notfaking_it | (no subject)

In the end, Lily hadn't even bothered to change out of the robes. Somewhere along the way she'd lost the pointed hat -- and the parrot -- though she wasn't particularly sad about either of those. The place where the parrot had yanked her hair out still hurt, but she couldn't be sure if the pain was actually due to the bird or just a result of whatever the hell had happened to her the night before. Her muscles ached and her hair felt dirty, lank and greasy, but she couldn't bring herself to worry about showering.

What she wanted, more than anything, was to go home and go to sleep.

She was suddenly aware of why people claimed to hate the island and the things it did. Waking up in the showers wearing a stupid robe wasn't all that upsetting, but not being able to remember anything that led up to it when she was fairly sure she hadn't taken anything was bothering her more than she wanted to admit. After dinner with Nina, she couldn't remember anything. She didn't know what she'd done, what she'd said, who she'd been with or if she'd done anything to hurt anyone. None of it sat well.

And she knew she had to find Nina, too. At least she might be able to supply some clues as to what had gone on and why Lily had woken up in the Compound. It would have been so easy to just head home, but instead she walked toward Nina's room. She wanted a shower, she wanted something to eat and she wanted to sleep, but more than that, she wanted to know at least part of what had happened the night before.

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"I'm fine. I was fine, all night. I don't know what happened. We were at dinner and you just started acting strange. After we left the Winchester, I lost you," Nina said, touching Lily's sleeve absently and saying, "You should take these off. You can borrow something of mine."

"Strange how?" Lily asks curiously, but she's happy to take Nina's advice and she finally finds the buttons that start near the collar of the robes. They're buried in fabric, hidden behind a seam and it takes her a few seconds to get them undone. She's hungry and thirsty and so tired.

"I don't remember a thing," she says again, although she's said as much already.

"You drank beer out of your pointe shoe," Nina admitted, bending to grab a pair of sweats and a tank from her drawer.

"And you kept yelling out things in German."

"I did what?" she asked, then laughed, her fingers pausing on the buttons of the robe. After the morning she'd had, there wasn't much else to do, especially at hearing that she'd been drinking out of her pointe shoe.

"Christ, I don't remember any of it," she admitted after a second, returning to the task of getting the robe off. "I must have slept in the showers."

"Do you feel all right?" she asked, unable to keep the worry from her voice, even though Lily looked fine, besides her obvious exhaustion.

"I'm tired and I have a hell of a headache," she said, reaching up to rub her fingers against her scalp. Then she shrugged off the robes and reached for the clothes Nina had gotten for her. "But I feel fine otherwise."

And yet that wasn't entirely true. She felt scattered in a way that wasn't like her. Not knowing what had happened bothered her more than she wanted to admit.

"So I just took off?" she asked, pulling the tank over her head.

"I lost you after we left the Winchester," Nina said again, wishing she knew more. Wishing she had something to tell Lily, that might put her at ease.

"If you don't want to walk all the way back to your place, you can crash here."

"Please," Lily said on a sigh, then shook her head slightly. "Someone said it might have been because it was Valentine's Day. That something weird always happens on that day."

At least she hadn't followed someone around all day, convinced she was in love with them.

"I don't understand why it only happens to some people. Why not everyone?"

She couldn't help but be grateful that she'd been passed over, but looking at Lily and how shaken she seemed, that only made her feel guilty.

Perched on the edge of the bed, Lily shook her head again. "I don't know," she said, realizing that she'd been saying that a lot over the past several hours. She didn't know what had happened, why it had happened to her, why she'd ended up in the showers, why there had been a parrot.

"But I think I deserve a reprieve next time," she added dryly.

"You drank out of a shoe. I think you've earned it," Nina agreed, a grin breaking out on her face.

Because it was, maybe, a little bit funny.

Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she said, "I should probably go... You should try and sleep."

For a moment Lily considered asking Nina to stay, but she could hardly expect her to sleep all day when she hadn't been the one up all night. "Okay," she agreed, moving back on the bed and giving Nina a faint smile.

"Thanks," she said. "For the clothes, for the bed..." For everything, really.

"You're welcome," Nina answered quietly, feeling oddly disappointed and not understanding why.

"If you're feeling better, we could have dinner later?" she offered, then adding quickly, "In the kitchen, this time."