Desperate Men Do Desperate Things.

[Aimee Kensington]

[[This thread was made for the Sara. But others are free to join after her post.]]


When you choose to work in a hospital, you chose to work with tragedy, hold hands with death and fight when there is no fight left. It was exhausting. But when you chose to work on the Spell Damage floor you chose to do all that, notice no improvement and pursue regardless. Improvement was rare in Aimee’s patients, large improvements rarer still. The majority of her patients never left, living out their days isolated from the world, in closed rooms, closed wards, their trail of family that had once filled a room, dwindling each visit. Why bother, they said. They don’t know me; they don’t know when I’m not there. It infuriated Aimee that they could leave the lonesome to their own devices. There was no way they could pull through if their family didn’t believe. Yes, Aimee had seen her share of tragedy, had fought to keep a strong face as her patients blinked at her, so forgotten, so unknown. Reading their clipboards became more and more difficult. You didn’t get put in a hospital permanently for nothing.

The stories she had stumbled across over the years were terrible, nothing short of raw tragedy. The type of thing you couldn’t think up just because it seemed like it would never happen, absurdity that the world could be so harsh, so cruel. And that individuals had to take the strain of the load, a burden strapped to their back. There were stories that tormented your soul even from reading of their records, stories that you had to muster everything to become unfeeling just so they wouldn’t see you break down. Being a Healer meant being strong, for yourself and for all your patients. It meant being relied on, saving the world and fighting fights for someone else. It meant defying reality and making those never ending attempts to save another’s life.

Aimee was replying on those good deeds to out weight her greatest sins. For surely in the eyes of God, the woman who had committed adultery and disobeyed nearly all Ten Commandments was not the type allowed into heaven so easily. She needed to correct her karma, she needed to replace every sin with a handful of good deeds, she needed to put up her own fight.

A long time ago Aimee had learnt that good people could do bad things and be forgiven. She had also learnt that what is morally correct, is not always the right thing by you. Sean was her example and so much more. What Aimee felt for Sean didn’t have a word; she craved his touch, his words, his smiles, his smell and for that, she hated him or rather the control he had over her. When she was alone, curled up in bed late at night he danced through her mind and teased her. It was when she was alone that she vowed that today would be the last day she would be with him, tomorrow she would end it. But how could you end something that made you feel so complete? How could you put an end to something knowing that the feeling that made you get up in the morning would never come twice, that the smile you wore would be altered if it chose to ever appear again? How could Aimee end the thing that made her happy? In that sense, she was selfish.

Flicking the papers on her clipboard Aimee walked the corridor towards the elevator. She was due for her lunch break and the idea of a coffee, regardless of the quality, was tantalising.

Smiling to herself she tucked her clipboard under her arm and glanced at the small windows of the patient’s rooms. These were the group rooms, the ones where patients suffering similar problems were put together for company. Naturally only those who were not threatening to other patients were placed in group rooms and that was why she was so surprised to hear a collection of screams.

Running down the corridor she chased the sound on memory, the petrified tone rising in her eardrums. Locating the room, whimpering and screaming coming from inside, Aimee pushed the door open hastily not caring that she wasn’t male and tough and able to right everything with physical strength. Not caring that she could quite possibly be putting herself in harms way. Aimee had the same qualifications as any man on her floor and within that hospital. She could deal with any situation that arose without having to resort to physical action. After all these patients were confused and tormented, they could have been screaming over nothing.

Unfortunately for Aimee the four patients in that room, excluding Mr Jacobs, had every reason to be screaming.

Mr Jason Jacobs was Addison’s patient but Aimee knew that he wasn’t completely together in the head. His actions certainly proved that on first glance.

Standing in the middle of the room he held what appeared to be a piece of broken glass to twenty-three year old Michelle Casper’s neck. Michelle however, was Aimee’s patient. Michelle also happened to think she was six and she stood frozen with the weapon pressed to her throat, tears streaming dow her face. When she noticed Aimee she reached delicate hands out to her, wanting her familair touch like any child would want their mother. There were three other patients in the room, one male and two females. The women crouched behind their beds whimpering in fear but the man was on his feet, more confused than usual for while his mind could not comprehend the situation his testosterone told him to play hero. The whole scene was too confusing, too muddled and certainly not what Aimee had hoped for.

Stepping towards Mr Jacobs Aimee raised her hands where he could see them, she itched to grab her wand out of the pocket of her robe but the sudden movement could easily set him off and besides the piece of glass was pressing into Michelle’s neck. There was no way she was going t have any causalities today.

“Jason please. If you let Michelle go I’ll make sure that everything is okay. Please.”

Another step towards him and another, the distance between them had shrunk to five meters. Her eyes never left the two in the centre of the room but out of the corner of her eye she could see the other three patients, each looking confused, scared and more lost that usual. They did not need this. She need not need this.

“Jason I want to help you but first you have to help me. Please just let her go.”

[Addison Blankenship]

( If I read something wrong or something's not right, slap me. I'm not running on much sleep right now. )

Actions spoke louder than words: a middle finger raised in your general direction during afternoon traffic, imitating that you’re pulling the trigger of a gun pointed at your temple during your professor’s lecture, a roll of the eyes when some woman is tearfully doing a one woman soap opera about how her husband got some arse with her best friend so-and-so. Those were actions you weren’t soon to forget if you were the victim of these gestures. They stung like slicing the skin between your fingers on a cardboard box. It was the art of insults, something Addison had mastered long ago. That art usually was never revealed to the general public unless someone just did something that asked for him to take action. He didn’t use words very often, hence why he rarely ever talked to families (if there were any) about how their daughter/son/grandfather/grandmother/mother/father/someone in the family died. Addison usually picked the wrong words, pronouns, and adjectives when it came to a mournful little ballad about what a good patient that person was and how they’d be missed. When someone was past their last breath and was under Addison’s care, he usually bribed one of his colleagues to talk to the family for him because when he did it himself, he ended up causing more grief than what was there to start with. This was also why he was The Flashcard Person. The Flashcard Person’s duty was simple: every once and a while break out the flashcards with various little doodles on them and test the Spell Damage patients on what the doodle was. It didn’t helped the memory, and little words were required for The Flashcard Person to say. This was Addison’s territory.

He stood in the hallway, an elderly man sitting on a bench next to him. The elderly were occasionally let out of their prison cells rooms to take a short walk around the ward under supervision of a professional. Even with a clipboard, Addison didn’t look like a professional, but dig this: he was. Idly shuffling the flashcards while whistling faintly under his breath, clipboard under arm, he came to a picture of an overly enthusiastic pig that seemed to be enjoying life, blissfully unaware that one day it’d probably be made into bacon. A bit like a human man who didn’t know when he’d die. Addison wordlessly showed it to the old man. The man replied by saying, “That’d look good in a bathtub.”

Addison pretended to take notes on his clipboard of this revelation. He’d been doing flashcards with Yaxley –the old man- consistently for the last two weeks. No improvement whatsoever, even after five years spent in Spell Damage for a hair regrowth charm gone wrong. It made you think twice, doing a self enhancement charm. A lot of things you witnessed or experienced on this floor made you think twice. About life, in most cases, but Addison hadn’t really taken that “thinking twice” to heart. He still lived a self destructive lifestyle. He’d been stealing medications from hospital storage to sell to the highest bidder for his profit. He’d gotten threats from pain killer addicts that he sold these things to, and two encounters between buyer and seller had gotten violent. To the best of his knowledge, however, these details were on the down low. No one had noticed. No one had evidence. No one needed to care.

Flipping through the cards, about to show Yaxley a picture of an ice cube, the cards fell from his hands when screams echoed down the hall. Louder than the normal crazy-bin screams that normally came from this ward, he noticed. Instants later, a healer flew into the scene of the crime. For a split second, alarm reflected in his eyes, but that was all the time he’d allow himself before he reacted. Taking a binding strip from the pocket of his robes, Addison wordlessly tied Yaxley to the bench so he wouldn’t go anywhere while Addison went to investigate. Yaxley said something along the lines of how dogs made a good stew with saltine crackers, but Addison was already half way down the hall, wand at his side, not sure what he was going to find when he opened the door the screams resonated from. What greeted him was alarming as the screams, if not more.

Three of the patients in the room were playing innocent bystander while Aimee, the healer he’d seen moments earlier dashing into the room, looked frustrated by not being able to do anything to Jacobs, Addison’s patient, who was holding a piece of glass to Michelle’s neck. After two seconds of observation, Addison aimed his wand at Jason, who was turning to look at Aimee. “Petrificus Totalus,” he blurted out, the first immobilization charm that came to mind. Probably not the safest, seeing as he was going to fall right on his back, but it’d do. Let’s be brutally honest: there wasn’t much more damage that could be inflicted upon most of these Spell Damage patients.

Freezing up like a soldier at attention, Jason fell backwards and onto the floor with a thump. Addison speedily walked over to his fallen patient, crouching down to retrieve the piece of glass that was firmly clutched in Jacobs’ hand. He stared thoughtfully at it, flipping it over, eyebrows furrowed in confusion as to how he’d gotten his hands on a weapon. But first thing was first. “Is anyone hurt?” His gaze shifted from Aimee, to Michelle, to the other patients. Nothing more than a scratch on Michelle and that appeared to be it. But “appeared” didn’t mean much on this floor. Addison held Jason’s right eyelids open with his forefinger and thumb, studying his pupil, then moved to his left eye and followed the same procedure.

[Aimee Kensington]

Is typing a reply.

[Aimee Kensington]

There was something people learnt from being around Aimee and that was to never ever question her capability. She didn’t need to have a penis and the most muscular arms to handle a situation. She didn’t need to have large amounts of testosterone pumping through her body to examine a patient and do it correctly and she certainly didn’t need Addison to come in and show her up with a flick of his wand. Sure, underneath the growl she concealed in her throat there was a thankyou. Thankyou for making sure I wasn’t mauled by a patient, thankyou for regaining control, thankyou for making sure the damage wasn’t magnified, thanks for your help doctor. But Aimee had more pride to open her mouth and lets the thanks spill from her lips.

Instead she stiffened and brushing past him, as he examined the fallen body of the man who had moments ago been holding a piece of glass as if it were a weapon to one of her patients, looked down.

“That was reckless doctor.”

And well, okay that was true. But Aimee, once again being a hypocrite, knew that being reckless was often the only escape to situations. Jason was Addison’s patient and if he wanted to risk hurting him then that was all fine and well, just so long as he was willing to take complete responsibility and not take her patient down with him. For Christ’s sake he’d been pressing a piece of glass to her patients neck. Who had ever given him permission to be staying in a shared room? Who had ever thought that by risking other patient’s lives they were helping Jason’s own recovery? Who had been so utterly stupid that they had been willing to put her patients at risk to help their own? What had they been thinking and had they even been thinking?

Aimee felt like cursing as she moved past Addison to Michelle and knelt by her side. On instinct the twenty-three year old wrapped her arms around Aimee’s neck. Aimee’s eyes closed for a moment to the heave of the younger girl’s body, the sobs that racked her small frame and sent her shaking violently. With her eyes closed like this she could almost imagine Charday in her arms. All blonde and tiny, her small arms clinging to her aunt like a lifeline. It was in the eyes of a child that everything else made sense, that the world came to standstill and clarity appeared from behind parting clouds. Acting on her own instinct soothing sounds escaped Aimee’s lips and her eyes fluttered open.

“Hey…hey. It’s okay now. It’s all okay.”

For gods sake the girl thought she was six and she’d just been traumatised, again Aimee might add, by a crazy man with a piece of sharp glass.

Releasing Michelle Aimee beamed a smile at her, something rather forced but it was the extra mile she needed to go to make sure this incident didn’t back track on all the development and improvements they had made. Now then Aimee would be visibly mad.

Stealing a glance at Addison and Jason, Aimee pulled herself to her feet and offered Michelle a hand, pulling her up also.

“What do you say to some ice-cream?”

Through red eyes and damp hair Michelle grinned back and allowed Aimee to lead her to the doorway where she immediately waved down one of the nurses.

“There’s been a slight incident.” She paused while the nurse’s eyes tried to see past her into the room. Aimee stepped to block the doorway, inwardly smiling at the nurse’s scowl. “Anyway I need you to take the patients in here to the room next door. It should be vacant.”

Aimee nodded. “Oh. And they’ll each be needing some ice-cream.”

Leaving Michelle to be led into the next room by the nurse, the other three patients ushered by a second nurse who appeared from the corridor, Aimee moved onto more important matters. Standing behind Addison, her hands on her hips, her eyes strained to see over his shoulder to catch a glimpse of Jason who was still unconscious under the spell.

“So what do your years of medical experience tell you, apart from agreeing to let an unstable patient into a group room.”

She narrowed her eyes. Aimee took her job very seriously; you didn’t just put dangerous patients in with everyone else. You didn’t risk that. And okay so the patients on this floor weren’t exactly stable but most of them were harmless and holding a weapon to another patient’s neck didn’t include being harmless.

Needless to say, Aimee wasn’t impressed with Addison Blankenship. Not at all.


[[Clap hands for the shiiiiiite post.]]

[Addison Blankenship]

Hell of a word. Reckless? And rushing into a room filled with screaming without your wand drawn wasn’t? Addison blankly stared at her after examining his patient’s slightly dilated pupils. The eyes hadn’t told him much, but what Jason had just tried to accomplish yelled out something obvious: no more group rooms for you, Mr. Jacobs. Using a levitation spell to lift Jacobs’ immobilized form; he dropped him back on top of his respective bed and started to secure the straps that were hanging from the sides of his mattress. Restraining was usually a last resort, but until Addison could get his hands on sedatives he couldn’t predict when the immobilization spell would wear off. It was best to take precautions.

His eyes swept over a shattered glass vase sitting on the windowsill. Addison wordlessly pocketed the shard that had been used as a weapon, listening to Aimee giving orders to the nurse. A whole parade of patients moved out of the hospital room, leaving him to some tough interrogation. Perhaps he should have stayed with Yaxley in the hall, playing flash cards. He wondered if the old man was still tied to the bench, but right now that was the least of his problems. He turned around to face her.

Jason’s case wasn’t crystal clear to many at first glance. Once an Auror, Jason had accidentally gotten hit by his partner’s spell while in battle with Dark Wizards about a decade ago. As far as Addison could conclude, Jason had been hit with one hell of a delirium spell that made him believe he was back on the field again, killing those who defied the law. Jason had been fine for the past four years, his behavior mild. He’d seemed to be responding well to the treatment prescribed. But now it was back to the drawing board. And some good barking in the ear for f-cking it all up.

“They tell me that four years of good behavior speaks for itself. And that family and friends shouldn’t bring flowers with glass vases to patients’ rooms.” Or what remained of the flowers, anyway. From what he could see at the windowsill, they’d seen better days. He looked back at Aimee. Not many healers would’ve been high alert on a patient that’d been acting fine for the past few years. He’d made an error. But it was looking like Aimee didn’t want to act human and acknowledge that.

[Aimee Kensington]

Aimee sometimes forgot she was a witch. Both James and Lydia Kensington had attended Hogwarts, graduating with excellent grades, which propelled them into their upstanding, according to society, careers as an Auror and Unspeakable respectively. However, neither parent had ever seen magic as something that was performed by a man in a top hat and an assistant rabbit. Magic was not to be used lightly, magic was not a form of entertainment, it was equally deadly as it was a use. And for that reason there had been strict rules concerning the use of magic in their family home. While some families raised their children using magic to do the house chores and add a little help around the place when needed, the Kensington’s differed in approach. They raised their children like a Muggle family would, they raised their children to understand that magic was not always the answer out and that the easy, lazy way wasn’t always the best. They taught their children to think with their head first, before their wand.

And that was why Aimee instinctively reached into the locked closet at the end of the room, groping in the darkness for a broom but retrieved nothing.

You’re wand dumb ass.

She would have blushed if she cared for a second about what Healer Blankenship thought. Luckily for her, she didn’t particularly. His opinions only mattered to her in the case of an emergency, when she needed to follow procedure right by his side, when they needed to agree just because there was no choice. This was not one of those times and there was no blush spreading across her cheeks.

Aimee knew she was being rough, too brisk on the outside because she was screaming on the inside. If she broke her pace now, the flare of anger in her eyes she must just melt, cracking what was left of her wind open in plain sight. Aimee was not a weak person. She was an average person, the type that did a combination of good and bad things, the type with a conscience. She also happened to be an intelligent girl so she knew all to well that being rude to Addison would solve none of her problems, nor was he the source of all her problems. He just happened to be the first thing that came across her warpath, the first much awaited mistake of the day. How terribly unlucky for him.

Moving away from the cupboard and locking it with a flick of her hand Aimee turned to see Jason now tied to the bed in restraints. She thought back to Ariel Evans from a few nights ago, tied in restraints when insanity was nothing against her. Aimee hated to resort to restraints. She knew her safety and the safety of other patients required it when there was someone dangerous but it was so unhuman. They were people, not animals.

Aimee hovered behind Addison’s back for a moment before walking across the room and pointing at the glass with her wand. In a moment it, its water puddle and the drooping flowers had vanished.

Aimee kept her back to him as he spoke, breaking the silence that swelled between them. On her end it was annoyance, on his…returned frustration? Her shoulders heaved as she took a seat on the bed next to the one Jason was now tied to. He was just human. That was probably the problem.

Everyone made mistakes. If anyone would know that it was Aimee. And how could she ever be expected to be forgiven if she snapped at someone who in turn had only made a mistake of his own?

Aimee gave in to defeat.

“Okay. Okay.”

She grumbled before raising her eyes to him.

“I’m sorry…alright?”

[Addison Blankenship]

Patients were just as unpredictable as the people running this ballpark. One moment the mood would be content. The next, you’d be yelling at each other. Addison was growing used to that. It was much like the relationship he had with his sister. She was more dysfunctional than some of the people Addison cared for. Turning back to Jason as his eyelids slowly started to flutter; Addison could tell by his twitchy symptoms that his recommended dose of meds hadn’t been registered. Either that or he’d worsened instead of improved in health, which was very rare and a concept he wasn’t willing to accept quite yet. What would make an ordinarily stable patient snap like a twig? It was a Sherlock Holmes mystery. Eyes flickering briefly to Aimee, he could see she detested his choice of restraints, but it was a precaution that needed to be taken. He’d rather tie down an unstable man and take away his dignity for a little while than shed his blood or do worse damage.

But now that Jacobs was slowly recovering from the spell, he needed to get a sedative from the storage closet down the hall. And Yaxley was still tied to that bench. A bit taken by surprise at the apology, Addison came back from musing and shook his head, seeing she felt bad about it. He couldn’t say that he’d never said things he’d regretted in retrospect. “None needed,” he said quietly before nodding at the door. “I left a patient in the hall. I’m going to relocate h-“

Then, before he could finish his sentence, Jacobs’ enormous fist clasped onto the pocket on Addison’s robe and ripped it, still convinced that he was on the battlefield and the enemy was going to have his way with him. “YE CAN’T TAKE MY LIBERTAH,” Jason yelled as loud as his nearly paralyzed lips would allow him. But that wasn’t nearly as important as the small bags of painkillers that fell from Addison’s ripped pocket and onto the floor, for god and everyone else to see.

And this is where Addison leaves the room.
Right now.

Snatching the bags from the floor, he left the room without so much as a word before he came across Yaxley and started to take off his restraints. Pain killers weren’t a big deal, considering this was a hospital. But keeping those meds inside your robe pocket was a bit unusual and that was interrogation Addison was not willing to face.

[Aimee Kensington]

Not many people knew at first glance but Gen Kensington, Aimee’s second eldest sister, was blind. It had been the result of an accident when she was seven. Falling out of a tree, hitting head on the only rock within the perimeter, an unlucky accident that caused severe nerve damage. In fact, the doctors had said she’d been quite lucky. Luck. Ha. In Aimee’s opinion, luck meant not landing on the rock in the first place but medicine took a different approach.

If she didn’t hit the rock in the first place she would have been luckier lucky. But if she fell, hit the rock, went blind but lived she was lucky. Hospitals were separate dimensions from the real world all the rules and morals one formulated before stepping through those doors no longer applied. Hospitals were of another place and time; inside those walls time stopped and rules were shattered in a glance. It took a lot to see the good that people did in hospitals. She’s blind, they would say. Blind! My baby will never see again.But she lived, the doctor would reply. She lived. Good things came out of hospitals but you could not expect a fully recovery 100% of the time. You had to look at the smaller things, re-examine what you had and be thankful.

Aimee had never believed in religion because she simply couldn’t understand how people could die so painfully, with such unjust. How could good people die? How could good people get hurt in the first place? And how could the bad people escape the wrath? Aimee had soon learnt in her training years that you needed to detach yourself from your patient emotionally. Just because they did something wrong, didn’t mean they were a bad person and it didn’t mean they deserved any less care than the proclaimed saint in the next bed did. All the way through her training Aimee had struggled with that until she’d locked lips with Sean Andrews and she felt all her morals desert her and her world spin and flip. Just because a person did something immoral didn’t make it bad. Just because someone deserted all reason for a moment of utter passion where life consumed their body and possessed them, didn’t make them bad. Good people could do immoral things and still be good, still be worthy, still be forgiven.

A wild hand had reached frantically, a tightened fist grasping and closing and tugging, a rip and tiny bags fell from Addison’s pocket. On instinct Aimee craned her neck. Were those…drugs?

She watched him hastily snatch the bags from the floor and without another word disappear from the room, leaving Aimee along with a patient who was proclaiming through loose lips war cries and declarations.

Should she follow him?

Aimee knew that wasn’t what he would have wanted, that was after all why he felt but what need was there to be bags of pain killers in his robe pocket and if nothing was wrong, then what need was there to leave so quickly?

And so Aimee left and followed him down the corridor. Stopping close behind him and watching him remove the restraints of the patient he had mentioned before his quick exit.

“Addison?”

She used his first name, something she never did with anyone unless they were close friends like Carrie or Sean. She waited for him to turn, not saying any more for what did you say to a person when you already knew, what point was there in asking for an explanation when you could, in some weird way, understand. Everyone has their flaws, whether it was stealing meds or sleeping with a married man. We all had skeletons in the closet. And so she did not ask with words, but with eyes.

[Addison Blankenship]

Getting caught red handed wasn’t part of Addison’s action plan. It fact, the whole concept of getting caught with the gold had scarcely crossed his mind. But it’d happened. And now, as he took the restraints off of the old man, he was mentally beating himself up for it. What’d just happened could’ve had many stories behind it, not just one. Maybe he could play it off as an addiction. That seemed plausible, but he didn’t like lying too often. Much less making an enormous one, which was what he was attempting to pull off. He couldn’t do that. It’d catch up with him pretty fast.

He didn’t want to turn around. He had Yaxley by the wrist, now. He should just walk him back to his room and try to forget about it. But his mind would never let this one go, he knew that. The mind always held onto those moments of sheer terror experienced in one’s life. And this was terror. This was the possible moment his career and reputation would be stamped on with golf shoes. He would never forget a moment so important and essential to his future. Thus, he had to face her or he'd never forgive himself.

It was tricky, turning around while still holding onto the patient, but Addison managed. He was thoroughly confused as to why she’d used his first name. His first name was never used at the hospital, unless you counted his trainee days. When his superior used to get pissed off at him, his first and last name would be hollered throughout the corridors. But this was a different situation. The way she’d used his name had been as an innocent inquiry, but it still singed. Like placing your hand on a hot plate and just letting the skin melt right off your bones. And then cleaning your wounds with salt water.

As much as he wanted to say that the drugs were for a patient, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He was not in charge of any patient that had trouble with pain management. That’d be another lie that’d come back to kick him between the legs. And yet the truth felt so alien trying to verbalize. “I have nothing to say in my defense, if that’s what you’re looking for,” he replied to her quietly, looking her square in the eye as he said it. Yaxley muttered something along the lines of liking Easter dresses.

What happened now was hard to tell. She’d most likely tell Darcy about it and he’d be prosecuted for theft. If he’d made some kind of bond with some of his colleagues, maybe Aimee would keep her lips shut for the sake of friendship. But there was scarcely any link between them. And that was hella scary.

[Aimee Kensington]

The thing that pissed Aimee off most about this entire Addison pain killer stealing Aimee catching situation was that it was like staring straight into a mirror. Addison stole painkillers for whatever reason he presumed to be lost on Aimee by explanation. Aimee stole husbands and wove herself a web of lies, deceit and denial and any explanation for her behaviour, she believed, would be wasted on her part. Just like Tatum said you couldn’t know another mans hell, that it was only for him to decide, you couldn’t understand another mans sin. Who was to decide who deserved punishment? Who was able to judge when themselves to needed to be judged? There was not a single person worthy of choosing another punishment, nor able to choose their fate. That was simply for the person to decide through their own course of action.

Aimee could not be a judge in Addison’s case as she too had sinned. And their separate sins could not be measured nor compared by any third party as that third party to would have sinned. It was instinct for Aimee to back track to the rules. Surely they had sinned an agreement stating basic behaviours. And surely not stealing had to be one of them? So surely that meant it was punishable or she should at least tell Darcy or the chief. But how could she do that when she knew nothing of the story behind it? It was like trying a murder only to find out their ‘victim’ had sexually harassed them and their children. Or perhaps that was just Aimee wishful thinking…

The second thing that deterred her about this situation was the way his eyes stared into hers. Aimee was not an eye contact person. Eyes were indeed the windows to the soul and there was no way anyone was going to look into hers and see something shrivelled and dead. Aimee was a strong person; a brave person and a feisty one but eye contact had been an issue for quite some time now. Almost five years, worsening over the last month, which aligned it with two very important dates. The day her mother stop remembering and the day Aimee chose to forget who she was and what she stood for. That was the day she fell, the day she thought with her heart and not with her head. How could trusting your instincts be so wrong?

Aimee visibly tensed under his gaze and shifted, lowering her eyes. This wasn’t a nice situation. Very similar to what she imagined being caught with Sean would feel like. A drop in the stomach, something that could be guilt, and a lot of wonder and questions. What was the right thing to do? What could she do?

“I have nothing to say in my defence, if that’s what you’re looking for.”

What she was- What she was looking for?
It was more what she wanted. Something, anything offered up as an excuse and for five seconds she could play ignorant and just, ignore it, accept what she was given.

Aimee shook her head, holding his gaze for no longer than she dared, and walked past him taking a seat on the bench just behind.

“What do you want me to do? What would you do?”

She spoke to the wall in front of her.
But he knew.
He had to know.

[Addison Blankenship]

Her faltering under his gaze made him wonder. It made him wonder a variety of things. Many people had looked in the mirror before and had memorized their features: their best aspects and their worst. Addison knew his eyes were nothing spectacular. They were as blank as a piece of printing paper, expressed no emotions whatsoever. As enthralling as a puddle of mud. And yet, she still shifted uncomfortably from his gaze. It could be that she was trying to judge him, but couldn’t because she had a few dirty secrets of her own. Few were not able to judge freely. It was so ridiculously simple just to let the accusations fly, prosecute, and go on with life without a second thought. Could that second thought process actually be going on here? It was difficult to tell. If it was, however, it was probably best to take advantage.

Addison caught a nurse as she ambled by. She looked a tad ticked that he’d interrupted her rare moment of peace, but she could cry a river elsewhere. “Can you take Mr. Yaxley to his room, please? I’m a bit tied up at the moment. Take this with you, thanks,” Addison slid his clipboard into her hand with Yaxley’s records and let go of the old man to follow the nurse. After the two got down the hall, he felt like his lungs were on fire. Perhaps he shouldn’t have done that. Yaxley had been his excuse to bow out of the situation in the most subtle way.

Momentarily taking out his wand to fix his ripped pocket, Addison examined the repaired stitching. “Well. I’d imagine it’d be in the fine print of one’s contract to report it,” he said truthfully, biting at his bottom lip as he tried to come up with a response to the second half of the question. He stopped fumbling around with the pocket, slipping his wand back into the depths of his robes. “I haven’t come across illegal action while I’ve been on duty.” Pause. “Yet. But I haven’t a clue how I’d go about if I did.”

If he knew Aimee more, maybe Addison would have known her most probable battle plan. But he didn’t know anything about her other than her name, which threw all the papers up into the air.

[Tatum MacNamara]

Tatum was in the unfortunate position of having Addison Blankenship on her mind for several days. Ever since he had offered to help her deal with the situation Mannix had thrust upon her, thoughts of him had been wandering through her mind. Never before had anyone so willingly stuck their necks upon the chopping block for her after knowing her for so short a time. She could not understand the reason why he had done such a thing. He didn't strike her has a bleeding heart moved by sympathy for a tearful sister or a would-be hero anxious to protect and serve. So why? Why help someone like her that no one save her own family cared for? Tatum wasn't sure either of the answers or exactly what to think of Addison Blankenship.

She only knew that she was grateful, that this endeared him to her, and that above all, the thought of all of it made her hands tremble slightly.

The gesture on his part made him feel more safe than she had felt around anyone since she had come to London. It made him feel like family.

Whenever one sees an assemblage of people all standing together and hears tale that they are family, they find themselves searching their faces, looking for some thread of commonality to show that they are bound by the irreparrable ties of blood and kinship. Perhaps they have the same cheekbones, the same crooked index finger, the same dimple on one side of their mouth when they smile. And if one looks hard enough, studies for the appropriate length of time, they will find that something, recognize it as plainly as the proverbial nose on their faces.

The MacNamaras were no different. They all possessed the same dark hair, the piercing light eyes, the fair skin, all trademark of the so-called black Irish region of the Emerald Isle that had birthed their linneage centuries ago. To those who were seaward, their boats were another give away. Their very name meant Son of the Sea, and it was long rumored that the earliest fathers of the family had climbed out of the ocean, that they were decendents of merpeople who moved to seek their fortune on the land. And though they dwelt in the shoreline town of Bantry Bay, the MacNamaras were irreparably bound to the waters that had birthed them. Earlier generations had sought their fortunes as meager fisherman, but as years wore on it grew increasingly difficult to live off what they could eke out of such endeavors. They then became merchants, a noble, yet impoverished class of importers and exporters. And by the time her grandgather had sold the family land holdings in the countryside, they had become something else entirely, a breed of mercenaries, performing whatever tasks were needed to obtain the big pay out. But no matter what generation, the family could be identified by the flags that flew at full mast upon their ships, the MacNamara coat of arms, a red background with a gold griffin and two spades emblazoned upon it, like a beacon that signalled the arrival of the family.

It had been her eldest brother, Brodie, who had recommended one final sign of their unity, the inscription of their family motto in the form of the ancient runic symbols onto their bodies in the form of a tattoo. Tatum's brother's wore the symbolic representation of 'aire do ár féin' upon the back of their arms, trailing down their biceps in a neat column, while she, the baby of the family, had the slogan tattooed down her spine. The tattoos were meant to be a reminder of the only creed the family truly held dear: 'care for our own' and of all the values other families retained, those of righteousness and goodness, that one simple phrase was the only one they lived by.

It was a simple set of words, but to the MacNamaras it meant so much. Apart from the youngest of her brothers, Mannix, whose own greed often came before the others, always resulting in curses and hexes from the rest of his brothers, the children of William MacNamara looked out for one another at all costs. It was a tenent that Tatum held very dear, so dear that once when under the veritaserum and asked questions concerning one of her brother Siobhan's less than savory extracuricular activities, she had driven her skull at full force against the stone wall behind her, knocking herself unconscious until the potion's effects wore off rather than divulge his secrets.

And though she seemed an amibale enough sort, a perpetual smile on her face, a kind word or piece of advice always at the ready for anyone in need, the little Irish witch was capable of depending the people she loved like a lion, fangs bared, claws outstretched ready to flay, to mangle, to tear to rivens whatever threat loomed at large.

Because of this as she made her way down the fourth floor corridor in search of Addison to ask him if he wanted to get a coffee with her when his shift was finished (of course under the auspices of their plan that needed discussing though truthfully it was because she wanted or needed to see him), her eyes narrowed slightly at the sight she saw. There was Addison with an expression that could be read as concern and Kensington who had a mixed look of self-righteousness and confusion all at once, and a patient who appeared to have nothing to do with whatever was the true topic of discussion. Her footsteps quickened, bringing her close enough to hear Addison say he was not going to defend himself. Her mind flicked back to the night she had met Addison, how he had been waiting in the pub to make some sort of sale, and though she had not questioned him, she could guess what would have transpired had she not pointed out how much his 'client' smelled like bacon.

And where usually, the Irish witch would have gone on her way, she stopped behind Aimee, giving Addison who was facing her a conspiratorial wink before signalling her presence with words.

"Ye two seem te be havin a very important conversation. An in front o'a patient."

She nodded toward the man who Addison was still holding onto.

"Maybe ye two better find a way te resolve whatever yer quarrel is right quick, aye?"

Bringing a slender hand to tuck a curl behind her ear, she came to stand next to Aimee rather than behind her, an enigmatic smile spreading over her features as she did.

"I'm sure whatever i'tis, we can work it out. Kensington's a rational witch, aren't ye, leannan? Ye ken how te make a good decision and maybe how te keep a secret, aye?"

{for your Gaelic reference, dia dhuit which she said to Addison means hello and leannan which she said to Aimee means sweetheart . . . and the story about the MacNamaras coming from the sea is real Celtic lore, not even I'm good enough to make that up Lol}