Victoria Fitzgerald walks down the sidewalk with no purpose.

None at all.

She's melancholy. Lonely. Listless. Where has the joy in life gone? There was no particular action to set her off on this goalless march. Maybe it was something as simple as an electron gone amiss in her brain. Whatever the reason she's feeling this way, it's effecting her more than she'd like to admit. Thoughts are crawling around in the conjuror's head, whispering words, flashing images all turning her down a road on a twisting spiral. There's no break, no pause button, no stop sign to halt her progress. She hates feeling like this. She needs someone to pull her out of it. Yet, it's unlikely that she'll run into anyone or stop to talk if someone happens to step in her way. Life doesn't work that way. If she bumps into someone she'll say 'excuse me' or 'sorry' and keep walking. At the same time, while walking away from the person she might think 'I wish they'd talk to me' or even hope that they notice how miserable she's feeling.

Those chances are slim. People don't care about other people anymore. They don't step out into the world every morning looking for people down in the dumps just so they can fish them out again. And they're too preoccupied with their own lives to notice the problem's in anyone else's. Not unless it conflicts with a person's own interest.

She's tired, too. Every once and a while Vicky's high heeled feet stumble and the images her eyes see slow down and blur. But she doesn't turn back for home. There's still the hope that someone will help. But with what she's not yet certain.

People seemed so absorbed in their own lives in this world lately. At least that’s what ocean blue eyes had picked up as the twelve year old sat against a building underneath a shops window display. Arms were wrapped around her knees that were brought up to her chest and chin rested on the top of her knees.

The child was dirty no doubt. Dirt was smudged on her face, arms and legs as well as on her white jean shorts and tank top with the added appeal of grass stains. She had gone back to the house only to find it with a gaping hole in the front of it and the door busted in. It was enough time for her to grab Casey and then get out of their again before anything bad might happen. She hadn’t found Gregory or Blade and so just took off, wondering what she was going to do. That was two days ago.

A pink tongue pressed against her cheek to plant a sloppy puppy kiss on it to try and cheer the girl up. Casey was sitting beside her and wagging her stubby tail against the pavement of the sidewalk excitedly, trying to get the girl to cheer up. Both of them had growling noises coming from their stomachs, but eating wasn’t on the top of the angel child’s list at the moment. She was still trying to figure out what was going to happen to her now.

Watching the people walk by, her gaze fell upon a woman that seemed to be particularly down at the moment. The emotion seemed to emanate from her quite strongly and being around people all day at the hospital she had picked up on all sorts of emotions and non verbal signs that accompanied them. This woman just really seemed to feel down, probably felt as bad as Alyssa looked.

She loosened her grip on the leash to her puppy and immediately Casey went trotting over to the woman and started yapping playfully, butt wagging furiously behind her with the stub of a tail on her rump. Maybe Casey could cheer the woman up. Puppies seem to have that affect on most people.

Her smile isn't very strong when the dog crosses her path. Even with no one to impress, though, she puts on a fake smile. That's alright, though. Eventually it will become real. She will forget that she's upset in time. Distractions do that.

She bends down to pet the dog and say hello, also to check its tags and make sure it hasn't wandered too far from home. But of course she notices the leash and her eyes follow it to a little girl in severe need of a bath and change of clothes.

Tori's clothes are nice. Nicer than the girl's and definately more colorful. She's wearing a purple scarf, a tan suede jacked and a brown shirt. Her long strawberry blond hair is left braidless and in a very loose tail that sits at her shoulders. Denim covers her legs and as I mentioned she's wearing high heels.

She pets the dog and looks at the girl but notices no one else. That's odd.

"Where are your parents?"

The fake smile was good enough for now. At least Casey had gotten her attention which had been the plan; to try and get the woman to cheer up some. It made a smile come upon her own face even when she felt so terribly alone and uncertain of her future. The black outs had been occurring more frequent lately and she didn’t understand why. She couldn’t remember anything that occurred during them which worried her even more than anything else.

Bare feet showed toes curling back towards her uncertain of how to respond to the woman’s question. Being quite shocked to see the house in the condition it had been made her forget all about getting shoes. The only thing she had thought about getting was Casey. There was no reason to leave the poor pup in its cage when nobody was around.

”They’re dead.” It wasn’t like she could get around that for in the end the information always caught up with her. Of course it sounded so weird saying it at the moment since she’d had to fake that Gregory was her father for the past five years. But he wasn’t around and so that gave way to her saying what she wanted for the first time in quite a long time.

”Why are you so sad?” Which gave way to her asking a rather blunt question. Kids seemed to be experts at asking questions outright.

Understandably, Vicky is alarmed. Is this the reason the girl is in such bad condition?

"When?! Just recently?"

The girl's question takes her aback. She didn't think that anyone would be so observant. But she answered. "I don't know."

She didn’t mean to alarm the woman. Of course she didn’t realize what kind of affect her statement might have on different people. Some people didn’t care, but it was apparent that this woman did care enough to be concerned. It surprised her.

”No. Five years ago.” She hadn’t been on her own that long, but she hadn’t asked that now how had she? She’d basically asked how long they’d been dead.

Eye brows furrowed in her own concern. ”You’re just sad because you want to be?” That was kind of puzzling.

Oh. Five years ago. That was better. When the girl speaks next, Vicky forgets to ask about a guardian.

"I'm sad because I'm sad. There's no better way to explain it."

She gets out of the walkway and brings the dog next to the girl.

Eyes stayed on the woman as she came over to where she sat. She pets Casey for a moment however continues to look at the woman. So sad. It wasn’t right for any person to be so sad all the time.

”You shouldn’t be so sad.” A hand reached up and wrapped around the woman’s hand gently as she did so many times. Her thumb rubbing gently against her palm and filtering that calming sensation and at the same time a more relaxed and pleasant feeling to the woman.

It does calm her. Tremendously so, in fact. But then, she's calm and tranquil. Not happy. For some reason those feelings are still separate. For a moment she wonders why a girl she doesn't even know the name of is holding her hand. Then her mind gets back onto the question that made her stop in the first place.

"What about your guardian?"

All business right now, I'm afraid.

The rubbing of her thumb stopped when the question rose once again. Hand withdrew to her lap and then to petting Casey some more in the same soothing manner. It always calmed her to pet Casey.

”I don’t know where he is at.” The girl didn’t much care to know where he went either. As far as she was concerned she was finally free of her captor. But at the same time that had certain drawbacks. She didn’t have a roof over her head now of three meals a day, which was sounding pretty good.

"How long has he been missing?" Victoria's eyebrows draw together in concern. This isn't good.

She shrugged. ”I don’t know. Two days?” That’s as far back as she could remember from the time she woke up from the last black out. She didn’t know how long she had been out, but two days sounded about right.

”Why?” The girl was curious why this woman asked so many questions about her guardian. Did she know him maybe? Was she going to tell him where she was or maybe take her back? That didn’t sound very appealing and it made her heart actually race a bit faster.

"Because I need to take you to the Police station so you can report him missing. Maybe he's reported you missing, too."

Eyes grew wide at the mention of the police station. Her head shook ‘no’.

”No. I don’t want to go there.” She stated more forcefully than she meant to. The girl had her fair share of policeman, whether she knew all of it or not, and didn’t want to be going back anywhere near them any time soon. She had a hard enough time dealing with the security guards in the hospital.

”I…I don’t care if he’s missing. I don’t care if I’m missing.” Eyes had gone down to looking at Casey who had her ears pinned against her head a bit concerned. A soft whimper from her maw as she licked the girls’ leg that was closest to her.

"If you don't go back to him you have to go somewhere. You can't stay here on the streets like this, there's no way that'll work. The authorities have to know. They can help if you're not happy with your current guardian."

Vicky was confused but more concerned about getting the child to the proper authorities than anything else.

She hated to admit it, but this person was right. How was she going to live out here on her own? But yet she didn’t want to go back to Gregory and she didn’t want to go to the police station either. In fact if she went to the station it was most likely that Gregory would be found out that she wasn’t his daughter and that something wasn’t right with their ‘relationship’.

”He’s not a guardian.” It seemed too easy to talk about it today; weird. Perhaps it was going with the black outs? After all she had been a bit moody lately.

"But he takes care of you?" Tori was skeptical of this man. He takes care of her but doesn't get guardianship? Do the authorities even know that the girl was well? If her parents were dead she was most likely reported missing.

Victoria made a decision and held out her hand for the girl to take so she could help pull her up. She looked old enough not to hold hands, so Vicki wasn't going to make her.

”Yeah.” He took care of her to a certain degree. Greg took care of all the physical needs, but definitely there was a lack in the emotional needs department. No love was ever given by him and there had been a few occasions where he had hit her when she refused to heal someone. But that had been in the beginning, before she had become completely docile and submissive to his dominance.

Eyes looked up at the outstretched hand that was offered. The girl debated over it for a moment before she reached up as well and grabbed hold, pulling herself up off the ground. Casey made a little moaning noise wondering where they were going now.

”Thanks.”

"You're welcome."

First things first.

"Are you hungry?"

Her stomach growled as if on cue when Victoria asked if she was hungry.

”Yeah.” No sense in hiding it now huh?

"Come on then," she walked over to a vendor, one of the few on the street and told Ally to get what she wanted. The man only sold hot dogs and pretzels, it wasn't as if anything Ally would buy was going to break Tori's wallet.

The child followed Vicky to the stand. ”A hot dog sounds okay.” She said looking from Vicky to the vendor.

Feeling something pawing at her bare leg she looked down to see Casey giving her the biggest puppy dog look she’d ever seen. Of course the puppy was hungry to.

”Can Casey have a hot dog to?” She said looking back up at Vicky.

"Sure," she fished a few bills from her purse and handed them to the vendor, getting another and bending down to give it to the dog. She found it funny that she was feeding a hot dog to a real dog...yes. She's odd, isn't she?

Well of course this made Casey’s day to get some food that wasn’t on the ground. Her entire back end was moving back and forth with the motion of her wagging stubby tail.

”Thank you ma’am.” She didn’t even know the womans name still. Ally started eating her hot dog.

"You're welcome.." it was weird to be saying that. She always felt strange when she said it. It made her feel...egotistical?

Vicky hadn't even thought about knowing the girl's name yet. That wasn't what was bothering her and she hadn't needed to know it yet anyway. She waited for Ally (and the dog) to finish eating before she lead the way once more. They ended up standing in front of a police station.

She followed the woman for a while paying too much attention to the puppy. It was too late to turn back before she realized she was standing in front of the police station. Eyes grew wide and she backed away from the building.

”No. I’m not going.” She stated quite clearly to the woman before that she wasn’t going to any police station. Her posture expressed that she could bolt at any second.

"You have to," Vicky sighed, "If you don't you're going to have to live on the streets and I'm not letting that happen."

While Ally was ready to bolt, Vicky was just as ready to catch her or keep her from running in some way.

”Better living on the streets than coming here. I was living on the streets before he found me and I’ll be fine without him like I was before.” Ally had a reasonable excuse for not liking police stations. After all she had killed several in her large fit that occurred. That was what sent her into not remembering anything before that incident in the first place and why she had ended up on the streets. Since then her mind had subconsciously had a dislike for policeman which caused her to freak out when she saw them or be near them; hence why she was /not/ going to go in there no matter how much Vicky tried.

”I’m /not/ going in there. You can’t make me.” She finally bolted down the sidewalk away from the station.

Tori was getting exasperated. The girl was not cooperating. They could find her a good home, they could at the very least find the guy who took care of her. A small stream of magic solidified into an obsticle at the girl's feet. She'd trip over it for sure and no one would notice the thing's appearance it was so small. At the very least it would buy Victoria time enough to get to her and try to talk some sense into her.

And trip over it she did. The girl fell to the ground, scraping her knees and palms. ”Ouch!” She got up quickly though you could tell she wanted to cry from getting scraped up. The girl picked lose gravel from her hands where she scraped herself. Knees were already starting to bleed.

Turning around to see Tori coming she started walking away again but definitely a lot slower. Her knees her now. If one looked closely though it was apparent that her knees and palms were already starting to heal themselves.

Damn it! Why wasn't she making this easy? Victoria was in no mood to play babysitter yet here she was, chasing after a girl she'd barely known for five minutes. Damn compassion. Damn her conscience. She hadn't meant to hurt the girl. But the block did its job. It slowed her down. Vicky could then easily jog up next to her, put a hand on Ally's shoulder and turn her around to face reason.

She turned around and shrugged the hand off her shoulder that had been put there. ”I’m not going and there’s nothing you can do about it.” Fear more than anything was evident in her eyes as she continued to pick dirt from her palms. They had almost completely healed now and her knees were almost there as well. Soon it would look like she never got hurt, other than the blood that had left her body would still be there.

”Why do you care anyways? You don’t know me.” So quickly she had become stubborn without Gregory around to keep her in check. That would be thanks to her birth parents, plus hitting teenage years in the next few months wasn’t going to help either.

Vicky didn't notice the blood on her knees. There really shouldn't be much anyway, a scraped knee isn't too bad of an injury. She simiply gained a stern, authoritative look to her that clearly said she wasn't in the mood to be messed with.

"Whether or not I know you is irrelavent. You're a child. You're homeless. There are people who can fix that. You should at least try to get the life you deserve."

”I don’t want to go in there, please.” She was pleading now with her voice and her eyes. It was fine that she wanted to stick her in a different home, just don’t make her go into the police station or be near any officers.

”I just….” Eyes looked to the station. ”I don’t like police.” She said whispering.

The frustration she'd felt building up at the girl dispersed. If she was afraid of them it was something different. Though why, Tori couldn't begin to fathom. But what was she going to do with the girl for now? She didn't have her cell phone and there weren't any booths nearby. Going into a store and asking to see their phone book was out of the question because of the dog.

"Listen," she began, "I don't have the number for child services and I don't know where the nearest orphanage is. I'm really at a loss for what to do. I won't make you go to the police," and she wasn't going to ask why Ally was afraid, it wasn't her business, "but you have to go somewhere."

Hm. Maybe if she got the girl's name she could Google her.

Child services? Orphanage? She remembered Blade talking about child services once and how they thought they were bad and he’d rather be at Greg’s house than at child services. Were they really that bad? And what about an orphanage? Would they be able to handle the fact that she had black outs? Should she tell this person about that fact? Or should she leave it alone? So may questions started spouting into her head.

She did relax a bit when she said she wouldn’t make her go to the police, but she was still edgy about what was going to happen to her.

”I don’t know where to go. Please don’t make me go back to him.” Him being Gregory. She was tired of living with him and doing everything he told her to do. It was wearing her thin at times, or at least it used to before he changed personalities completely. But that didn’t matter. The new Gregory freaked her out even more than the last one in certain ways.

She stopped herself from sighing once again. She needed to be the strong one, she's the adult, for goodness' sakes!

"I won't make you go back to him," her voice was calm and she closed her eyes briefly; longer than a blink but short enough not to be considered...strange. When she opened them again, nothing had changed and the situation didn't get any better. Damn it.

"What's your name?"

She thought about if she should give the woman her name or not. It was one way she could get her back to Gregory whether she believes the woman or not that she wouldn’t take her back.

”Alyssa.” It was spoken just as softly as she had spoken about the policeman.

"Alyssa, do you mind coming back to my apartment while I look for the Child Services' number?"

She was tired and just wanted to go home. At the moment, she didn't care whether or not the girl went with her.

She shook her head no. However she still wasn’t sure about this whole child services thing. Blade had made it out to be scarier than Gregory so she wasn’t sure what to expect from it.