A possibility.
Dec. 4th, 2005 12:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nitro_is_aceWhat San Fransico needs, Ace decides as she wanders along the Embaradero, watching street performers and tourists and cruise ships, is a good snowstorm. It just doesn't seem like Christmas until there's snow on the ground, or at least snow in the air. Of course, it rarely snowed at home when she was little, Perivale was just a little too far south for that, but she's seen enough white Christmases with the Doctor that it just seems wrong to not have snow crunching under her boots. Of course, it was even more odd to see folks in short sleeves, of which she had seen quite a few, despite the fact that it was a bit nippy.
Crazy Californians. Crazy Earthers, for that matter. She's beginning to remember why she's never been terribly fond of the early third millenium. This is what she gets, she supposes, for not paying closer attention to what year she was dialing in.
Still. The crowds aren't too bad yet, she hasn't been accosted by any overzealous charity-seekers, and the street-performers are entertaining. The day is pleasantly spent looking for Christmas gifts, enjoying crab cakes and creamy clam chowder for lunch, taking an amusing detour through the museum of coin-driven machines, and watching the boats sail on the bay.
As night begins to fall the temperature drops, and Ace, now laden with shopping bags from a somewhat successful hunt, begins her trek back to the TARDIS. Why is it, again, that she parked it so far away from the interesting piers?
Donnie Romanza is having a bad night. The deal he had been counting on to impress his bosses at McCurnik and Ross had fallen through, and had done so in a spectacularly horrible manner. He couldn't look worse if he tried, and everyone knew it. Nothing was left to do but try to pick up the pieces and prepare for the disaster that was the lucrative buy-out bid going to their competitors. Indulging in a fit of dispair, Donnie had spent most of the night in a high-priced bar near work, attempting to drown his misery in repeated glasses of bourbon. Eventually, the bar closed - bars often do, he supposes, though it seems unfair barge in on his time alone with the bottle just to tell him so. Blearily he stumbles out into the street. There's no one waiting for him at his apartment - Sheila left weeks ago, fed up with his constant preoccupation with work. He tried to tell her, tell her that if this deal went through, he'd be somebody, people would be paying attention to him and he could give her anything she wanted. She hadn't listened, and he hadn't heard from her after his front door slammed shut on a Friday night.
Glumly he makes he way to the parking garage to retrieve his car. It was too far to walk home, after all. The trusty Volvo (he could have had a Porche, he thinks, a shiny red Porche, if that deal had gone through) turns over obediently when he starts it up, and carefully (he's not that drunk, just a few glasses, he's got the tolerance of a bull) he begins to drive his way home. He decides to drive along the Embaradadero, since it should be nearly empty at this hour of the night, and it's a clear shot to the Bay Bridge.
Ace whistles as she strolls along the nearly deserted street, cheery, nonchalant, knowing there's folks watching, perhaps seeing her as an easy mark - a short girl alone, weighted down with bags - but she doesn't care. She'd almost... almost, mind you, enjoy a good fight, should the occasion arise. Something about the way she walks, however, warns potential predators off, and her walk is uneventful as she passes Pier Three. Almost back to the TARDIS. She should cross here, since she knows the road only becomes more abandoned and dark the further she goes, and she'll have to cross at some point. Best to do it where there's people about.
Donnie is making good time - at this rate, he'll be home in time to catch the Late Night News, see what other disasters have occured in the world today. Maybe he'll try calling Sheila again, see if she won't come over, yeah, that'd be good. She always liked to watch Letterman, playing along with his games and laughing in that adorable way of hers at the Top Ten lists. Donnie smiles, remembering that laugh, and ignores the streetlight ahead as it shifts from green to red. He tries to remember if she's even in town tonight, not noticing there is a pedestrian in the crosswalk. He steps on the accelerator, wanting to get home quickly so he can catch Sheila before she begins to think about going to bed, and it is only when the Volvo jerks violently and someone screams (perhaps it is him) that he realizes that something is terribly, terribly wrong.
Entirely too sober now, Donnie screeches to a stop and puts on his emergency blinkers, jumping unsteadily out of the car to see what he has hit.
Oh God oh God oh God...
There's a small, still body in the road, the bags she had been carrying scattered around her
Oh God oh God oh dear God
artistically, as if it were a scene from a play, but one arm's at an unnatural angle, as is her legs, and though her hair is fanned around her face, obscuring features, it cannot quite conceal the slowly growing dark pool that glitters in the light from the streetlamps.
The woman who had screamed (it wasn't him) is still shrieking, standing on the far sidewalk, screaming and screaming and screaming and why isn't she doing something, why isn't he? Because time is frozen, he decides hazily, they are all stuck in this moment, watching, waiting for the right time to begin.
Then a young man, dressed smartly, obviously for a night out on the town, runs across the crosswalk, breaking the scene.
"Do you have a phone?" He demands of Donnie as he kneels among the dropped packages. Donnie stares at him, bemused. The young man, a dark-skinned man of perhaps twenty-five, maybe older, looks up in absolute fury. "Do you have a fucking phone, you bastard?" The sharp tone rouses Donnie, who nods, pulling out his top-of-the-line cell and offering it to the stranger.
"Call 911." Donnie stares at him, dumbly. With a snarl, the young man jumps to his feet and snatches the phone from Donnie's unresisting hands. "God, you're drunk as hell." Donnie doesn't argue this, but instead watches as the young man punches in the three numbers with an almost savage fury.
"Yeah, hi, my name's Tom, I'm on the Embarcadero near (insert street name here), there's been a hit by car. The victim's a female, young, I'd say something like twenty three, four maybe. Yeah, I'm a paramedic, San Diego. No problem." The young man gives Donnie one last glare before kneeling beside the unmoving woman again, checking her pulse with infinitely gentle hands.
"Steady pulse, weak... resps are slow... poor gum color. She's got some head trauma, looks like she hit her head when she fell... arms' dislocated, possible fractures in both legs. No other open wounds than the head, looks like, though I'm not moving her. Mmm... let me see." Carefully he checks the pockets of her coat that he can reach without shifting her. Donnie begins to stammer.
"I..I..I.. I don't think..." Tom raises his head to glare at him, and Donnie subsides.
"You don't think, yeah, I got that. Shut your mouth." Tom growls, then shakes his head. "I can't find anything obvious... no, I don't... oh, wait, yeah, here they come. Thanks." Tom ends the call as the flashing lights of a police cruiser and the following ambulence turn the scene from one of stark horror to something utterly surreal. Two paramedics jump from the ambulance and rush past Donnie to crouch by Tom in a huddled conference. Donnie stares in facinated silence until a uniformed and darkly furious police officer takes him aside, reading him is rights as he does so. Donnie wants to stay, to see how this story ends, but for now, he is done. Exit Donnie, pursued by cop. As he is being pushed into the back of the cruiser, he hears the paramedics and Tom talking -
"Where are you guys taking her? I'd like to check up on her, if you don't mind." It's Tom, looking calmer now as he stands to one side of the ambulance, watching the two paramedics load the still silent and pale woman in a black leather bomber coat into the back.
"Mercy - they've got some good docs there."
"Yeah, I've heard - almost took a job here instead of down south."
"We'll let them know you might be around. Thanks for your help."
The siren wails as the ambulance pulls away, leaving the artistically strewn bags, the dark glimmer of blood, the dumbfounded Donnie and the now-rumpled Tom to deal with what is left.
---------------------------------------------------
It is a sad fact of life in California that the surface roads are only repaved once in a blue moon, and then only the potholes are covered up, leaving little mounds of new asphalt all over the roadway. The ambulance jerks and clatters its way over these uneaven roads at high speeds, jostling its passenger.
A pair of dark, confused eyes open.
Where the hell am I?
After a moment, another muzzy, dulled thought comes.
Or more importantly, when?
The paramedic is busy filling out his charts as best he can, so Ace has time to look around undisturbed.
Still using bags for fluids, not any later than 2061... She muses, eyeing the bag that sways over her head. Dizzily, she follows the line down from the bag, over the railing of the bed she's on... into her arm? The hell?
It's then she realizes that everything hurts.
Quite a lot.
The ambulance jerks, and muscles that had been fooled into quiecence suddenly sieze taut. She can't help but whimper, caught off-guard like that.
"Hey, there you are. My name's Len, you've been in a car accident, okay? We're taking you to Mercy hospital, you're gonna be fine. What's your name, honey?" There's a man standing over her, his voice sounding too-loud to her ears.
"Hurrrrrts..." She whines. "Where's... Doctor?" She asks, before remembering that he isn't here, she didn't come in his TARDIS, on one of their adventures, she came alone.
Oh hell.
"You're still in the ambulance, hun, we'll be at the hospital in just a moment. Just hang on, alright? Want to tell me your name?" Len asks again, but Ace closes her eyes, not wanting to deal with this all right now. The world stubbornly refuses to melt away, so she's aware to hear and feel the ambulance come to a stop at the hospital, the big doors slam open, the babble of voices outside with Len's nearby, calmly reading off stats and figures that must have something to do with her. Someone wraps a heavy band around one arm - pressure cuff, she thinks, as it tightens. The bed bounces and rolls across the pavement into the hospital which is too bright, too loud, dizzyingly confusing. She's glad lunch was too long ago to contemplate losing it.
Someone starts flashing a light into her eyes. She tries to flinch away, afraid that after all this they'll be cats-eyes, that she'll start a panic, but there's only a firm voice telling her to stop, that it will be alright, hey, what's your name?
"Ace. M'name's Ace."
Crazy Californians. Crazy Earthers, for that matter. She's beginning to remember why she's never been terribly fond of the early third millenium. This is what she gets, she supposes, for not paying closer attention to what year she was dialing in.
Still. The crowds aren't too bad yet, she hasn't been accosted by any overzealous charity-seekers, and the street-performers are entertaining. The day is pleasantly spent looking for Christmas gifts, enjoying crab cakes and creamy clam chowder for lunch, taking an amusing detour through the museum of coin-driven machines, and watching the boats sail on the bay.
As night begins to fall the temperature drops, and Ace, now laden with shopping bags from a somewhat successful hunt, begins her trek back to the TARDIS. Why is it, again, that she parked it so far away from the interesting piers?
Donnie Romanza is having a bad night. The deal he had been counting on to impress his bosses at McCurnik and Ross had fallen through, and had done so in a spectacularly horrible manner. He couldn't look worse if he tried, and everyone knew it. Nothing was left to do but try to pick up the pieces and prepare for the disaster that was the lucrative buy-out bid going to their competitors. Indulging in a fit of dispair, Donnie had spent most of the night in a high-priced bar near work, attempting to drown his misery in repeated glasses of bourbon. Eventually, the bar closed - bars often do, he supposes, though it seems unfair barge in on his time alone with the bottle just to tell him so. Blearily he stumbles out into the street. There's no one waiting for him at his apartment - Sheila left weeks ago, fed up with his constant preoccupation with work. He tried to tell her, tell her that if this deal went through, he'd be somebody, people would be paying attention to him and he could give her anything she wanted. She hadn't listened, and he hadn't heard from her after his front door slammed shut on a Friday night.
Glumly he makes he way to the parking garage to retrieve his car. It was too far to walk home, after all. The trusty Volvo (he could have had a Porche, he thinks, a shiny red Porche, if that deal had gone through) turns over obediently when he starts it up, and carefully (he's not that drunk, just a few glasses, he's got the tolerance of a bull) he begins to drive his way home. He decides to drive along the Embaradadero, since it should be nearly empty at this hour of the night, and it's a clear shot to the Bay Bridge.
Ace whistles as she strolls along the nearly deserted street, cheery, nonchalant, knowing there's folks watching, perhaps seeing her as an easy mark - a short girl alone, weighted down with bags - but she doesn't care. She'd almost... almost, mind you, enjoy a good fight, should the occasion arise. Something about the way she walks, however, warns potential predators off, and her walk is uneventful as she passes Pier Three. Almost back to the TARDIS. She should cross here, since she knows the road only becomes more abandoned and dark the further she goes, and she'll have to cross at some point. Best to do it where there's people about.
Donnie is making good time - at this rate, he'll be home in time to catch the Late Night News, see what other disasters have occured in the world today. Maybe he'll try calling Sheila again, see if she won't come over, yeah, that'd be good. She always liked to watch Letterman, playing along with his games and laughing in that adorable way of hers at the Top Ten lists. Donnie smiles, remembering that laugh, and ignores the streetlight ahead as it shifts from green to red. He tries to remember if she's even in town tonight, not noticing there is a pedestrian in the crosswalk. He steps on the accelerator, wanting to get home quickly so he can catch Sheila before she begins to think about going to bed, and it is only when the Volvo jerks violently and someone screams (perhaps it is him) that he realizes that something is terribly, terribly wrong.
Entirely too sober now, Donnie screeches to a stop and puts on his emergency blinkers, jumping unsteadily out of the car to see what he has hit.
Oh God oh God oh God...
There's a small, still body in the road, the bags she had been carrying scattered around her
Oh God oh God oh dear God
artistically, as if it were a scene from a play, but one arm's at an unnatural angle, as is her legs, and though her hair is fanned around her face, obscuring features, it cannot quite conceal the slowly growing dark pool that glitters in the light from the streetlamps.
The woman who had screamed (it wasn't him) is still shrieking, standing on the far sidewalk, screaming and screaming and screaming and why isn't she doing something, why isn't he? Because time is frozen, he decides hazily, they are all stuck in this moment, watching, waiting for the right time to begin.
Then a young man, dressed smartly, obviously for a night out on the town, runs across the crosswalk, breaking the scene.
"Do you have a phone?" He demands of Donnie as he kneels among the dropped packages. Donnie stares at him, bemused. The young man, a dark-skinned man of perhaps twenty-five, maybe older, looks up in absolute fury. "Do you have a fucking phone, you bastard?" The sharp tone rouses Donnie, who nods, pulling out his top-of-the-line cell and offering it to the stranger.
"Call 911." Donnie stares at him, dumbly. With a snarl, the young man jumps to his feet and snatches the phone from Donnie's unresisting hands. "God, you're drunk as hell." Donnie doesn't argue this, but instead watches as the young man punches in the three numbers with an almost savage fury.
"Yeah, hi, my name's Tom, I'm on the Embarcadero near (insert street name here), there's been a hit by car. The victim's a female, young, I'd say something like twenty three, four maybe. Yeah, I'm a paramedic, San Diego. No problem." The young man gives Donnie one last glare before kneeling beside the unmoving woman again, checking her pulse with infinitely gentle hands.
"Steady pulse, weak... resps are slow... poor gum color. She's got some head trauma, looks like she hit her head when she fell... arms' dislocated, possible fractures in both legs. No other open wounds than the head, looks like, though I'm not moving her. Mmm... let me see." Carefully he checks the pockets of her coat that he can reach without shifting her. Donnie begins to stammer.
"I..I..I.. I don't think..." Tom raises his head to glare at him, and Donnie subsides.
"You don't think, yeah, I got that. Shut your mouth." Tom growls, then shakes his head. "I can't find anything obvious... no, I don't... oh, wait, yeah, here they come. Thanks." Tom ends the call as the flashing lights of a police cruiser and the following ambulence turn the scene from one of stark horror to something utterly surreal. Two paramedics jump from the ambulance and rush past Donnie to crouch by Tom in a huddled conference. Donnie stares in facinated silence until a uniformed and darkly furious police officer takes him aside, reading him is rights as he does so. Donnie wants to stay, to see how this story ends, but for now, he is done. Exit Donnie, pursued by cop. As he is being pushed into the back of the cruiser, he hears the paramedics and Tom talking -
"Where are you guys taking her? I'd like to check up on her, if you don't mind." It's Tom, looking calmer now as he stands to one side of the ambulance, watching the two paramedics load the still silent and pale woman in a black leather bomber coat into the back.
"Mercy - they've got some good docs there."
"Yeah, I've heard - almost took a job here instead of down south."
"We'll let them know you might be around. Thanks for your help."
The siren wails as the ambulance pulls away, leaving the artistically strewn bags, the dark glimmer of blood, the dumbfounded Donnie and the now-rumpled Tom to deal with what is left.
---------------------------------------------------
It is a sad fact of life in California that the surface roads are only repaved once in a blue moon, and then only the potholes are covered up, leaving little mounds of new asphalt all over the roadway. The ambulance jerks and clatters its way over these uneaven roads at high speeds, jostling its passenger.
A pair of dark, confused eyes open.
Where the hell am I?
After a moment, another muzzy, dulled thought comes.
Or more importantly, when?
The paramedic is busy filling out his charts as best he can, so Ace has time to look around undisturbed.
Still using bags for fluids, not any later than 2061... She muses, eyeing the bag that sways over her head. Dizzily, she follows the line down from the bag, over the railing of the bed she's on... into her arm? The hell?
It's then she realizes that everything hurts.
Quite a lot.
The ambulance jerks, and muscles that had been fooled into quiecence suddenly sieze taut. She can't help but whimper, caught off-guard like that.
"Hey, there you are. My name's Len, you've been in a car accident, okay? We're taking you to Mercy hospital, you're gonna be fine. What's your name, honey?" There's a man standing over her, his voice sounding too-loud to her ears.
"Hurrrrrts..." She whines. "Where's... Doctor?" She asks, before remembering that he isn't here, she didn't come in his TARDIS, on one of their adventures, she came alone.
Oh hell.
"You're still in the ambulance, hun, we'll be at the hospital in just a moment. Just hang on, alright? Want to tell me your name?" Len asks again, but Ace closes her eyes, not wanting to deal with this all right now. The world stubbornly refuses to melt away, so she's aware to hear and feel the ambulance come to a stop at the hospital, the big doors slam open, the babble of voices outside with Len's nearby, calmly reading off stats and figures that must have something to do with her. Someone wraps a heavy band around one arm - pressure cuff, she thinks, as it tightens. The bed bounces and rolls across the pavement into the hospital which is too bright, too loud, dizzyingly confusing. She's glad lunch was too long ago to contemplate losing it.
Someone starts flashing a light into her eyes. She tries to flinch away, afraid that after all this they'll be cats-eyes, that she'll start a panic, but there's only a firm voice telling her to stop, that it will be alright, hey, what's your name?
"Ace. M'name's Ace."
