onepassingnight | (no subject)

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[New York City is all around him, a mixture of loud noise and constant movement. He's standing in the middle of the sidewalk, holding a piece of paper and scanning the crowd.

And there she is.]

Kate! [He starts running after her, pushing people aside as he goes.] Kate, wait!

[He runs faster and faster, following her through the streets, darting into alleys and making sharp turns but he can never quite reach her, no matter how fast he goes.

His lungs are burning, his legs ache but he keeps moving, taking another quick turn and nearly crashing into a brick wall.

A wall. A wall with no other exits in immediate view and too high to climb.]

...Kate?

[He looks around, expression momentarily helpless.]

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They walk together, casual as can be while the shadows form around them, mostly the female figure but other shapes as well, things Neal might recognize but he tires not to pay them any mind. They just keep walking.

Until they reach a door, of course. It has an overhanging light, giving someone just enough room to stay underneath and be rid of the shadows.

He looks down at er. "Well," he says with a curios look. "It seems like we've reached our destination."

Releasing her, he moves to try and open the door but it's locked. It doesn't even make him blink, just reach into a pocket and pull out his tools. No, he has no idea when those got into his pockets but he doesn't question it.

After a second, he manages to unlock the door, hand now resting on the knob. "Ready when you are," he says, looking over his shoulder to her.

Guess he just carries tools with him! As of now.

Ami grins. "Let's go!" She takes a somewhat guarded stance simply from the possibility of encountering something hostile.

He pushes the door open, peering inside. The light is dim and he can't quite see at first but it only takes his eyes a few moments to adjust.

It's as if they've shifted from a basement to a morgue and in the center of the room lies Kate, naked and pale and very much dead.

Neal recoils, his head spinning and bile rising up in his throat.

"Oh god."

Even Ami is taken aback.

"This wasn't a morgue," she says firmly, almost as though to convince herself of it. But what she knows in her mind has never been as easy to realize emotionally, and she instinctively still reels from the discovery.

"This isn't real." This is for Neal's benefit as much as her own.

He's turned away, unable to look at her. His mind is racing, coming up with all manner of things, of rage and terror and sickness and so many other things.

Ami's words cut through his thoughts to because they mean anything but because they're an outside force, something 'real'.

""It wasn't," he says with a shaking breath. "This can't be. I saw her. They couldn't have had time to...." But he doesn't know, can't be sure of what he says. He's going to say it anyway, as a comfort to himself.

"There's no use staying here." And upsetting himself over something that can't even be true. "Let's go." She keeps her voice firm, controlled. When she wakes up, the memory will still give her a shudder. She's seen death before; but she's never accepted it easily.

"Give me a second," he says, taking in a shaking breath. "I just..."

He walks up to the corpse, one hand hovering above her heart. If he twitched, he would be touching her, he just can't bring himself to do it. He doesn't want to feel the cold, dead flesh beneath his fingers.

"It's not real," he says to himself and turns his back, walking away from the body and back towards Ami and the exit.

Of course, she'll tell herself the shudder is a useless as staying here now would be. She nods, and lifts her head before moving towards the exit. She will not lose her composure.

It's a fight for both of them apparently, as he tries to keep himself from shaking. Their steps echo in the basement, the shadows no longer teasing them as they walk. It's only when they approach the light again that Neal breaths a sigh of relief.

"I wasn't sure we'd be allowed out," he confesses, looking to Ami before staring up the stairs.

What he doesn't realize is that, once the sunlight has fully hit his face, he'll have been jolted awake.

"Then we'd have fought our way out." She gives a closed-lipped smirk, as though she enjoys the idea. The truth is, she does; the idea of cutting her path open for herself is appealing, if she needs to do it.

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