tinstar | Slingin' from the hip, never the heart.

Once in, Raylan hit the ground floor button as aggressively as he had the down button, almost glaring the door into closing so he could drop his eyes back down onto the young woman clinging to him like he was a lift-raft. It was foolish and maybe short sighted, but a passing thought wasn't even cast about for her Gift - Now was not the time for Music. First things first.

"It's okay," he murmured. "We're gonna get you taken care of, don't you worry."

Once the elevator doors opened, Raylan continued to lead her right through the side Marshal's Entrance and towards his Crown Vic. Opening up the passenger side of the door, Raylan sat her down again and squatted down so that she didn't have to let his hand go just yet. So that he didn't have to let go yet.

"I can't say I understand how any of this works, or how you're here after me. Might be a Time Line thing. I'm still waitin' for Tim to wake up." God it was good to see her. Even if he knew this wasn't her place. This wasn't even her world. It was only then that Raylan thought about her Gift. "Your ankle aside, is.. everythin' else in place?"

It’s a stupid thing to do. Such a stupid thing to do in a world that apparently doesn’t have anything like this, but she’s missed it so, so much.

Athena hums a soft note and light gathers between them, a little multicolored glow that fades when she lets the note go.

Well, she’s crying again. But this time it’s not because everything is terrible. “It’s back,” she whispers. “It feels right again.”

If asked, he would have said it was the furthest from stupid. He didn't even have a Gift but getting his hands back on his guns felt like some part of him had been returned to his own care. What that said about him was up for discussion.

He smiled softly at the light, forever amazed, but he had to glance around to make sure no one was staring at them too hard.

"Back at full power, eh Songbird?" Raylan squeezes their hands and stands up. "I'm sure I don't need to tell you this, but since we don't have anythin' like the Gift here, just don't go advertising what you are. I might work for the government, but that doesn't mean I trust them."

Squeezing her hand again, Raylan let go and closed the door, walking around the back of his car to slide into the drivers seat and turn the engine over. "We tell the hospital that you're my niece. You fell into a bonfire while.. I dunno, tryin' to jump over it. Dead parents and you're spendin' the summer down here in the country to recover. It'll work enough for the paperwork."

Why yes, he was already planning how they were going to get around each upcoming roadblock, and ruthlessly so.

Hope it's okay for him to lie to other People Athena because he was going to, but all in the name of keeping her safe.

She's not going to protest the lying in this case. She's lied for survival plenty of times. As long as he doesn't do it to her, she doesn't care one bit.

Athena stares out the window, quiet, the shock of it really starting to hit now. It's a city. There are people. So many people. Birds, a rat climbing a dumpster, it's bright and alive and she has to look away and press the heels over her palms against her eyes to try and recover from the brightness.

"It's so loud," she whispers, then shivers. How could she have gotten used to that place? Its hideous quiet, the lack of anything alive but her fellow prisoners? It makes her feel queasy and confused. "Fuck, how can it be so loud?"

Athena shifts to hugging herself, even though she's not cold. Now she's staring out the front window, eyes huge, voice still quiet. "How long have you been out?"

The only saving grace here was that Lexington didn't have that many buildings that were more than 5 stories, a handful in what loosely constituted 'downtown', which even reached on the skyline for faint echo of any other large City. But that didn't make it any quieter.

Raylan glanced over as she spoke, brow furrowed as his attentive eyes glanced back and forth between her and the road. He remembered that feeling, the need to get used to the sound of life. Yeah, he was gonna take her out to Arlo's after he made sure she was physically well.

"There'll be plenty of silence once we get outta Lexington." He let a beat pass. "Three months." His hands flexed and twisted a little on his steering wheel. "And I'm still not fully right if I'm honest."

He glanced over again. "You got any idea why Mathis dropped you here?" He was gonna put out a net for Jeff, regardless of her answer. Just because he hadn't arrived when she did, didn't mean he wasn't here. If he'd been recollecting pieces of his life, Athena was gonna be part of that.

She shook her head.

"No fucking clue," she whispers. "None of this shit makes any sense."

Athena looks his way, her gaze somewhere between haunted and affronted. "First off it's total bullshit that you got all healed up and my ankle's still fucked. But Mathias is a bitch."

He sucked his teeth softly and nodded, turning them down another street and towards the Hospital that now loomed in front of them.

"She was gonna screw us all in one way or another on the way out. At least you remember me. That godforsaken town." His jaw worked softly as he pulled them into a spot and threw it into park. It chewed at him in the dark, all that he had lost.

"But we're gonna get you fixed up, buy you the biggest lunch your stomach can handle, and you're comin' out to Harlan with me, least until we can confirm if any of your people are here too. It's quieter out there and no one's within a mile 'a Arlo's house."

She shivers at the thought of ending up here and not knowing him or remembering. Just being lost, and having a stranger who looks like Jeff telling her she landed in another world.

Lunch. "Oh my god, fast food exists again."

She climbs out of the car along with him, resisting the urge to take his hand again, barely. "Arlo's house? Isn't he... like... there?"

All things considered, she would prefer not to meet... that guy.

It was hell. Lonely, Jim Beam soaked hell.

"We'll get whatever you want," he promised as he guided her in with a hand set to hover over her shoulder, his eyes ever sweeping on the horizon for someone he might need to fend off. "But the restaurants here are better than that crap food."

It would only take a protest for him to cave and get her whatever fast food struck her fancy. She deserved days of it after all that surviving. Once Raylan's appetite had come back in full force, he was sure he'd cleared out a few restaurants over a few days.

"No," Raylan assured with no emotion as they came up to the Nurse's station. "He's in Tramble Penitentiary." Lifting his chin at the nurse there, he started to explain what they were looking for. His niece got a little too rambunctious at a barbeque, fell into fire pit and got herself a little banged up. Collecting the paperwork, Raylan then led Athena over to sit down.

"Yer gonna havte help me with some of this," he said under his breath and out the side of his mouth.

Athena breathes out a slightly hysterical laugh, trying to focus on Raylan and the paperwork in spite of the thunder of people around them.

It doesn't take long to get a bed, once one of the nurses sees the bandage she improvised. The woman glares at Raylan for a moment until Athena snaps, "Hey, I didn't fucking tell him about it, okay?"

Even odds as to whether its the aggressiveness or the swearing that startles her more.

Behind the privacy curtain, perched on the edge of the exam bed, Athena grips the sheets and fixes wide eyes on Raylan again. "What about your work? Are they going to be okay with you just. Fucking off to Harlan for a week?"

She's not protesting the plan or the location, really. A little quiet, a little time to sort through her own head--its all she could ask for at the moment.

Simple easy things to help bring her focus back down and Raylan adjusted dates where necessary so it made more sense with a sweet of the eyes. He was glad they didn't have to wait long and was touched when Athena let him come back, regardless of if she was asked.

Raylan was happy to take the Nurse's blame, shoulders already lifting up in an uneven shrug with a lift of his hand, but Athena's snap has his eyes darting over to her with a proud curl of his smile. People didn't tend to stick up for him so boldly, not civvies, not people he didn't work with. So she was just as vicious with other people as she had been before, good. Meant her spirit wasn't broken. Meant she still loved him as he loved her. Even if those words in particular never got room to breathe again.

But the nurse accepted and left and Raylan curled his eyebrows back over to Athena.

"Art has been watchin' me like I'm about to shoot a puppy in the parking lot or somethin'. I've only been back a short time. I tell him I need the time-" Raylan nodded. "He'll give it to me. Makin' sure that you've got a few secure days is more important and frankly, I been doin' this for twenty years and I'm forced to take vacation. Trust me," he said, face curling around his smile. "Art'll be happy to get some of that reserved off time off my ticket."

She nods slowly. It made sense. It made sense that anyone who knew him would be worried. She can't imagine it's been anything like easy, being back. Just... back. Without even Tim seeming to know anything.

Athena holds back, briefly, still the embarrassed teenager, but finally holds out her hand, clearly wanting him to take it.

"I'm sorry," she says softly. "That you've got all this... shit to deal with now on top of handling like. The world."

Her hand got a glance before he unashamedly slipped his left into her hand. She wasn't his daughter but Raylan couldn't help but feel like this was a crash course, a semi dry run for the first time Willa broke something or stepped on a nail. He wasn't going to tell her to do this alone, not with what he knew of her history.

"The world," he started with a lift of his eyebrows, "Is somethin' I can handle. Bein' the only one rememberin' that.." His jaw worked as he found the right word for it- "Hell is worse. Least I ain't gotta worry about if you're in one piece or not; you're already taking stuff off my plate."

But the Doctor was pulling the curtain aside, Nurse in tow to give Raylan a generally disapproving look. It read as 'I see you're uneducated, no sense, hillbilly trash.' Raylan was utterly unbothered and lifted his eyebrows at the Doctor as he started to look at Athena.

Athena squeezes his hand a little tighter as the doctor peels back the bandage, teeth gritted, trying not to show that it hurts. Her ankle isn't pretty. It's rough, angry pink all around, with a couple places that look almost red. Blisters--large ones, several broken--mark her here and there. It's where the fluids soaking her bandage came from.

The doctor makes a small noise that's somewhere between sympathy and aggravation. "You're very lucky your uncle caught you hiding this. You're well on your way to an ugly infection."

Raylan stands up as the doc peels the bandage away, keen to get his own eye on it so he can track it as she heals up. He didn't let how bad it look transfer onto his face; he could tell she was in pain and scared.

He couldn't help himself. "The whole lotta us were havin' a lotta fun and she's a bit stubborn. This might impress how important it is to not," he said, glancing over to Athena with a warm smile and a wink before looking back. "How bad is it? Think she'll need anythin' more than antibiotics and some cream under bandages or somethin'?"

I.E. What supplies was he going to be stocking up on?

She smiles a little, when Raylan winks at her, but she doesn't let go of his hand.

"We'll get her a tetanus shot, a prescription for some antibiotics and an antibiotic cream. Normal lotions will increase the likelihood of infection, now that those blisters are broken. You'll want gauze bandages and medical tape to hold them in place, and the bandages should be changed twice a day, the burn cleaned and the antibacterial re-applied. The bandages need to be loose, but keep things covered. The nurse will show you how it should be done."

The doctor rattles it all off so quickly that Athena is left staring a little bit. "How do you just know all that shit?"

He raises an eyebrow, disapproving in the face of the curse. "That is what medical school is for."

Nodding at the instruction, Raylan was confident they could handle that. He glanced over at Athena's question, smiling a little himself at the Doctor's answer. Well, it was a fair one.

"That'll be fine, thank you," he said graciously. "How long of that before you think she'll heal, assumin' nothin' goes wrong?"

"Two to three weeks is typical for this kind of burn, as long as it's treated as directed."

Athena grimaces. "That's forever."

The doctor raises his eyebrows. "Trust me, it's not."

"Better than gettin' an infection. You don't wanna go on that ride, it ain't fun," Raylan said kindly to Athena, skipping the faraway threat of gangrene, before nodding at the Doctor again.

"We'll keep it clean and dressed." If the Doc was a good one, he'd give them a prescription of antibiotics that would cover that time. Raylan hoped, otherwise, they were gonna havta get creative.

The doctor straightens up, nodding to Raylan, who seems to have risen maybe a micron in the nurse's opinion.

"What pharmacy do you use?" The question is directed at both the patient and the presumed guardian.

"We use the one in Harlan but you'll be lucky to get them on the phone," he said with something of a self deprecating laugh about the state of Harlan to begin with. "We can take it to one here in Lexington, on paper, our way home and they can call in to verify. Least you'll be guaranteed a voice on the phone either way," he promised sincerely.

Why yes he was throwing some of that easy charm and good natured 'go with the flow' vibe on it, but he needed this to go smoothly.

That micron of approval from the nurse vanishes into another scowl. The doctor makes an impatient noise.

"God, I don't even know if we have paper prescriptions. Hang on, I'll check the desk--can you dress the wound?"

The last it directed to the nurse, who nods. She eyes Athena for a moment. "You don't sound like you're from Harlan."

Athena fixes her with a baleful look. "I'm here because my New York based parents are dead, but thanks for poking your fingers into my personal business."

Raylan's eyebrows rolled in the equation of a shrug; not all of Kentucky was as fancy as Lexington fancied themselves to be. Hoity toity assholes. The feeling was gifted to Athena with a pass of his eyes and somehow, they said it all before he was looking sweetly back at the Nurse.

"One of my sister's couldn't wait to get outta the holler but we talked her back with the promise of a good party. Maybe a little too good, considering," he granted pleasantly. "We're lookin' into talkin' them into moving back but there's somethin' about this place that must be keepin' them away."

Gee, wonder what that might be.

The nurse looks back and forth between Raylan and Athena, then clearly decides Raylan's story is the more credible. She cleans the burn with gentle soap and water, then shows them both how to wrap it. Athena squints through the whole process, trying--not particularly well--to act like it doesn't hurt.

The nurse very happily excuses herself. The doctor returns with the prescription as she's leaving.

"You're in luck." He holds up the little paper. "We had a prescription pad with exactly four slips left."

He was a good note taker in school and that hadn't gone anywhere; Raylan watched attentively, nodding again once she was done. Yes, defiantly doable.

The prescription was taken with a grateful bob of his head as he folded it and tucked it into his inner jacket pocket. It meant he had to let Athena's hand go, but once the note was tucked away, he set it back within her reach. "You might wanna consider orderin' more. Not everyone in the state is as lucky enough to live within reach of this particular hospital and your specialists. Do you have her discharge papers, or is she clear to walk out?"

There wasn't much of any room for argument with his tone or expression. He was about done with the attitude and general vibe of unhelpfulness they had gotten.

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