undergrounds | & you could run so fast & fade away- sept. open post

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& you could run so fast & fade away- sept. open post

September 6, late night: open

It was a text that had done it in the end. A text from one of the other Shadow girls to all of them- Abigail had been arrested by the Guardians. Geap Manor was in flames. and they were coming for the rest of them.

Nancy didn't waste time. She tossed whatever she could into an enchanted bag- unsure if she'd ever be able to return to her apartment. Anything of value, be it sentimental or monetary was grabbed, but she knew her time was limited. While her flat was in Colin Coward's name, rather than her own, she knew they'd be on to her.

With Juliet at her side, she snuck down her fire escape, a spell muffling her footsteps. She dressed as unassumingly as she could- jeans, a hoodie and trainers. Without makeup on she could have been anyone. Hood up, she crept through the side streets. She had to get out of Enfield as soon as she could, had to find some place to hide. And she knew exactly where that was. The trick was getting there.

September 7, early morning: closed to Cooper

It was nearly morning, by the time Nancy found herself at her destination, right outside Cooper's door. She knocks, rather than barges in, rapping her fist three times against the door as quick as she can. A moment later and she's looking over her shoulder, wondering if perhaps she'd been followed.

No, she couldn't have been. She'd gone the long way, taking unnecessary detours, getting on and off of the tube at the same station. She'd kept her face covered, away from the CCTVs as best she could, staying in the dark. Nancy couldn't have been followed.

Juliet paced back and fourth behind her, having followed her the whole way. Standing in front of Cooper's door, Nancy knows she's nearly safe, but the adrenaline coursing through her veins won't let her stop, won't let her think about anything other than getting safe. What's just happened hasn't sunk in yet. But given time, it will.

September. 12, afternoon: Closed to Eames

Nancy keeps looking at the door of Eames' new flat, her back straight. There's a puppy in front of her, and she's eagerly petting him, but her heart isn't quite in it. "I can't believe you got a dog," she tells Eames, looking away from the door for a moment. "What a sweetheart, aren't you, Boxer?"

A dog, a new house, a new title. It was funny, in a way: as Nancy's world crashed down around her, Eames' star seemed to be rising in his court. Good- she liked seeing him happy.

Mid September: open

For the rest of the month, Nancy is keeping to the shadows. She's cautious, hardly daring to go out at night, even though she knows now, in Islington territory, she's safe. Redbright won't be able to find her, or if she does, she can't do anything about it. So she hopes, though it's been made clear that traditional rules are quickly being thrown out the window.

When she does go out, it's to work, and even that's taken a turn for the worse. Since Harris had ascended to power, work had been drying up, and what had happened at Harris' party had certainly sent a message, as Cesare had said. Worse, still was her apartment in Enfield was a place she couldn't yet return to- a place to work. As such, most nights she's in bars and back alleys, if she didn't have appointments set.

She keeps to herself, though, eyes carefully glued to the door of any building she's in, quick to glance over her shoulder.

[ooc: toss a post in if you'd like, or grab me at

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She lets his words crash over her as she watches him leave. Gone. the man who had caused her so much trouble in the first place. One of her best clients was gone.

Because she'd been stubborn and prideful.

Gone.

It's some time after they disappear that Nancy can move again, her makeup ruined. She looked every bit the part of the whore.

It takes until she's about half-way through her tea for Nancy to really feel at least slightly human. This was the good shit he put in her tea, and she could tell she'd have a few more before she left for the day.

She looks at the door once more. Witches didn't need permission to enter a home, werewolves, either. After a moment, she turns back to Eames. "Thank you."

"Sit down. Give yourself a minute to breathe." He leads her to the comfortable leather couch in the middle of the room. They've had sex on it more than once, which is a thought he immediately pushes away. Not the time for it, Cooper. She needs him right now. He's already snapping into the role of doing what a high-placed member of the nest should do. The first thing is to make sure she wasn't followed here.

"Gimme a minute here." He pulls out his cell phone and is already dialing the number of another vampire in the nest. "Thom? It's Cooper. I need you t'check around my flat. Make sure there's no one hanging about, particularly witches. You find anyone, deal with 'em straightaway. What? No, nothin' t'report right now. There may be trouble later."

Second thing is to try and calm her down. "Was it just Abby that was arrested? Or was most of the coven?"

Nancy nods mutely and follows him wordlessly on to the couch. Sex was the last thing on her mind- she'd been out working earlier that evening.

After peeling off her shoes, Nancy draws her legs up to her chest, wrapping her arms around her knees, softly crying. Cooper could do what he needed to do, she just wanted to disappear into the couch. She wanted to be out there doing something. She wanted to be safe.

"I shouldn't have come," she muttered, when he put the phone down. "If I lead anyone to you..." But he was on it, and they'd be fine.

She shakes her head. "I don't know- Wasn't just our coven, but any of us. I don't know who they got but I managed to stay away." She's trembling, eyes glued to the door. "I'm sorry, I didn't know where else to go."

Cooper goes to his fridge and pulled out a can of soda. Nancy is close to a state of shock and getting some sugar into her will help to draw her back out of it. Normally, he'd go for alcohol, but this is one situation where beer might not be the best thing to help. He hands it to her.

"Drink. Nice 'n slow. It'll help." He holds her close, chin resting on top of her head. This is a bad situation. All he can do is offer what comfort he can.

"You're gonna stay here," he says decisively. There's only a token flicker of resistance in his mind. What else is he going to do? Toss her out into the streets? Sylvia and her goon squad would pick her up in half a minute.

Mutely, she accepts the soda, but doesn't open it. Instead, she holds it with both hands, letting Cooper wrap her in his arms. She rests her head on his chest.

"Thank you," she whispers, closing her eyes. "I couldn't go to Fagin's." He'd enjoy that far too much. And Cesare was right out, right now. He hadn't spoken to her since she'd gone to visit him near a month ago.

"What am I going to do?" she asked through the tears. After a moment, she starts trying to undo the soda tab. Her nails clack on the aluminum uselessly pulling at the tab, her hands shaking too badly to do much of anything else. "I need to help Abby."

"Don't worry about it." He follows her gaze to the door, but his house is warded to high heaven. He'll know if anyone's coming long before they get to the door. And that's assuming anyone knows she's here, which Eames doubts.

Eames lets the quiet sit for another little while, just letting Nancy be in peace and quiet that he doubts she's getting much of right now. "I've been wanting to talk to you about something for a little while, but now may not be the best time," he says, leaving the option of whether or not to have this conversation now up to her. "It's about your work."

"Thank you." She'd started warding Cooper's the day after she moved in, after he'd had the neighborhood canvased to keep her safe. It was pretty nice, dating a marquess. She really could have done worse for herself, you have to admit. Still, even with that news, she doesn't relax.

In the quiet, she works on her tea, holding the cup with both hands as though the winter chill was already setting in. Occasionally, she'll reach out to pet Boxer, who was proving to be a wonderful companion. She really did like dogs, she had to admit.

"My- my work?" Nancy nearly spit out her drink. Alright, now she had to find out what this was. He couldn't dangle that sort of thing and send her into a near panic and then let her walk away from it. "What about it?" Did he want to hire her, try to get her to quit, ask some deep probing questions about how she got into prostitution in the first place? She almost didn't want to know.

But she had to open the curiosity door.

Come on now. If he wanted to hire Nancy, he'd have the good sense not to pick a time like now to talk about it.

Eames is quiet for a moment, trying to decide which way is best to go about it. "The situation with Islington is only getting worse, it's not safe for you to work the way you do." Which probably sounds like he's telling her to quit, and Eames holds up a hand as he takes a sip of his tea to signal that he's not finished. He can't make that call on her behalf, regardless of how she feels about it, but he did take Nancy under his protection. So he can do what he can to make it a little less likely some vampire's gonna get fang-happy and drain her dry.

"I still own the flat in Canary Wharf. You could shift things around, have the clients come to you."

Cooper takes the can from her shaking hands and deftly cracks it open before handing it back to her. His voice is kind and soothing as he speaks. It's moments like this he's reminded of how very young Nancy is in comparison to his own long life. "You're gonna do the same thing that anyone else does when they experience a tragedy. You gotta pick up the pieces and move on as best you can."

He kisses her on top of the head. "I know you want t'help her. I do too. But this is bigger than both of us. If we try'n do anything, we could end up worse off than she is." Exile would be the least of their concerns. This was big enough to be talking execution. After all, who was going to miss one witch from a rebellious faction and a vampire from a nest that no longer held sway with the Night Council?

She doesn't have a lot of faith in people, Eames, let's be real. How many people would try to take advantage of her emotional state?

Nancy moves to object, but falls silent as he takes his tea. He's right- it isn't safe, and she knows that. She doesn't have her flat anymore, she has Cooper's, and she can't work there. She'd informed Cesare where she works now- cheap motels, dark alleys, nothing classy like he surely imagined. And now she certainly was never going to work at the Anglo again, so she needed a place.

"You'd- let me work in your old flat?" She blinks at him. It's probably already warded to high heaven, and Eames would know where she was. She'd be out of Cooper's hair, and in a safer environment. There wasn't any reason to say no

But she knows how the fae work. She knows how Fagin works. She doubts Eames is going to do a good thing for free. Not many people did. "What percent would you like?"

Nancy leans against him, looking for his warmth and comfort. She found it, but it wasn't enough- she wanted more of it. She wanted to curl up inside of something warm and loving and protective. She just wanted Cooper to hold her, to kiss her, and play with her hair and tell her everything was going to be okay.

She accepts the soda. "I know- I know- but-" she ducks her head into his neck. "What if they kill her?" She doesn't know what Sylvia plans, if there will be a trial, anything. She doubts it, good lord she doubts it. Redbright isn't very open when it comes to the Midnight witches.

"I don't know what to do- I helped start this whole thing. I was one of the two other founding members- Abby is my sister!" That revelation brings about a new wave of tears as she clings to Cooper. Juliet, for her part, recognizes that her mom isn't happy, and comes over to sit on her other side. The cat gives a meaningful look at Cooper.

He actually laughs at the question, shaking his head. He doesn't think of it as a good thing, just what he'd promised.

"We can talk about that if you start turning a real profit. I'd probably just charge rent," he says almost dismissively, which he doesn't expect to ever happen really. He's fairly certain Nancy really undercharges for what she offers, and she hands over a pretty decent cut to Fagin already.

Plus, Eames doesn't care that much about money anyway. And he has more than enough of it.

Rent. She nods. "I can do that." And she happily would. She didn't like handouts, always thinking there was something else lurking below the offer, something expected in return.

She likes the idea, though. A lot.

"Thank you, Eames" She says this looking over the top of her mug, taking a small sip. "This is too sweet of you. But I'd like that. A lot."

"I'm not sure I'd call it sweet," Eames says, partially a protest, but mostly because he doesn't think 'sweet' is the word for offering a workplace and charging rent. Helpful, maybe.

But it's not worth any real thought, amd he reaches out a hand to pet the dog that's since fallen asleep next to Nancy. "I'll have a set of keys made for you tomorrow and you can come get them whenever you want."

"You may not, but I do." She gives him another soft smile, appreciative all the same. She had a different sort of scale when it came to what was considered sweet. Probably because she had a very low bar for decency.

"Alright. Thanks. I'll pick them up as soon as I can." She finishes her tea. "Thank you. For being so supportive, Eames."

"Nancy?" he doesn't know her very well. Now, as he keeps his voice down and walks up to her, he kind of wishes he did. They'd met before, sure, had floated in the same circles. Maybe he shouldn've checked up on her after Enfield. Maybe he shouldn't made sure she was alive. But that would've taken a more thoughtful and honestly better person. Instead he just feels bad.

Well, and he feels a little relief that she's still alive. She looks shaken. How could she not be? She didn't have the benefit of being turned into a werewolf with extremely coincidental timing to give her a safehaven.

"You're -- are you doing alright?"

Hearing her name, she's immediately on edge, eyes wide, preparing to throw out some sort of shield if need be. But she stops, when he gets closer, recognizing him vaguely. They'd met at a bar, yeah? She met so many people. Still, he looks familiar.

And if she isn't mistaken, he wasn't a werewolf before. That was new- she could sense it about it. One of the benefits of being a witch, she supposed, was knowing immediately what sort you were with.

"Yeah?" She raises an eyebrow, lowering her proverbial haunches. "I'm alright." She planned to keep it that way. This guy was little more than a stranger to her. What was she going to tell him? Her entire life story? Hardly.

"I'm sorry- I can't remember your name."

Connor raises his hands up in a surrender gesture, taking a step backwards. Like he doesn't mean harm, like he's trying not to be intimidating. She's right, he wasn't a werewolf before. He was just a normal human hanging around Midnight with nothing better to do. A lot had changed for both of them since they'd met at the bar that night.

"Connor," he offers, helpfully, "it's, uh, I was in Midnight?" It's a question because it always felt like a question, because it never felt like he'd ever really fit in. He didn't understand their struggles, didn't understand what it was like to be able to do magic no one wanted you to. He'd only known through Soeki.

"Shh!" She hisses, taking another step towards him. "Not so loud!" He had no idea who could be listening, neither of them did. Midnight wasn't something you wanted to publicly align yourself, now more than ever. It was bad enough Sylvia already knew she was friends with Abigail- it was only a matter of time before they found her.

"That's not exactly something you can say out-loud anymore," she tells him quietly. "I remember you, now- law student." If that helped at all.

He's pretty sure no one is listening, at least. His senses are better than they used to be and he couldn't smell anyone else but she's not wrong to be cautious either. This was a problem his stupid study group was always having, too.

"Yeah, I'm pretty aware of the circumstances," Connor's quieter. For her sake. "That's why I asked if you were alright."

That gets another dismissive wave of his hand — supportive? Who is he? — and he finishes his tea.

"Don't worry about it." Or mention it or give it any serious thought, "not about to leave you out in the cold, am I?"

"I know- that was stupid of me," she could admit that- she was on edge.

"I'm... I'm alive. Got a place to stay." Her life had come crashing down around her ears, sure, but at least she'd had that. A nice, warm place, with a loving boyfriend, and her brilliant cat. But that didn't mean she could stop being careful.

No, that, she knew, she'd have to carry for a very long time.

"No," she tells him, with a nod of her head, her messy bun flopping forward just slightly.

"But it's more than I could have asked for. It means a lot to me, that you'd open your property to me and my business." So she was going to mention it and give it a lot of serious thought.

Despite having raised her, Eames' gesture was more fatherly than Fagin had ever been.

"You let me know if you ever need someone to walk Boxer."

"That's better than it could be." Not that it's good, of course it's not. But it's not the worst predictable outcome so there's something in that, at least. He's quiet for a moment, trying to decide what else he can say. These things are never easy, and he's not great at feelings.

"Are you working right now? I'd offer to buy you a drink, but I don't want to keep you if you're busy."

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& you could run so fast & fade away- sept. open post

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mid-september

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