer as noticeable? Still, she wasn't enjoying the fact she was in a slum motel with a strange woman. "Did you drug me?" She kept talking, once sentence after another, not giving the other girl a chance to respond.

"Is that why I can't remember?" She swore. "I can't even remember what day it is. I'm probably late for work." Another dramatic groan. "I don't want to be fired." Yet as she continued to talk her voice stabilized, even if at the end she added a little hiccup as if she was about to cry.

[carsgovroom]

Did we sleep together?

Elise had been watching the woman as she all but scurried across the floor, away from the bed. The girl's wide eyes and panicked expression must have mirrored her own, and it took a few moments for her words to process. Sleep together...Elise's eyes widened, if it was possible. She didn't know...she had no memory of it, or anything that had happened to her in...she didn't even know how long. Elise's eyes flickered down and she saw, with relief that she was still fully clothed, and her hand clutched the soft material of the sundress she was wearing. What kind of people spent the night together and woke up still in their clothes? Sure that meant that they...that they hadn't...

"I, uh, I don't think we did," Elise started to say, but the other woman had already speaking again. Some of what she said made little sense to Elise, but she did understand when the woman asked if she had drugged her. "What? No...no, I would never." She knew she couldn't remember, but Else also knew herself, and she knew that she would never do that sort of thing, not even if she had gotten drunk.

She wasn't entirely sure if the other woman had heard her though. She was still speaking, and by the time she was finished she seemed almost in danger of crying. Elise looked at her, her lips parted slightly as she tried to think of what to say. What could she say in a situation like this? Two people, strangers, waking up in the same bed with no memory of how they met or how they had got there or of anything that had happened to them in... How long had it been? One night? One week? Elise had no idea.

"I can't remember anything, either," Elise confessed to the woman. She was still on the bed, hugging her knees to her chest and trying to make herself small as possible. "I don't know who you are, or how we met, or where we are, or how we got here. I don't know how long we've been here, or what day it is, or if I still even have a job. I can't even really remember the last thing I was doing before waking up here. So...if you were drugged...I must have been drugged, too." That was a terrifying thought. If someone had drugged the two of them...what had they done to them? And were they coming back?"

"My name's Elise." Perhaps knowing each other's names might jog some memories. "What's yours?"

[Blue Demon]

Delia didn't really listen as the other girl spoke. Her mind latched onto the idea of her cellphone. Surely her purse was somewhere. She mentally prayed that she hadn't been so drunk she left it at the party. She shoved her brown hair out of her face, only turning her attention back to the other occupant when she began to sound more afraid again.

"Delia." She said.

She tugged at her top and sniffed it. It didn't smell like alcohol. Which was strange because she always spilled some or was spilled upon. Then again, it could reek of alcohol and she was just desensitized to it. "Lets not jump to conclusions." She pushed the thought of drugs away. They had just gotten really drunk. A few hours from Delia would be laughing with Dax about it. He would probably tease her about going home with a girl and not even scoring.

"I need my phone." Delia attempted to get to her feet, but the world spun so badly she just sat back down. "Or not." She whimpered as her head protested. She doubled over and waited for the pounding in her head to pass. She tried not to think about how dissimilar her symptoms were to her other hang overs. Delia wasn't listening if the other girl, who's name she had forgot, said something.

"Do you see my purse?" Delia asked, her voice slightly muffled because she was still bent over. "It's black and pink."

[carsgovroom]

Elise just nodded her head slightly when the other woman said her name. What was she supposed to say? It's nice to meet you? Not under these circumstances, it wasn't. Elise turned her head, slowly since stabs of pain still shot through her forehead, and her eyes took in the rest of the room. Aside from the nasty shade of orange everywhere it looked like a standard motel room.

Maybe there were some matchbooks in the drawer, or pens and pads of paper that had the place's name on them. She had to figure out where she was.

She edged slowly towards the bedside table and finally put an end to the wailing alarm. It was a huge relief when the beeping stopped, and Elise closed her eyes briefly and exhaled slowly. According to the clock it was pretty late in the morning, almost ten, but there wasn't a date. She wrenched open the top drawer and found a Bible, but nothing else with the motel name on it.

Closing the drawer, Elise let out a small groan as she rubbed her head gently, massaging her temple. She needed an aspirin. And a huge glace of ice water. And a shower.

She heard the other woman, Delia, speak again, and Elise's eyes opened to see her against the wall, head bowed. Maybe to relieve her own splitting head ache. She wanted her purse... Her purse...where was Elise's purse? Was she even carrying a purse or a bag before she got here? She tried not to think about what might have happened to it if it wasn't here. If she was lucky she had forgotten it at home, but if she wasn't... What if it had been stolen? Her wallet, her keys, her phone...how would she track it down?"

Her head turned again as she scanned the room once more, and her eyes settled on a slightly darker but still hideous sofa across from the bed, near the window. Two items had been seemingly tossed onto it. One was a black and pink purse, the other a familiar brown leather messenger bag.

For the first time since waking up in that room, Elise felt relief. "It's over there, on the sofa," she told Delia.

Standing proved to be one heck of a challenge. Her head protested, her arms and legs felt wobbly, and she almost lost her balance. But Elise managed to brace herself against the wall and slowly edged around the room until she reached the sofa. She lowered herself onto it, and took Delia's purse and set it on the floor in front of her so she could crawl over to it. "Here," she said to alert the other woman. Then she took the messenger bag in her hands and pulled it open, fearing the worst.

Everything was still in there, her keys, her wallet with her ID and money and credit cards, her phone, her laptop computer (which looked undamaged). Nothing was missing. She let out an exhalation of relief and hugged the leather bag to her chest, leaning back against the sofa and closing her eyes briefly. This bag...this was the bag she took to work, and the dress and jacket she was wearing were typically items she'd wear on an average day of work. So...she could assume that the last thing she remembered doing was leaving work for the day. Unless she had gone out with coworkers after? It was still difficult to remember.

[Blue Demon]

Delia sighed happily as the alarm finally quit. She looked up crookedly to see it was the brown haired woman who had done it. Blessed silence descended and for the first time since she had awoke Delia felt almost normal. Or at least normal enough to sit back up straight and try again for her feet. This time she went slower. She was a little wobbly. Nevertheless she made it to her feet without getting a head rush. She wiggled her bare toes against the carpet. She made a mental note to make sure to by some anti-fungal soap so she wouldn't catch anything nasty.

It's over there, on the sofa,

Delia turned her head and sure enough, there was her purse. The other woman had been nice enough to pass it over. Maybe a little too nice. But Delia didn't care about that at the moment. She seized her monstrosity of a purse and pulled it open. Cellphone. She thought as she rummaged through her crap. The iPhone was on the bottom, like usual. She pulled the phone out in triumph. She tapped the screen but nothing happened. Delia tapped it again and pressed the button on top. Nothing.

Delia frown and held down the power button. Thankfully the phone flashed to life. Though Delia was a little disturbed. She never turned off her phone. Not even when really, really drunk. The small bubble of panic she had kept tightly under control was beginning to grow again. She swallowed against the lump in her throat. Maybe the battery was low. But no, that hope was dashed as it saw it was almost at full power.

The young woman moaned slightly but tried to muffle the sound. She wasn't going to panic. Not yet. She'd call call Dax and everything would be okay. After all she had just gotten drunk and passed out in a strange motel room with a strange woman she hadn't slept with. It was all cool. The phone finished starting and she tapped in her password. Her eyes strayed to the date and time and she froze. The phone slipped from her hands and fell to the floor.

"Oh God." Delia said. "Oh God." She repeated. "Oh God." Over and over.

She heard as if from a long distance her phone jingle, telling her she had missed calls, or texts or even e-mails. But she didn't listen. Her story, her lie that she had gone to a party unraveled. Even if she had gotten smashed she couldn't have forgotten three days. Three! Delia slipped down the wall and curled around herself.

What did she remember? Delia knew she had gone to work. It had been, Tuesday? Wednesday? An odd day to party. So that would make this Friday or Saturday. She swallowed and breathed through her mouth, trying not to be sick. She didn't remember what had happened. Had she gone home? Did she even leave the office?

[carsgovroom]

The sound of something falling to the carpeted floor made Elise's eyes open and she saw Delia standing there with a horrified expression on her face, purse in hand. She stared at the woman for a moment in confusion as she started to muttering to herself in a panic, and her eyes trailed down to where Delia's iPhone had been apparently dropped.

Wariness crept through her, and Elise reached into her bag and found her own iPhone. She pressed the center button, and nothing happened. Elise's brows furrowed. This wasn't normal for her, her phone was usually on unless she was restarting it so it wouldn't overheat, or it had run out of battery. But Elise was organized and she rarely let that happen. She pressed the power button until it blinked to life, and she exhaled with relief. She could call a cab, a friend, her roommate, anyone to come find her and take her home. They would tease her about her seemingly crazy night and chastise her for sleeping in a motel room, but then everything would go back to normal.

Then she saw the date and Elise almost dropped her phone, as well. She was now extremely positive that the last thing she remembered before waking up was that it had been Tuesday evening and she had left the office after work. She had been walking towards the bus stop, like she always did and then...blackness. Followed by opening her eyes to a headache and an orange motel room. On Saturday morning. Almost four days later.

Elise desperately tried to think, to remember her past Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday...but her memories remained blank. Three full days of her life were just gone. Elise tried to remain natural, tried to assure herself that there was a logical explanation for everything. That everything was normal. But what kind of normal person forgets three entire days?

She rubbed her forehead with her right hand as she tried not to panic like Delia had. It was only then that she finally noticed that there was something on her wrist. Elise pulled her hand away from her head, her eyes focusing on whatever was on her wrist. It was a tattoo, in black ink, snaking around her right wrist like some kind of bracelet. The tattoo was a vine of ivy that curled and twisted in intricate detail, and the black ink ivy leaves stood out against her fair skin. Elise turned her wrist, studying the tattoo in horrified fascination, and saw that both ends of the ivy were attached to a strange symbol that was tattooed on the pale flesh under her palm. It was if the symbol, which she had never seen before, was the pendant of the bracelet and the ivy was the band securing it, holding it in place.

Elise did not have a tattoo, had never planned on getting a tattoo. The commitment was too intimidating. The tattoo had definitely not been on her wrist when she had left work on Tuesday night. What had happened to her during those three blank days?

She needed to get out of here.

Her hands fumbled with the phone, and she glanced around her until she saw the small table beside the sofa. Finally she found the pad of paper that was in every hotel room that had the name of the place emblazoned onto it. The Sunset Motel...thank god she was still in the city. "I'm calling someone to come get me," she announced to Delia, turning her head to look at the woman. There was a forced calm in her voice, but it still trembled slightly. "I need to get out of here and go home. Do you need a ride?"

[Blue Demon]

Delia picked herself off the floor after being so thoroughly ignored. The young woman patted her hair into semi-decency and straightened her clothes. What sort of person totally ignores someone in a nervous breakdown? Granted, some of it was over the top, but still. Delia's mental mutters went round and round on the vein. She summoned up all of her offended dignity when the woman decided to speak to her. As if Delia wasn't good enough to be paid any attention to. Delia tried to keep the sulk off her face, but wasn't really succeeding.

I'm calling someone to come get me. I need to get out of here and go home. Do you need a ride?

"I am." Delia said calmly. "Not going anywhere with you."

After all anyone who lacked that much empathy to a poor panicking stranger might have been in on it. Who knew? Maybe the other woman, who Delia still couldn't remember her name, was the kidnapper and got some sort of sick kick out of this. With a final look at the possible kidnapper Delia strode past her and out into the afternoon light. She flung up her hand as she waited for her eyes to adjust. Not many cars were in the parking lot. Not that she drove her car anywhere, it was just good to see it wasn't where someone could steal it.

After Delia's eyes had adjusted she tromped off, stomping in displeasure as best she could barefooted. Delia didn't call a ride like the other woman. She couldn't handle that at the moment. Sure a lot of her panic attack had been dramatized she knew she was still on the verge of one. A real full blow one. One that probably couldn't be put off with play acting. So she walked and tried not to think about the three days worth of missed texts, Facebook messages, or phone calls.

Of course as she walked her breath came out harder and harder like she was running. Or had just ran a distance. She paused and swayed slightly, panting. She pressed her palms to her eyes and tried to suppress a groan, there was no more audience here. She took another few steps after a moment and it got harder to breathe. She bent double, but that didn't help. She could hear a car honking, and someone talking. She ignored them in favor of getting back her breath. But no matter how long she waited it didn't help. Until she took a few steps backwards. The difference was outstanding. Delia moved back towards the hotel and breathing became easier and so did thinking for that matter. Unfortunately that meant Delia had something else to contend with. Was she going to be forever trapped at the Motel?!

[carsgovroom]

Delia's voice was almost cold, the words like a blunt instrument, and she all but stormed out of the room after refusing her offer of a ride. It left Elise sitting there, stunned at the exchange. It had been like she had done something horribly offensive to the other woman. But she couldn't think of what she had done.

Thinking soon became hard, though Elise didn't notice it at first. She paced the motel room, flicking through her phone and ignoring the multitude of missed calls, voice-mails, and texts in order to find a number to call. She picked Amy's.

Her roommate answered after the first ring, and her voice was all but frantic. "Hello? Hello, Elise? Is that you?"

"Yes. Amy, it's me." Hearing the fear and desperation in Amy's voice was like the confirmation Elise didn't want. The confirmation that she had really been missing for three days. Amy must have noticed when Elise didn't come home from work. She must have called everyone all of their friends, all of Elise's coworkers, her parents and sister, in order to alert them and try to find her. She felt guilty and horrible, and she didn't even have a good reason or excuse to give them.

"Oh God... Thank God, I was so scared... When you didn't come home the other night I knew something was wrong... Everyone's been looking for you, your mother's been calling everyday... The police couldn't help, we were starting to think you were dead! Elise what happened to you, where are you?"

Amy's words hit her like bricks. They made Elise feel worse and even more scared than she already was. It was like they were suffocating her, that it was getting hard to breath...

It was getting hard to breath.

Elise's felt like she had finished running a marathon, or she had suddenly developed terrible asthma in the last few minutes. Her breathing was shallow, sharp, and fast, like she was trying to take in a good deep breath but was physically unable to do so. She could almost feel the stitch forming in her side, feel her head spinning from her lack of proper breathing, and she was almost gasping for air.

She was afraid she would pass out, that she would stop breathing and die.

"Elise?"

"Amy, I...I need you to come and get me. Please..."

"Where are you?"

"I'm at...I'm at...it's a motel... It's name is...." Elise squeezed her eyes shut, trying to think of the motel name that she had known only seconds before. But she couldn't think, could barely focus enough to form a sentence or a though. She glanced at the pad of paper again. "...Sunset Motel. I'm at the Sunset Motel, it's still in the city. Amy...please...I'm...afraid."

"I'll be there as soon as I can."

Amy hung up and Elise felt the phone nearly slip through her fingers as she stumbled forward and out of the motel door. Air...fresh air. That would help. She leaned against the railing, almost doubled over as she tried breathing. She was gasping now, her gasps ragged and wheezing, but air barely touched her lungs not matter how hard she tried. Elise couldn't breath, she couldn't think.

What's happening to me?

She felt someone touch her shoulder gently, heard words being spoken, and she looked up at the motel maid's concerned face with eyes that were close to tearing up. Elise tried nodding or shaking her head, and the motion was erratic and confused. All she wanted to do was run. So she managed to move forward, away from the maid who called after her in a worried voice. But Elise couldn't process the words, couldn't process anything. Then she became aware that the closer she got to the motel exit, the more she could breath. The more she could think.

She found herself on the sidewalk outside of the motel, watching cars pass on the street. Elise's eyes blinked in the sunlight, and she realized that she could breath clearly, or almost at least, and her mind was no longer a traffic jam. Why? What had changed?

Her head turned and her eyes scanned everything on the sidewalk until they found a familiar face. Delia was still there, a little ways off but coming closer. Like she was coming back to the motel. Elise looked at her in confusion for a long moment, then called out to her. "I thought you were leaving."

[Blue Demon]

Delia squatted on the sidewalk, clutching her purse. She knew she was prone to over dramatics. But sometimes she even make herself roll her eyes at herself after the fact. Just because she had a panic attack when she tried to leave this roach infested cesspit didn't mean she was stuck here. Delia stood up and forced herself to get over it. Or she tried to anyways. The lightheadedness was probably just a side effect of whatever roofies she had been given.

I thought you were leaving.

Delia nearly jumped as she heard a voice from behind her. She turned, still clutching her purse to see the girl from earlier. Delia's face grew bright red. The girl had probably watched the whole scene with Delia acting like a loon. Or a hobbit, crouching then getting back up, shaking her head. At least she didn't slap her cheeks.

"I...uh..." Delia scrambled for words, any words to say. But nothing came. At least nothing that would help her not look like a crazy person. For example: Sure, I was leaving but I think the motel has eaten my soul. Or even, Maybe I love the motel because I just had a panic attack when I tried to leave? Who even gets panic attacks now days? Crazy people. That's who.

Delia tried to grab her anger at the girl from earlier, but she could only just babble unintelligently. Until she shut her mouth before she made it worse. Delia turned her head away and sniffled. She scrubbed at her eyes in horror. She was NOT going to cry. She wasn't. Because that's what a basket case would do. When Katherine woke up in a strange place and knew something terrible had happened she took action*. She didn't sniffle like a five year old who had scraped a knee.

Delia whipped her head back to the brown headed girl. "I am. I apparently just needed a moment. Aren't you going?" The mental image of being five again had given her strength enough to not be so damn pathetic.

*CSI: Season 7, Episode 1