Early mornings... why did they have to start sooooo early? Jude's transition between Future Sight and the Iris Apartments was going alright, but there were times when he was needed at one place or the other. And usually he was needed there early.

Last night, after a detailed discussion about the possible involvement of a third malicious party, Jude had fallen asleep on Future Sight's dreaded purple couch. He'd woken up in a puddle of his own drool when Elias' not so secret pet cat tapped him repeatedly on the face for an early morning potty break.

What time was it? The frenchman looked at his wrist for a few seconds before he realized that he usually got the time from his cell phone.

His cell phone told him that it was almost 5 am. His phone also told him that Svetty was worried about him and she wanted to remind him that sometime between 6 and 10 am the city utilities people would be coming by to inspect the pipes. He'd better be there.

He was lucky the cat wanted out. All the same, Jude picked up the creature and held it well away from his body while he opened the front door. It gave its thanks by way of shedding on him and trying to scratch his arms up in its haste to get out of the building. Letitia would have feelings on it being outside. She had stronger ones about it being inside, though. Really. There was no winning when it came to Letitia.

Such an epiphany called for breakfast. That would possibly get Svetty to forgive him for staying out.

He got to a bagel stand just as the sun was cresting the horizon somewhere between buildings. He was strolling past a bus shelter with a steaming bag of delicious bagels and three to go coffees (One for Pluto. Big red deserved some love too.) when something... moved. In the shelter.

He'd thought it was a pile of newspapers. On closer inspection, he was surprised that he recognized the face. "L-Lucy?"

Well, yeah, crazy girls didn't always live indoors.

It was still mostly dark even though the sun would be up by now. Too many buildings in the way. But now was the time when the city that never sleeps started to come outside to re-caffeinate.

She would not do the same for him and usually he wouldn't have bothered, but... "Lucy. Hey. Are you awake?" Jude set the bag of bagels down and touched the girl's shoulder. The closer he looked, the more he realized something might actually be wrong here...

For someone who lived on the streets Gwen was remarkably healthy. She may not have had the money to eat regularly but when she did she didn’t just eat cheap junk. She didn’t do drugs. She wasn’t a huge drinker. Really she tended to stay away from anything that could cause a homeless person to have a premature death other than simply being homeless. It was a rare occasion indeed when Gwen got anything but a very minor cold. So as one could tell by looking at her she was in the middle of one of those very rare occasions. Hot was cold. Cold was freezing. And the world was spinning round and round. Gwen would have liked to go to the free clinic but sadly it was all the way on the other side of town and it would take her a few days to get there at the rate she was able to go. Well if she wasn’t dead by then anyway. After only traveling for only a few hours for the third time yesterday she had found herself passing out inside of a bus shelter curled up under the bench on the cold ground. She was squished into a ball in an attempt to stay warm, but it was of little use and her teeth still chattered. If she hadn’t been so sick she probably wouldn’t have been able to sleep at all. Every day the amount of time she could travel through the city only half coherent was getting smaller and smaller as she found herself passing out from exhaustion after only walking for an hour or so. And you may not realize it but traveling through Manhattan without the use of the subway or public transit of some kind takes a really really long time. Factor into that being half dead and walking at a snail’s pace it could take days. Hence Gwen’s current situation. Passed out underneath a bunch in a bus shelter. Fun times.

Gwen groaned as she heard the sounds of someone approaching her and speaking at what seemed like a loud roar to her. In her current state she didn’t have much control over pushing the sound of the cities mutants to the back of her head and as of right now it was like taking the volume of New York City and dialing it up to 11. She could barely make out the actual words that what she only assumed was a mutant was saying. Lucy?! Who the hell is Lucy?! Gwen had completely forgotten the fake name she had given the attractive Frenchmen only weeks before. So, when he approached her she was more the confused. She slowly tried to push herself up only to find her head colliding with the underbelly of the bus bench. An act that only intensified the headache she already had. “OW!” She held onto the bump on her head for a moment before moving to release herself from under the bench. She groaned again as she forced her eyes to open and she looked up at the tall man standing in front of her. “Are there three of you or is that just me?” She could only keep her eyes open for a moment before needing to squish them shut to make the infernal spinning motion stop. Which it didn’t.

Oh no. What if her brain had exploded? But no, she was breaking and eventually, she got to be moving. Jude cringed when she bonked her head and tried to help where he could in letting her out from under the bench. Slowly, snailfully Lucy made her escape. She was going to catch her death out here in just those clothes and this weather. At least she had found a shelter to help with the wind.

>“Are there three of you or is that just me?”

He checked on the off chance that there was a doppleganger around. "Nope. Just me. I'm going to take you to ze Clinic, Lucy. Can you stand?" There might not be a healing unicorn at the Iris Clinic, but it was close by. It also was entirely shut off from the wind, had blankets and thermometers and hot water bottles to help warm a frozen body up. Upstairs there were fireplaces and kitchens.

Jude assumed that Lucy would not want to go to a hospital or a public clinic. With as paranoid as Lucy had been the last time that they met, she might not agree to go with him at all, but at this point Jude was pretty sure he could push her over and once she fell down she wouldn't get back up.

"Come on. Here. Hold ze coffee and I'll get us zere." He passed the three steaming cups to her with full knowledge that she didn't have the stamina to hold them all on her own. That was fine because he put one arm under her knees and the other behind her back so that he scooped her up into his arms. Not the easiest way to carry someone who was limp as a noodle, but she didn't weight nearly enough for her size.

He was hoping Svetty's coffee, at least, did not get spilled because now it was going to be forgiveness coffee. "Forgive me for bringing home a crazy hobo, Love Jude." Yep. That was exactly the note he would leave next to the cup of joe.

Jude hefted Lucy in his arms and started walking. Close as they were, he could feel her radiating heat.

"Not too far now." That was as much for himself as it was for her. His arms were shaking by the time he got them to the resident's back door. And he had to do a little dip and maneuver in order to open the door to the un-used clinic but... eventually he would get Lucy into one of those sterile beds.

As if she knew want he was going to ask before he asked it, Gwen’s legs seemed to give out under the pressure of her own weight and she caught herself on the bench beside her. She used all her strength to push herself up once again and stood. She was wobbly at best and seemed to be leaning with the direction her vision was sending her. It was only a matter of time before she involuntarily made her way to the ground again. Gwen however was hell bent on not doing this. She hated being seen as weak and never ever liked being sick. When she was sick she either had to suck it up or go to a clinic where they would likely put her on record which meant her name was findable. And the one thing Gwen wanted least in this world was to be found.

Her vision was fuzzy as she felt something shoved in to her hands. Before she could even register what it was let alone how to hold it she was being lifted off the ground by the lanky Frenchman, who had obviously not thought this out very far. For as she was lifted into his arms so was the tray of hot coffee. If it had been any warmer outside Gwen would have surly given herself a fabulous burn, but thankfully it was rather cold and the coffee was only hot for a moment before cooling on her skin and leaving her now wet and even colder then she had been before. Under normal circumstances this was when Gwen would have started screaming at the top of her lungs about how this guy was a complete moron and she now had to go by some new close a few day early and what not, but instead she \ found herself involuntarily cuddling into Jude’s chest in order to keep herself even a little bit warmer as her whole body started shivering. Her arms were pulled up to her chest, the empty cups and tray forgotten on the ground. She was doing all she could to keep warm in the moment.

>>”Not too far now.”

Gwen found comfort in his words as they broke through the crowd that filled her mind. She could hear noise and feel the wind and cold subside as they seemed to enter a building of some kind. She still shivered, dripping wet. Her head hit the softness of a pillow and the long forgotten comfort of a bed before it curled up into a fetal position for warmth before drifting off again, the excitement having been too much.

Well... there went the coffee. Three cups worth of a fabulous smelling French roast soaked into Lucy and Jude's shirts and jackets. Also, Lucy let the trash fall away. So. Even in sickness she was a litter-er. What a waste. At least he hadn't wasted the bagels on her too, those swung like a pendulum in their bag in his hand under Lucy's knees.

And all the while she radiated heat like a fire elemental.

He dropped the bagels on the side table that usually held medical instruments and put Lucy down on the closest bed. Jude rubbed his arms to ease the shivering muscles and desperately wanted to peel off his jacket and shirt. Instead he plucked at the wet material and it made a SHLORP noise as it tried to cling to his chest. Gross. And he hadn't even gotten the worst of it. Lucy was soaked. And curled up in a little ball on her gurney.

Just how sick was she?

The ability copier rummaged around the clinic closets until he found a thermometer, a hot water bottle and a blanket. The blanket went over Gwen first. He knew better than to try and undress a crazy hobo no matter how delusional. The thermometer went right into her mouth and under her tongue.

"Don't choke." He advised her and then tried to hold it there so he could get some kind of accurate reading. What worked against fever? Aspirin... he knew that much but Lucy didn't exactly look like she was ready to swallow any pills. The thermometer beeped to indicate that it had a reading.

Gwen was only out for a matter of moments before she was stirred awake by a blanket being placed on her. Gwen had always been a rather light sleeper when it came to some things. You could yell in her ears for hours but if you jostled her at all she was awake in seconds. Thanks to living in the city she really could sleep through a bomb going off if she had to. Though she was now awake she was still fading in and out of a state in which she could understand what is going on around her as the fever was slowly taking hold. She barely heard the beep of the thermometer as it registered her obviously high temperature. Gwen began to shake and shiver as she felt the little bit of warmth she felt fade. The blanket and sheets of the gurney were quickly soaking with the coffee that covered her. She groaned as she tried her best to shift in the bed and sit up. She could feel a rush of dizziness and pain as she pushed herself up into a sitting position. Gwen wasn’t stupid she knew that in order to get warm again she was going to have to ditch the wet clothes. She moved slowly to undo her jacket not really registering that Jude was there. She fumbled with the buttons and zipper, her vision blurry and spinning. After some effort she got off her jacket and sweater tossing both aside. All that was left was her dry baby doll beetles tee shirt and her jeans. She stood to take them off and could only get them undone before the dizziness over took her and she fell backwards onto the gurney. She groaned and used all she had to push herself up enough to get the pants off before curling back up wearing only her tee shirt and underwear.

The thermometer chirruped and showed him an impressive 39.6 Degurees C. Jude was glad Sebastian had his equipment set to Celcius because he wasn't good at conversions yet. Imperial measurements. Pah! Who needed them? Still... That was a seriously disturbing number. Like, go to the hospital kind of number.

Lucy would murder him if he took her to the hospital.
Lucy (and Svetlana) would also murder him if he took her damp clothes off.
Lucy would not murder him if she died... But he had already brought her all the way here. What would the police (and Svetlana) think of a dead body in the clinic?

Sometimes grown up decisions were very difficult to make.

In for a penny, in for a pound. It seemed that no matter what he was going to do, someone was going to get mad at him. He may as well choose which was most beneficial for him Lucy's survival. Jude was pretty sure that meant that she needed to get out of those wet clothes.

Jude peeled his own shirt off over his head and tossed the hot water bottle in the warmer before he cranked that sucker to high. He rummaged around in the linen closet for something, but it was all bandages and blankets and rectangles of fabric. Nothing like real clothes... Except... Was that an apron of some kind? It would cover her front at least...

The power copier returned to Lucy with apron in hand.

It was time.

Maybe he should go get Svetty?

Jude grabbed the piping hot water bottle and put it next to Lucy as he peeled back to covers. Okay. Nothing had bit him yet. No alarm bells yet. He tried to shimmy up Lucy's shirt.

Gwen pulled into herself as she felt the warmth of the covers despite. She groaned in protest but wasn’t bothered enough to muster the energy to speak. She opened her eyes to see what appeared to be a blurry outline of Copy Boy. He was looking at her with a combination of concern and worry. Even through the spinning image before her she could tell he was struggling with a decision of some kind. Of what she had no idea. All she knew for sure at the moment was that her head was pounding and she needed to close her eyes before she lost her cookies from the spinning. She groaned and closed her eyes scrunching up her face in pain.

She was laying there for what felt like an eternity before she felt a soft tug on her shirt. To afraid to open her eyes she blindly grabbed at the hands trying to wiggle free. She groaned in complaint and fought with the very little strength and effort she had left in her.

There were people coming in in the morning, Jude was not answering his phone, and Sveta had to go to work.
Meh.

It was still before dawn and she was up, getting ready (another one of those modeling jobs for wannabe painters), and hoping Jude will drag himself home from whenever he spent the night, and better not be smelling like another woman. Not like it was his style... but Jude was still a guy. You never know with guys. Sveta had enough evil exes to know that.

Shortly before six she decided she was going to stick around as long as she could before she had to leave; give the workers a chance to show up, or Jude to come home. She was drinking her morning tea (who needs coffee with her constant buzz) when she heard the noises downstairs. Someone opened the clinic door. So, Jude made it home after all.

But, after a few minutes, it was aslo clear he was not coming upstairs. Whatever on earth he was doing downstairs, he was making a lot of noise. Was he... drunk? Oh hell...

Sveta sighed, put the teacup down, and walked to the stairs. Yup, he was definitely down there, in one of the clinic rooms. They have not been using those yet. Were the workmen here already?...

"Hello?" she walked down the stairs and into the room "Jude? What..."

...
...
...

"What the hell?!?!" she exclaimed in Russian. Anyone would have forgotten a second language when they saw their shirtless boyfriend who had been out all night dragging the shirt off a barely conscious young slWOMAN who was not wearing much else to begin with.

Sveta stared.

Whatever it was, it did not look good. For Jude.

Lucy pushed away his hands with all the strength of wet noodles. Her feeble protests weren't the problem. Jude was. Every millimeter that Lucy's shirt went up, his paranoia spiked. By the time he was lifting her shoulders in order to get to the good stuff slip the shirt off over the girl's head, he was a nervous, shaking wreck.

And rightly so. When that blast of Russian preceded Svetty into the room, Jude dropped Lucy back onto the bed (a mere 5 cm drop) and quite literally jumped away. He put his hands in the air just for good measure too. Hey. Svetlana knew her way around a gun. She might just shoot him for this.

"Oh sank goodness." His voice cracked, but Jude felt better NOT trying to sneak Lucy around. "Can Lucy borrow some of your clothes? She spilled coffee and she's sick and won't go to a hospital and maybe it would be better if you helped her? I can go get ze clothes." He kept his hands up in the air during the cascade of words that tripped over each other to get past his lips.

Meanwhile Lucy was dying of a fever... which was much less important than appeasing the angry girlfriend.

Jude acted as if he had been shot. She was not even holding a gun, which was a good thing, all things considered, in this situation. He looked almost funny, standing with his hands up in the air.

>>"Oh sank goodness. Can Lucy borrow some of your clothes? She spilled coffee and she's sick and won't go to a hospital and maybe it would be better if you helped her? I can go get ze clothes."

So, the girl had a name. She was also sick. And not really conscious.
And in need of clothes.
That was... almost a plausible excuse.

Sveta made a very feminine decision in about two seconds.

"I go get the clothes." she nodded "You get dat one off her."

He started it; better be a man enough to finish it.
As if she would let him choose clothes for the sick girl on his own. From her closet. Hell no.

She... wanted him... to undress another woman. Jude slowly lowered his hands and looked at Svetlana. She looked like she was serious. Seriously.

Trap. It's a trap. Somehow zis is a trap.

"O-kay." He looked at Svetty more. No change in miffed demeanor. "I'm doing it." Mhmm. She wasn't gonna stop him now. "For real." Jude took a step toward Lucy. "Really, uh, happening." Yeah. Really. He smoothed Lucy's hair back from where it stuck to the sweat on her face. No one deserved to suffer like this.

"Everything iz going to be okay." He reassured the puddle of girl on the gurney as he maneuvered her shirt up and then jiggled her arms back through the sleeves before pulling the neck as wide as it would go and slipping the damp cloth over her head without smushing her face too much. He placed the apron on top of Lucy for modesty and warmth until Svetty could come back.

Hopefully Svetlana would have the foresight to grab him a fresh shirt as well. Goosebumps marched up his bare back.

"I uh... brought you a bagel." There had been coffee too, but that was gone now...

Gwen groaned as her head hit the pillow and Copy Boy let her go. The soft jostle sent a shot of pain through the entirety of her brain and the yelling didn't help. Her hands shook as she raised them to her ears and scrunched up into a ball trying to tone out the offensive conversation. To her it just sounded like loud incoherent noise and even though she knew they had to be speaking words she couldn’t bring herself to even want to fight to understand. She listened to her shaky breaths and the loud beating of her heart maybe she was sicker then she had thought.

Once silence seemed to set into the room she relaxed and stretched out in an attempt to cool down which just made her cold again.

Jude’s hand felt cold as it brushed her forehead but it seemed almost a comforting relief. This time however she didn’t fight against his hands knowing it was useless. She felt his strong touch taking care not to hurt her as he slowly lifted the shirt up over her head before covering her up once more with something she couldn’t identify. Gwen grabbed onto it and did her best to curl up under it so it would cover as much of her as possible.

>>"O-kay. I'm doing it. For real. Really, uh, happening."

For real or not for real, Sveta was out the door and on her way back upstairs. She did have a bunch if clothes stored for the renovation works, painting and all that, and seeing as the girl was sick, she probably needed something that could be washed. Multiple times.
Grabbing a pile of shirts and pajama pants, and a shirt for Jude, she walked back dowstairs. The shirt was off the girl, and she was visibly shivering. Sveta felt sorry for her. And Jude just looked nervous.

>>"I uh... brought you a bagel."

"That's sweet of you" Sveta nodded, already working on getting a clean shirt on the girl. She was in a bad shape. She could not blame Jude for bringing her here.

"So, who is she?" she asked; it was no one she recognized, definitely not someone from the school, not unless she was very new. "Where did you find her?"

He felt a bit mollified with her mention of his sweetness and the fact that she'd brought him a shirt. She couldn't be that mad at him if she'd done all that, right? Jude wasted no time in ducking into his shirt. He was so chilly the fabric felt warm against his skin.

> "So, who is she?"

"She's a psychotic hobo with trust issues named Lucy." That about summed it up, really. But he wanted to be clear with Svetlana to avoid future misunderstandings.

"She's a mutant zat can find people. She can find anybody. I ran into her in ze future once, uh, now ze past. When I wanted to find Ghost so badly." Yep. Crystal clear. "She wouldn't help." Also, he hadn't had the time or courage to figure out her power since there had been the whole brain explosion possibility.

> "Where did you find her?"

Oh well that one was easy. "Under a park bench."